TEDxPrague 2024

This self-made renaissance man from Los Angeles, now living in Prague, came to LA with $1,000 at 19 years old. He started out as a janitor and runner at Westlake Studio, one of the biggest recording studios in Hollywood. He grew into a two-time Grammy-nominated producer and engineer. Carmen’s portfolio includes projects with Seal, Coldplay, Michael Jackson, Robbie Robertson, Pete Townsend of The Who, Paul Oakenfold, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, to mention a few. Nowadays, his passion lies in more eclectic global collaborations with artists like Dhani Harrison, Huun Huur Tu, A.R. Rahman, and Anoushka Shankar. Carmen has also worked with renowned producers such as Trevor Horn, David Foster, Rob Cavallo, and Don Was. He has scored films for Oscar-nominated director Michael Apted and wrote the closing theme for the Sony Playstation game Uncharted 2. As a Grammy voting member, he has served as a Governor and Trustee, lectured globally including a TEDx talk, and runs his own music label, Electrofone Music. Since relocating from LA to Prague, we have the great pleasure of having him as a speaker at our TEDx event. For inspiration, we encourage you to listen to some tracks from his latest album, "Dreamers In The Field.” On Dark Horse/ BMG Records.

Owner of more than 50 patents, received her doctorate from Stanford University. Daughter of Czech emigrants living in Canada. She considers herself a citizen of the world and speaks 5 languages fluently. She sold one of her companies in Silicon Valley for $225 million.  Her company, Picarro, has developed technologies to detect greenhouse gases to monitor climate change. Another, Finesse, is behind biotech equipment for cancer treatment and cell therapy, or equipment used during the covid-19 pandemic to mass produce vaccines.  She founded a dermato-cosmetic company based on scientific foundations such as skin-gut-brain-microbiome connections. With respect to the environment, she promotes the idea of less is more in its products.  Will new technologies allow us to move from highly specialized medicine to holistic medicine? Barbara will introduce these future possibilities and changes in the field of medicine. 

He works as the head of the Department of Spintronics and Nanoelectronics at the Institute of Physics at the Academy of Sciences, and, at the same time, as a professor at the University of Nottingham in Great Britain. During his career, Tomáš Jungwirth published 260 articles in professional journals, 40 of them in the Science/Nature family of journals, and is a co-author of a dozen patents. With his team he confirmed the existence of the spin Hall effect, also predicted, and then experimentally validated a new category of materials, the so-called alter-magnets, which thus completed the two hitherto known branches of ferromagnets and antiferromagnets. This discovery can fundamentally affect the electronics of the future. They could be put to use in the most sophisticated chips of the future. The automotive industry, AI, robotics and powerful computers are just a few of the possible applications. Come and experience these revolutionary physical changes with us and take a peek into a possible revolution in information technology.

Radka continuously pushes the boundaries of contemporary art with her bold approach. She comes from a village Červený Hrádek and now lives and creates in Los Angeles. Her journey is a story of chance, risk, hard work, and talent. Shortly after moving to New York in 2016, she founded her own studio, R/S Visual Thing, and after working for one of the most significant visual artists of the turn of the century—Matthew Barney—her breakthrough came in Los Angeles. Her visually unique masks were sold through Rodney Burnsta, a well-known designer seller for celebrities, including Lenny Kravitz. Although costume design was not originally her field, it was the creation of costumes for her experimental videos (which were shown on the Manhattan Bridge) that caught the attention of the organizers of LA Fashion Week. With her fashion show, she was selected among the TOP 3 fashion designers. The renowned magazine Modern Painters included her among the “25 Artists to Watch”.

Pavel is a sociologist and an associate professor at the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University. His acclaimed book Neznámá společnost provides a nuanced analysis of how modern society is becoming increasingly fragmented and complex, highlighting trends that shape our everyday lives. Pavel Pospěch’s work spans multiple fields. He wrote a series of articles about shopping malls, was a guest speaker at a Yale conference, and participated on a conference on planning sustainable cities with a focus on gender equality. Additionally, he has researched privatization and examined the impact of the pandemic and war on societal behavior.