Reid Hoffman, Thomas Goetz, Peter Hirshberg, Josette Melchor, and 11 Other Social Innovators to Speak at Sold-Out TEDxSilicon Valley

Online, December 2, 2009 (Newswire.com) - On December 12, 2009, TEDxSiliconValley (www.tedxsv.org) is gathering world-leading thinkers, makers, and doers at Stanford University to discuss Innovations for Social Change. The audience is composed of a diverse yet curated mix of 200 thought leaders from Silicon Valley and beyond for a stimulating day of presentations, discussions, entertainment and art that will spark new ideas and opportunities for all.

In addition to the 4 speakers announced today, TEDxSV will announce 14 new event speakers - a few a day - leading up to the event itself on 12/12/09. The first speakers announced include Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn.com, Thomas Goetz, executive editor of Wired magazine, and Peter Hirshberg and Josette Melchor, founders of the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts.

Background on the speakers: Reid Hoffman serves as director at a variety of successful Silicon Valley businesses, most in the social media domain, including Mozilla, Six Apart, Kiva.org, Tagged, and Zynga. Reid has also been an investor in Facebook, Flickr, Digg, Nanosolar, Care.com, Last.fm, and several other successful companies.

Thomas Goetz's forthcoming book, "The Decision Tree" (Feb. 2010 release), proposes a new strategy for making better health decisions in an age of proliferating medical information, direct-to-consumer genomics, health focused social networks, and personal data collection tools. Mr. Goetz shows how a strategy for making better choices - a Decision Tree - can give individuals control over their health, and can significantly improve each of our lives.

Peter Hirshberg and Josette Melchor support social entrepreneurship in San Francisco and Silicon Valley art communities through the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA), a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture. Recent projects include Seaquence, an online social music experiment that allows users to create step-sequencer micro-compositions.

Due to an overwhelming response, the first TEDxSV event sold out before registration officially opened. However, in the interest of promoting social change for global good, TEDxSV is supporting multiple remote TEDx SV(satellite) events. Groups from around the world, including Waterloo, UC Berkeley, Tokyo, and live Twitter groups (called "tweetups") will engage with TEDxSV event onsite via a live, real-time channel provided by UStream. If you would like to participate in hosting a TEDxSV event in your local area please email Chris McCann at chris@tedxsv.org.

"These meet-up events will enable people all over the world to participate in and engage with TEDx Silicon Valley in real-time, and will promote a vibrant discussion that we hope will help us share the TED ideas worth spreading and inspire innovation for social change everywhere" said Ron Gutman, TEDxSV Curator.

TEDxSV will also connect with the next generation of potential speakers through a new video contest announced today: "TEDxSV (Dream-Design-Do)". Participants are invited to submit 3-minute self made videos of their own proposed TED performance or presentation to a special channel on YouTube, www.youtube.com/tedxsv, for the chance to have their video shown live onstage at TEDxSV.

Selected presenters may also be to invited to talk at future TEDxSV events, and will be recommended by the TEDxSV committee to be considered as speakers for the main TED event. Innovators who would like to be considered for TEDxSV must first upload their videos to the TEDxSV YouTube.com channel (www.youtube.com/tedxsv), and then complete the application form at www.tedxsv.org no later than midnight (12:00pm PDT) on December 10, 2009. For those presenters interested in other TED events, the deadline for complete submissions is midnight (12:00pm PDT) on December 23, 2009. For questions about the video contest or assistance submitting a video, please email Jen McCabe at jen@tedxsv.org.

Keep up to date with TEDxSV on our website here: www.tedxsv.org. Press/media inquiries should be directed to Chris McCann (chris@tedxsv.org) or Jen McCabe (jen@tedxsv.org).

Keep up to date with TEDxSV on Facebook here: www.facebook.com/tedxsv.

Keep up to date with TEDxSV on Twitter here: www.twitter.com/tedsv.

ABOUT TEDx Events:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx Silicon Valley is part of a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provided a license and general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (and we are producing TEDxSV at Stanford).

ABOUT TED:
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place in Long Beach, California; TEDGlobal is held each year in Oxford, UK, and this November, the TEDIndia Conference will be held in Mysore, India. TED's media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where three exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world, and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Follow TED on Twitter (twitter.com/TEDTalks), or on Facebook, (facebook.com/TED).

TED2010, "What the World Needs Now," will be held Feb. 9-13, 2010, in Long Beach, California, with TEDActive, a simulcast conference of TED2010, in Palm Springs, California. TEDGlobal 2010, "And Now the Good News," will be held July 13-16, 2010, in Oxford, UK.
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