TEDxCEU

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Chigozie Nelson

  Student/Writer

  Chigozie Nelson is a free-lance writer and editor. She currently runs Sub-Saharan Magazine, an online literary magazine dedicated to publishing poetry and stories rooted in African cultures. Chigozie is also a content contributor at Black Safaya, a lifestyle blog. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and presently studies Economic Policy in Global Markets at Central European University, Budapest.

• Danial Shah

  Filmmaker/Photographer

  Danial Shah is an independent documentary photographer and writer from Pakistan. He works on human centric stories that promote diversity. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Herald Magazine, Himal SouthAsian and Dawn Newspaper. Danial has attended a summer documentary film course at University of California, Los Angeles and is currently doing a masters degree in Documentary Film Direction (DOCNOMADS) from three different universities in Europe. He has taught photography as a visiting faculty at University of Karachi, Pakistan.

• Hemen Ee

  Medical Student

  Hemen Ee is an infopreneur from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Despite having strong passion to become a doctor, fate deterred him from pursuing a medical degree and he ended up as an engineering dropout. While trying to earn a living by taking up multiple jobs, he continued to read a lot of books on medicine, especially those on alternative medicine. He succeeded in building a career in which he sheds new hope to people who are suffering from chronic diseases by showing them the blueprint of the diseases. Hemen has mastered the art of breaking down complicated medical conditions in to simple layman terms. He is good in using creative metaphors to explain the development pathway of a particular disease and how to reverse the pathway. Many of his clients described him as "more doctor than doctors". Hemen is currently pursuing a degree in Chinese Medicine. The clash of modern science and ancient wisdom in his mind has created a new dimension of understanding about human body.

• Magdalena Smieszek

  Human Rights Activist

  Magdalena Smieszek is a human rights advocate, activist, and educator, having lectured widely and worked around the world with humanitarian and development organizations, including a decade with the United Nations. She has recently joined Al Quds Bard College for Arts and Sciences in East Jerusalem as visiting professor. In addition to her doctoral work at CEU, she has completed degrees in international law at universities of Oxford, Windsor, and Calgary. She is active in numerous forums in advancing human-self knowledge, including hosting a podcast series called How We Are Human.

• Melinda Vajda

  Student

  Melinda Vajda is a 2 nd year student at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at CEU. She also teaches at the university Romani language from 2017. Melinda got inspired by her mother and grandmother who had diplomas and did important thing for their Roma community. Her grandmother established the first Roma national kindergarten during the communism and her mother made the first Roma Museum in Hungary in 2001.

• Nikhil Mahant

  Doctoral Candidate

  Nikhil Mahant is enthralled by the question of what makes life worth living and aspires to make the ideal of a good life real for everyone. He is convinced that a judicious engagement with leisure time can transform one& others' quality of life, enhance productivity, and improve overall well-being. Nikhil is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Central European University. Before joining his Ph.D., Nikhil earned a master’s from St. Stephens College, the University of Delhi (where he taught philosophy for a couple of years) and a bachelor’s in engineering from IIT Delhi.

• Thom Scott-Phillips

  Cognitive Scientist

  Thom is a multiple award-winning cognitive scientist, based in the Social Mind Center at Central European University. In 2015 he wrote a widely acclaimed book, Speaking Our Minds, about the evolution of human communication; and he's currently working on his second book, about the natural science of human culture.