TEDxFort Garry

Speakers

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

• Dan Bailis

  Professor of Social and Personality Psychology

  Dan Bailis is a Professor of social and personality psychology at the University of Manitoba. He is currently researching the role of self-compassion in decision-making as related to consumerism, environmentalism, health, ethics, and social behaviour. At the University of Manitoba, he has also held academic appointments in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, the Centre on Aging, the Wellness Institute at Seven Oaks General Hospital, and as Head of the Department of Psychology. Together with students in the Action and Identity Lab, and with financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grants Program, he is currently researching the role of self-compassion in decision-making as related to consumerism, environmentalism, health, ethics, and social behaviour.

• David Gerhard

  Professor of Computer Science

  Dr. David Gerhard is a Professor and Head of Computer Science at the University of Manitoba. With over 25 years' experience in the tech sector, Dr. Gerhard is an award-winning researcher and educator, known for his insights into emerging topics such as mixed reality, machine intelligence, and software mediated experiences. He explores how software can interpret and enhance creative human activities from athletic to artistic practices, and how our lives and our work are evolving in a world increasingly shaped by data and computation.

• Diane Gudmundson

  Healthcare Leader

  Diane Gudmundson is a former Nurse Practitioner turned healthcare transformation leader who believes the real medicine is connection. With over 25 years in Western medicine, Diane walked away from a broken system to start something radically different...listening. Through these experiences, she created the LISTEN Framework™...a grassroots model rooted in empathy, community wisdom, and sustainable change. Diane now leads the Healthcare Transformation Mastery™ program and the podcast Make Healthcare Great Again, helping rebel-hearted leaders heal from burnout and build people-first systems from the inside out. She’s here to challenge the status quo...not with more policies, but with presence, story, and soul. At her core, Diane is a deep listener, a bridge-builder, and a fierce believer that the smallest act of care can ripple across generations.

• Tina Cantrill

  Leadership Consultant

  Tina Cantrill is a speaker, facilitator, and executive leadership consultant who helps people and organisations create environments where others can, and want to, do their best work. Before founding her consulting practice, Tina spent more than 20 years as a senior executive in the Fortune 100, leading large commercial teams across diverse product life cycles. Her career came to a sudden halt after a near-catastrophic burnout; an experience that fundamentally changed how she understands leadership and behaviour. Today, she helps leaders rethink how they influence, show up, and shape the conditions around them, by changing how people think, act, and interact. Tina is the creator of the One Assumption MethodTM, a practical framework that helps individuals and teams shift their assumptions to lead more effectively, connect more deeply, and collaborate with greater impact. It’s a method that changes how people relate to each other, how they work, and how create accelerate momentum.

• Tracy Karuhogo

  Community Leader

  Tracy Karuhogo is a policy analyst, community leader, and mental health advocate whose work bridges public policy and personal truth. She refers to herself as an intersectional policy analyst, grounded in the belief that policy cannot be truly effective without considering the lived experiences of the people it impacts. As the founder of the Black Girl Talk Collective, Tracy creates space for Black women and girls to lead in advocacy, community, and government. She was named as one of Canada’s Top 100 Black Women to Watch 2023, in recognition of her leadership and community advocacy. Her story is not just one of survival, it’s a call to break the silence that shame creates and to lead with both truth and tenderness. She believes that healing and leadership can coexist and that sometimes, showing up for others just might be the beginning of showing up for yourself.

• Trechelle Bunn

  Advocate For Youths

  Tréchelle Bunn is the first woman and youngest person ever elected Chief of Birdtail Sioux Dakota Nation, and one of the youngest serving Chiefs in Canada. She graduated with distinction from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor’s degree in Criminology and a minor in Indigenous Studies, and is currently pursuing a law degree at Robson Hall, the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba. A dedicated advocate for Indigenous rights and youth empowerment, Tréchelle has spoken on provincial, national, and international stages, including at the United Nations. She is the founder of the Reconciliation Run - Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation half-marathon. A former university hockey player, she also established the first Indigenous student- athlete scholarship at the University of Manitoba.