TEDxMedijana

Speakers

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

• Aleksandra Divac Rankov

  Scientific advisor, Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, University of Belgrade

  Dr Aleksandra Divac Rankov is a scientific advisor and head of the Functional Genomics and Cellular Toxicology Group at the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, University of Belgrade. She researches the molecular mechanisms that link environmental factors to disease, focusing on chronic respiratory diseases and solid tumours, using zebrafish (Danio rerio) models together with 2D and 3D cell cultures and advanced omics approaches. She coordinates the Horizon Europe ZeNCure Twinning project, mentors students and promotes science communication, having coordinated the European Researchers' Night project SCIMFONICOM in 2018 and 2019. In her talk "Aquarium in the basement", she asks what happens when a scientist studying lung disease is handed an animal with no lungs, and shows how curiosity and persistence turned invisible health risks from electronic cigarettes into scientific evidence.

• Anđelka Petrović

  Professor of Serbian language and literature

  Anđelka Petrović is a professor of Serbian language and literature, a graduate of the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. She is the author of "O jednorozima, magiji i kritičkom mišljenju", a guide to pedagogical and methodological practice published by Vulkan, which received a special recognition award, and a co-author of primary school textbooks. She has held Fulbright and Nobel Museum fellowships, and has twice been recognised by Serbian ministries for innovative use of technology in teaching and for her remote lesson on Anna Karenina. She worked on an anti-xenophobia project involving 26 schools across Serbia and runs the educational profile just_srpski. In her talk "Who killed the reading list?", she asks whether young people really do not read, or whether adults have forgotten how to talk with them about books, drawing on seventeen years in the classroom to explain how required reading became paperwork.

• Branislava Antović Aleksić

  Journalist, digital content creator and columnist

  Branislava Antović Aleksić is a journalist, columnist and digital content creator, founder and editor-in-chief of BDW Magazine and creator of the podcast OdaBrana priča. She graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade and began her digital media career in 2010 with a blog that grew into an independent publication. Her authentic voice blends lifestyle with socio-political commentary, and she uses her platform to advocate for gender equality and women's empowerment while supporting local fashion, culture and female entrepreneurship. Her work has been recognised by PC Press (2013), the Bazar Style Personality Award (2014), Lifestyle Blogger of the Year (2018) and the Elle Style Award for Activism (2023). In her talk "The crisis of the generation that wanted everything", she examines the quiet but pervasive millennial crisis, when hyperproductivity and digital speed stop producing meaning and start producing exhaustion.

• Darko Kovačević

  Maritime archaeologist

  Darko Kovačević is a maritime archaeologist. He completed undergraduate and master's studies in history in Novi Sad, then earned a master's degree in maritime archaeology and underwater cultural heritage in Alexandria, Egypt. He specialises in the digital interpretation of cultural heritage, combining scientific precision with contemporary technology, and has taken part in research projects in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Greece, Croatia and Malta. His work on shipwrecks from different epochs has opened new research into cultural exchange, trade and migration patterns. He founded and leads the Centre for Archaeology at the University of Montenegro, dedicated to mapping, documenting and reinterpreting underwater historical narratives. In his talk "The world's largest museum is underwater", he presents sunken cities, wrecks and artefacts as humanity's greatest yet most invisible museum, and asks how technology can open that museum to far more than a small circle of experts.

• Dušan Petković

  Mountain rescuer, mountain and tour guide

  Dušan Petković is a professional tour guide specialising in remote destinations across Japan, China, India, Central Asia, Colombia, Peru and Brazil. He holds a second-category mountain guide licence and leads groups through the Alps, the Dolomites, Prokletije, Durmitor, the Himalayas, the Andes and the Tian Shan. He is an active cave diver who takes part in the discovery of new underground sites, and as a licensed rescuer with the Mountain Rescue Service he carries out evacuations from inaccessible terrain and coordinates complex tree-cutting operations. In his talk "How much life fits in one calling", he draws on extreme rescue conditions, leading groups in distant places and the realities of a dangerous profession to look at identity and fear, and to ask whether the search for new directions is a risk or the only way to stay truly present in your own life. Change and adaptation, he argues, are our natural state.

• Ilija Aritonović

  Trainer and educator

  Ilija Aritonović is a trainer and educator, founder of MAS - Movement Awareness Craft and a longtime combat sports coach. He connects sport, education and safety, using martial arts as a tool for resilience and life skills, and through international projects he develops programmes that combine sport, non-formal education and violence prevention. As a Sport for Development instructor, his work focuses on how people function in moments of uncertainty, pressure and fear, and on responding consciously rather than impulsively. He believes the greatest victories are not won in the ring, but in how we react when we lose control. In his talk "Between instinct and choice", he explains why the brain still runs survival mechanisms when today's challenges are social rather than physical, and how recognising our triggers and understanding where fear comes from creates space for better decisions, clearer communication and deeper connection with others.

• Ivana Stanković

  Foundation founder, market vendor and content creator

  Ivana Stanković is the founder of the Mali pijac i veliki ljudi Foundation, which turned her long-standing relationships with people at the market and her sense of social responsibility into concrete humanitarian work. She is also known as the creator behind the Mali pijac social media profile, where spontaneous conversations with people combine humour and humanity. Years spent among people in very different circumstances shaped her conviction that help should be an act of attention, responsibility and respect rather than pity. In her talk "One hundred metres for a lifetime", she maps three turning points that sit within a few hundred metres of each other in central Niš: the bakery where she asked for bread as a child, the university she enrolled in but never finished, and the stage she now stands on. Across twenty-five years, her message is about noticing the people we overlook, and about what we owe them once we can no longer claim we did not know.

• Jovana Milovanović

  Art historian, research associate and podcast host

  Dr Jovana Milovanović is an art historian, research associate and licensed guide at the Institute for Art History, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. Her research covers European and national art of the 19th and early 20th century, and the connections between art, memorial culture, collective identity and memory. She earned her doctorate in 2023, received the Katarina Ambrozić award, and collaborated on the exhibition "Čuvajte (mi) Jugoslaviju" at the Museum of Yugoslavia. Outside academia she hosts the popular science podcast HistoryCast and founded Umetnički faktor, which organises expert-led tours of urban areas, museums and galleries. In her talk "What is cultural heritage for?", she asks why heritage matters in an age ruled by pragmatism and consumption, how personal memory shapes individual identity while collective memory builds the identity of whole societies, and what our responsibility is in preserving and interpreting it.

• Jovana Rikalo

  Fine art photographer

  Jovana Rikalo is a fine art photographer from Serbia, recognised for a visual style that merges emotion, nature and storytelling into cinematic, fairy-tale scenes. She has worked professionally since 2013 and is known for meticulously planned concepts and a strong aesthetic sensibility. Her work has appeared in international publications and she has collaborated with brands including Adobe, Canon, BenQ and Disney Weddings. Since 2019 she has led workshops and masterclass programmes across Europe, teaching photographers how to develop an authentic style and build powerful visual narratives. In her talk "Parallel worlds", she describes growing up between two worlds, the world of reality and the world of imagination, and how photography became the bridge between them. She builds each scene from emotion, light and movement, with one aim: to carry the viewer into another universe and make feelings visible through the lens.

• Nataša Šarkić

  Archaeologist and physical anthropologist

  Dr Nataša Šarkić is an archaeologist and physical anthropologist. She graduated in archaeology from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade in 2007, completed her master's degree in 2013 and earned her PhD in physical anthropology from the Autonomous University of Madrid in 2017. She was appointed a research associate at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade in 2020, and she founded and directs Aita Bioarchaeology in Barcelona, an organisation focused on physical anthropology and education. In her talk "In the language of science or the language of people?", she asks how science can step outside academic circles, earn public trust and become part of everyday conversation at a time when information has never been more available and pseudoscience has never spread faster. Using the "New face of Ćele Kula" project, she shows how plain language, visual communication, new technologies and public engagement make complex research accessible.

• Roberto Grujičić

  Child and adolescent psychiatrist and family therapist

  Dr Roberto Grujičić is a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and a systemic family therapist under supervision, working at the clinic for children and adolescents of the Institute of Mental Health in Belgrade, where he treats a wide range of psychiatric and developmental difficulties in young people. He completed his medical studies and earned his doctorate at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade. His research covers child psychiatry, parenting and neurodevelopment, with papers published in national and international journals, and he co-hosts the podcast Dva i po psihijatra, which brings mental health topics to a wider audience. In his talk "The cane did (not) come out of paradise", he questions one of the most persistent ideas in the history of parenting and explains why violent upbringing still finds defenders despite overwhelming evidence of its harm. Some things we inherit do not have to be passed on.

• Shaama Sandooyea

  Marine biologist and climate activist

  Shaama Sandooyea is a marine biologist and climate and ocean advocate from Mauritius. She began her career working with environmental organisations in Mauritius and internationally, co-founded Fridays For Future Mauritius, and has collaborated with Greenpeace on scientific expeditions and underwater climate activism. She supported the UN High Seas Treaty negotiations in New York in 2022 and represented the Clean Shipping Coalition at the IMO MEPC 80 session in London in 2023. She has lived in Niš for the past four years and remains active in her local community, convinced that grassroots organisations are what drive meaningful global change. In her talk "This blue thing called the ocean", she speaks about the emotions behind her activism and how her thinking has shifted through work with very different communities, offering the ocean, a force that has been evolving for billions of years, as a lens for rethinking our relationship with the natural world.

• Uroš Dimitrijević

  Writer and journalist

  Uroš Dimitrijević is a writer and journalist who began his career reporting for VICE and BBC News in Serbia. He is the author of the novels "Siroti mali ratovi", which was shortlisted for the NIN Award, and "Daske", a finalist for the Rade Obrenović and Dušan Radović awards and winner of Politika's Zabavnik Award for best youth novel in 2023. He has also worked as a screenwriter, contributing to the DC Comics anthology "Supergirl: The World". He currently lives in Paris, where he works in comic book publishing, and another novel is on the way. In his talk "Warming the chair: why you should not wait for inspiration", he takes apart the idea that inspiration is a precondition for writing. Inspiration can start a story and open up questions, he argues, but once the actual work begins it matters far less than concentration, discipline and showing up. Waiting for inspiration is a bad strategy, because most of the time it simply does not arrive.

• Vuk Tomić

  Decorator, event manager and Christmas specialist

  Vuk Tomić is a decorator, event manager and holiday installation specialist who works on Christmas all year round. At seventeen he won Belgrade's award for the most beautifully decorated house, and he kept the title for eleven consecutive years. He holds a diploma in event organisation and spent nine years at a regional agency, moving from PR intern to event director. His portfolio includes some of the largest holiday installations in Serbia, among them a 3,000 square metre park that drew 1.5 million visitors in thirty days. This year marks twenty years since his hobby turned into a profession. In his talk "Creating the magic of Christmas", he tells the emotional story of how his dream job began, the turning points that launched his business in holiday and event décor, and the most memorable projects his team has delivered across the country.