TEDXSeattle

Katia Farage has over 10 years of experience in graphic design and visual communication and is currently a grad student at the University of Washington pursuing a Masters of Communication in Digital Media. She holds a BA in Graphic Design and Advertising from the Holy Spirit University, Lebanon. Throughout her career, Katia worked with clients in various industries both in the Middle East and the United States. Her interests and expertise include advertising, marketing, print, and digital production. In her spare time, Katia likes to work on Jewelry design and to play with her baby. You can see her portfolio here: konceptus.net

A Communications Creative with a strong passion for Visual Arts, Filiz has over ten years of experience as an Account Executive for multinational corporations in Turkey and Europe. She hold a BFA in Cinematography; a Master’s Degree in Public Relations; and pursuing her second Masters in Digital Media at the University of Washington to leverage digital media in business, as well as to explore new ways of strategic content production and distribution. Visit Filiz Efe’s portfolio site at filizefe.com.

An expert in the digital social ecosystem, from the blogosphere to the Twitterverse, Gill’s experience encompasses both business and academia, with a interest in information design and user experience. She has been teaching digital media subjects at Seattle area colleges and universities since 1998, focusing on user experience and digital storytelling; she is also a universal access advocate.

She has consulted on web projects at Boeing, AT&T Wireless, Microsoft, and SAFECO. Prior to making the transition to digital media employment in 1994, she also worked in public affairs in the forest products and agricultural sectors in Washington, Oregon, and the Northeast.

She has a Master’s degree in agricultural economics from Virginia Tech (1979) and a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of Georgia (1977). She spends weekends teaching novices how to ride motorcycles.

Philip N. Howard (BA Toronto, MSc London School of Economics, PhD Northwestern) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. He directs the NSF-funded World Information Access Project (wiaproject.org), and his book The Internet and Islam: The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. His current research and teaching interests include the role of new information technologies in the political communication systems of advanced democracies, and the role of new information technologies in the social development of poor countries. He is the author of New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), about how digital information technologies are used to manipulate public opinion in the United States. This book was awarded the 2007 CITASA Best Book prize from the American Sociological Association and the 2008 Best Book prize from the International Communication Association. He has edited Society Online: The Internet in Context (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004, with Steve Jones) and the Handbook of Internet Politics (London: Routledge, 2008, with Andrew Chadwick). He has authored numerous journal articles examining the role of new information and communication technologies in politics and social development, including pieces in the American Behavioral Scientist, the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and New Media & Society. He has worked on several National Science Foundation projects, serving on the advisory board of the Survey2000 and Survey2001 Projects, co-managing a project about Information and Communication Technologies in Central Asia, and directing the World Information Access Project. This latest research project—supported by both the NSF and Intel’s People and Practices Group—investigates patterns of technology diffusion between and within developing countries. He teaches courses on research methods, politics online, and international development. Howard has been a Fellow at the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Washington D.C., the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research in London, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto.

Kristina supported development of the TEDxSeattle web site. She works in outreach and instructional resources in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. While working as a journalist in print media at The Bellingham Herald and The Spokesman-Review, she began noticing a shift in newspapers to digital media and wanted to learn more. In 2006, she started the UW Master of Communication in Digital Media. She graduated in 2009 and now spends time working with future communicators on digital media skills that will give them an edge in the work place and maintaining communication channels for the department, such as the e-newsletter, web site and social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Ayush Agarwal is a venture associated with Madrona Venture Group where he evaluates investment opportunities, advises portfolio companies, and executes on deals. He also runs special projects within Madrona. Most recently he brought in an entrepreneur-in-residence to explore startup opportunities in the Twitter eco-system. Social media is a strong area of interest for Ayush, and, more generally, Ayush is also interested in mobile services and consumer internet applications.

Prior to Madrona, Ayush was a business analyst at McKinsey & Company where he served on a wide range of engagements, mostly in the hi-tech sector. He has also completed internships at Google, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Zattoo, an IPTV startup. While in college Ayush worked on creating a location-based social network in 2004/5 and his senior project in college was a location-based to-do list and an indoor mapping solution.

Ayush is passionate about entrepreneurship, and the confluence of technology, business and design in creating great products and great companies.

He received a B.S.E. in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Michigan, where he was also the recipient of the Student Legacy Award.

Anita Verna Crofts is the Director of Communication and Outreach for the Global Health Leadership Program and Clinical Instructor at the University of Washington’s Department of Global Health. In this capacity she designs and delivers curriculum on professional communication strategies, storytelling as a leadership and evidence tool, digital media adoption in resource-poor environments, and cross-cultural communication techniques for an international development setting. In addition to her work at the University of Washington, Anita is an award-winning food journalist who writes about the intersection of culture, food, and identity. She is a regular contributor to Saveur Magazine’s “Daily Fare” blog and she hosts the blog Sneeze! on her site www.pepperforthebeast.com. Her writing on food and Sudan will appear in Gastronomica’s 10th anniversary edition in January 2010.

Hanson Hosein specializes in storytelling, social media strategies and business models of communication.  He has spent his professional life seeking out the technological changes that are now upending traditional media.

Hanson was one of the first contributors to a nascent MSNBC.com. He produced pioneering digital content as a globetrotting solo broadcaster in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

His film, Independent America: The Two-Lane Search for Mom & Pop was an early exercise in the use of digital technology in storytelling and an ongoing interaction with an audience. Self-produced and self-financed, the award-winning documentary has been broadcast internationally, and airs regularly on the Sundance Channel in the United States. Perhaps more importantly, grassroots groups across America continue to screen the film as a tool to promote local economies.

Hanson’s latest film, Independent America: Rising from Ruins focuses on how small business helped resurrect New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, despite ruinous city policies favoring big box stores.

Through his company, HRH Media Inc., Hanson helps advise organizations and companies how to communicate effectively and directly by building relationships through storytelling and social media platforms.

In his previous career as a war correspondent, Hanson was embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq, reporting for NBC News. Often armed only with a laptop, satellite phone and camcorder, he filed ongoing live coverage from the Persian Gulf. He also covered the impact of the war from Beirut, Damascus, Amman and Jerusalem.

Hanson won Emmy and Overseas Press Club awards for his NBC News coverage “The Fall of Kosovo.” He was NBC’s Middle East Producer and MSNBC.com correspondent from 1997 to 2001. Prior to that served as an investigative producer at “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.”

He has an M.S. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and law degrees from Montreal’s McGill University and the University of Paris.