March 17, 2011

Some of Jamaica’s finest minds will come together to share ideas, inspire and inform, when the prestigious TEDx event comes to Jamaica in April.

TEDxIrie, an independently organized TEDx event, will take place on Saturday, April 2, at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston, under the theme “Small Island. Big Ideas.”  Six brilliant speakers with a connection to Jamaica will deliver talks to stimulate thought and plant ideas about creativity, design, innovation, technology, music and art.

The event, which is being organized by Knolly Moses, CEO of Panmedia Ltd., is intended to show the world that Jamaica’s size doesn’t limit what it can contribute globally in all areas of human activity. This event will offer robust ideas to convince others there is much value in Jamaica’s outlook and its island perspective that can impact the world.
The line up of speakers who will engage participants’ minds with thought-provoking conversation includes:

  • Professor Carolyn Cooper: Jamaican author and literary scholar who has published four books and countless writings on language, culture, and sexuality and their expression in reggae and dancehall music. Professor Cooper heads the department of Literary and Cultural Studies at University of the West Indies – Mona.
  • Ebony Patterson: “Beauty, gender, body and the grotesque are ongoing discussion in my work,” says the Jamaican born artist. “I am enthralled by the repulsive, the bizarre and the objectness of bodies and the contradictions that both have to art historically and culturally.” A graduate of the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts, Ebony is currently an Assistant Professor in Painting at the University of Kentucky.
  • Jacqueline Sutherland: Founder & CEO of Global Gateway Solutions, Inc. Sutherland was a technology executive at Verizon and Bankrate Inc. and was the key decision-maker in the selection and implementation of multi-million dollar information technology systems solutions for Fortune 500 companies.
  • Kaiton Williams: A Ph.D. student in Cornell's Information Science program and a senior engineer at Microsoft. He has been an instructor, a web designer, and a software developer for Goldman Sachs and sees his graduate study as a confluence of all these threads and more.
  • Mark Jones: Chairman, Global Gateway Solutions, Inc.  In the past 17 years Mr. Jones has built and run three outsourcing businesses serving Fortune 1000 clients at the top of the value chain – finance, accounting and complex customer services, financial regulatory activities and debt collection.
  • Wayne Marshall: An ethnomusicologist focusing on the popular music of the      Caribbean and the Americas, and their circulation in the wider world, with      particular attention to digital technologies. Currently a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT, Marshall is writing a book on music industry, networked
    media, and transnational youth culture.

About TEDx
In the spirit of "ideas worth spreading," TED has created TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxIrie, where x = independently organized TED event. At TEDxIRIE, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.

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, with simulcast in Palm Springs; TEDGlobal is held each year in Oxford, UK. 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 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 organize local, independent TED-like events around the world; and the TEDFellows 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 at twitter.com/TEDTalks, and on Facebook at facebook.com/TED.

TED2011, "The Rediscovery of Wonder," was held February 28-March 4, 2011, in Long Beach, California, with the TEDActive simulcast in Palm Springs, California.

For detailed information on TEDxIrie please visit www.tedxirie.com, www.facebook.com/TEDxIrie and  www.twitter.com/TEDxIrie