CHARLOTTE, N.C. and NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Blaise Agüera y Arcas, VP and Fellow at Google, and Google’s CTO of Technology & Society, will open the inaugural TEDxCatawba to be held on Saturday, June 14, 2025, at the Drendel Auditorium in Hickory, North Carolina. TEDxCatawba was founded in 2024 and organized by licensee Christine D. Gagnon, an American finance executive, seasoned TEDx speaker coach, and CEO of Odin Frigg LLC.

“I’m looking forward to the launch of TEDxCatawba and building momentum around this important initiative,” Agüera y Arcas stated. “Christine’s dedication to her community, which continues to show resilience in the face of challenges like Hurricane Helene, and her commitment to the TEDx mission are truly inspiring. I’m excited to collaborate on an event that promises to spotlight innovative ideas and foster meaningful dialogue,” he commented.

Agüera y Arcas leads an organization focused on basic research in AI, including the foundations of neural computing, active inference, evolution, and sociality. In his tenure at Google, he has led the design of augmentative, privacy-first, and collectively beneficial applications, including on-device ML for Android phones, wearables, and the Internet of Things; and he is the inventor of Federated Learning, an approach to training neural networks in a distributed setting that avoids sharing user data. Blaise also founded the Artists and Machine Intelligence program, and has been an active participant in cross-disciplinary dialogs about AI and ethics, fairness and bias, policy, and risk. Until 2014, he was a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft.

“We are truly honored to welcome Blaise to our inaugural event,” Gagnon stated. “I had the pleasure of meeting him at FT Weekend in Washington, D.C., this past May, where his presentation captivated me, particularly through the compelling data and insights from his recent book, Who Are We Now?” She continued, “I’m excited to share his expertise and unique perspectives with our community, especially as Artificial Intelligence continues to be a transformative and widely discussed field. We are incredibly grateful for his time and look forward to an exclusive glimpse into his upcoming work.”

More about Blaise Agüera y Arcas:

Blaise has worked on computational humanities projects including the digital reconstruction of Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii’s color photography at the Library of Congress, and the use of computer vision techniques to shed new light on Gutenberg’s printing technology. Blaise has given TED Talks on Sead­ragon and Pho­to­synth (2007, 2012), Bing Maps (2010), and machine creativity (2016), and gave a keynote at NeurIPS on social intelligence (2019). In 2008, he was awarded MIT’s TR35 prize. In 2018 and 2019 he taught the course “Intelligent Machinery, Identity, and Ethics” at the University of Washington, placing computing and AI in a broader historical and philosophical context. He has authored numerous papers, essays, op eds, and book chapters, as well two books: a novella, Ubi Sunt, and an interdisciplinary nonfiction work, Who Are We Now? (review by the Financial Times here). His upcoming book, What Is Intelligence?, will be published by MIT Press in 2025.

About TEDxCatawba:

TEDxCatawba’s 2025 theme will be Amplify. Both General Admission and VIP tickets for TEDxCatawba will be available to the public on December 9, 2024. To learn more about TEDxCatawba, visit:  www.tedxcatawba.com.

For media and press inquiries, please contact: hello@tedxcatawba.com.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event:

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

About TED:

TED is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to discovering, debating and spreading ideas that spark conversation, deepen understanding and drive meaningful change. Our organization is devoted to curiosity, reason, wonder and the pursuit of knowledge — without an agenda. We welcome people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world and connection with others, and we invite everyone to engage with ideas and activate them in your community.

TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, but today it spans a multitude of worldwide communities and initiatives exploring everything from science and business to education, arts and global issues. In addition to the TED Talks curated from our annual conferences and published on TED.com, we produce original podcasts, short video series, animated educational lessons (TED-Ed) and TV programs that are translated into more than 100 languages and distributed via partnerships around the world. Each year, thousands of independently run TEDx events bring people together to share ideas and bridge divides in communities on every continent. Through the Audacious Project, TED has helped catalyze more than $3 billion in funding for projects that seek to make the world more beautiful, sustainable and just. In 2020, TED launched Countdown, an initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis and mobilize a movement for a net-zero future, and in 2023 TED launched TED Democracy to spark a new kind of conversation focused on realistic pathways towards a more vibrant and equitable future. View a full list of TED’s many programs and initiatives.

Follow TED on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X.

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