Category: Speakers

You’re probably not going to be surprised to hear this: we need to cut back our carbon emissions. Here’s something that may surprise you: 1/4 of our carbon emissions come from our food system!

Ignite Seattle speaker Mary Purdy is well-aware of the potential to cut carbon emissions by eating better, and this Thursday October 3rd, she’s taking to the stage to share a few ways our audience can make a difference with their forks.

From food waste to plant proteins, there are many ways to cut your carbon emissions (no, you don’t have to become a vegan!), and while not everyone is in the position to make a change in the way they eat, most of us are.

Join us on October 3 to hear Mary and 11 other funny, wonderful, and amazing speakers. Tickets are on sale now.

In terms of dollars spent on foreign aid, the US is one of the most generous nations in the world. But in terms of damage done to overseas communities? We’re pretty high up there too.

Coming from Kenya, Ignite speaker Simon Okelo knows this well! When we think “how can we help,” we spend our money on what we think they need. So communities end up with an orphanage, when what they really needed was a place to bring their community together.

Join us on October 3 to hear about how Simon has made it his mission to turn disused buildings into creative hubs across Kenya. Tickets are on sale now!

This Thursday, October 3, Ignite speaker Understanding Israel invites us all to learn more about what Seattle’s maritime climate grows best: a cult!

Understanding spent 26 years in an “alternative urban/rural community” in Queen Anne, in what she at-the-time called a commune. (“Like: ‘Far out and pass the bong.'”)

She’s taking the stage at Ignite this Thursday to share her experience through photos, stories, and a special surprise midway through. As Understanding tells us, “You will feel better about your life after listening to how I screwed up mine”.

Get your tickets for Ignite Seattle today! Thursday, October 3 is only a few days away!

Ignite Seattle speaker Angela Barrus was probably expecting a little hassle when returning to the US from her visit to Canada. (Who wouldn’t expect a little hassle at the border?)

She wasn’t expecting alarms, drawn guns, whiplash, concussion, threats of a $15,000 fine, and finally leaving with bloody hands. Then again, she didn’t realize she had unwittingly become an international smuggler!

What was Angela smuggling, and how did she end up in such a crazy situation? (In her own words: “If it hadn’t happened to me, quite frankly, I’d question the sanity of the storyteller.”)

Join us at Ignite Seattle #40 this Thursday, October 3, to find out!

It’s no surprise that adults struggle to make new friends. According to Ignite speaker Nadine Khoury, the average American made their last new friend five years ago.

Nadine moved to Seattle as an adult, so she knows the difficulties of trying to make new friends well. But (unlike many of us!) she tried anyway, and she’s joining us as Ignite Seattle #40 to share some tips about how we can all make more friends.

Along the way, she’ll share some of her own experiences. Want to know what happens when you ask someone “I like your shoes, wanna be friends?”

Join us this Thursday, October 3, at Town Hall Seattle and find out!

As a kid, Ignite Seattle speaker Fo recalls that his parents put their savings toward a statue of Buddha covered in gold. It’s probably no surprise that Fo took up monkhood (though short-lived) at the age of 7. 

Monks live by the five precepts, one of which “no killing” is much harder for a biological scientist to follow. Mouse models aside, something as basic as wiping down a surface with ethanol can kill hundreds of millions of organisms. 

How did Fo reconcile the conflict between his religion and scientific work? Join us at Ignite Seattle #40 where he’ll share his experience and unveil an adaptation of the five precepts that can be used by all scientists who share a similar struggle.

Tickets for Ignite Seattle this Thursday are on sale now!

As kids, many of us were told not to write fiction (whether explicitly or implictly) by our teachers or friends. Ignite speaker Rebecca A. Demarest thinks this is a mistake.

It’s not that Rebecca hates essays, it’s that writing fiction teaches kids important skills they don’t get elsewhere. To write fiction, you need to get inside the heads of your characters, something kids don’t do natively.

On October 3, Rebecca will speak to the Ignite Seattle crowd about her experiences teaching kids to write fiction, and how it helps them learn to relate to people who are different from them.

Tickets for Ignite Seattle #40 are on sale now.

Just a few years ago, Aeva Black was a rising star in the tech industry, with a too many job offers to count, and invitations to speak at leading tech conferences. That changed when they changed their gender expression.

After Aeva transitioned, they experienced bias in a big way. Job offers suddenly turned into job rejections. With this sort of experience, you or I might have a negative reaction to the word “bias.” But not Aeva.

Aeva Black will join us at Ignite Seattle #40 to share a more optimistic message: we’re all biased, it’s the nature of our hormones and our biology, and that’s ok. What matters is whether we identify those biases, and what we do next.

Learn how to see your own perception biases with us on October 3 at Ignite Seattle. Tickets are on sale now.

A bad mathematical model can make a big difference to millions of people. To illustrate the point, Ignite speaker Josh Jelin points to “the Reinhart-Rogoff error”, which is when an economic model used by many countries to make major decisions turned out to be based on a minor typo in an Excel sheet.

Excel errors of that magnitude might be rare, but Josh will take the Ignite Seattle stage on October 3 to talk about an error which is more common, easier to make, and harder to spot in review.

If you’re not a statistician or a scientist, you might wonder what the titular “P-Value” means. Josh will answer that question, and tell you why it sometimes leads scientists to exactly the wrong conclusion, in his October 3 talk.

Tickets to Ignite Seattle on October 3 are on sale now!

Melissa Reaves knows what it’s like to feel helpless and hopeless from OCD: her OCD went undiagnosed until her early 20s. So when her daughter received a diagnosis, she could relate. Her daughter has access to something Melissa didn’t though: a promising new program to help those who suffer from OCD.

Melissa will be taking the Ignite Seattle stage on October 3rd to talk about taking her daughter to what she calls “OCD Camp,” a 3-hour-a-day, 4-day-a-week intensive program of Seattle Children’s.

Join us on October 3rd to learn more about her experience in this program, from learning to do the opposite of what OCD says, to riding with an “OCD detective.” Tickets are on sale now.