Kristine LaLonde & Yiaway Yeh – Officers of Innovation for Nashville & Davidson County

How can a city build infrastructure for innovation?

Kristine LaLonde & Yiaway Yeh are Co-Chief Innovation Officers of Nashville and Davidson County.

Yiaway Yeh’s career has taken him from Africa to Silicon Valley, from boardrooms to latrine construction sites. All the while, he has been driven by a desire to see communities and government work together to build the collective good. 
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Kristine LaLonde supports creative ideas and people as they solve community challenges. She builds teams that combine passion and pragmatism to create lasting change has been the driving force in Kristine LaLonde’s career in politics, government, and teaching.
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Dr. Syb Bennett - The Underground Railroad is Back...Shhh, Don't Tell Nobody

Dr. Sybril Bennett, affectionately known as “Dr. Syb,” is a Vanderbilt-educated, Harvard-trained, two-time Emmy award-winning multimedia journalist, and a proud TEDxNashville board member. 

She is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee where she helped to establish the New Century Journalism Program in 2003. Her book (in press), "Innovate: Lessons from the Underground Railroad" examines the Underground Railroad and the Internet as among America's most effective, innovative and disruptive networks.

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Scott Huler - Change the world with 2 simple ideas

Changing Everything with Two Things You Probably Have Laying Around Your Community Right Now.

Scott Huler was born in Cleveland and raised in that city’s eastern suburbs.

He graduated from Washington University in 1981; there he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa because of the breadth of his studies, and that breadth has been a signature of his professional work. He has written on everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing, from NASCAR racing to the stealth bomber, for such newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times and such magazines as Backpacker, Fortune, and ESPN. 

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Meredith Perry - How to be a technology innovator without an engineering degree or Aspergers

Meredith Perry is the Founder and CEO of uBeam, a company that hopes to bring space age wireless charging technology to your cell phone and other wireless devices. Meredith graduated from the University of Pennsylvania this past May after studying rocks, of all things. 

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Dave Stewart - How To Break All The Rules and Rule

A multi-media entrepreneur, Dave Stewart is recognized as one of the most respected and accomplished talents in the music industry today. Beyond his creative work as a musician, Stewart is a renowned producer, author, director, photographer, filmmaker, and philanthropist.

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