TEDxBristol

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Amber Probyn & Hazel McShane

  Hazel McShane and Amber Probyn are the co-founders of Peequal, the UK's first women's urinal, born from their own experience of festival toilet queues. Award-winning entrepreneurs and campaigners for equitable design, they are on a mission to fix the inequalities hiding in plain sight in a world designed around men by default.

• Amelia Howe

  Amelia Howe was diagnosed with cancer at 15 and has since become a powerful advocate for changing how we talk about the illness. Drawing on her own experience of treatment as a young person, she challenges the 'battle' language that surrounds cancer and campaigns for patients to be given control, dignity and a voice in their own care.

• Andrew Scott

  Andrew Scott is an entrepreneur and speaker whose life has been defined by rebuilding. From surviving a childhood bombing to losing everything in business, he has turned hard-won experience into a framework for resilience: Purpose, Plan, Execute. He now shares that framework to help others rise again after their darkest moments.

• Briony May Williams

  Briony May Williams is a television presenter and baker, best known as the first visibly disabled contestant on The Great British Bake Off. Born with a limb difference, she has become a prominent advocate for disability visibility and acceptance, presenting for Channel 4 and Food Unwrapped and campaigning for representation.

• Eunice Lo

  Dr Eunice Lo is a climate scientist at the University of Bristol specialising in extreme heat and its impact on human health. Her research connects the data of a warming world to the things we care about most: our sleep, our health and the people we love. She is a leading voice on why climate action is a matter of public health.

• Jared Shurin

  Jared Shurin is a counter-extremism adviser and award-winning writer and editor. He has spent years advising governments and organisations on how people radicalise into violence and what actually prevents it. He is also a competition barbecue cook and a certified barbecue judge, which turns out to be more relevant to his day job than you might expect.

• John Connolly

  Josh Connolly is a speaker, coach and mental health advocate. Growing up around alcoholism, he took emotional responsibility for the adults in his life from a young age. He now works with parents, schools and workplaces to break cycles of emotional avoidance, and is a leading ambassador for children affected by a parent's drinking.

• Josh Connolly

  Josh Connolly is a speaker, coach and mental health advocate. Growing up around alcoholism, he took emotional responsibility for the adults in his life from a young age. He now works with parents, schools and workplaces to break cycles of emotional avoidance, and is a leading ambassador for children affected by a parent's drinking.

• Julian Davis

  Julian Davis is a Bristol-based storyteller, activist and community leader. His work celebrates Bristol's place in civil rights history, from the Bristol Bus Boycott onwards and challenges what inclusion really means. He is the originator of 'Un-Clusion', not asking for a seat at the table, but building your own.

• Julian Grad

  Julian came to TEDxBristol via the Bristol Education Partnership Youth Talks project. Youth Talks is a programme that supports young people across Bristol to write and deliver TED style talks. Julian was a Youth Talks 2025 finalist, and was chosen to represent his cohort at TEDxBristol.

• Martin Bisp

  Martin Bisp MBE is the co-founder and CEO of Empire Fighting Chance, the Bristol-born charity that uses non-contact boxing, psychology and therapy to support young people. What began with a single conversation outside a St Pauls boxing gym now reaches thousands of young people every year, in Bristol and around the world.

• Melanie Vaxevanakis

  Melanie Vaxevanakis is the founder of The MAZI Project, a Bristol charity nourishing marginalised young people through food. Founded in response to the free school meals scandal, MAZI provides choice, consistency and dignity to care leavers, young refugees and others, built on a simple belief: food poverty is never just about hunger.

• Michele Acuto

  Professor Michele Acuto is an urban scholar and Pro Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement at the University of Bristol. A leading researcher on cities and global urban policy, his work explores the people and systems that keep cities alive after dark, and what a warming climate means for the growing night-time economy.

• Romy Gill MBE

  Romy Gill MBE is a chef, food writer and broadcaster. She was one of the first Indian women in the UK to own and run her own restaurant, and is a regular on television and radio. Her cooking and writing tell a story of belonging and resilience: a life built from nothing, one rejection at a time.

• Roxroy Fearon

  Roxroy Fearon is a senior social worker whose own life traces the journey he now helps others make: from young carer and young offender to a career spent changing lives. His work and story are a testament to the quiet power of small acts of kindness, and to seeing people rather than problems.

• Stark Holborn

  Stark Holborn is an award-winning games writer, novelist and critic, the author of the acclaimed Triggernometry and Factus Sequence series and a BAFTA-nominated narrative designer. Their work sits at the collision point of storytelling and technology, making them a sharp observer of what AI can and cannot do to human creativity.