TEDxFredrikstad

Speakers

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

• Célia Kamdom

  Entrepreneur, technology professional and founder

  Célia Kamdom is a technology professional, entrepreneur and founder of Oriaku Studio, a design brand connecting African craftsmanship with Scandinavian minimalism. Her professional background spans technology, change management and entrepreneurship, while her creative work is rooted in questions of heritage, recognition and making something new from competing worlds. In her TEDx talk, Célia turns to another powerful source of creative energy: rage. Rather than romanticizing anger or treating it as destruction, she asks what becomes possible when the energy behind revenge is redirected toward building a life, a project or a future that did not exist before.

• Ezinne Okparaebo

  Entrepreneur, author and former Olympic sprinter

  Ezinne Okparaebo is an entrepreneur, author, social-impact leader and former elite sprinter who represented Norway at three Olympic Games. Her career was built around measurable performance, public results and an identity closely tied to being an athlete. When that chapter ended, the scoreboard disappeared but the question of who she was remained. Today, through entrepreneurship and Ezinne Athletics, she works with young people and community initiatives. Her perspective on transition comes from lived experience: starting over is not only about finding a new goal, but about building an identity that can survive when roles and achievements change.

• Gunnar Garfors

  Author, globetrotter and travel expert

  Gunnar Garfors is a Norwegian author, world-record traveller and founder of The Garfors Globe. He has travelled to every country in the world twice and spent years on the road collecting both extraordinary experiences and spectacular mistakes. His books and talks focus less on ticking places off a list than on how we meet people and cultures once we arrive. Having repeatedly misunderstood customs, taken the wrong route and learned the hard way, Gunnar makes a humorous case against copycat tourism and for journeys shaped by curiosity rather than someone else's highlight reel.

• Hanne Lindbæk

  Communication coach, actress and author

  Hanne Lindbæk is a communication coach, actress, author and founder of ergo;ego. For more than two decades she has worked across business, politics, NGOs and performance, helping people become more conscious of how voice, body language and behavior affect others. Her background as an actor gives her a practical lens on status: the subtle, constantly shifting hierarchy we communicate long before anyone states it out loud. Hanne's work is about moving from autopilot to choice, noticing the signals that shape a room, and using that awareness to communicate with greater intention.

• Ida Kathrine Gravensteen

  Forensic pathologist, researcher and author

  Ida Kathrine Gravensteen is a forensic pathologist, researcher and science communicator at Oslo University Hospital. Her work sits at the intersection of medicine, justice and death, where autopsies can uncover hidden disease, clarify causes of death and reveal evidence that matters to both families and society. She has a PhD and has helped make forensic medicine accessible to a wider audience through writing, podcasts and public communication. Her work asks an uncomfortable but important question: what knowledge do we lose when we stop listening to what the dead can teach us?

• Jon Larsen

  Jazz musician, artist and citizen scientist

  Jon Larsen is a Norwegian jazz musician, composer, visual artist and citizen scientist. After decades in music, including as a founding figure in Hot Club de Norvège, his curiosity shifted toward tiny particles hidden in everyday dust. Through the Stardust Project he developed methods for distinguishing micrometeorites from human-made particles, contributing to research that helped change how scientists think about collecting modern cosmic dust in populated areas. His journey is a reminder that expertise can begin with sustained curiosity and that discovery sometimes starts by looking closely at what everyone else ignores.

• Knut Harald Sommerfeldt

  Performer and community builder

  Knut Harald Sommerfeldt is a performer and community builder who works with the small moments that decide whether people stay, participate and feel that they belong. His perspective on resilience starts far away from motivational slogans: real resilience is built when people return after discomfort, confusion or failure. Drawing on performance, storytelling and community experience, he focuses on the 'invisible dropout' and on how a genuine welcome, a clear role and a small foothold can make it easier to try again.

• Marte Roa Syvertsen

  Medical doctor, neurologist, researcher and author

  Marte Roa Syvertsen is a medical doctor, neurologist, researcher and author with a PhD in neurology and more than a decade of research experience. Her work and public communication focus on how the brain develops, adapts and shapes behavior. She is particularly interested in the gap between what we experience as conscious choice and the many processes operating outside awareness. By translating neuroscience into everyday language, Marte examines both sides of influence: how our decisions are formed, and how knowledge of those mechanisms can be used to guide the choices of others.

• Pedro Dias Bergheim

  Philosopher, philosophical practitioner and performer

  Pedro Dias Bergheim is a philosopher, philosophical practitioner and performer with a PhD in philosophy of education from the University of Bergen. His work moves between research, dialogue and stage performance, including magic, using each as a way to examine how we learn and how quickly certainty can close down curiosity. Pedro is interested in the moment before an answer hardens into a conclusion. His TEDx talk brings philosophy and performance together to argue that wonder is not childish; it is a condition for learning.

• Stian Blipp

  Entertainer, comedian and TV/radio host

  Stian Blipp is a Norwegian entertainer, comedian and presenter whose career spans television, radio, stand-up and live performance. Known for high energy on stage, he describes gaming as one of the spaces where his mind does the opposite: slows down, focuses and connects. That personal relationship gives him a different entry point into a cultural debate often reduced to screen time and distraction. Instead of defending gaming as a hobby, Stian looks at what can happen inside digital worlds. Creativity, friendship, identity, emotional expression and safe spaces for challenges that can feel much bigger offline.

• Thomas Jarolics

  Content creator and storyteller

  Thomas Jarolics is a Danish content creator and storyteller best known as Become Norwegian. After moving to Norway, he began documenting the country through outdoor adventures, humor, cultural clashes and the unwritten rules nobody hands you at the border. His work turns the awkwardness of being new into a lens on community and belonging. From missing the point of dugnad to throwing himself into very Norwegian challenges, Thomas has learned that integration is less about decoding every rule and more about taking part before you feel completely ready.

• Tord Nilsen

  Senior Advisor, digital innovation and AI

  Tord Nilsen is a senior advisor at the National Museum of Norway, where he works with digital innovation, artificial intelligence and visitor experience. His career spans decades of coding and technology alongside years of work centered on human independence and behavior. Outside the museum, an interest in lockpicking gave him a physical metaphor for a problem he kept seeing elsewhere: when something resists, our instinct is often to push harder. Tord's approach is the opposite. Slow down, read the resistance and find the one point that is actually holding the system in place.