TEDxMidwest Organizers

The organizers of this event are TEDsters Linda Stone, Mike Hettwer and Brad Keywell, along with eight other professionals.

Linda Stone

Widely recognized as a visionary thinker and thought leader, Linda Stone is a writer, speaker and consultant focused on trends and their strategic and consumer implications. Articles on her work have appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, The Economist, Boston Globe, Harvard Business Review, and hundreds of blogs. She has spoken at Supernova, the ETech conference, GEL, the Collaborative Technologies Technologies Conference, the Hidden Brain Task Force for the Center for Work-Life Policy, and to executives at companies such as Edelman and McDonald’s.

Previously, she spent close to twenty years as an executive in high technology. In 1986, she was persuaded to join Apple Computer to help”change the world.” In her seven years at Apple, she had the opportunity to do pioneering work in multimedia hardware, software and publishing. In her last year at Apple, Stone worked for Chairman and CEO John Sculley on special projects. In 1993, Stone joined Microsoft Research under Nathan Myhrvold and Rick Rashid. She co-founded and directed the Virtual Worlds Group/Social Computing Group, researching online social life and virtual communities. In 2000, CEO Steve Ballmer tapped Stone to take on a VP role, reporting to him,to help improve industry relationships and contribute to a constructive evolution of the corporate culture. She retired from Microsoft in 2002.

Stone served a six-year term on the National Board of the World Wildlife Fund and is currently on the WWF National Council. She is an advisor for the Pew Internet and American Life Project and is on the Advisory Board of the RIT Lab for Social Computing. In 2002 she was recognized as Outstanding Regional Volunteer of the Year by F.I.R.S.T., Dean Kamen’s non-profit dedicated to inspiring young people in science and technology.

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Mike Hettwer

Mike Hettwer is a serial entrepreneur who has started and built five companies mostly focused on technology, software or the Web. He sold his web development firm, Ionix to the public company IXL and built that group to 175 people and $25M in revenue. He is co-founder and was the original CEO of Avenue Group, a marketing and e-commerce agency based in Chicago.

In the last ten years, Mike’s travels have taken him to sixty countries, and on eight dinosaur and archeology expeditions. In the Sahara and Gobi Deserts, he photographed dinosaur expeditions with renowned paleontologist Paul Sereno. He shot a photography book with Louise and Meave Leakey on their hunt for ancient human origins in the Lake Turkana area of Kenya. His photos have appeared in 2,500 magazines, books, newspapers and websites including multiple stories for National Geographic.

Mike holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology and has attended the TED Conference for the last eleven years. As part of the Dave Eggers TED Prize, he also developed and taught photo classes to inner city kids at 826CHI for four years.

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Brad Keywell

Brad Keywell, 40, is a co-founder and Director of Groupon, Inc., a social commerce business that utilizes the dynamics of group buying and social networking to access discounts for local merchants at cities across North America. He is a co-founder and Director of MediaBank LLC, a technology firm providing integrated procurement systems, advanced analytics platforms, and innovative trading functionality to the advertising and media buying industry. He is a co-founder and Director of Echo Global Logistics LLC, an enterprise transportation management firm, which provides transportation procurement, management, and optimization services across all modes. He is a Managing Partner of LightBank, a venture fund focused on helping disruptive technology businesses where LightBank’s financial and operational resources can add unique value.

Keywell founded the Connect to the Future program in the Chicago Public Schools system, which is aligned with Renaissance 2010. Connect to the Future pairs professionals in the community with sixth-through-ninth grade classrooms, giving the professionals a chance to share their stories and lessons with students, and giving students a chance to see what they can become, and inspiration to go to college and pursue a career. Connect to the Future also provides students field trips to leave their classroom and have real-world experiences that may influence their work effort and future plans.

TEDxMidwest Organizing Committee

This special event would not be possible without the great work from our organizing committee:

Alicia Bassuk – Ubica Strategy
Mark Tebbe – Lake Capital
Valerie Conn – University of Chicago
Wendy Berger – WBS Equities, LLC
Tony Karman – Karman Projects