TEDx Presenters …Orcas Island, and Beyond

— from Gretchen Krampf for TEDxOrcas Island —

TEDxOrcasIsland is bringing our community a daylong conference of incredible speakers on March 5th at Orcas Center. Tickets are on sale at www.tedxorcasisland.com

Orcas Island speakers include:

TJ DiCaprio, a Sr. Director of Environmental Sustainability at Microsoft Corporation and the chief architect responsible for designing and managing Microsoft’s internal carbon fee model. Her efforts drive accountability while supporting innovation in efficiency, green power, and low-carbon economic development in emerging nations. She brings an educational background in Environmental Studies and Energy from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she received the 2015 Environmental Studies Alumna of the Year award and an MBA in Sustainable Business and Government Policy Administration from Marylhurst University.

On a personal note, TJ is a certified pilot and enjoys sailing. She has led several expeditions piloting aircraft across the Americas and Africa, and sailed off the coast of Croatia, Polynesian Islands, North America, and Turkey. TJ makes her home in Deer Harbor.

Jake Perrine is a familiar face on the Orcas Center stage. He’s a theatre and audio artist who has created works in Massachusetts, New York City, Chicago, Seattle, and Orcas Island. Jake received his BA in Directing, Composing and Sound Design for the Theatre from Hampshire College in 1993, where he created his first original operatic work, “Vamp,” composed entirely with early DOS sequencers and MIDI synthesizers.

In 1994 he co-founded “Thirteenth Tribe,” a non-profit theatre company in Chicago. In 1996, Jake became the Lead Media Engineer for RealNetworks in Seattle, pioneering over 200 webcasts including WOMAD, Bumbershoot, The Tibetan Freedom Concert, and U2. Jake was an audio production instructor at The Art Institute of Seattle for ten years, at Cornish College of the Arts for two years, and also taught physical theatre at Seattle’s Freehold Theatre Lab. He has worked as a mastering engineer at RFI/CD Mastering for five years.

Since relocating to Orcas Island in 2010, Jake has acted in, and directed shows at the Orcas Center including last year’s Beatles tribute, “Across the Universe,” and teaches the Orcas Island high school drama class. He has published three books through Hal Leonard publishing, and co-created an online school called Warp Academy, all focused on music production education. Jake is a co-producer of the Imagine Orcas Island music and arts festival, which is gearing up for its second event this September at Doe Bay.

Robert Dash’s love for photography started over forty years ago. His photographs have appeared in galleries and juried shows around the country, and in publications such as TIME, and The Week, and the international photography website Lensculture.

Robert Dash is an educator with over twenty years of teaching experience, mostly at the high school level. His academic training lies in biological sciences and human development, with a B.A in Environmental Studies from Evergreen College, and an M.A. in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College. He has worked as a naturalist in Olympic National Park, been a contractor building straw bale houses and worked for a solar energy firm.

The constant theme running through Robert’s art is a fascination with micro landscapes in nature, and the poetry and metaphor that these views inspire. A love for science and art serves as a perfect background for a talk about bridging polarities. His work can be seen at Olga Artworks on Orcas Island and in the forthcoming book of photography and poetry, An Acre Shy of Eternity; Ecology and Metaphor on One Seaside Cliff. Robert has a son in college, and shares a home on Orcas with his partner, artist Ranna McNeil.

And from Whidbey Island:

Stephan A. Schwartz is a Distinguished Consulting Faculty of Saybrook University and a Research Associate of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory of the Laboratories for Fundamental Research. He is the columnist for the journal Explore, and editor of the daily web publication Schwartzreport.net in both of which he covers trends that are affecting the future. He also writes for The Huffington Post.

His other academic and research appointments include: Senior Samueli Fellow for Brain, Mind and Healing of the Samueli Institute; founder and Research Director of the Mobius laboratory; Director of Research of the Rhine Research Center; and Senior Fellow of The Philosophical Research Society. Government appointments include: Special Assistant for Research and Analysis to the Chief of Naval Operations, consultant to the Oceanographer of the Navy.

For 40 years he has been studying the nature of consciousness and exceptional human performance. He is the author of more than 130 papers, and technical reports, as well as 18 chapters in academic books edited by others. In addition he has written numerous magazine articles for Smithsonian, OMNI, American History, American Heritage, The Washington Post, The New York Times, as well as other magazines and newspapers. He has produced and written a number of television documentaries and published four books: The Secret Vaults of Time, The Alexandria Project, Mind Rover, Opening to the Infinite, and his latest, The 8 Laws of Change.
Stephan lives with his wife in Langley, WA.