Date: Fri, November 4, 2022
Time: 6:30 PM – 9:45 PM EDT

Location: Seahawk Cultural Center
70 Wilborn Road
Hilton Head Island, SC 29926

SPONSORSHIPS AVAILABLE. CLICK HERE.

Waves are anywhere and everywhere – from sound waves, to ocean waves, to light waves…and the one thing that they have in common is that once they arrive, their impact shakes their surroundings… and everything around them is no longer the same. We recognize that the Lowcountry is brimming with eclectic, innovative, and impactful ideas. This year we want to celebrate the movers and shakers, those who won’t stand still and who create real change in their communities. They’re making waves. Let’s make waves with them…and make our Lowcountry, and our world, a better place.

On November 4th, 2022, TEDxHiltonHead will celebrate ideas worth spreading that will highlight members of the Lowcountry community who are “making waves.” The format includes a evening filled with powerful, insightful and inspirational talks, demonstrations and performances that are idea-focused, and cover a wide range of subjects to foster learning, inspiration and wonder – and provoke conversations that matter.

Join us as we bring together an inspiring group of top local and national speakers for a thought-provoking evening filled with insight shared by today’s movers and shakers – and learn how their stories of “making waves” can impact your life, as well. Tickets will sell out fast for this limited-seating event – so make sure to purchase tickets today to reserve your spot.

Our Master of Ceremonies

Dr. Debi Lynes
Master of Ceremonies

Dr. Debi Lynes has an extensive career exploring the relationship between the physical environment and its influence on health and wellness. She has combined her 35 years of experience as an interior designer and 20 years in private counseling to hone her practice and is now respected as an expert in her fields. She hosts Mind Your Health, Healthy Living, and Carolina Women for WHHI TV.

An incredible lineup of speakers, entertainers, and thought-provoking spreaders of ideas… on the stage for you!

HERE ARE OUR SPEAKERS FOR 2022 MAKING WAVES!

Candace Blair
Founder, Soul Fire Social

Idea: Riding the Waves of Sound to Relax, Meditate, and Elevate: Making (Sound) Waves in Varying Frequency to Elevate your State of Happiness

About Candace:

Candace received her KRI Kundalini Certification at Karam Kriya in England & Portugal. She is an experienced sound healer, a certified ceremonial “Cacaoista”, shamanic reiki practitioner, and lead coach for the “Alchemy of Becoming” methodology. She worked abroad as an investment banker for 23 years before returning to the USA in 2017 to found her own business, Soul Fire Social. Candace now focuses full-time on sharing her passion for these elevating practices. Based on Hilton Head Island, she spends her summers traveling and collaborating with the goal of helping others to raise their consciousness and their vibration so they can step into their power & SHINE!

Kat Eberly
Dancer, Bluffton School of Dance Performance/Youth

About Kat:

Kat Eberly, 15, is a dancer from Hilton Head Island, SC. She attends school at the Bluffton Academy for the Arts and trains at the Bluffton School of Dance, where she is part of the Pre-Professional Competition Team. Kat is also a member of Tremaine Dance’s Performance Company, a select group of dancers chosen to train, assist and perform with the faculty of Tremaine on their national tour. Kat has received scholarships to numerous dance conventions and prestigious summer programs, and she was honored in 2021 with first place in the Island School Council for the Arts’ Rising Stars Competition.

Ryan Herd
Founder, Caregiver Smart Solutions

Idea: Smart Home, Safe Home: Making Waves in Home Safety While Safely Aging at Home

About Ryan:

Ryan Herd is a 30-year veteran of the “Smart” industry. He founded and ran a successful Smart Home technology company. His passion for “Smart Home” led him to write the book, “Join the Smart Home Revolution,” focused on bringing the “magic” of smart technology to consumers.

Ryan’s personal experience caring for his father, who has battled cancer twice, allowed him to recognize how the increased popularity of “Aging in Place,” can be greatly enhanced through our use of modern “Smart” technology.

Ryan is the founder of Caregiver Smart Solutions. Using non-invasive sensors, we can safely and unobtrusively monitor our loved one’s activities. This allows us to ask the right questions and determine if we have the proper care in place for them, as well as enabling our loved ones to live out their “golden” years at home.

Jeff Maine
Founder, Proudly

Idea: Investing in your community is smart business.

About Jeff:

When asked about his greatest motivation in life, Jeff Maine reflected upon his childhood and dedicated that title to his father. Growing up, Jeff’s dad always encouraged him to strive to pursue excellence and follow his dreams. From an early age, he learned about the importance of perseverance while using his skills to better the lives of others. Jeff carried these values into his career, and he is now the proud founder and CEO of Pay Proudly LLC, located in Bluffton, SC.

Jeff attended Saint Louis University, where he studied Finance and developed a passion for the industry. With over 25 years of experience in payment processing, he is committed to providing businesses with efficient electronic payment solutions. In addition, he is ecstatic about the fact that Pay Proudly donates 10% of all revenue to charitable foundations. Notably, Pay Proudly allows its business partners to help determine which charities should receive these regular donations.

Having opened his first payment processing company in 1999, Jeff’s extensive background in the field has given him relevant, valuable experiences. He has seen all sides of the industry and is dedicated to providing business owners clarity and honest answers to help them achieve their goals and succeed.

Anna Ponder, PhD
Vice Chancellor, University of South Carolina Beaufort

Idea: The Power of Forgiveness: Making Waves in Human Interaction by Forgiving and Focusing on the Future

About Anna:

Anna Ponder is vice chancellor for the University of South Carolina Beaufort and executive director of the USCB Education Foundation. Before that, she served as Executive Director of the Tribeca Film Institute; Director of Marketing and Investor Relations for several hedge fund firms, including Tudor Investment Corp, Raptor Capital, and High Rise Capital; and Senior Manager of Leadership Gifts for Robin Hood. She holds a B.A. from Spelman College, M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University, and Ph.D. from Yale University, where her dissertation looked critically at the liberal democratic tradition and its capacity and strategies for equity, access, and inclusion.

Janet Porter, PhD
Healthcare Advocate and Hospice Visionary

Idea: Planning for your End of Life Journey: Know and Share Your Wishes: Making Waves in the Way we Plan our End-of-Life Wishes and Sharing Those Wishes with Those we Love

About Janet:

Janet Porter, PhD and her husband, Jim O’Sullivan, moved ten years ago to Hilton Head from Boston, where Janet was the Chief Operating Officer of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Janet has been interested in understanding and helping others understanding the many issues involved with death and dying since she was an undergraduate at Ohio State. For the past four years, Janet has served as Chair of the Board of Hospice Care of the Lowcountry and on the board of Hilton Head Hospital. Janet was on the board of directors of AARP. She currently is an adjunct professor at Ohio State, University of North Carolina, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Anita Singleton-Prather

(Aunt Pearly Sue)

Artistic Director, Gullah Kinfolk Traveling Theater

Idea: We’re All A Family -While we all come from different places, different backgrounds and different experiences, at the end of the day we are all one simple thing. We’re all family.

About Anita:

Aunt Pearlie Sue is the creation of Anita Singleton-Prather, a native of the Sea Islands of Beaufort, South Carolina. Based on her grandmother, Aunt Pearlie Sue’s character has entertained audiences with Gullah-flavored folktales for over 20 years from the schoolhouse to the White House.

In addition to being a renowned master storyteller, Prather is an educator, historian, business woman, writer, singer, actress, and director/producer. She is the founder and artistic director of the musical performance group the Gullah Kinfolk. As a storyteller and singer, Prather has performed at many festivals, the Beaufort Gullah Festival, Penn Heritage Days Festival, Woodlands Festival, Spoleto USA International Arts Festival in Charleston, SC and San Francisco Festival of the Sea, just to name a few .

 

Jon Rooks
Singer, Songwriter, and Performer Performance

About Jon:

Jon Rooks is a relentless singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has shared stages from street corners and subway stations to bars and resorts, to sharing stages with Cee Lo Green, Erykah Badu, Babyface, and Ledisi. He holds a working calendar playing over 300 gigs per year. He comes from a small town in the Southern US and has traveled the US making his money playing music even while living in his car. He is most often compared to artists like Justin Timberlake or Ed Sheeran. He plays mostly as a one-man-band looping guitar, vocals, beatbox, harmonica, and keyboards bringing soulful sounds to every genre he experiments with. If his work-ethic and talent are any barometer of success, we should expect Rooks to take over the world at any moment.  

Dr. Sidney Smith
Physician, Georgia Skin and Cancer Center

Idea: Medical Event Tracking: Making Health Care Personal, not Transactional: Making Waves in Health Care by Using Tracking Technology to Track Holistic, Integrated Health, and Not Singular, Transactional Health

About Sidney:

Dr. Sidney Smith is the CEO of Complete.MD Medical Software, creating unique solutions for medicine. He is also the CEO of Georgia Skin and Cancer Clinic, and a practicing Dermatologist since 1995. Dr. Smith attended undergraduate school at Georgia State University and the Medical College of Georgia, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and a member of Alpha Omega Alpha (Medical Honor Society). He attended Vanderbilt University School of Medicine for Internal Medicine training, completed his Dermatology Residency at University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center, and he then completed his Fellowship in Mohs Skin Cancer Surgery at The Ohio State University. Dr. Smith currently resides in Savannah, Georgia with his wife and family. He enjoys caring for people and creating solutions that empower patients to regain control of their health journey.

Shaun Tomson
International World Surfing Champion and Youth Advocate

Idea: The Code to Finding Purpose: Drop a Stone, Create a Ripple, Build a Wave: Making Waves by Using Surfing’s Lessons to Make Better Decisions in Life

About Shaun:

Poor decisions result in a million preventable deaths each year – it is one of the most dire and under-reported social problems of our time.

After the death of his 15-year-old son, Shaun Tomson developed the Code Method, a surfing-inspired program to activate purpose as a foundation for positive decision-making.

Shaun is a former World Surfing Champion and has been described as one of the 10 greatest and most influential surfers of all time.

He is a keynote speaker on purpose, the founder of two popular surfing brands, a best-selling author, and produced the award-winning documentary Bustin’ Down the Door.

Jennifer Urezzio
Founder, Soul Language

Idea: The Wisdom of Dogs and the Spiritual Lessons Learned: Making Waves by Learning From the Pets that are Closest to us to Help us connect with Ourselves and Others in a Deeper Way.

About Jennifer:

Jennifer Urezzio is the founder of Soul Language – a paradigm that puts tangibility to Soul so a conscious connection can be established to enable crystal clear decisions for success. Jennifer is also a master intuitive and the author of two best-selling books. Currently, she has trained over 30 practitioners worldwide in Soul Language. Currently, there are over 5,000 individuals all over the world connecting to their Soul Languages.

Pam White
Visual artist who is based out of Bluffton, South Carolina

Idea: Art is a great form of communication

About Pam:

Pam White is a visual artist who is based out of Bluffton, South Carolina. She is well versed in classic materials and mediums such as acrylics, oils, and canvases, and currently paints primarily with encaustic wax. Through this, Pam hones in on the basic necessity of art; nature. Pam has always loved the outdoors, taking walks on the Hilton Head beaches or being surrounded by marshes and Spanish moss that encapsulates Bluffton. Art is a great form of communication, and Pam communicates her vision and passion for color, shape, place and time with her work, being interested in what lies beneath the surface, in the undertones of each painting, photograph or drawing. Using encaustic wax has allowed Pam to mix natural elements of the Earth, painting water using fire, and manufacturing her own interpretation of what she sees. The unpredictability of encaustic wax medium is a constant inspiration and challenge to Pam, which becomes of the utmost importance as she continually challenges herself to grow as an artist.

 

Robert Young, PhD, PG

Director, Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines

Idea: Rethinking Coastal Processes and Coastal Erosion Management: Making Waves by ReThinking the Impact of Waves to Reduce the Effects of Erosion on our Shorelines

About Robert:

Robert S. Young is the Director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, a joint Duke University/Western Carolina University venture.  He is also a Professor of Geology at Western Carolina University and a licensed professional geologist in three states (FL, NC, SC). The Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines (PSDS) is a research and policy outreach center serving the global coastal community. The primary mission of PSDS is to conduct scientific research into coastal processes and to translate that science into management and policy recommendations through a variety of professional and public outreach mechanisms.  The Program specializes in evaluating the design and implementation of coastal engineering projects.

Dr. Young received a BS degree in Geology (Phi Beta Kappa) from the College of William & Mary, and MS degree in Quaternary Studies from the University of Maine, and a PhD in Geology from Duke University where he was a James B. Duke Distinguished Doctoral Fellow.  Dr. Young has approximately 100 technical publications and he serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Coastal Research and Environmental

Geosciences.  He currently oversees more than $3.5 Million in grant-funded research projects related to coastal science and management.

Sponsors To Date Include:

Silver Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Gold Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Silver Sponsor