Tom Reading, a Clinical Lead Physiotherapist, reveals how physiotherapy can restore identity, dignity, and hope for young people living with cancer. Through moving patient stories and evidence-based insight, he challenges us to rethink what recovery truly means — showing that physiotherapy doesn’t just rebuild movement, it saves futures. Tom is a Lead Clinical Physiotherapist at The Christie (the largest single site cancer centre in Europe), where he supports teenagers and young people in oncology and haematology through some of the most challenging periods of their lives. Passionate about the vital role of exercise during and after cancer treatment, Tom’s talk will focus on how physiotherapy saves futures—and why movement must become a standard part of rehabilitation in cancer care, especially for young people. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Prison healthcare leader Natalie Miller exposes the quiet tension between compassion and control inside the UK’s prisons. Drawing on real stories from the front line, she reveals how systems built to punish can erode humanity—and how acts of care, curiosity, and dignity can still transform lives. Both unflinching and deeply hopeful, this talk reimagines justice through the lens of empathy, urging us to see care not as weakness, but as courage. Natalie began her NHS career on hospital wards in stroke, cardiology, transplant, and respiratory care, but only found the variety and meaning she sought when she moved into prison healthcare. By her own admission, it is messy, complex, and often overlooked—but she believes deeply that dignity matters, whether you’re behind a prison door or an office one This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Dance brings joy, connection, and proven health benefits for people of all ages. Studies from across the world show it strengthens mental health, reduces frailty, and decreases social isolation. Yet, access to dance for wellbeing benefit remains inequitable. As ballroom teacher and designer of equitable health services, Alice highlights how inclusive design and simple actions—like describing movements or engaging volunteer support—can open dance to everyone. This talk calls for fair funding, flexible delivery, and personal connection in delivery of dance. Movement is medicine and everyone deserves to feel completely themselves and totally alive. Alice is a service designer at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, but her true love has always been dance. A trained ballroom dancer, she knows firsthand how movement can benefit our wellbeing - boosting heart health, strengthening muscles, lifting mood, and connecting us to others. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

A meteorologist's perspective on being wrong in forecasting and in life but how sometimes what you may think is wrong, is actually right. Growing up in Prior Lake, MN, Jesse has always been fascinated by storms. Whether it’s a massive snow storm or just a thunderstorm, she would sit on the family’s front steps, watching the weather play out in front of her eyes.Knowing in middle school that meteorology was the subject she wanted to study for the rest of her life, she mentored at the National Weather Service before she majored in meteorology at Iowa State University, minoring in journalism.Like a cyclone, Jesse swirled around the Midwest, starting her television career in Sioux Falls, SD. She moved to Milwaukee, WI to chase severe weather and broadcast from snowstorms and festivals. Almost ten years after moving away from one Dakota, Jesse moved to the other, coming to WDAY with her husband and two boys. Jesse loves spending time with her family, whether that's in the garden, out exploring local parks or trying new foods. And when the weather cooperates, you most likely will find her outdoors taking advantage of it. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Birds don’t just migrate—they connect us. Through one bird’s epic journey, this talk explores how migration reveals our shared responsibility, resilience, and hope in a changing world. Marshall Johnson is deeply committed to engaging in impactful, mission-driven work to address the urgent challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. Marshall plays an active role in shaping global conservation policy throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He serves on the North American Wetlands Conservation Council, the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Advisory Group, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Council. His contributions have been recognized with the North Dakota Habitat Award, Prairie Business “40 Under 40”, and the University of Minnesota’s Abbey Alumni Award.A proud Canopy member, he stands for the protection of birds and the places they need to thrive. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

In this talk, Dr. Steven Mirsky explores how the future of autonomous agriculture hinges on developing open-access, annotated images libraries to train computer vision models. While the tools for AI-driven farming—robots, sensors, and computer vision—are advancing rapidly, the real bottleneck is the availability of open, high-quality training data and accessible, modular hardware. Dr. Mirsky makes the case that to truly unlock autonomy in agriculture, we must first digitize the farm and then democratize the data and tools that power intelligent systems. He outlines how an open ecosystem of AI, data, and hardware can enable precision sustainable agriculture. Steven Mirsky leads the Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory at the USDA Agricultural Research Service. For over 25 years, he has advanced sustainable and precision agriculture for field crop producers. Most recently, he launched the Digital Agricultural Systems Hub (DASH), USDA’s enterprise platform for developing computer vision and AI solutions deployed by plant scientists, breeders, and farmers.Through DASH, he is accelerating the path to agricultural autonomy by building and curating AgIR—the National Open-Access Plant Image Repository—and developing PlantMap3D, a modular camera system designed for plant phenotyping and precision farming applications. Dr. Mirsky holds a B.A. in Agroecology, an M.S. in Soil Fertility and Quality, and a Ph.D. in Agronomy with a focus on Weed Ecology. He has published approximately 150 peer-reviewed journal articles. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx