AYOKA CHENZIRA (aka Ayo), is an award-winning filmmaker, digital media artist and educator. She is a recognized pioneer who helped create a genre of film making now identified as Black independent cinema. As one of a small handful of African American women filmmakers, Ayoka has created a rich body of work that has received popular and critical acclaim. Ayoka’s more than twenty five films span fiction, documentary, animation, performance, experimental narratives and interstitial programming for television. She is known for film making that takes risks and combines different technologies with original storytelling.

In recent years, Ayoka returned to her artistic roots to explore expanding cinema. Influenced in part by experimental film making of the ’70s and Laura Marks concept of haptic cinema, she began creating stories that expand cinema to include the moving image, the tracking of physical objects and multiple screen
projection.

In 2001, Ayoka was invited to Spelman College to serve as the first William and Camille Cosby Endowed Professor. She is currently a professor of Film and Women’s Studies and the founding director of Spelman’s Digital Moving Image Salon. She earned a Ph.D. in Digital Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology, an M.A in Education at Columbia University/Teachers College and a B.F.A. in Film at New York University.

Ayoka is currently adapting the novels of Pearl Cleage for the screen and creating a web based interactive project titled HERadventure, which combines film with interactive virtual environments. The project is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Return to 2012 Presenter Roster

Talks that inspire, challenge and delight are at the heart of any TEDx event. Talks by our exciting line-up of 2012 speakers will be no different.  Hailing from a variety of disciplines including speech pathology, neuroscience, social anthropology and the film, our speakers this year will draw inspiration from the conference theme, Transcend.

Capacity is limited and tickets are on sale now. Purchase your ticket here.

Ayoka Chenzira	J. Walker Smith	Kerry Ressler
Sucheta Kamath	Gil Weinberg	Amber Naslund
Geoff Livingston	Maysam Ghovanloo	Dana Lupton
	Tim Fox	Daniel Weingarten
	Ashok Goel	Evereman

The Buckhead Theatre in Atlanta, GA

VENUE: The Buckhead Theatre

DATE: November 2, 2012

TIME: 9 AM – 5 PM

ADDRESS: 3110 Roswell Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA 30305

TEDxPeachtree is Friday, November 2, and it’s coming to Buckhead! The exquisitely restored Buckhead Theatre serves as the backdrop for TEDxPeachtree 2012. Talks on neuroscience, bionics and ethnography are all part of the speaker mashup this year. And in TEDxPeachtree fashion, they will use the conference theme, Transcend, as inspiration.

Schedule

5:00P WRAP UP

Take Your Tastebuds on a Culinary Journey

As if 12 innovative, transcendent talks weren’t enough, TEDxPeachtree 2012 also is excited to bring tasty bites and sips to this year’s event courtesy of Frozen Pints Craft Beer Ice Cream and Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters.

The Atlanta-based Frozen Pints crew found inspiration following a party snafu involving some spilt beer in an ice cream maker – combine the finest craft beers and local ingredients to put a whole new spin on a classic frozen treat. They’ll bring their unique flavor profiles and a lot of love for craft beer and ice cream to TEDxPeachtree 2012 with some fantastically fun (and tasty) fare with Frozen Pints tastings.

Since 1986, Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters has been handcrafting the finest coffees from around the globe, and we thought their Certified Organic, Fair Trade Certified and Bird-Friendly, Shade Grown java would be a perfect fit at TEDxPeachtree 2012. These coffee aficionados are bringing their fresh beans and limited edition cups o’ joe to The Buckhead Theatre for a caffeine-fueled pick me up.

Live Podcast Interviews

For the second year, Atlanta Business RadioX will be conducting live radio interviews of attendees and speakers during the breaks to bring you a slice of the conversations that will be taking place at the conference!

We’ll publish the link to the online podcast on the homepage of this web site on the day of the conference.

Get Captured by VIP Photog F22 Studio

Oh snap! This year, Cara Pastore and her team from F22 Studio will be on hand to snap photos of TEDxPeachtree 2012 attendees. Be sure to smile and say cheese because this Atlanta-based photographer and artist has more than a decade of experience shooting for high profile clients like the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Sheikh of Bahrain Economic Development Delegation, W Hotels, Atlantic Records and VIBE Magazine.