Tine Hens is an independent journalist for the Belgian newspaper De Standaard, Humo and Knack, and a writer. She is the author of Oorlog in tijden van vrede (War in time of peace) – a book on the memory of the First World War. Tine’s most recent book, Het Klein Verzet (Small resistance), tells an extraordinary story of ordinary people from Denmark to Greece who are trying to re-think and re-do the economy-as-we-know-it. They are the rebels of today that came to realize that you can change a lot by small actions.

In her talk, Tine will elaborate on this idea, and fight a common perception of economy as something that is beyond people’s control. Instead, she will argue that it is actually about good life, and now it is time to reclaim the economy, to free the market, to re-do the economy-as-we-know it and to start cooperating in many different ways instead of just competing.

Erik Rietveld is a philosopher and Veni- and Vidi- laureate of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). He works as a Senior Researcher at the University of Amsterdam and was earlier a Fellow in Philosophy at Harvard University. Erik Rietveld publishes regularly in renowned international journals such as Mind, Inquiry, Phenomenology & The Cognitive Sciences and Behavioral & Brain Sciences.
Erik is also a founding partner of RAAAF – Rietveld Architecture-Art-Affordances. RAAAF makes location- and context specific work. The multidisciplinary studio has developed the approach of ‘strategic interventions’, which derives from the respective backgrounds of Erik and the other founding partner, Prix de Rome Architecture laureate Ronald Rietveld.

At TEDxGhent 2015 Erik will share with us RAAAF’s recent creation – the installation called ‘The End of Sitting’. It is a new spatial thinking model, which shows the possibilities of radical change for the working environment, and invites us to explore different standing positions in an experimental work landscape.

Pieter bonte is one of the finalist of TEDxGhent PhD Contest, where some of the masterminds of Ghent presented their research and competed for a spot on the TEDxGhent main stage. He presented findings of his investigation on people’s increasing freedom to change bits and pieces of their own body with pills, surgeries and other biotechnologies. Pieter studied philosophy and law in Ghent and Brussels and spent much of the previous year in Oxford, Yale, Montréal and the Hastings Center.
Fighting the common perception that doping is wrong, on our main stage Pieter will challenge the audience with a ‘million dollar’ questions: ‘Should we rethink anti-doping zero-tolerance?’ His argument will be to encourage you to start making moral progress and stop hating those who enrich their body in adequately healthy, fair, and effortful ways. And he has his way to prove it.

More about TEDxGhent #5 on June 13th here.