TEDxPortland

“Welcome to the most inspirational, educational day of the year. Welcome to TEDxPortland Year 14!”

- Karina LeBlanc, Year 14 Morning Host, April 11, 2026

“Thank you so much for giving us your time, your curiosity, and your energy.”

- Luis Vargas, Year 14 Afternoon Host, April 11, 2026

“Thank you all for being here at TEDxPortland Year 14.”

- Leon Anderson, Year 14 Closer, April 11, 2026

“This is the f*cking pep-talk, okay? When I say Portland, you say let’s go.”

- Rukaiyah Adams, Year 14 Interview, April 11, 2026

“There were moments where I’ve been shot at. Moments where I’ve participated in hostage rescues. Situations where I’ve been able to successfully talk people off of highway overpasses so that they don’t jump. And as I think through all of these different scenarios I’ve been involved in, one negotiation, more than anything else, stands out as the most challenging, and these negotiations were the ones I had to have at home with my wife.”

- Ryan Dunlap, Year 14 Speaker, April 11, 2026

“We’ve all experienced this. After a long day we go get a drink or have a smoke. No one ever says ‘it’s been a tough week let’s go get a kale salad’. Because when we’re struggling, we want immediate relief. The type that only dompanie service can provide.”

- Milky Kohno, Year 14 Speaker, April 11, 2026

“Our phase two trial in hair loss, if it breeds out well, will actually be one of the first AI-discovered antibody drugs that is shown to work in humans, right here in Portland, Oregon.”

- Sean McClain, Year 14 Speaker, April 11, 2026

“A constructed improv around internal fears and weight I carry feeling like an outsider ~ inspired from my recent work, Inner Symphony. Our inner dialogue. Art lets us arrive. It’s where we get to come home.”

- Lauren Flower, Year 14 Performance, April 11, 2026

.ballet.theatre

“When a community is safe enough for kids to walk and bike to school alone, it works better for everyone.”

- Sam Balto, Year 14 Speaker, April 11, 2026

“We’re entering the third phase of robotics and robots, and I’m here to tell you, it’s going to be great.”

- Jonathan Hurst, Year 14 Speaker, April 11, 2026

Soul Legend and musical icon who has shared stages with James Brown and Otis Redding, Ural Thomas (along with his band The Pain) returned to his native Portland to prove that at 82 years young, his voice and message are more powerful than ever.

- Ural Thomas and The Pain, Year 14 Performance, April 11, 2026

“‘Mom, Dad, I don’t want to be a doctor. I want to be a chef.’ And that conversation went really poorly. In fact, it went worse than my coming-out conversation.”

- Jenny Nguyen, Year 14 Speaker, April 11, 2026