TEDxOdenseWomen celebrates women, sharing success stories from Denmark’s innovators, leaders, and doers who have made a positive impact on their community and/or in their field of work.
This event brings together 5 live unique speakers from Denmark. Our live speakers are presented alongside selected speakers from the global TEDWomen, whose videos are then premiered at TEDxOdenseWomen.
TEDxOdense Women 2018 speakers

Emilie Møllenbach
Product Design Lead at MobilePay
Emilie's story
The small overlap between what we want to create in the world, and what is within our power to create, is the space that designers look for. MobilePay’s product design lead Emilie Møllenbach spends her time understanding how humans interact with digital systems to make simple solutions for complicated problems. She noticed how small changes can have a big impact. A swipe, a click, a keypress, might seem insignificant to most. But to an interaction designer like Møllenbach, great meaning can be found in the smallest of things. What if you could use those same observations to help design a better interface to yourself? “The war for gender empowerment is a war inside of me - And it is not really a gender issue, but an issue of being human” Møllenbach has decades of experience as a digital design academic, educator, and practitioner, and has a personal passion for behavioural, developmental psychology and spiritual self-development. “It’s not about being a woman, it is about being human”

Beatriz Hernandez de Fuhr
Mentor Network's Coordinator at Kvinfo
Beatriz's story
How do we make meaningful connections between two women? Meet Beatriz Hernandez de Fuhr, who has spent the past years connecting over 8000 women together, with an idea that is so simple, and so successful, it has been replicated in 30 countries around the world. KVINFO, the Danish Center for Information of Gender Equality and Diversity, features a Mentor Network designed by anthropologists Gunhild Riske in 2002. It started as a pilot project to enhance integration of immigrant and refugee women into Danish society. By focusing on strengthening women’s active participation in society, KVINFO's Mentor Network helps women achieve goals such as entering the Danish job market and integrating into society. “The most amazing thing about the mentor network is that everybody can contribute, mentors, mentees and also us learn a lot from the process” Beatriz says. “This isn’t just another program, this is a life experience. I help bring real change into the lives of women.”
kvinfo.dk mentor.kvinfo.dk
Lesley Ann Brown
Author and poet
Lesley's story
Trinidadian-American writer and activist, Lesley-Ann Brown, explores motherhood, migration, identity, nationhood and how it relates to land, imprisonment, and genocide for Black and Indigenous peoples. Having moved to Copenhagen, Denmark from Brooklyn over 18 years ago, Brown attempts to contextualise her and her son’s existence in a post-colonial and supposedly post-racial world. Through deeply personal, poetic letters to her son, Brown writes the past into the present – creating a challenging, engaging, beautiful and dramatic talk that starts with the seemingly simple question: What country are you from? “As a woman, my country is the whole world” What treasures lie beneath the surface of our understanding of our mothers, that shape who we are today? What powerful stories guide our existence and understanding of the past? We all have a responsibility to tell our story. Through our exploration and acceptance of other perspectives, can we begin to pave the way towards liberation in hopes of understanding who we truly are? *This talk contains strong language. Viewer discretion is advised.
Instagram: @blackgirlonmars
Facebook: @Lesley-Ann Brown @blackgirlonmars

Jenifer Clausell-Tormos
Founder & CEO at Develop Diverse
Jenifer's story
What if we could check our writing for gender bias using the same tools we use to check for spelling errors? Meet Jenifer Clausell-Tormos, a research scientist with a PhD in Biochemistry and Technology Development, and her software GScan - A spell-checker for gender. If you could remove gender bias from text as easily as you can remove spelling mistakes, how would it change the world? Clausell-Tormos has the idea that technology can help achieve faster gender balance and diversity particularly in businesses. By running her gender scanner over job ads, it can make job descriptions equally attractive to both talented women and men by neutralizing the gender of their content. Gender neutral job ads can lead to a more balanced workforce. “By making every man and woman aware of their own unconscious biases we can change how gender is represented in the workplace”

Mie Pedersen
Mie's story
Mie Pedersen wants to give you a taste of her most creative ideas. 33 year old Pedersen has over 15 years experience in the restaurant industry, and tonight she will share more than just a passion for food. She will serve up the secret stories behind her culinary creations. Giving you more than just a taste of an idea. Designed especially for the exclusive TEDxOdenseWomen dinner, Pedersen’s 12-course menu walks us through the flavours of her stories. From the sweet to the sour, her zest for expression, the essence of childhood, the aromas of a memory, and the seasoning of life. Pedersen puts her best ideas directly on your plate. “I’m passionate about being creative in the kitchen. But I’m also determined, and reach out for my goals. I’m always up for challenges and like to experiment until I get the results I dream of.” Drawing her inspiration from traditional Danish dishes, French cuisine and her own family birthday meals and Christmas lunches, Pedersen reinvents the whole idea of “festive”. She puts an unexpected spin on taste marriages, textures and colours. Get to savour the flavours of Pedersen’s creations as she tells the story of how her exquisite dishes came into existence.

Mary Margaret Sønderlund
Host
Mary's story
“Every day has the potential to expand your perspective.” Your host for TEDxOdenseWomen is the incomparable Meg Larrabee Sønderlund. American born and bred, across California, New York, Massachusetts, Kentucky and North Carolina, Sønderlund made the quantum leap across the pond to Denmark in 1970. Here, she puddle-jumped from art studies, marriage, children, and degrees in English and business from SDU. Sønderlund says she has “worked forever” teaching and coaching English, creating her own one-woman translation bureau, and more recently teaching at TietgenSkolen, then Erhvervsakademiet Lillebælt and now University College Lillebælt. As a mentor to hundreds of students in global communication, innovation and entrepreneurship, Sønderlund’s generous spirit, effervescent personality and kind heart make her the perfect host to guide us through the first ever TEDxOdenseWomen.
“I’m honoured, thrilled and a little terrified.”

Ania Rybacka, Łukasz
Borowicki, Mariusz
Praśniewski
Performer
Impressions from TEDxOdense Women 2018
TedxOdense Women 2018 Partners
Being a part of TEDxOdenseWomen is obvious for us it is an opportunity for sharing successes from women innovators and leaders. We hope to inspire and create a belief among talents to be able to take gender diversity to the next level. Together, we can generate strong and competent female leaders.
Mette Holy Jørgensen, Partner at PwC
Since 1897 First Hotel Grand have held the position as Odenses premier hotel and conference venue. During the years passionate people have shared their ideas, ambitions and results in our restaurant, bar and conference facilities. We are therefore proud to take part in the facilitation TEDxOdense as natural extension of our company DNA.
Tina Jørgensen, Conference and event assistant
In-kind support