TEDxUniversityofMalta Is Back: Here’s A Look At The Five Amazing Speakers For This Year’s Event
Back in 2016, a group of local university students organised the very first TEDxUniversityofMalta conference. The event, titled ‘The Joys of Being’ was held in the university’s common room and included talks from local individuals such as designer Luke Azzopardi and diplomat and author Mikela Fenech Pace.
This year, they’re back with their fourth conference; ‘Quirks‘. Quirks will be held at the Valletta Campus Theatre on the 5th of April, starting at 6:30pm. The event will feature five incredible local speakers and will explore the realities behind our existence; the things that make us unique, the things that we accept as normal, and the way we overcome all of it.
Tickets can be purchased here, but if you still need some convincing, here’s a look at the five spectacular speakers who will be gracing the VCT stage
1. Matthew Bartolo
Matthew Bartolo is a counsellor specialising in Sex and Relationships. He is the founder of Willingness Malta: a multi-disciplinary team working together to offer professional services related to Family, Sex and Health.
Matthew has presented in both international and national conferences. He has taught and delivered talks to diverse professional organisations, as far away as Guatemala, about the importance and manner of dealing with sex and sexuality with clients. Having worked with a lot of different people, he has learnt a lot about life’s challenges and how different people cope with them.
His professional yet informal way of approaching and discussing the subject makes it easy for his audience to discuss the topic.
2. Chucky Bartolo
Chucky Bartolo is a man with a loud opinion and an even louder laugh. Always ready to grab a drink and talk about everything from drag to dragons, Chucky enjoys late-night conversations, early-morning video games and not feeling uncomfortable when writing about himself in the third person.
A graduated architect who has yet to use his degree, Chucky is patient zero when it comes to next-project syndrome. As you read this, he already cannot wait to get excited, caffeine-fuelled and inevitably burnt out over the next big exciting idea that comes his way.
3. Ibtisam Sadegh
Ibtisam Sadegh is a PhD researcher in an ERC project hosted at the University of Amsterdam that compares how particular kinds of Muslim marriages are problematized and how the people engaged in such marriages evaluate them. She is currently writing an ethnographic dissertation on the celebration and problematization of interfaith couples in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta where she lived for 14 months. She previously obtained a Doctor of laws at the University of Malta having conducted a comparative research on religious courts and tribunals in Malta, and England and Wales. As a Maltese Muslim, growing up in Malta within a mixed background, her research interests include mixed marriages, religious identities and minority communities.
4. Marc Casolani
Influenced by his colleagues whilst working on the set production of ‘Munich’, and then followed by a comical yet decisive catch up with two old friends, Marc started exploring our beautiful planet at the age of 19. He went around South America for six months and the things they experienced from this backpacking adventure were physically, spiritually and visually life changing. Marc has been travelling since then and has been lucky enough to have explored parts of Central & South America, Africa, Asia and Australia. He has documented all his travels through his Photography.
Through his photography, Marc wishes to share his experiences of everyday life – not only where he comes from but also where he has lived as a nomad for months on end; from scenic wonders to the portraits of a person whose face can tell the story of a hundred words, added on by the variety of wildlife that is found here on Earth.
Apart from his passion in travel and photojournalism, Marc has carried out work in the commercial sector of photography. From corporate, wedding and location photography to sporting events and news events.
5. Konrad Buhagiar
Konrad Buhagiar is an executive director and founding partner of AP Valletta. He has been responsible for numerous restoration and rehabilitation works in historic buildings and urban sites.
Konrad has lectured at the University of Malta and, among the others, at the Canterbury University College of Creative Arts and at the New York University. He published numerous historical and academic articles. He has been the Chairman of both the Heritage Advisory Committee and the Valletta Rehabilitation Committee. Konrad is also the chief editor behind AP’s ‘A Printed Thing’ and ‘Founding Myths of Architecture’ publications.
