Artist Drue Kataoka created “A Small Step” to commemorate the first ever TEDx Berkeley: Doing the Unprecedented. In the spirit of TED, the meaning of the painting is up to you the viewers and TEDxsters. It’s a bear in a space suit, walking on the moon, but what does that mean? This original piece will be signed by the speakers and TEDx team.

Here’s a taste of what she’ll be showcasing at TEDxBerkeley:

Again, big thanks to artist and TEDster Drue Kataoka for her contribution to the community.

Recently voted “San Francisco’s Funniest Prop Comedian,” “The Bay Area’s Best Performer,” and “San Francisco’s Best Comedian,” Robert has appeared on CBS This Morning,performed for the United States Congress, and taken his act to more than 30 different countries.

Although Robert specializes as a corporate entertainer, he regularly appears at a broad range of events including conventions, comedy clubs and parties!

No two Robert Strong shows are ever the same! He believes in creating a unique theatrical experience for each audience that is both interactive and simply magical. Robert’s contagious enthusiasm and engaging charisma invariably leave audiences buzzing with excitement and with memories that will last a lifetime!

Drue’s original works are sought after by discerning collectors and investors in Silicon Valley and around the globe. Drue’s non-private commissions include numerous high-profile projects for clients like Nissan, Cisco, SUN Microsystems, Nordstrom, The Koret Foundation, The Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Hoover Institution. Drue recently participated in the first zero-gravity art exhibition in space at the International Space Station. Through her art, she has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for numerous charitable organizations. In 2001, Drue established the endowed Rotary Foundation Drue Kataoka Arts Scholarship.

In March of 2009, Eric submitted the winning proposal to UC Berkeley’s Bears Breaking Boundaries Curricular InnovationContest with the course “The Economics of Philanthropy.”

The proposal beat out twenty-seven other proposals from graduate and undergraduate teams, taking home $5,000 for project implementation. The proposal came to fruition in January 2010 as an upper division course at UC Berkeley.

Thanks to generous support from Doris Buffett, president of the Sunshine Lady Foundation, students in the course will be selecting a Bay Area nonprofit to donate $10,000 to by the end of the Spring 2010 semester.

The UC Men’s Octet is an eight member a cappella singing group comprised of some of the finest male singers at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 1948, the Octet has entertained audiences around the world with its unique mesh of close harmonies and zany antics. Dazzling fans with wide repertoire of barbershop, doo-wop, contemporary pop, modern alternative, and of course, Cal fight songs, the group has released dozens of recordings over the years. The Octet is also the only two-time champion of the International Competition of Collegiate A Cappella.

The group has performed for audiences around the world, having toured the United States, Europe, Australia, Club Med, Indonesia, and most recently, China. We have regular performances on campus and around the Bay Area for alumni groups and the public, culminating in our annual Spring Show. That being said, our most important performances are held on Sproul Plaza each Wednesday at one o’clock in front of our greatest fans, the Cal students.

Dacher Keltner

Dacher Keltner received his BA in Psychology and Sociology from UC Santa Barbara in 1984 and his PhD in Social Psychology from Stanford University in 1989. After a post-doc at UCSF with Paul Ekman, in 1992 he took his first academic job, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and then returned to Berkeley’s Psychology Department in 1996, where he is now a full professor.

Dacher’s research focuses on two time-honored questions. A first is the biological and evolutionary origins of human emotion, with a special concentration on compassion, awe, love, and beauty, and how emotions shape all kinds of judgments. A second is the study of power, status and social class, and the nature of moral intuitions. Dacher is the co-author of two best selling textbooks, one on human emotion, the other on social psychology, as well as Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, published in January 2009 by WW Norton Publishers, and The Compassionate Instinct, to be published by WW Norton in 2010.

Dacher has published over 120 scientific articles, he has written for the New York Times Magazine, The London Times, and Utne Reader, and has received numerous national prizes and grants for his research. His research has been covered in TIME, Newsweek, the New York Times, the BBC, CNN, NPR, and in many other outlets. For his teaching and mentoring Dacher was selected as the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor in 2002, and the Outstanding Teacher, Division of Social Sciences, in 2002. WIRED magazine recently rated Dacher’s podcasts from his course Emotion as one of the five best educational downloads, and the Utne Reader selected Dacher for one of its 50 2008 visionaries. Dacher also serves as the Director of the Berkeley Greater Good Science Center, where he serves as co-editor of the center’s magazine, Greater Good. Dacher lives in Berkeley with his wife, an alumna of Berkeley, and their two daughters.

Bradley Voytek (ketyov.com) is completing his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at
the University of California, Berkeley. He studies the role of brain
rhythms and electrophysiology in attention and memory by working with
patients with electrodes implanted in their brains, patients who have
had portions of their skull surgically removed, and patients with
brain lesions. By working with these rare groups of people and using
sophisticated analysis methods he aims to learn how the brain
communicates to improve patient outcomes.

He collaborates with researchers at top universities around the world on neuroscience and brain mapping.

Bradley Voytek (ketyov.com) is completing his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at
the University of California, Berkeley. He studies the role of brain
rhythms and electrophysiology in attention and memory by working with
patients with electrodes implanted in their brains, patients who have
had portions of their skull surgically removed, and patients with
brain lesions. By working with these rare groups of people and using
sophisticated analysis methods he aims to learn how the brain
communicates to improve patient outcomes.

He collaborates with researchers at universities around the world and
in 2006 he split Time Magazine’s Person of the Year award.