TEDxThacher School

We're pleased to introduce our performers for this evening: the Mattson 2! If you could soundtrack the jangle of the sea and the jazz of the surf, The Mattson 2 would most certainly be the composers. The identical twin guitar and drums duo are truly a marvel of jazz-rock orchestration and arrangement. The duo shimmers and shakes with the soaring modern wizardry of Jared Mattson's untamed, layered guitars and Jonathan Mattson's tribal jazz hard- bop drumming. They channel the ...gorgeously hypnotic gods of surf, sun, and neon-punk-jazz of our modern universe, evoking evolved realms of experimentalism, rhythm, and story. The identical twin’s deep telepathic kinship navigates colorful forms of beautiful weirdness and exotic landscapes of layered improvisation, transcending the concept of modern musical performance. They have toured relentlessly throughout Japan, Brazil, Paris, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands, and the United States. The Mattson 2 have Bachelor’s degrees in Jazz and The African Diaspora from University of California San Diego, and Masters of Fine Arts degrees in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology from University of California Irvine. Mattson 2 have collaborated with Thomas Campbell, Ray Barbee, Tommy Guerrero, Cornelius, Chocolat & Akito Katayose, Money Mark, Nicole Mitchell, Mark Dresser, Farmer Dave Scher, John Herndon, and John McEntire. See more

Our third speaker is Christine Carter CdeP 1990. A Sociologist and Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, Christine Carter, Ph.D., is the author of The Sweet Spot (2015) and Raising Happiness (2011). After receiving her B.A. from Dartmouth College, where she was a Senior Fellow, Dr. Carter worked in marketing management and school administration, going on to receive her Ph.D. in sociology from UC Berkeley. Quoted and featured widely in the media, her books and classes have helped thousands of parents raise joyful children and live lives that maximize their greatest strengths with the greatest ease.

The second speaker we're introducing is William Hockey, Cdep 2008: As a junior at Emory University, William Hockey earned summer internship offers from top tech companies as well as management consulting firm Bain & Company. He chose Bain but went on to co-found computer software company Plaid shortly after graduating. Named to Forbes Magazine’s list of 30 Under 30 Changing the World, Hockey and his partner used their experience working at Bain to create a platform that makes... banking data easier for developers to use. As Hockey puts it, Plaid takes archaic systems like the financial transaction records of banks and credit card issuers and lets smart young people use that data to build new and disruptive companies. In fact, companies have been so impressed with Plaid’s software that popular mobile apps like Foursquare and Venmo, as well as American Express, Chase, and Bank of America, have teamed up with Hockey’s company. See more

Get pumped for the second TEDxThacherSchool event on Friday, October 7th! We're super excited to introduce you to our wonderful set of speakers and entertainers. The first speaker we're introducing is Chris Malloy, professional filmmaker and surfer. Chris is an American documentary and commercial filmmaker who grew up in Ojai California. Before film he spent 1990-2010 as a professional surfer traveling the world pioneering unridden surf breaks. His travels have taken him as f...or north as the Orkney Island and as far south as Antarctica. After his surfing career he has become a consultant and film director for companies such as Patagonia, Yeti, Ford, Chevy, Ram, Jeep, 4Runner, etc. Chris lives near Point Conception California with his wife and three children. He and his family live off grid and spend the majority of their off time producing their own food. See more