File:Brian Christian TEDx ConstitutionDrive.jpg

English: TEDxConstitutionDrive 2012 - Brian Christian - "What Anonymity Teaches Us about Identity"

Our 2012 theme was "Identity"

This year we explored Identity in a way that went beyond the standard gender/race/age lines. We see Identity as the non-genetic DNA of us, one that is co-created by our environments and ourselves, and which drives in a powerful way our choices, our relationships and our lives. Speakers as diverse as Eric Drooker, New Yorker artist, to Beau Lewis, producer of the American Hipster series, to John Murray, scientist at the SRI International labs, came to share their perspectives on Identity.

Brian Christian, poet and author of best-selling The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive

Brian Christian is the author of The Most Human Human, which was named a Wall Street Journal bestseller and a New Yorker favorite book of 2011, and has been translated into ten languages. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, The Guardian, The Paris Review, Gizmodo, AGNI, Gulf Coast, and Best New Poets, and in scientific journals such as Cognitive Science. Christian has been featured on The Charlie Rose Show and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has lectured at Google, Microsoft, the Santa Fe Institute, and the London School of Economics. His work has won several awards, including fellowships at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony and an award from the Academy of American Poets. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Christian holds degrees in philosophy, computer science, and poetry from Brown University and the University of Washington. He lives in Philadelphia.