You don’t need an opponent to beat you. You do it yourself: every day, with the same words, until you believe them to be the truth.
As a boy, Tommy trained in two areas simultaneously. Visibly: his strokes, his fitness. Invisible to others, a second routine ran just as disciplined, on a continuous loop: ‘You can’t do it!’ Nobody saw that second training session.

He himself ignored it. That wasn’t self-criticism. It was a manifestation. By the age of 21, the dream of Wimbledon was over. What remained were debts amounting to the Wimbledon prize money.

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In *The Power of Losing: Learnt Lies*, Tommy shows how ingrained routines made his life difficult: on the tennis court, in his first business, and at a point in his life he kept quiet about for years.

As a companion on your first step, here’s three dollars for you. No guarantees, just a little encouragement, a compass for your first step. You take that step yourself, and that is precisely what makes you the hero of your story.

Hanna Harutyunyan is a robotics engineer, analog astronaut, and founder and CEO of the space-tech startup Astra Mindcore.

Widely recognized for her pioneering work in robotics and space simulation research, she has completed high-fidelity lunar and Martian simulation deployments across Europe, including the ESA-supported Axiom-4 simulated analog mission where she was the youngest crew member onboard and served as a mission engineer.

In her TEDx talk, Hanna explores the unspoken realities of this unconventional trajectory, the isolation of high achievement, the skepticism faced  as a young pioneer, and how forging an uncharted  path becomes the ultimate launchpad for deeper  space innovation.

When people hear "first Armenian analog astronaut" or "space-tech CEO," they imagine a glamorous life of open doors. But what happens when you are a young woman from a small country where those doors never existed?

In this talk, Hanna Harutyunyan explores the unspoken reality of high achievement:

it is incredibly lonely. From being questioned because of her age to watching the room's dynamic shift only after she lists her credentials, Hanna reveals the isolation of becoming overqualified for a "normal" life.

She shares how the necessity of building her own opportunities required her to abandon everyday human routines, creating a barrier between herself and the people around her. The surprising twist?

The exact loneliness and isolation that make trailblazing so difficult are the very tools you can use to hack your time, protect your bandwidth, and build a launchpad for your greatest goals.

Lars-Peter Kamolz, M.D., M.Sc., is a surgeon, scientist, innovator, and academic leader dedicated to shaping the future of medicine.

Born in Berlin, Germany, he studied Medicine at the University of Vienna and later completed a Master’s degree in Quality and Process Management at Danube University Krems. He is a board-certified Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgeon and has spent much of his career at the intersection of surgery, regenerative medicine, research, and innovation.

Since 2012, he has been Professor and Head of the Division of Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Medical University of Graz. He also serves as Deputy Chief Medical Officer of LKH-University Hospital Graz. Since 2018, he has been Director of COREMED – Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Precision Medicine at JOANNEUM RESEARCH, and since 2023, he has served as Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Medical University of Graz.

His scientific work focuses on one central question: How can we turn today’s scientific discoveries into tomorrow’s medicine? His research spans regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, wound healing, burn care, healthy ageing, precision medicine, patient safety, and emerging medical technologies. Increasingly, his work explores how artificial intelligence, robotics, digital technologies, and regenerative approaches can transform healthcare and redefine what is medically possible.

He has authored or co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications, contributed to numerous books and book chapters, and serves as an editor, editorial board member, and reviewer for several international scientific journals. His scientific and clinical work has received multiple national and international awards and distinctions.

For Kamolz, the most exciting aspect of medicine is its constant evolution. Many technologies that seemed like science fiction only a few decades ago are already part of clinical reality. Artificial intelligence can support medical decision-making, robots can assist surgeons with extraordinary precision, and regenerative medicine is beginning to explore how damaged tissues can be restored rather than simply repaired.

His vision is that the future of medicine will not be defined by a single breakthrough, but by the convergence of human expertise, artificial intelligence, robotics, and regenerative medicine. At the heart of this transformation, however, must remain the same principle that has always defined good medicine: the human being.

Imagine telling a doctor 40 years ago that artificial intelligence would one day help diagnose diseases, robots would assist surgeons in highly complex procedures, and living cells and engineered tissues could be used to regenerate damaged parts of the human body. It would have sounded like science fiction.

Today, much of this has already become clinical reality. And we are only at the beginning. Medicine is entering a new era shaped by three powerful forces: regenerative medicine, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Each of them has the potential to transform healthcare. But their true power will emerge when they come together. Regenerative medicine is changing one of the fundamental ideas of medicine. For centuries, our primary goal has been to treat disease, repair damage, and compensate for lost function. Tomorrow, we may increasingly be able to restore function, regenerate tissues, and perhaps even replace what the human body has lost. Artificial intelligence adds another dimension. It allows us to recognize patterns hidden within enormous amounts of data, predict risks, support clinical decisions, and move from standardized treatment toward truly personalized medicine. Robotics, meanwhile, extends the capabilities of the human hand, enabling extraordinary precision and opening new possibilities in surgery, rehabilitation, and patient care. Yet the greatest revolution may not be any single technology.

It is the speed at which innovation is accelerating and technologies are converging. Biology meets engineering.  Medicine meets data science. Artificial intelligence meets robotics. Developments that once required decades may increasingly happen within years. What seems impossible today may become tomorrow’s clinical routine. This also changes what it means to be a doctor. The future will not be about humans competing with machines. Technology should not replace clinical judgement, responsibility, creativity, or empathy. Instead, it should amplify our abilities and give us more opportunities to focus on what matters most: the patient. The real question is therefore not whether technology will transform medicine – it already does.

The question is how we will use it to create better, more personalized, more regenerative, and more human healthcare. The future of medicine is not about replacing humans with technology. It is about using technology to expand what humans are able to heal. And perhaps the most exciting thought is this: the future of medicine has already begun – but we have only seen the beginning of what will become possible.

Monique Kozlakidis has a naturally international, multilingual life-perspective: born to immigrant parents and grandparents and brought up in South Africa, she has lived in both UK and USA, and now has a multi-lingual, multinational household.

As Project Manager at the Nanopoulos Foundation, Monique is focused on implementing projects within the AI Digital Health Hub. She has a particular focus on building supportive, well informed open communities and communications, and turning that engagement into strong stakeholder relationships and sustainable impact.

Monique believes in the potential of AI to improve health outcomes and access, and proudly supports the Foundation's goals of advancing health equity through open dialogue and global collaboration by bringing  together diverse voices across disciplines, cultures and career stages, championing inclusive, accessible dialogue that connects international perspectives with local impact.

According to the most recent statistics, one in three adults now turns to AI chatbots for health advice — even though most of them aren't sure they can trust what they're told. As health decisions move online, ordinary people are being asked to do the work of credibility-checking, myth-busting, and risk assessment — often alone, any time of the day or night, often with no training for doing so.

Digital health literacy is usually framed as a skills gap: teach people to search better, read more carefully, click the right buttons. But this completely misses the real problem. I believe that digital health literacy isn't an individual issue to fix. It's a systems challenge, a fault line in our society regarding who holds power in the digital age.

Moving forward means pushing past access and convenience toward something bigger: equity, trust, and the redesign of the systems people are forced to navigate.

What would it take to build that future — and who gets to shape it?

Corina Madreiter-Sokolowski is a molecular biologist and Professor at the Gottfried Schatz Research Center, Medical University of Graz, where she serves as Deputy Head of the Division of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. Her research explores how mitochondria communicate with the rest of the cell — and how that communication changes as we age.

After her Ph.D., she conducted research at various institutions including ETH Zurich and Les Laboratoires Servier (Paris), before starting her own group in Graz. With her team, she uses cutting-edge fluorescence microscopy across various aging models to understand the cellular processes that drive age-related diseases.

Funded by multiple FWF grants, she has received honors including the Elisabeth Lutz Prize (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and the Award of Excellence from Austria's Ministry of Education and Research.

She's also active in science communication and published *Der Code zum Jungbleiben*.

Right now, most of your cells are having a conversation you will never hear — one that has been running for roughly 1.5 billion years, and quietly shapes your future. That conversation happens between our cells and a bacterium that moved in long ago and never left: the mitochondrion, the "powerhouse of the cell." True — but incomplete.

Mitochondria don't just produce energy as ATP — they also produce reactive oxygen species, signals essential for cells to adapt but capable of overwhelming them too. Both depend on calcium arriving from a close neighbor, the endoplasmic reticulum, at contact points.

Molecular biologist Corina Madreiter-Sokolowski studies this exchange — and what happens as cells age. We picture aging as things going quiet. Her research suggests otherwise: this conversation intensifies with age, shaping how well we age.

This talk takes us inside a relationship running unnoticed in your cells right now — and asks what it might take to keep it healthy for a lifetime.

How many times have you told yourself, “I can’t do it” – and believed it?

For Isabella Ošaben, those four words became a recurring soundtrack throughout her life. From becoming a musical actress to standing on stage, she encountered moments that made her question whether she was good enough, talented enough or capable enough.

Through self-doubt, failure, rejection and the sudden loss of her profession during the COVID-19 pandemic, Isabella discovered that “I can’t” is often not a fact. Sometimes it is a story we tell ourselves. Sometimes it is a limit someone else has placed upon us. And sometimes, it simply means that we haven’t found another way yet. With humor, vulnerability and powerful personal stories, Isabella takes the audience into the moments that shaped her. She explores how we can challenge the limits we believe in, trust ourselves and find new paths when the old ones are no longer available.

What happens when the voice telling you “you can’t” is challenged? And what if your biggest transformation truly begins precisely where you thought your story had ended?

This is a story about stages, setbacks, unexpected turns and the courage to discover what is possible when you stop taking “I can’t” for an answer. It invites us to look at moments of doubt differently — and to wonder whether the answer might be waiting on the other side of “I can’t.”

Because sometimes, the moment you think everything is over may be the moment you discover who you were meant to become.

Pamela Waked is a biomedical scientist with a background in biochemistry and biomedical sciences and a strong interest in the intersection of science, health, technology, and society.

Her research experience spans molecular and translational medicine, with a particular interest in understanding how biological differences shape health and disease.

Beyond research, Pamela is passionate about science communication, global health advocacy, and strengthening the dialogue between science, policy, and society. Her international experiences across the Middle East and Europe have shaped her curiosity about how scientific knowledge translates into real-world impact.

She believes that asking better questions - and challenging assumptions we often take for granted - is essential to building a more thoughtful and inclusive future for science and healthcare.

A mouse. A clinical trial. A sleeping pill. An algorithm. They seem unrelated but they tell the same story.

For decades, biomedical science often relied on male biology as a reference point, quietly shaping what medicine came to consider “normal.”

Many of those assumptions are now being challenged but just as we begin to correct the past, its data is becoming the foundation of AI-powered healthcare.

The Default Human traces this hidden thread from the laboratory to the algorithm, revealing how scientific choices become standards- and how standards can quietly become “normal.”

As we teach machines to understand human health, an urgent question emerges:

whose version of “human” are we teaching them?

Simon Walch is a mechanical engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, and passionate advocate for adaptive mountain biking based in Graz, Austria. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering and has been working at the intersection of engineering, mobility, outdoor sports, and adaptive technology since 2007. Simon is the founder and managing director of RESET Adaptive Mountain Bike Solutions and the inventor of the Ranger, an adaptive mountain bike developed to give people with disabilities the opportunity to experience the freedom, independence, and adventure of riding in a completely new way. Through his work, he has helped shape the field of adaptive mountain biking and continues to explore how technology and creative engineering can remove barriers rather than simply accepting them. His perspective is also deeply personal.

After sustaining a spinal cord injury (SCI), Simon experienced first-hand how quickly familiar abilities, routines, and opportunities can disappear. As an engineer, however, he found himself approaching his new situation with the same curiosity he had always brought to technical challenges: If the old way no longer works, what could a new way look like? This question became the foundation for his journey back to mountain biking and eventually for the development of the Ranger.

For Simon, adaptive technology is not about focusing on what a person has lost. It is about creating the conditions to discover what is still possible — and perhaps even possibilities that were never considered before. Simon combines his technical background with lived experience, entrepreneurial thinking, and a strong belief in perseverance. His work is driven by the idea that limitations do not have to define the future, and that challenges can become catalysts for innovation, personal growth, and unexpected opportunities.

At the heart of his work is a simple philosophy: when life changes the path you are on, you do not always have to find your way back. Sometimes, the most meaningful journey begins when you accept the challenge, stop looking at what has been lost, and start building a new way forward.

What if the biggest challenge isn’t what you’ve lost, but how you choose to look at what comes next?

After a spinal cord injury, life can suddenly seem defined by limitations: what you can no longer do, where you can no longer go, and which opportunities seem to have disappeared. But what happens when you stop looking at the loss and start looking at the challenge?

Simon Walch shares his personal journey of finding a new way forward — from facing life after an SCI to getting back on a mountain bike. As a mechanical engineer, he approached the challenge not simply as something to accept, but as something to understand, rethink, and solve. This journey eventually led to the development of the Ranger, an adaptive mountain bike designed to make new possibilities accessible and to give people with disabilities the opportunity to experience freedom and adventure on the trails.

But this is not just a story about cycling. It is about what happens when we change our perspective on challenges. It is about resilience, engineering, creativity, and the courage to question what we believe is possible. It is about turning a personal setback into a reason to build, experiment, and create something new — not only for yourself, but for others who face similar barriers.

The talk explores why accepting a new reality does not have to mean accepting its limitations, and how the right mindset can transform a lost opportunity into an unexpected new beginning.

Because sometimes, moving forward doesn’t mean finding your way back. It means discovering a new way to move.