Some rules are made to be followed.
Others are meant to be challenged, reimagined, or reshaped.
Thankfully, Akron is a city of rule-makers, breakers, benders, and shakers.
This year’s TEDxAkron event invites speakers who have questioned the status quo, redefined boundaries, or seen the world through a different lens. 2025’s “Shaking the Rules” isn’t just about rebellion—it’s about vision, exploration, and the courage to ask, What if? From bold innovations to quiet revolutions, from rethinking history to redesigning the future, our speakers will explore the gray spaces where transformation happens. Because sometimes, progress isn’t about breaking the rules—it’s about shaking them.
Are you interested in becoming a 2025 Shaking The Rules Sponsor? Become one of the leading companies, businesses, or individuals who are excited to support one of the brightest events of the year, celebrating Akron’s big ideas in 2025. Learn more here to help us make Akron a bigger, smarter, more wonderful place to live.
Are you ready to Shake The Rules, Akron?
Meet your 2025 TEDxAkron Speakers:
SirDiamond Jones
From viral storyteller to fierce advocate, SirDiamond Jones is proof that vulnerability is a superpower. At just 26, he’s built a digital community of over half a million followers—by showing up, speaking out, and making space for others to feel seen.
LEARN MORE ABOUT SIRDIAMOND HERE!
Garth Bender
Garth Bender believes that sometimes, the most revolutionary thing you can do... is knock on a stranger’s door with a pie. A former archaeologist turned advertising creative, Garth’s story spans cities, careers, and generations, but it’s his return to Akron that’s rooted him most deeply. Now raising his family here, he’s reimagining what it means to be a good neighbor, a present parent, and a lifelong learner.
LEARN MORE ABOUT GARTH HERE!
Angie Haze
Angie Haze isn’t just a musician: she’s a movement. With a voice made for the haunted and the hopeful, Angie creates songs that speak directly to survivors, dreamers, and anyone who's ever felt like their story was too heavy to carry alone.
Gabe Minson
Gabe Minson is an artist, a thinker, a builder of community, and a fourth-generation Akronite with roots that run deep and branches that reach everywhere. At just 21, they’ve already woven themselves into the city’s fabric: serving food at distros, making art, showing up for others, and asking big questions about identity, possibility, and what it means to belong.
Abby Darin-Evans
Abby Darin-Evans (they/she) is the kind of person who brings calm energy to chaos—and probably shows up with snacks, a book recommendation, and a great CPR training anecdote, too. A community builder by nature and a rule-bender by choice, whether reshaping traditions on the Torchbearers Board or just trying to remember where her energy ends and someone else’s chair begins (“not my chair, not my problem”), Abby is showing up—anxieties, authenticity, and all.
Dr. Cristina González Alcalá
Dr. Cristina González Alcalá isn’t just shifting narratives, she’s reengineering them. A proud Mexican-born changemaker and systems strategist, Cristina blends data, heart, and lived experience to build a more equitable Akron from the inside out. She’s also the kind of leader who carries optimism and complexity, and someone who radiates light but isn’t afraid to talk about the dark.
2pm Saturday, September 13th, 2025 — The Knight Stage at the Akron Civic Theater