Selected as a 2026 TEDxKC Speaker

It's official. I'm one of 15 speakers and performers taking the TEDxKC stage on July 24, 2026 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City.

For anyone who has watched the world of TEDx speakers from the outside, here's the context for why this one feels especially big.

Why TEDxKC Is One of the Most Watched TEDx Events in the World

TEDxKC has been running since 2009. It is one of the largest independently organized TEDx events anywhere, and it holds the TED world record for fastest sellout. Four minutes. It fills the Kauffman Center, a 1,600-seat concert hall whose acoustics and architecture make it one of the most striking venues a keynote speaker can stand on.

The TEDxKC stage has hosted Brené Brown, Arthur Brooks, and a long list of researchers, artists, and thinkers whose ideas have gone on to shape conversations far beyond Kansas City.

For any keynote speaker, TEDx is shorthand for a particular kind of rigor: a tight time limit, an idea worth defending, and an audience that came to think.

The 2026 Theme: The Future of Being Human After All

This year's theme asks a question I have been circling in my research and in my book: what does it actually mean to be human in a moment when so much of our work, our creativity, and our problem solving is being reshaped by technology?

My talk draws from three places.

The first is the framework in The Unexpected Power of Boundaries. The research behind the book kept landing on a counterintuitive finding: the constraints we resist are often the ones generating our best ideas.

The second is fifteen years of photographing wildlife on all seven continents. Standing in subzero wind on an Arctic ice floe waiting for a polar bear teaches you something about what is possible inside a small, hard frame.

The third is a counterintuitive look at how we actually solve hard problems, drawn from primary research with thousands of professionals across industries.

More on the talk itself as it takes shape between now and July.

A Lineup Worth Showing Up For

I get to share the day with a remarkable group of TEDxKC speakers, including:

• Diana Kander, innovation strategist and bestselling author whose work on curiosity I have admired for years

• Amar Bakshi, founder of Portals and faculty member at the MIT Media Lab

• Justin Garcia, evolutionary biologist and executive director of the Kinsey Institute

• Michelle Rozen, behavioral scientist, author, researcher

Fifteen speakers and performers in total, across a single day.

If you have ever sat in an audience and watched a TEDx talk land, you know what makes the format work. Short. Sharp. Built around one idea. That is the discipline, and it is the part I am most looking forward to.

How to Get TEDxKC 2026 Tickets

Tickets go on sale June 5, 2026. Given the four-minute sellout history, they will not last. If you have been thinking about attending a TEDxKC for years and not yet made it, this is the one.

A quick thank you to Mike Lundgren and the TEDxKC team. The work that happens behind the scenes to produce an event at this scale, year after year, is the reason the speakers on stage get to do what we do.

More to come between now and July.

Sheri Jacobs, FASAE, CAE, is a leadership and workforce culture keynote speaker, four-time bestselling author, and founder of Avenue M Group. Her latest book, The Unexpected Power of Boundaries, explores how constraints generate the breakthroughs we credit to creativity. To inquire about booking Sheri as a keynote speaker for your conference, association, or company event, visit sherijacobs.com.