TEDx Siena Turns 10 and Moves to the Teatro dei Rozzi: the 2026 Edition Is About Courage
A milestone that also opens a new chapter. TEDx Siena turns ten, and to celebrate a decade of innovation, stories and dialogue with its community it is stepping up, moving for the first time into one of the city’s landmark cultural venues: the historic Teatro dei Rozzi. The date is set for Saturday, October 17, 2026, with a full day devoted to conversation and inspiration.
Courage as an everyday force
At the heart of this tenth-anniversary edition is a word as essential as it is complicated: courage. Far from a heroic surge or an exceptional gesture reserved for a few, courage is told by TEDx Siena as a quiet, everyday force. It is the practical energy behind the decisive choices of our lives, the one that lets us move through uncertainty, stay present in doubt and imagine new possibilities even when everything around us suggests caution, retreat or silence.
Through the talks of high-profile speakers from different fields, the theme will take shape along several lines. There will be the courage of science, which challenges established paradigms to measure itself against the unknown, and the courage of sport, made of limits faced head-on, falls and hard-won restarts. Then there is art, which lays vulnerability bare and breaks the usual expressive patterns, and civic and social commitment: the choice to take a stand, build community and turn fragility into concrete action.
An alliance between the city and its universities
This anniversary is also the moment of the closest collaboration yet between the event and the city. More than ever, the bond with the territory has turned into a deep partnership between institutions and academia. It is a shared vision made official by the agreement signed by the Comitato TEDx Siena — represented by the Associazione Smart City Lab — the Comune di Siena, the city government, the Università degli Studi di Siena (with professor Maria Pia Maraghini as license holder) and the Università per Stranieri di Siena, the city’s university for international students.
The alliance strengthens the event’s role as an open platform for dialogue and a meeting point for residents, students, culture and local business, backed by longtime partners such as The B-Side and Pangea, alongside the project since the very beginning.
The program and tickets
The program on Saturday, October 17 starts in the morning and runs through the whole day. Alongside the talks on stage there will be entertainment performances and dedicated networking moments, designed to spark new connections between different experiences and points of view.
Tickets go on sale in the coming weeks on Eventbrite, while the names of the speakers and guests who will take the stage at the Teatro dei Rozzi will be revealed gradually through the official TEDx Siena social channels.
