The ideas and innovation conference TEDx is to return to Bermuda for its fourth year, after a record turnout of 920 guests for 2013’s talks.

TEDx, named for technology, entertainment and design, will be held on October 4 at the Fairmont Southampton hotel.

The conference will feature the British journalist and explorer Oliver Steeds, lecturing on the manned exploration of the ocean depths, as well as actor Adjoa Andoh, who will speak on the topic of raising a transgender child — based in part on her own experiences with her son.

Bermuda’s own reggae artist Uzimon, otherwise known as Daniel Frith, will address the conference on the rise of his novelty stage act into a serious career.

Computer developer Jerome Pesenti will speak on coming advances in cognitive computing, or artificial intelligence, while the “textile alchemist” Lauren Bowker will give a talk on her revolutionary dye that senses shifts in air chemistry, temperature and light and changes colour.

TEDx will also feature Bermudian scuba diver Weldon Wade, founder of the group Bermuda Ocean Explorers, and cyberspace expert Jason Healey, a former policy director for the White House, speaking on security threats emerging from the internet.

Scientist Elizabeth Stokoe of the UK’s Loughborough University, who specialises in conversation analysis, will speak on the topic of the “conversational racetrack”, or the race to understand speech, as well as the pitfalls in conversation that can lead to conflicts.

The conference will hear from Bermudian poet and graphic designer Stephan Johnstone, a Chewstick regular who also performs in Toronto.

Mathematician and entrepreneur Charles Hoskinson is to lecture on the imminent changes from the world of the online payment system Bitcoin, and anthropologist Carl Lipo plans to upend current views on the rise and fall of civilisation on Easter Island — with lessons for Bermuda.

TEDx conferences are non-profit events based on the concept of open collaboration.