Visionaries walk among us. Smart people, with ground-breaking ideas, best-selling books, nationally known projects and endeavors live right here in Houston. So it's no surprise that when the curators of TEDx Houston looked to fill the speaker roster, they didn't need to look much beyond their own stomping ground.

Once TEDx Houston instigator Javier Fadul received the "go" from parent organization, TED Ideas Worth Spreading, he began gathering a group of community leaders to serve as the nominating committee. Together, they settled on the theme of Expanding Perceptions.

"We aim to expand perceptions of what our city has in store. There are many preconceived notions about Houston and we want to show that there are more fascinating ideas out there," says Fadul, VP of Culture Pilot. "Our audience will have a broader understanding of the many subjects presented, and their perception of our community is bound to grow."

Through a process of voting and discussion, they arrived at a group of Houston scholars, innovators and, yes, visionaries, who will each get their 18 minutes in the spotlight on June 12 at The University of Houston. "Everyone on the committee deserves recognition in their own right," Fadul says.

Speakers range from scientists like Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Maria Oden, to artists like Dominic Walsh and Two Star Symphony, innovators like Gracie Cavnar of Recipe for Success, who has the first lady's ear, and David Crossley of Houston Tomorrow are also included. Check out the complete lineup here.

I recently visited with the first two selected TEDx Houston speakers.

David Eagleman is the director of Eagleman Lab-The Laboratory for Perception and Action. and the author of the best-selling book, SUM, Forty Tales from the Afterlives, and Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia. He's already a TEDx veteran, having presented in the San Antonio TEDx.

Eagleman catapulted into the national limelight with SUM, his whimsical musings on life post death. The book is slated to be turned into an opera in 2011 and the iconic composer Brian Eno has added his own musical take on Eagleman's poetic yet humorous writings.

Long before fiction fame, the neuroscientist spent his days delving into such mysteries as time perception, synesthesia and neuroscience and the law. The Houston TEDx topic is directly up the alley of Eagleman's current scope of research. Take a look at his Discover story on The Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain.

The prolific author has two more books slated for 2011, Dethronement: The Secret Hegemony of the Unconscious Brain and Plasticity: How the Brain Reconfigures Itself. "Everything we do or think is generated by parts of the brain we have no access to. We are riding on top of the fantastic machinery of the chemical and electrical nervous system," Eagleman says. "It's totally foreign to us, yet it is us. Fundamentally it's who we are."

As complicated as the gray matter is, the scientist has no trouble making all 18 minutes meaningful for his listeners. "It's a perfect amount of time to get a message in its distilled form," says Eagleman, who jets all over the globe giving talks. "It's nice to be appreciated in my own backyard."

Dan Phillips, the founder of the Phoenix Commotion, was the first speaker announced. Whether it's discarded picture frames or mismatched remnant tiles, he puts other people's trash to good use. Phillips builds houses for low-income people out of the things we throw away. Not run of the mill homes, but imaginative dwellings that employ our castoffs in highly innovative ways.

"My favorite part is discovering what discarded material could be used in a smashing way, like bottle caps for a floor, reclaiming steel forever," Phillips says. "The amount of materials out there is numbing."

Phillips resists the idea that he's doing anything new. "People have been building with available materials in many third world communities forever," he says from his Huntsville, Texas outpost. "After the civil war we have been banging out houses as a commodity rather than an extension of self. The building industry has been behaving badly for the last 75 years."

Phillips also believe individuals should be included in the design building process. "They should be proud of their house when we are finished," he says.

Although Phillips is used to giving one-hour lectures, he thinks his ideas will transfer well to the condensed lecture format. "Images will scroll in the background while I blast through my ideas," Phillips says. "I can nail all the salient points of what I do in 18 minutes. There's some whimsey involved too. If you don't make people laugh their eyes glaze over."

A story in The New York Times brought Phillips worldwide attention.

"It's been nuts. I have heard from people all over world," he says. "The piece has generated features in magazines all over the place, A crew from Germany just came over. What I bring to the table is not so much skill and technique but concept. Any carpenter can do what I do, anybody with the nerve.

"I hope people take my ideas and run with them."