“Picture in our mind someone who has a political view opposite of your own. Ask yourself this simple question. Can you listen to this person speak?”
With these three sentences, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Ashok Ramasubramanian kicked off the first-ever TEDx “Imagination to Innovation” event in the Olin Auditorium on Sunday afternoon.
When asked about the lack of visual aids in his nearly 20- minute talk, Ramasubramanian responded, “Powerpoints can be distracting, eye-contact is so important to any good presentation. I didn’t want anything on the screen, but the organizers required the TEDx sign to be projected above my head for branding.”
TED, Technology, Entertainment and Design, is a 33- year-old organization that is known for hosting famous and influential speakers who share their ideas through “TED talks.”
The “x” next to the red letters of Union College’s TED sign signifies the independence of this event from the actual organization.
The event featured 11 speakers over the course of five hours split into three sections with two snack breaks.
There was a wide range of topics and a diverse groups of speakers presented.
Each speaker was professionally recorded with video cameras, lights and microphones from multiple angles.
This footage will later be split up into the individual speakers, edited and then sent to the official TED organization to be reviewed and then posted on YouTube as public domain.
Professor of Biology Nicole Theodosiou told her story of how the bowerbird, a strange species of Australian fowl that builds intricate Fairyhouse type nests to attract female mates, taught her how to be a more effective teacher with creative and independent students.
Professor Theodosiou ended her talk with this piece of advice: “To answer big messy questions of climate change, fake news and social inequality, we need some more bowerbird twenty-first century thinking, not, “What am I looking for and what is going to be on the test?’”
Two current students, Sahil Khullar ’19, who is interested in economics and entrepreneurship and Aaron Wu ’20, a biology and economics interdisciplinary major in the Leadership in Medicine program, gave talks about connecting with the elderly and rethinking the meaning of death respectively.
TEDx was the brainchild of Abdelrahman Mohamed ’21, who is a biomedical engineering and economics double major.
Mohamed created a TEDx event in his high school in Egypt. During the Leadership Pre-Orientation Program, he met Talha Janjua ’19 who, through his connections and experiences, helped him organize the event. Together, they took the idea to Student Forum.
They initially asked for $15,000 to fund lighting, props and to be able to bring in a wide range of speakers from outside the campus.
While Student Forum was in favor of the idea of a TEDx Conference on campus, they did not agree to the funding request.
In an interview about the process, Mohamed said that preparation was “a lot of work but really exciting.”
He continued, “The entire team was really passionate about having the event and that made things a lot easier.”
“As a team we must have sent more than 900 emails to different people asking for help,” Mohamed said about efforts to secure funding.
Eventually, the team found an opportunity with only weeks before the planned date of the event.
The Union Intellectual Enrichment Grant Board granted the organizers $1,000 to pay for speakers and the setup.
They were also given an additional $500 from the Union College Speaker’s Forum.
In the end, the funding was enough to pay for the props, an improvised wooden TED sign and people to film.
“We’re really grateful for all the support given to us by members of the Union community, without which this event would have died,” said Mohamed. “And it turned out to be a real success with 11 great speakers and the sold out capacity.”