Have you met TED?
Not Ted Mosby the Architect — no, this TED (all capital letters) is quite different from the Ted on the CBS show How I Met Your Mother.
Even though TED, much like Ted Mosby, is extremely entertaining, and has been providing a growing audience with insight for much of the last decade, TED (which is actually an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design), unlike Ted Mosby, is not a person (or an actor), but rather a growing non-profit founded in 1984. Accordingly, it might actually be much easier to meet TED than it would be to meet the star of a television show.
Originating as a ‘one-time’ conference meant to bring together Silicon Valley’s most innovative speakers on Technology, Entertainment and Design, TED has now (with the help of technology) expanded to include a large number of venues — spanning from NPR’s TED radio hour, to online TED talks, to volunteer-run and locally-organized TED conferences, called ‘TED to the x’ events (Tedx for short). Therefore, it has become increasingly easy for individuals to ‘meet’ TED.
In fact, those who happened to be in Baltimore last Friday were given a unique opportunity to become intimately acquainted with TED.
On Jan. 25, Morgan State University (a mere 10-minute drive from the Hopkins bubble) hosted Baltimore’s first TEDx event.
TEDx events are independently-organized events that allow members of a community to share their own stories. The TED organization lends its name and its specific format requirements (including length, style and general purpose of the speeches), but most of the event organization relies primarily on the work of committed volunteers. Thus, the event is allowed some degree of flexibility and can be designed in order to best fit with the interests and needs of the local community.
The overarching theme selected for Baltimore’s own TEDx conference was ‘Rewire Baltimore’, with an emphasis placed on community development, individual agency and hope for the future. The conference consisted of a day-long selection of various speakers who spoke of their past experiences with the city as well as their hopes and dreams for the future.
Each speaker brought a new and unique interpretation to the theme, ranging from Lance Lucas, the founder of Digit All Systems, an organization aimed at providing jobs in technology to underprivileged students, to Ellen Durkan, a local artist who uses wires to create functional fashion art. Other talks included former Colt’s player Joe Ehrmann, who spoke on the responsibility of our society to ‘rewire’ the thinking of what it means to be ‘a man’, and Dr. Edward Rodriguez, who, aided by new developments in medical technology, successfully performed the most extensive face transplant to date on man who had been severely deformed by a ballistics injury that was received in overseas combat.
“It’s the kind of event that simultaneously inspires you and makes you feel completely inadequate,” said junior Vicky Plestis.
Plestis particularly spoke regarding her astonishment at the incredibly low average age of the collective speakers. Though TED talks are generally given by adults who have a long history of success in their given field, TEDxBaltimore hosted an almost unheard of amount of youth-aged participants as well.
“Before the TEDxYouth Event, we agreed that we would take one student. Today, we have ended up with 78 students,” said the MC of the event, as he introduced Dan Trahey, the director of Baltimore ORCHkids, to the stage.
Trahey began by sharing a brief story about the program that he started in conjunction with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in order to involve inner city Baltimore youth in musical endeavors. The story, he felt, illustrated the importance of working with the community in order to create a realistic and effectively transformative program.
“We now hold our concerts on street corners,” he explained, “We play Beyoncé as well as Beethoven.”
Another community-driven addition to the program that Trahey noted was the program’s creation of a ‘bucket band’, which gave the children the opportunity to learn basic drum rhythms by playing on large home-depot paint buckets.
Following his speech, Trahey then invited the entirety of his youth ‘orchestra’ on stage. The amazing energy of the children as they played seeped into the audience, as many members began to dance in their auditorium seats.
Appropriately, it seems that Trahey’s speech pinpointed the exact sentiment that makes TEDx so incredibly effective — each community has unique and individual needs, and it is imperative that these needs be distinguished in order to create an impact on the community.
Aside from Trahey’s student band, the conference also featured several speeches given by inspiring high school students, as well as by one student who had chosen not to go to college after earning a two-year-long fellowship to pursue her dream of diminishing world poverty.
One of the high school students, Keimmie Booth, spoke about her experiences with her high school robotics team and the great number of opportunities that she had received as a consequence of her involvement.
“I’m sharing my robotics experience with you to promote dream chasing,” Booth said as she neared the end of her speech, “Whether your dream is to be a doctor, an athlete, a musician or a fashion designer, just find something you are passionate about, and find something that you can do right now ... and don’t let your age or the city that you are from stop you.”
