TEDxDU’s TEDxChange Speakers on Health and Development ROI
By: Carole Kitchell
The theme of this year’s TEDxChange event was “The Big Picture.”
Organized by Melinda Gates and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, TEDxChange posed the following questions to our global community: Why should we, as a society, continue to invest in global health and development? How can we work across borders and political boundaries to make positive change? And what returns can we expect on our investments? We asked our TEDxDU Salon speakers to address these same questions, and you can watch their Talks here.
Dr. Randall Kuhn, Director of the Global Health Affairs program at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, presented demographic data in support of an intriguing premise. Dr. Kuhn’s research suggests that the ROI on global health could be democracy. Armed with demographic data from “Arab Spring” countries, Dr. Kuhn posits that decades of improvement in health, longevity, and nutrition were fundamental precursors of rising expectations for employment, education, and services that led to revolution.
Dr. Renee Botta is a specialist in international health and development communication and chair of the Department of Film and Journalism Studies at DU. Dr. Botta addressed the tragedy of diarrhea – a preventable illness that kills more than 1.8 million children every year. (TED Curator Chris Anderson and TEDxChange speaker Jeff Chapin also called attention to this horrific waste of life.) Dr. Botta has spent more than a decade working in a Nairobi slum to identify communications messages and tactics that motivate the behavior changes necessary to beat this illness. And as is often the case in spreading ideas, big changes are in the works because of simple ideas, serendipity, and enterprising spirit. Dr. Botta shared the story of Helen, who has started a business in the slum selling liquid soap to her neighbors. How can we work across borders for positive change? “Invest in more Helens,” says Botta.
Favorites from TED 2012
By: Carole Kitchell
Some of our team members had the good fortune to attend TEDActive, the simulcast of the TED Conference. The TEDActive crowd tends to be younger, energetic, and action-oriented, in part because it is heavily populated with TEDx organizers from around the world (more on that in another post).
The days are a roller coaster ride of exciting breakthroughs, heartbreaking injustice, astounding creativity, and unbridled optimism. New talks are being posted on TED.com every day. We recommend keeping an eye out for these favorites:
- Vijay Kumar’s synchronized quadrotor robots
- Susan Cain: The Power of Introverts
- Bryan Stevenson’s hard truths about America’s justice system
- Chip Kidd’s “visual haikus”
- Donald Sadoway’s liquid-metal batteries
TED + Women + DU = TEDxCrestmoorParkWomen
By: DU Blogs Administrator
One of the thrills of being a TEDx organizer is the unexpected opportunity to make a difference, sparked by a TED collaboration.
TEDxCrestmoorParkWomen, taking place on campus Dec. 1 is a result of this serendipity.
TEDxDU learned of another Colorado TEDx group, TEDxCrestmoorPark, which is run by DU alumna Dafna Michaelson (MBA ’01).
You may recognize Dafna’s name from hearing about her “50 in 52″ journey, which received extensive coverage in DU communications and national media (including CBS News Sunday Morning and the University of Denver Magazine.
Michaelson was selected by TED to host the Dec. 1 event in conjunction with TEDxWomen. TEDxWomen is a follow-on to last year’s first TEDWomen conference, which took place in Washington, D.C., and featured Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, Sheryl Sandberg and a host of other powerful women and men speaking on topics of importance to women. While our TEDxDU team has longed to be involved with TEDWomen, the December timing during our winter break has been problematic.
In a “radical collaboration,” Michaelson curated a slate of outstanding local speakers, and TEDxDU is providing our experienced videography and production team.
We hope you’ll join us for TEDxCrestmoorParkWomen: “Breaking Boundaries, Building Community.”
TEDxCrestmoorParkWomen will take place Dec. 1, from 3 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Daniels Commons on the University of Denver campus. There will be about a dozen live speakers, a private livestream of TEDxWomen from New York and L.A., and collaboration with global TEDxWomen events through social media and Skype. Tickets and more information can be found at tedxcrestmoorpark.com.
Words with bite
By: Chelsey Baker-Hauck
Jose Guerrero doesn’t mince words. He turns them over, lifts them up and spits them out at his audience with spirit and conviction and tang.
He says words are a weapon. But not like a bomb. No, more like chemotherapy that fights something ugly and leaves something healed in its wake.
Guerrero says he found his voice through poetry — the voice of a single father, the voice of a “brown” man. A voice he’s shared on HBO and in Denver clubs and in community poetry workshops. A voice that riffs and rhymes, that finds cracks of truth and busts them wide. A voice that grabs people by the guts and yanks them right out of their seats.
“If we really want to, we can make our voices be heard,” he told the TEDxDU 2011 audience.
Out of the shadows
By: Chelsey Baker-Hauck
What do you think of when you think of mental illness? Do you run away from it?
DU student Andrew Steward had to confront it head on.
Several years ago, he started to believe that Jesus was coming back imminently; he headed for the mountains to escape God’s wrath. He began to live in his own inner world. He heard voices; he saw visions of a snake that would repeatedly strike at this chest and bite his heart. He thought Satan was attacking him. ”It was torture.”
A stint in a mental hospital didn’t help. Anti-psychotic medications didn’t help. Steward found the most relief by learning to love himself again.
“When someone breaks their arm, you sign their cast. When someone has a mental problem, you run the other way. Why is that?” he asked the TEDxDU 2011 audience.
Steward says his message is to bring the issue of mental issue into the light. “If you’re out there and you’re going through what I went through,” he said, “you are not alone.”
Waking up again
By: Chelsey Baker-Hauck
When Ramona Pierson was 22 years old, she was hit by a drunk driver while she jogged across the street.
It felt “like a grenade went off in my head,” an emotional Pierson recalled at TEDxDU 2011. She felt her life’s blood spilling out into the street. Her aorta had been severed, her neck sliced open, her legs crushed. She woke up from a coma 18 months later. She was blind and couldn’t walk. She’d had more than 50 surgeries and weighed just 64 pounds.
During her long recovery in a nursing home, Pierson was “adopted” by elderly residents, who took her under their wing and taught her to live again. “I wouldn’t be here today without extreme radical collaboration,” she said.
The accident changed the trajectory of her life and may revolutionize education as we know it.
She went on to earn two master’s degrees and two doctorates. As a blind person, she had to innovate her own education, and she decided to apply those insights to help other students. She went on to found Synaptic Mash, which specialized in differentiated and personalized instruction. Now, she’s working with the University of Denver to develop an “educational ecosystem” that applies an algorithm to match individual learning needs and instructional materials in real time in a technology-rich environment.
Making a polymer think
By: Chelsey Baker-Hauck
According to roboticist Richard Voyles, the reality of science fiction may not actually be too far off, and science fiction doesn’t have to be a predictor of the future.
Speaking at TEDxDU 2011, Voyles said the future of robots as we know them may be in structural computational polymers. Imagine “smart rubber and thinking gel.” Already, Voyles’ team has developed intelligent robot tethers that essentially allow them to essentially push on a rope.
They’re changing the paradigm of computing.
Fearlessness in Action at the TEDxDU Salon
By: DU Blogs Administrator
By Kimmie Greene, TEDxDU
Fearlessness is defined as “brave, bold, intrepid” and is a common trait amongst TED.com speakers. Is fearlessness innate? Is it a learned trait? What are the key ingredients to facing the world without fear?
The TEDxDU Salon event on April 14 offered several answers to these questions and more. The event opened with University of Denver (DU) graduate, Julie Markham, sharing her inspiration for recreating a life of meaning after injury derailed her career as a figure skater.
Honored by USA Today as on of the top-20 undergraduates of 2010, Markham left the ice and found her passion with socially and environmentally responsible companies. Not only did she buy their goods and share her finds with friends, but she also set out to create an online marketplace that offers consumer discounts and directs a percentage of profits to select community causes in the form of micro loans. Greenlighted (www.greenlighted.com) will launch on Jun 15, 2011.
Markham’s intuition and resilience enabled her to shift gears quickly from the highly competitive world of figure skating to the realm of online entrepreneur. “Life is progressive, rather than linear, and I’ve found the key to successfully navigating life’s transitions is don’t be shy, ask the darn question and learn as you go,” Markham shared.
Markham was followed on the TEDxDU stage by current DU undergraduate Andrew Steward, whose life set out on a new path after his emotional health faltered and his family faced the stigma of mental illness. Steward is actively managing his illness and often carries his stress in his throat, which limits the volume of his speech. So, the packed house of more than 200 TEDsters were captivated as Steward struggled to relay his story of regaining control in his life and finding his voice (literally and figuratively).
By sharing his story, Steward hopes – one talk and one person at a time – to help initiate a shift in the way the public thinks about mental illness. He pointed out, “When someone breaks an arm, we rush to sign his or her cast. But when they’re diagnosed with a mental illness, we run away. We need to bring awareness to this issue, we need to stop the stigma.”
Family and friends showered Steward with support during the event and in online conversations about the TEDxDU Salon. It’s obvious that his speech was a milestone in his own personal therapy, but Andrew has his eyes on bigger achievements as he prepares to address the larger audience of TEDxDU fans during the annual conference on May 13.
The TEDxDU Salon wrapped up with a truly authentic jazz vocal performance from another DU undergrad, Molly Cottrell. Cottrell is a senior at the Lamont School of Music, but she’s not waiting for graduation to make her voice known to the world.
With an EP on iTunes and plans to head west to Los Angeles after graduation, Cottrell knows the risks of her chosen career path, but also noted, “Music is my passion. I don’t have a Plan B.” Life without a Plan B enables her to dive headlong into her music and already her voice is turning heads with fellow musicians and critics.
Each of these students represents a new generation of TED speakers who are taking fearless action in their own lives and inspiring others to do the same.
Students, alumna share their passions and more at TEDxDUSalon
By: Jordan Ames
Two University of Denver students and a recent graduate shared stories of following their passions and personal journeys on April 14 at TEDxDUSalon, a student-organized event devoted to “ideas worth spreading.”
TEDxDU speakers announced…
By: Nathan Solheim
Check out the Speakers page to see who’s giving talks at TEDxDU on May 13th!
You’re sure to find a speaker with an idea worth spreading.
