The first Gustavus TEDx event in Nobel Hall
What a coup. What an amazing collection of speakers! Dave Newell and his student team scored a TEDx event and it was so good, it made 4 hours in Wallenberg fly by. That alone is worth considering….
Every speaker was coming from such a different space, and yet what I got from them was very thematic: the power of the one to make significant social change happen. Whether in the local community, the larger US, or internationally; whether in service organizations or big-time corporations, we are all engaged in the changes that must happen for a just world. Just reading the descriptions of the speakers did not allow me to make those connections, which I guess is the whole point of a TED conference.
There were multiple times during the Talks where I felt like the speakers were talking directly to my own challenges and experiences. Neal Hagberg, for example, made me re-consider how I approach being open-minded when how I THOUGHT I was being open-minded is actually not so open. And Katie Boone challenged all of us, and me personally, to re-consider the power of sheer determination combined with non-judgmental relationships based in love to enact the possible.
The crowd enthusiastically welcomed Dave’s comment at the close that this was the first of many to come. After students edit the Talks and send them to TED for posting, I can’t wait to see them again. Being on the TED map is amazing.