TEDx Youngstown Spreads Message of Innovation
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Kellie Brautigan of Boardman, a teacher at Canfield High School, says she was excited when she heard about the first TEDxYoungstown event. Brautigan, who teaches English, reports she often watches TED talks online and uses them in her classroom on a weekly basis.
“I’ve always wanted to be a part of it and see this event live, and the fact that it’s happening here is a fantastic, innovative thing to happen in Youngstown,” she remarked. “I wanted my students to be a part of it so they’re watching the stream of it today at school and we’re talking about it via the Internet. It’s a really good experience.”
Brautigan was among the 100 guests at the inaugural TEDxYoungstown event, which took place Friday at Youngstown State University. Although attendance was limited to 100 at the site, the event was available for viewing online at streamed at watch events such as select branches of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.
TED is an acronym that stands for technology, entertainment and design. The first TED conference was in the 1980s and about five years ago the TED organization began offering licenses to local communities and businesses to organize their own independently organized versions of the conference, or TEDx.
“TED is ideas worth spreading,” said Lori Shandor, curator of the event. “It’s an opportunity for a community to put people on stage -- put thinkers and doers and people with ideas on stage – to innovate, to collaborate and to inspire others to make change. It’s a great opportunity for a community such as Youngstown to showcase the people who are doing great things.”
The inaugural TEDxYoungstown featured 18 speakers – including four prerecorded talks from prior TED events -- addressing innovation in various forms. The subjects ranged from business and farming to music, mindfulness and even sports fandom as a means of global interaction.
The Mahoning Valley has seen “a lot of change” during the past 10 to 15 years, “and a lot of that has come from innovation,” either from companies coming to the area or people moving, Shandor said. “So now is a key time to bring this event here and for us to give an opportunity to have a sounding board and to inspire each other through our thoughts and through our ideas,” she remarked.
The daylong event’s first speaker was Rob Gorham, deputy director for technology development at America Makes, as the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute in Youngstown now brands itself. Rather than addressing 3-D printing technology, Gorham’s talk addressed the innovation sparked by a poster back in grade school offering that not everyone can be “the shiniest crayon in the box,” or a desired color like sky blue or fire-engine red.
“It’s the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When individuals and organizations collaborate, “we can do amazing things,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-17 Ohio, discussed mindfulness, a topic he has written a book about and the subject of this week’s cover story in Time Magazine. Ryan, who was elected to his first political office in 2000, says he came to the conclusion about five years into his political career that if he kept up his pace at the time he would be burnt out by age 50.
“We’ve got to get out of this mode if we go faster on the treadmill or steeper on the treadmill we’re going to end up where we want to be,” Ryan said. “That’s not always necessarily the case. Sometimes it’s about slowing down, being in the moment and seeing the world from that vantage point.”
Brautigan said she found the talks to be “really inspiring” and looked forward to returning to her classroom to discuss the speeches with her students and how they can utilize the talks in their lives.
“I especially like the fact there’s one common theme but people have adapted that into their own personal themes and stories,” said Katie Wise, an assistant account executive for Stonewall Group, an advertising and marketing agency in Marietta. “I liked the talks on the educational system and [Ryan’s] talk was especially eye opening,” she remarked.
Among the talks Ronald Cornell Faniro, of Faniro Architects Inc., Youngstown, found impressive was the recorded speech by Aimee Mullins, an athlete, actress and fashion model who wears two prosthetic lower legs and lectures on prosthetic innovation. “And Tim Ryan, he’s always inspirational,” Faniro remarked.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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