Shannon Behan and James Gordon, co-organizers of TEDxPowellRiver, are searching for ideas worth spreading. They’re organizing a TEDx conference this spring in Powell River and are looking for inspiring and engaging speakers from the Upper and Lower Sunshine Coast.
Gordon attended the annual TEDxVancouver conference this fall with a group of friends and was sparked by what he encountered there.
“It was a mind-blowingly good day,” said Gordon. The speakers were, “an amazing group of creative people who were talking about things you’d never imagine. We thought that we have to bring this to Powell River to share that experience.”
TED, which stands for technology, entertainment and design, has become a worldwide phenomenon since its start 28 years ago. A non-profit organization, TED is dedicated to spreading ideas both directly to an audience at its conferences and to people around the world watching online TED Talks. Starting as a one-off conference in 1984 in Monterey, California, TED has since expanded into two main conferences per year and thousands of independently organized events called TEDx events.
TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.
TED is especially known for its 18-minutes-or-less long talks by a variety of speakers on wide-ranging topics from a neuroscientist describing her first-hand account of having a brain hemorrhage to how one creates a sense of awe.
Attending a main TED conference can be expensive, explained Gordon, so this kind of event makes it more accessible. The “flip side is we’re only going to have 100 tickets for the event.”
TEDxPowellRiver will be held at Max Cameron Theatre and is being organized around the theme of pre-vernal, or the earliest spark of spring.
Gordon said they’ve taken the term pre-vernal to mean, “the germ of an idea that is going to grow into something in the same way that spring grows into summer. An early idea that is going to take and grow and explode into something new.”
Tickets for the April 7 event will go on sale in January for $50. TEDx events are prohibited from making profit, and the fee for the event is used to cover the operating costs. Speakers are not paid and must agree to give TED the right to edit and distribute their presentation under a Creative Commons licence.
Conference organizers are currently looking for event speakers. Behan said they are looking for 12 people who have inspiring ideas or engaging stories to share. She said they will be accepting nominations for potential speakers and then go through a process of selecting speakers based on how well their talk fits the event’s theme. For more information about the conference or how to participate as a speaker, interested readers can visit the event's website.
