In just 10 weeks, Columbia will welcome an international forum that aims to spread and create new ideas throughout the community.
TEDxMizzou, an offshoot of the international Technology, Entertainment and Design conferences, will be April 14 at the Reynolds Journalism Institute on the University of Missouri—Columbia campus.
TED conferences, being held twice a year in California and Scotland since 1984, grant licenses to third-parties to set up and hold free TED events in cities around the world. The events gather speakers and audiences together to share ideas they feel could impact the world.
Aamer Trambu, who is pursuing a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Missouri—Columbia, applied for a license, having organized events in the past.
“I’ve organized TED events in a few other cities, so when I came here, I was looking for one when I realized the University of Missouri has not had a TEDx event,” Trambu said. “So I decided to contact TED and apply for a TEDx license.”
Trambu and fellow TEDxMizzou organizers, Curtis Roller and 2008 RBHS graduate Amanda Gastler, are hoping to receive around 40 applications for speakers, which they will narrow to 12-16 for the final event.
Each speaker will have 15 minutes to tell a story or present an idea Trambu hopes will be inspiring.
“We’re accepting applications till the 15th of February, and once we do that, we’re going to go through these applications and call a few of these speakers for auditions,” Trambu said. “Once we audition them, we’ll pick our final list of 12 speakers for the actual event.”
Though the conference will only have seating for 100 people, Trambu said this won’t be an issue, and all are invited to apply for a spot. The event will be streamed live on the Internet, so anyone will be able to watch.
“I actually already applied for one of the seating spots because they’re so limited,” science teacher Gregory Kirchhofer said. “If I’m lucky, I’ll get a spot for the event, the first of its kind here.”
The organizers hope to seriously impact the way the city functions. They encourage the Columbia community to enjoy the conference.
“TEDxMizzou will be an opportunity to spark conversations between people who might not yet know each other,” a team statement said. “Columbia is lucky to have a diverse assortment of people. TEDxMizzou’s intention will be to facilitate collaborations where they didn’t exist before and to accelerate the ones that already were there.”
By Sami Pathan