by Giselle Barkley and Brandon Benarba
The lights dimmed as the Wang Center Theatre auditorium filled with faculty members, professors, alumni and undergraduate students on Thursday, Oct. 10 for Stony Brook’s first-ever TEDx conference.
TEDx stands for Technology Entertainment and Design where the x stands for independently organized event, according to its website. This year’s theme was “Our Beat.” 20 speakers pitched their ideas ranging from musical performances to scientific breakthroughs.
TEDx limited speakers to an 18 minute time frame, according to Howard Schneider, dean of the School of Journalism and one of the speakers at the conference.
According to Jennifer Adams, an educational technologist of the university’s Teaching Learning and Technology department and project manager for TEDxSBU, all TEDx events only permit 100 attendees.
“TED requires that all TEDx events have a cap of 100 people total unless the license holder goes to a real TED conference,” Adams said.
TED is a nonprofit that focuses on global matters, whereas TEDx concentrates on local issues and communities. TED created TEDx to continue its mission of “ideas worth spreading.”
All attendees including speakers must apply to attend TED or TEDx conferences. Attendees may only attend if the organization accepts their applications.
The nine hour conference was a learning experience for Adams and those involved in organizing the event.
“I think we are going to start planning next year’s probably in January,” Adams said when asked about plans for holding a TEDx conference in the future. For this year’s conference, preparations began in the beginning of July. The organization sent out applications for tickets two weeks before the conference began.
TEDx sent out nominations for speakers during the summer, giving the organization two months to execute the conference.
The organizations ran into complications after one group dropped out of the conference a week before the event, allowing Jay Loomis and Timothy Vallier to step in.
Despite the time and technical hiccups, the TEDxSBU conference was an overall success according to Adams.
“I think it went really well. I’m very proud,” Adams said.
