Matt Siegel during his presentation, A Brief History of Nutritional Misinformation. Photo credit: Home Sold Photography.

By Alex Thalhimer

TEDxYouth@RVA, an event organized and hosted by Collegiate students, took place on Saturday, November 12 in Oates Theater. TEDxYouth@RVA is a small part of a global movement of ideas. 

So what is TED? It stands for technology, entertainment, and design. TED is a nonprofit organization focused on “Ideas Worth Spreading.” Beginning in 1984, architect and designer Richard Saul Wurman, along with designer Harry Marks, hosted the first-ever TED talk in California. Originally, TED events were invite-only. However, since the early 2000s, they have been open to the public. 

Around the same time, the TED organization began recording these talks, which are now published and can be viewed on ted.com worldwide. The length of the talks ranges from two minutes to about eighteen, and usually, there is a broad field of topics. Over the years, TED has expanded to many different and smaller branches, including TEDx, TEDEd, TEDYouth, TEDWomen, TEDGlobal, and other local events that are relevant to specific communities. 

A TEDx event is a local and self-organized event that brings communities together for a TED-like experience. The “x” stands for “independently organized event.” 

Watch a short behind-the-scenes documentary video of the TEDxYouth@RVA process. (Note from SVAB: Who should we credit for this video? The TEDx class?). 

TEDxYouth@RVA 2022 Team.

TEDxYouth@RVA is a culminating class at Collegiate School, where a group of seniors participates in their fall Capstone project to create a TEDx event from scratch, intended for the RVA community at large. As a member of this year’s Capstone course, I had the opportunity to work behind the scenes on the creation and execution of this year’s event. Our group of 20 seniors was co-taught by Collegiate’s Director of JK-12 Capstones and TEDxYouth@RVA licensed organizer Rhianon Boyd, and Director of Inclusion and Global Engagement and TEDxYouth@RVA co-organizer Erica Coffey. The two made up the curatorial and editorial teams and worked long hours with our group to ensure everything went smoothly during the event.

TEDxYouth@RVA 2022 Team. Photo credit: Home Sold Photography.

TEDxYouth@RVA Emcees. Photo credit: Home Sold Photography.

We were divided into four teams based on our job-specific applications. One group focused on the Speakers & Program, another on Sponsors & Finance, one on Audience and Experience, and lastly, I led the Branding and Promotions group as Brand Manager. Molly Hutchison, (‘23), one of our lead speaker coaches and emcees, says that through TEDx, she “gained the realization and recognition that I’ve been with most of these classmates since kindergarten, and now I see them as adults doing things like handling a budget, being a host, ushering people, and coaching people twice our age.”

One of the first tasks for the branding team was deciding on a theme; one that would summarize the more profound meaning/message behind this year’s event. The theme is meant to be an identifier for the year from a brand perspective but also provide inspiration for the in-person audience. This year we landed on PAUSE. 

The most essential element of TED is the speakers. So how are speakers chosen? Individually, every team member conducted research to find two people with an idea worth spreading. When proposing speakers, we used a ranking system of four categories: “Clarity of Idea, Freshness, RVAness, and Thought-Provoking.” After numerous rounds of nominations, voting, and some unavailable speakers, the team narrowed it down to eight final speakers and two musical performers. It is crucial for such an event to have a range of speakers, with regard to race, gender, ethnicity, and ability, sharing a range of different ideas. Coffey reflects that the purpose of TEDx is really about those ideas that are worth spreading, and “specifically for TEDxYouth@RVA because it is curated by youth, it’s the ideas they feel worth spreading.”

This year’s speaker lineup was:

Landon Elliot: Aftermath, & Hometown Hero. Photo credit: Home Sold Photography.

• Matt Siegel: A Brief History of Nutritional Misinformation
• Cory Paradis: Can Thoughtful Design Make Disability Disappear?
• Carolyn Hawley: How Anticipation Primes the Brain for Problem Gambling
• Guadalupe Ramírez: How Indigenous Culture Cultivates Entrepreneurship
• Dale Brumfield: The Death of the Death Penalty
• Ellery Lundy: Winning, Even When Society Doesn’t Want You To
• Jack Singal: The Universe: All The Light We Cannot See
• Janelle Peifer: The Freedom to Rest

Cory Paradis during his presentation, Can Thoughtful Design Make Disability Disappear? Photo credit: Home Sold Photography.

Performers:

• Landon Elliot: Aftermath, & Hometown Hero 
• DJ DX: Black on Black, & Finally Moving

Collegiate parent Emily Valentine described this event as “really diverse, with an interesting lineup of speakers that motivated me to get there, and I was thoroughly energized when I left. The production was top-notch, and both speakers and student hosts were engaged and invested in the program.”

One of the speakers, Dale Brumfield, discussed an often politically controversial topic: the death penalty. One of our lead speaker coaches, Taylor Domson (‘23), reflected on this talk: “Based on the insights of Dale Brumfield, I learned that so much lies beyond our accepted walls of our history, especially in Richmond. I understood so little of the death penalty prior to reading, editing, and witnessing Dale’s TED Talk, but now I feel truly enriched. Sometimes, history can be a representation of events—a simple, nonfiction story. But, Dale uses culture, emotion, and raw passion to transmit coherent, compelling ideas. I also learned of the specificity of his field and the achievability of navigating such a narrowed passion.”

Dale Brumfield: The Death of the Death Penalty. Photo credit: Home Sold Photography.

Valentine also expressed that TEDxYouth@RVA “stuck out to me as an excellent example of a school taking meaningful steps to expose students to new ways of thinking.” When asked which talk she was most drawn to, she replied that she found Cory Paradis’ talk to be the “most poignant,” because it gave her an opportunity to discuss with her young daughter “what it might be like to NOT be able to play on the playground every day at school at recess because of a condition you were born with and had no control over.” She ended by describing that conversation as “priceless.” 

One of the reasons this class is such a powerful and rewarding experience is that it moves learning beyond the classroom, providing real-world experience with real-world implications. Coffey explains, “by the end of this class, our students will have first-hand experience on what it means to curate to fundraise to organize to really bring things to the community.” Boyd agrees, that “the people that do this work do it because they believe that there is something magical about the idea that young people actually get to make something real that lives beyond a graded paper.”

Featured image credit: Home Sold Photography.