Students organizing TEDxLawrenceU

In preparation for a TEDxLawrenceU event in the 2016-2017 school year, Lawrence Speaks (LUS) held an information session on Wednesday, April 20. Organized and directed by students, the event is geared toward students, both in encouraging the students’ active participation and offering an opportunity for them to tell to use their own voice. After the team submits the application by May 6, the team members will start putting on the TEDx show with other participants. Reaching out for more help for this event at the end of the info session, the members asked for more speakers and staff to participate in this TEDx event.

Four committee members, senior Albert Marshall, junior Magdalen D’Alessio and sophomores Anh Ta and Hope Basil, were present at the session. Each of the committee members is responsible for a part of the leadership team, consisted of Curating, Marketing, Finance and Video and Stage Design committees. Each committee will play a vital role in the final event.

Marshall, who also serves as one of the organization’s co-presidents, revealed his original motivation to launch this activity. Three years ago, the faculty members once held the TEDx event in the Warch Campus Center Cinema, but the event was only for faculty and not open to students. Trying to change this regulation, senior Chelsey Choy initially suggested other students—including Marshall—to create a TEDx program, organized and freely participated by students.

D’Alessio, LUS’s other co-president, join the team as she had the chance to participate in the TEDx event at her high school. Fashion designer Marc Ecko was one of the guest speakers, and his ideas on entrepreneurship greatly inspired her. She said she also wanted to share such excitement with other students at Lawrence as well.

In preparation for their own TEDx speech, LUS also hosted an event on “Healthy Living in Society” last Fall Term in Youngchild Hall room 121. Five students and a faculty member spoke at the event and received a positive response from the audience. D’Alessio said the event served as a good preparation experience for the actual TEDx event next Fall Term. Based on the feedback, the TEDx team is now aiming for the next speech with other student speakers and staff. For future years, Marshall and D’Alessio are hoping to organize annual TEDx events once they establish a framework for the team.

Currently, the TEDx team is recruiting eight speakers and other members for the leadership team. Students interested in this event may apply through emailing the members with a speech and a brief demo video introducing the speech. After the audition process, the student speakers may give an 18-minute speech with any appealing topic and present the speech in font of the audience.