TEDx Georgetown is shifting its focus to the university this semester as it moves from Lohrfink Auditorium to the larger venue of Gaston Hall for its third year.
The conference, which will kick off Saturday, is sponsored by the Georgetown University Lecture Fund in conjunction with the Office of the President, University Information Services and Georgetown College.
This year, the series of short talks given by students, faculty and guests will revolve around the theme of “Changemakers.” The 2012 conference’s theme was “Power” and the first TEDx was themed “Netcetera: the Internet and Everything Else.”
“We learned from what we did in year one and made it better in year two,” Program Manager for New Media and Digital Strategy Michael Wang (MSB ’07) said. “This is the year that … we are ready to truly engage the entire community,”
This year’s conference will highlight university faculty members students may not know outside of academia, including Elizabeth Stanley, a professor of security studies and nonprofit founder, and Francis Slakey, a professor of physics and public policy who is also the first person to have climbed the highest mountain on every continent and surfed every ocean on Earth. The speakers were chosen by an advisory board composed of deans from almost every Georgetown school.
“We wanted it to be Georgetown-focused. … We want to think about what makes TEDx Georgetown a uniquely Georgetown event, as it were, rather than just any other TEDx.” TEDx President Jamie Sharp (COL ’15) said. “We think we can relate it to the values that everyone in the community shares and have people talk about their own experiences.”
The 2013 conference will be composed of three sessions: “Global Human Development,” “The Whole Person” and “For Others.”
In his first time participating in TEDx Georgetown, University President John J. DeGioia is curating “Global Human Development,” for which he chose the speakers himself.
Student speakers include Heather Artinian (COL ’15), Jimmy Ramirez (COL ’15) and Rashawn Davis (COL ’14), who is running for Newark, N.J. City Council. Ramirez will be speaking about youth homelessness during the “For Others” session, discussing his own time as a homeless adolescent and his work at the California Homeless Youth Project.
“There are two things I’m attempting to accomplish in my speech. One is education, and two being this idea of owning, owning labels and confronting your shame,” Ramirez said. “I just wanted this purely to be my TED talk, and while I’ve learned so much from others … I’m trying to pull from within.”
