For two hours on Saturday afternoon, Lutkin Hall transformed into a stage for Northwestern’s own TEDx conference, an annual iteration of the global TED brand started over a decade ago.
This year’s theme was “small steps, giant leaps.”
“All of our speakers are talking about … (how) making small incremental changes within (their) own communities can have bigger, broader effects in society,” said Weinberg junior Sarine Meguerditchian, a co-chair of the TEDxNorthwesternU club’s media and marketing team.
Students began organizing the conference in Fall Quarter, when the club solicited applications and held auditions. Speakers were selected in January, giving them four months to work with the club’s curation team to develop and polish their presentations.
Because the conference falls under the TED brand, the Northwestern conference organizers had to work within strict parameters, Meguerditchian said.
“We have to have a license in order to be able to even put on the talk,” she said. “Even for things like our marketing material, there are specific shades of red that we’re allowed to use to fit within ‘TED Red.’”
This year’s five speakers spanned industries and communities, from an NU student to industry professionals.
Rebecca Okamoto, a communication and personal brand consultant for Evoke Strategy Group, kicked off the conference with her presentation on effective introductions.
Medill junior Cole Reynolds, a current Daily staffer, spoke about his experiences covering NU football’s hazing scandal and reporting on accessibility in the Chicago taxi system. He also offered insights into how journalists can approach reporting systemic inequities.
Reynolds was followed by Emily Soriano, the advocacy manager at ethical governance advocacy group CHANGE Illinois, who spoke about the injustices of prison gerrymandering. She highlighted the work her organization has done to bring attention to the issue and educate incarcerated individuals about their rights.
After a brief intermission, the conference continued with speaker Scott Imbrie, who spoke about the power of resilience. After a devastating spinal cord injury from a car accident in 1985, he regained the ability to walk and limited use of his upper extremities.
Today, Imbrie is part of a research study at the University of Chicago that studies spinal cord injuries with the goal of developing robotic prosthetics that can be controlled by the user’s brain. Imbrie is one of only a handful of people in the world with a brain-computer interface that allows both motor control and sensory feedback.
The last speaker of the afternoon, Pleshette Strong (Communication ’15, Kellogg ’16), danced onto the stage as the audience clapped along to music. Strong spoke about her experience learning to dance salsa, recounting how she overcame initial experiences of rejection to find joy on the dance floor.
“I really loved the focus and spirit of resilience,” Communication Prof. and TEDxNorthwesternU club advisor Peter Civetta said after the conference. “I think we’ve all been so beat down. And I think messages of resilience are particularly resonant.”
As club members packed up signage and Lutkin transformed back into a regular lecture hall, Medill senior Janya Sundar, and Ari Bernick (Medill ’25), TEDxNorthwesternU co-directors and former Daily staffers, reflected on the conference.
Bernick, who graduated at the end of Winter Quarter, called the successful conference a “cherry on top” of her NU experience.
“All the speakers were so fully prepared, their talks were so lovely and they were confident,” Sundar said. “We definitely surpassed our wildest dreams.”
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