Speakers bring experiences from all walks of life
Jacqueline Perlin
Assistant News Editor
@jackieperlin
The TEDx talks made their way back to Glendon campus March 10 as students, staff, and faculty all gathered to hear 13 different individuals speak on the overall theme of “impact matters.”
The Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) independently-organized conference is a event meant to stimulate dialogue on a specific matter, all limited to a time frame of 18 minutes each.
“Overall, myself and organizing community is extremely happy with how the event went,” says Ross McMillan, a co-curator of the event. He says he was “blown away” with the quality of the presentations.
The entire event also had a Twitter component, where people watching engaged in a live-tweeting conversation under the hash tag “#impactmatters” which McMillan says boasted 75 pages worth of Twitter feed. There were approximately 100 people in attendance, with an additional 30 people live streaming the event from home.
Speakers included York president Mamdouh Shoukri, who commenced the talks with a narrative of his time spent as a student when he and science student Rabia Sajun switched roles for a day.
Shoukri expressed that the experience had a great impact on him, saying he was able to recognize the student commitment to their school work, but also noticed other things such as discrepancy in classroom equipment, where some classes were modern and up-to-date and others were still running on old equipment.
Other speakers included Dr. Lauren Sergio, an associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York, who took the theme quite literally and spent her allotted time speaking about concussions and how they affect the average sports player.
According to McMillan, the success of this year’s event guarantees that another TEDx talk will happen next year.
