You have likely watched a TED video before. From Bill Clinton to Malcolm Gladwell, speakers of incredibly diverse backgrounds have been invited to share their great ideas. These talks are tremendously popular, garnering hundreds of millions of views on the TED.com website.
Just a few Sundays ago, Fargo hosted its own TED event. Themed the City 2.0 (along with several other TEDx events held that same weekend), the independently organized event featured several invited speakers sharing their ideas for the next great city, improvements to neighborhoods, and ideas they had “worth spreading.”
Now, with an entirely new focus, TEDx will be returning to Fargo.
This weekend, 100 community members — area stakeholders, school leaders, and students — will take part in an event aimed specifically at youth, and focused on potential. The event will be streamed online for those who were unable to purchase tickets.
TEDx Youth at Fargo will feature several of our community’s finest young leaders and individuals who have had a direct impact on the lives of our area’s young people. There will also be built in “adventures,” during which attendees get out of their chairs and get their hands a little dirty. The invited speakers have been carefully selected to motivate and inspire dialogue, which will hopefully lead to action. The goal of this event is to unite our community’s youth, and let it be abundantly clear that there is work to be done — work that our next generation of leaders (our youth) are called to do.
The event has been planned by a team of Tri-College students (including myself) with a deep interest in community building. For the past several weeks, we have been carefully selecting speakers, determining the schedule of events, and fundraising to make this an experience not to be missed. To date, I have not experienced any event that unites the Tri-College (one of our community’s greatest assets, comprised of approximately 24,000 students) in such a lasting and impactful way.
In short, TEDx Youth Fargo is the ultimate “BREWing” experience. The event allows area college students to come together and collaborate in planning and executing an event which greatly enhances our community’s commitment to engaging and empowering young people. It unites area university and middle/high school students, and connects business leaders and public officials to their community’s youth.
This event will be so much more than invited speakers simply talking at a young audience. At its core, this event will motivate students to find their potential and inspire action in our community.
Matt Hansen, a fourth-year student, writes The People’s Republic of Matt, a politics column in Opinions. He double majors in political science and sociology at Concordia. On Twitter: @MattHansen
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