Bringing TED to SMU

By Jim Young on June 29, 2014 High noon.  April 7, 2009.  Gloria’s on Greenville!  It all started there.  Geoffrey Orsak, then Dean of Engineering at SMU Lyle School of Engineering, attended TED 2009, his first TED Conference a month earlier. (I had attended my nineteenth.) TED Curator Chris Anderson had announced at TED 2009 [...]

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Peter Thum – Guns to Jewelry – TEDxSMU 2011

Peter Thum is the founder of Fonderie 47, a company transforming perspectives and saving lives in Africa by disarming conflict zones and remaking AK47s it destroys into jewelry, watches and accessories. To date, Fonderie 47 has destroyed over 3,000 guns in DR Congo. As the founder and president of Ethos™ Water, Peter turned his idea [...]

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Jose Bowen – Beethoven as Bill Gates – TEDxSMU 2011

José Bowen, Dean of the Meadows School at SMU, has taught at Stanford and Georgetown, written over 100 scholarly articles, edited the Cambridge Companion to Conducting, and appeared as a musician in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the US with Stan Getz, Bobby McFerrin and others. He has written a symphony (nominated for the [...]

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Wrapping Up – TEDxSMU 2010

We got a chance to see more than 20 great speakers and performers on Saturday at TEDxSMU. Amid such a diverse group, there were still several key themes running through the day TEDxSMU. Importance of the Arts Our venue at TEDxSMU 2010 was a testament to how important the arts are. Yet many of our [...]

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Session #3: Link Roundup

Ray Zahab: Impossible2Possible website Stephen Mills: Ballet Austin website Footnotes for Lost/The Holocaust and Humanity Project Andres Diaz: Andres Diaz official website Cari Guittard Business for Diplomatic Action website Omar Jahwar: Vision Regeneration website David Stern: Temple Emanu-El website – John Keehler

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Interview: Mick Ebeling

We got the chance to ask a few questions to one of our speakers, Mick Ebeling. His talk is session #1 was today was about the project that started The Not Impossible Foundation, The Eyewriter, for his friend, the famous street artist and ALS patient, Tempt. You spoke about the powerful impression yesterday’s TEDxKids session [...]

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Session #2 Link Roundup

Roger Black: New York Times on Roger Black’s Texas ranch Jim LeDuc: Galveston National Laboratory website Bill Lively: Super Bowl XLV Host Committee North Texas website Anne Pasternak: Creative Time website Nathan Huntoon: SMU SkunkWorks Program Website – John Keehler

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Stephen Mills – Light: The Holocaust & Humanity Project – TEDxSMU 2010

Under the artistic leadership of Stephen Mills, Ballet Austin has emerged as one of the nation’s premiere dance organizations, recognized by the Washington Post in 2004 as “one of the nation’s best‑kept secrets.” Stephen attracted national media attention with his production of Hamlet in 2000 and led Ballet Austin to perform at The John F. [...]

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Baba Brinkman Gives a Rap Guide to Evolution – TEDxSMU 2010

Baba Brinkman is a Canadian actor and rap artist and former tree‑planter who has personally planted more than one million trees. Baba has received international acclaim for his rap comedy theatre shows, which cover topics as diverse as evolutionary psychology, the Canterbury Tales, democracy, and civil disobedience. Last year he won the Scotsman Fringe First [...]

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Frans Lanting at TEDxSMU 2010

Frans Lanting has been hailed as one of the great nature photographers of our time. His influential work appears in books, magazines, and exhibitions around the world. For more than two decades he has documented wildlife and our relationship with nature in environments from the Amazon to Antarctica. He portrays wild creatures as ambassadors for [...]

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