Young Adults Attend TEDActive 2015
Donation protected
WE will drive the next 30 years.. with your help.
My name is Julie, and I am a TEDxOrganizer. To read my story, skip the next two paragraphs. This campaign has been changed to help me while helping others at the same time.
I started this fund, with encouragement from new friends I met at TEDActive, to help raise money for me to come back next year - expand my learning and TED network, and continue the conversation about TEDActive accessibility to college students. It has turned into a fund to support the students and other young adults who are deemed to not have a TED Fellow-worthy idea worth spreading. I propose we give young adults (whose schools, friends, and families can't afford to fund them) a fair shot at attending. Who knows? Maybe like me, they will find that idea worth spreading while collaborating with the amazing people at TEDActive. Attending should stop being a one-off deal that allows us to raise our capacity limits at TEDx events. For some communities, that is the only benefit they see to paying for organizers to attend and learn.
Unfortunately, that is the current issue with getting college students and young adults involved in TED communities. Most of them don't have much money, but they DO have so much to contribute to TEDx and the TEDActive community. The money just isn't there to send them to conferences (unless you're from a private institution or organization, and then it's only sometimes a possibility). I suggested more accessibility to scholarships when applying for TEDActive2014 and have been very vocal during workshops and breakout sessions about the need to empower more young people, but it seems as though the resources to make this happen aren't there yet.
-----
This year, as a first year Ed.M. student at the University at Buffalo, I was hired to serve as the Social Programming Coordinator for our Graduate Student Association. I found out shortly after being hired that part of my job description, after planning parties and trips to hockey games, was to plan a TEDx event for the University.
I've known what TED is for many years now - or at least I thought I knew. So I jumped in to this new challenge almost entirely alone. I had a few reference points from the first event the University had the year before and the people who contributed to it, but I had never experienced TED anywhere other than via my computer screen. Knowing that the Graduate Student Association wanted to expand our TEDx event, I started looking at how I could raise the 100 person capacity limit. That's how I ended up at TEDActive this year.
To be completely honest, I initially wasn't really invested going in to this. What I expected to find was people who were smarter and wealthier and more experienced with TED than I was. I expected the elitism I'd heard comes with TED and to feel like a complete outsider. But what actually happened was the complete opposite of that. Sure, I met people who were smarter, wealthier, and more experienced. But the love I felt from those people when walking into the TEDxOrganizers workshop on Sunday immediately had me sold.
Coming to Whistler this year has made me feel like, after years of searching, I've found my people. For the first time, I didn't need to change my ideas and opinions to conform to a new community - the community supported every idea and opinion I had whether or not the people in it agreed. They are the dreamers and the doers. They are the people who will make change in our communities. I want to become that change as well, and I want to keep being inspired by all of the amazing people I have met.
The Graduate Student Association paid a lot of money for me to attend TEDActive because I wasn't officially an organizer when we registered at full price. We're now looking at a more financially sustainable option for the organization to run future large-scale TEDx events. This will involve sending a permanent staff member to TEDActive once, and then not sending anyone back again until that staff member leaves the organization.
Thank you so much for your help. :)
My name is Julie, and I am a TEDxOrganizer. To read my story, skip the next two paragraphs. This campaign has been changed to help me while helping others at the same time.
I started this fund, with encouragement from new friends I met at TEDActive, to help raise money for me to come back next year - expand my learning and TED network, and continue the conversation about TEDActive accessibility to college students. It has turned into a fund to support the students and other young adults who are deemed to not have a TED Fellow-worthy idea worth spreading. I propose we give young adults (whose schools, friends, and families can't afford to fund them) a fair shot at attending. Who knows? Maybe like me, they will find that idea worth spreading while collaborating with the amazing people at TEDActive. Attending should stop being a one-off deal that allows us to raise our capacity limits at TEDx events. For some communities, that is the only benefit they see to paying for organizers to attend and learn.
Unfortunately, that is the current issue with getting college students and young adults involved in TED communities. Most of them don't have much money, but they DO have so much to contribute to TEDx and the TEDActive community. The money just isn't there to send them to conferences (unless you're from a private institution or organization, and then it's only sometimes a possibility). I suggested more accessibility to scholarships when applying for TEDActive2014 and have been very vocal during workshops and breakout sessions about the need to empower more young people, but it seems as though the resources to make this happen aren't there yet.
-----
This year, as a first year Ed.M. student at the University at Buffalo, I was hired to serve as the Social Programming Coordinator for our Graduate Student Association. I found out shortly after being hired that part of my job description, after planning parties and trips to hockey games, was to plan a TEDx event for the University.
I've known what TED is for many years now - or at least I thought I knew. So I jumped in to this new challenge almost entirely alone. I had a few reference points from the first event the University had the year before and the people who contributed to it, but I had never experienced TED anywhere other than via my computer screen. Knowing that the Graduate Student Association wanted to expand our TEDx event, I started looking at how I could raise the 100 person capacity limit. That's how I ended up at TEDActive this year.
To be completely honest, I initially wasn't really invested going in to this. What I expected to find was people who were smarter and wealthier and more experienced with TED than I was. I expected the elitism I'd heard comes with TED and to feel like a complete outsider. But what actually happened was the complete opposite of that. Sure, I met people who were smarter, wealthier, and more experienced. But the love I felt from those people when walking into the TEDxOrganizers workshop on Sunday immediately had me sold.
Coming to Whistler this year has made me feel like, after years of searching, I've found my people. For the first time, I didn't need to change my ideas and opinions to conform to a new community - the community supported every idea and opinion I had whether or not the people in it agreed. They are the dreamers and the doers. They are the people who will make change in our communities. I want to become that change as well, and I want to keep being inspired by all of the amazing people I have met.
The Graduate Student Association paid a lot of money for me to attend TEDActive because I wasn't officially an organizer when we registered at full price. We're now looking at a more financially sustainable option for the organization to run future large-scale TEDx events. This will involve sending a permanent staff member to TEDActive once, and then not sending anyone back again until that staff member leaves the organization.
Thank you so much for your help. :)
Organizer
Julie Gorman
Organizer
Buffalo, NY
