Motivation
I grew up in Shenyang, a second-tier city in Northeastern China. It is known for its heavy industry. It is often jokingly referred to as a "cultural desert." because of the large number of workers and the number of farmers. At that time, my high school teacher played a TED talk in addition to providing ideas and inspiration. I was fascinated by those brilliant ideas and wanted to introduce this model to my hometown for the enlightenment of ideas. The initiative is an opportunity to give back to my community and the city where I grew up.
As the photo above shows, I organized this small salon event off-campus to discuss the feasibility of TED to China and the attempt of an idea-driven community. Fate seemed to take good care of me, especially for a high school student, and during this salon attempt, I found friends who would plan TED events with me. We expect to bring an unprecedented ideas banquet, a speech freedom platform, and a fantastic knowledge journey to Shenyang City and prospering Northeastern China. We want to hold an event where everyone will be the audience and more as participants, sharers, and reformers.
The Age of Amazement
We held our first public engagement event on April 29, 2018, as an officially authorized live event organizer of the TED conference. In the brochure, I wrote: "In this event, we would listen to others share new ideas, talk about difficult dilemmas, and paint amazing creative landscapes. We can also talk about new technological applications, biomedical advances, and social and cultural innovations."
The event was a great success, with many participants willing to share the fantastic event and the unforgettable experience it brought them in their social media feeds. At the same time, we achieved our original goal of being locally rooted and internationally minded. The diversity of the community was reflected throughout the participation in the event, with audiences from all over the world sharing their thoughts with us, including people from Canada, the United States, Korea, North Korea, Nigeria, and more. At the same time, Netease and local media also carried out a live picture broadcast of our event, with a total of 106,000 views on the Internet.
What Audiences Are Saying
“Wow, there was a lot of discussion about new media and online social media. And just now! I asked a question about the impact of AI technology on the education industry, and there were a lot of different opinions, and it was really a meeting of minds.”— @Quinn
“I was very inspired. What an amazing event! I think we need to add more open-mindedness, tolerance, and acceptance, to absorb more information in the field! And I am amazed by the introverted, modest, lovely, action-oriented and thoughtfulness of this group of young people!”— @Huda
“I've been shocked by what I've seen! A group of high school students in Shenyang organized an offline TEDx Talk event. We talked about AI, education, the pros and cons of online education, artistic creation, and environmental protection.......”— @Dundun
Annual Event
We expect that what TEDxYouth@ShengjingRoad gives participants are not only shining thoughts, a tolerant and cooperative community, and, most importantly, a starting point of action. With this goal in mind, we reinvigorated our preparations for our second event, a mega-event with up to hundreds of participants. After a six-month-long preparation period, we held our first annual event.
This event will lead the audience to connect with the world, explore the future, walk along the forefront of times, and touch on all thrilling possibilities. We invited a total of 9 speakers and 2 bands to share their thoughts on the future and ideas in their field. We keep the speakers' backgrounds open if they have a bright idea.
Finally, we harvested 28 event partners to support our event. Our team believes that partnering with us means not spending your marketing budget on logo exposure. Instead, it's an opportunity to connect deeply with decision-makers, trendsetters, and like-minded people and bring your brand together with the world's largest network of brands dedicated to spreading good ideas.
Conclusion
Participating in planning and managing TEDx local events has helped me grow rapidly. It's hard to believe this was my high school days when my team successfully held multiple events for the masses. In addition to the abovementioned events, we offer more salons and mini-seminars to build inspirational spaces for the audience to share. We also cooperate with local business incubators to form creative offices and other programs.
