TEDxSalem

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Maya Kaup: Stepping Up to Stop Food Waste

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From music lessons to sports like gym­nas­tics and track, to vol­un­teer­ing with the Girl Scouts, Maya Kaup, 20, was raised to explore every oppor­tu­ni­ty, and to stay busy. Maya KaupTo find a niche. To get involved. It was only nat­ur­al, then, dur­ing her fresh­man year at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty that a Face­book video on food waste and com­mu­ni­ty hunger spurred her to action. Why not bring food recov­ery to her school?

Why not here? Why not me?

“Some­one had to do it,” the biol­o­gy major said. “I see it as a moral oblig­a­tion.”

For her TED talk, Kaup will share her expe­ri­ences found­ing the Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty chap­ter of the Food Recov­ery Net­work, a nation­al non-prof­it that focus­es on fight­ing food waste and hunger. Accord­ing to FRN sta­tis­tics, 17.5 mil­lion fam­i­lies nation­wide are “food-inse­cure,” not sure where their next meal will come from. In Ore­gon, 15 per­cent of fam­i­lies are food-inse­cure; the pover­ty rate in Mar­i­on Coun­ty is 19.5 per­cent. Mean­while, Amer­i­cans dis­card 35 mil­lion tons of food per year, or rough­ly 40 per­cent of all food pro­duced in the coun­try.

In 2014, Kaup along with 20 vol­un­teers helped the uni­ver­si­ty block 8,000 pounds of sur­plus, unsold food from the garbage to feed the home­less. 635521005049941726-SAL1123-Causes-FoodRecovery-ar-01Not only is good food not thrown away, but nutri­tious fruits and veg­eta­bles are saved for those who can’t often have them, Kaup said.

“It’s a win-win,” she said.

When Kaup isn’t man­ag­ing the FRN, she takes a full course load at school, and also helps care for orphaned ani­mals at the Tur­tle Ridge Wildlife Cen­ter. See­ing the suc­cess­es of her efforts moti­vates her to do even more, she said.

It “fuels my fire,” she said. “It makes me real­ize I can make a dif­fer­ence.”

To see Maya Kaup and oth­er TEDx Salem 2015 speak­ers, buy tick­ets here.

Unraveling the meaning behind TEDx: Part 4

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TED is a non­prof­it devot­ed to spread­ing ideas, usu­al­ly in the form of short, pow­er­ful talks. But what does the acronym TED, and its spin-off TEDx, stand for? We explore the phi­los­o­phy, the mean­ing and the spir­it behind the TED con­fer­ences, one let­ter at a time.

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x is for …

… all of you!

TEDx was cre­at­ed in the spir­it of TED’s mis­sion, “ideas worth spread­ing.” It sup­ports inde­pen­dent orga­niz­ers who want to cre­ate a TED-like event in their own com­mu­ni­ty.

The “x” in TEDx rep­re­sents com­mu­ni­ty. For TEDxSalem, it rep­re­sents every­thing about the TED con­fer­ences that is unique and rel­e­vant to Salem, and that makes Salem spe­cial. It goes beyond the offi­cial TED name because it’s local­ly, inde­pen­dent­ly orga­nized by indi­vid­u­als who want to make Salem the very best ver­sion of itself.

And, of course, it rep­re­sents you. You are our com­mu­ni­ty, and by your inter­est and par­tic­i­pa­tion in TEDxSalem, you, too, are mak­ing Salem the very best it can be.

Our TEDxSalem speak­ers have shared sto­ries that are hilar­i­ous and sto­ries that are deeply mov­ing. They’re doc­tors, artists, advo­cates, movers and shak­ers. They teach us about incred­i­bly com­plex tech­nolo­gies and invite us on pro­found jour­neys. They make us think about our­selves, our com­mu­ni­ty, our state, our coun­try and our world. And then they take every­thing we think we know and they turn it upside-down.

TEDx has also had a glob­al impact. There are hun­dreds of TEDx events that occur around the world each year. You can read more about these events, and the unique impacts they’ve had in their own com­mu­ni­ties, on the offi­cial TED blog.

Tick­ets are avail­able for $50 for gen­er­al admis­sion and $40 for stu­dents at https://tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com. One tick­et includes a full day of talks, enter­tain­ment, recess activ­i­ties, swag, snacks, lunch and an after-par­ty.

Lou Radja: Everyone deserves the opportunity to dance

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Motivational speaker Lou Radja will share the lessons he learned growing up in the Congo and getting his education in the United States.
Lou Rad­ja will share the lessons he learned grow­ing up in the Con­go and get­ting his edu­ca­tion in the Unit­ed States.

“Jam­bo!”

Lou Rad­ja announces the Swahili greet­ing wher­ev­er he goes in his deep boom­ing voice and broad smile. It’s almost impos­si­ble not to smile back.

Rad­ja, 39, grew up in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go, Africa, and, like his par­ents, attend­ed col­lege in the Unit­ed States. The gift of edu­ca­tion changed his fam­i­ly tree, and his life’s pur­pose is to return the favor.

“It’s essen­tial for our own sur­vival to take care of one anoth­er. There’s noth­ing spe­cial about it,” he said, “except human beings giv­ing every­one an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dance.”

One of his favorite say­ings from his vast col­lec­tion, is “when you take the ele­va­tor to the top; always send it back down for some­one else.”

Near­ly 50 years ago, mis­sion­ar­ies gave his father a chance to go to col­lege, not because he was smarter than every­one else, Rad­ja said, but because he was lucky.

“That’s when you real­ize that every­one has this organ­ic bril­liance but not every­one has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case it,” he said. “That moti­vates me even more to give oth­ers the same oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

“I already know they are bril­liant,” he said, “all they need is a dance floor.”

Rad­ja found­ed EduCon­go, a U.S. based non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that helps more than 2,000 under­priv­i­leged chil­dren in the Con­go get a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion. It’s his way of send­ing the ele­va­tor back down for some­one else.

Rad­ja is also a moti­va­tion­al speak­er who draws on his expe­ri­ence grow­ing up in Con­go and his edu­ca­tion in the Unit­ed States to inspire peo­ple to be more and give more. Rad­ja will share his talk “Africa, my roots. Amer­i­ca, my wings” at TEDxSalem Sat­ur­day, Oct. 3, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

To hear Radja’s talk and lis­ten to oth­er TEDxSalem speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.

A few of Radja’s favorite quotes:

“Life isn’t about wait­ing for the storm to pass…It’s about learn­ing to dance in the rain.”
‑Vivian Greene

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with oth­ers.”
‑African proverb

“Twen­ty Years From Now You Will Be More Dis­ap­point­ed By The Things You Didn’t Do Than By The Ones You Did Do…Explore. Dream. Dis­cov­er.”
‑Attrib­uted to Mark Twain

Unraveling the meaning behind TEDx: Part 3

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TED is a non­prof­it devot­ed to spread­ing ideas, usu­al­ly in the form of short, pow­er­ful talks. But what does the acronym TED, and its spin-off TEDx, stand for? We explore the phi­los­o­phy, the mean­ing and the spir­it behind the TED con­fer­ences, one let­ter at a time.

—

D is for …

design noun de·sign \di-ˈzīn\ : the way some­thing has been made; the way the parts of some­thing are formed and aranged for a par­tic­u­lar use, effect, etc.; the process of plan­ning how some­thing will look

“Good design is obvi­ous. Great design is trans­par­ent.”
―Joe Spara­no

top-interior-design-inspiration-quotes-with-design-quotes-to-inspire

“Every design­er’s dirty lit­tle secret is that they copy oth­er design­ers’ work. They see work they like, and they imi­tate it. Rather cheek­i­ly, they call this inspi­ra­tion.”
―Aaron Rus­sell

“Design is where sci­ence and art break even.”
―Robin Math­ew

top-interior-design-inspiration-quotes-with-design-55-inspiring-quotations-that-will-change-the-way-you-think

Great design should inspire. Will you be inspired at TEDxSalem? Tick­ets are avail­able for $50 for gen­er­al admis­sion and $40 for stu­dents at https://tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com. One tick­et includes a full day of talks, enter­tain­ment, recess activ­i­ties, swag, snacks, lunch and an after-par­ty.

Rhea Stadick: Bringing Humanity to Software Development

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Some­times the only thing stand­ing in the way of suc­cess is doubt, accord­ing to Rhea Stadick, soft­ware devel­op­er and orga­ni­za­tion­al coach at Intel. “Just assump­tions that it can’t hap­pen, it won’t hap­pen, or there’s a rule against it,” she says.

There’s a lot less in your way than you think, she says, if you just have the courage to try some­thing new.

For her TED talk, Stadick will dis­cuss her efforts to bring a new man­age­ment approach to soft­ware, one that focus­es more on col­lab­o­ra­tion, adapt­abil­i­ty and inno­va­tion rather than con­for­mi­ty, dead­lines and “deliv­er­ables.” One that encour­ages “out-of-the-box” think­ing. It’s called Agile Devel­op­ment, and it promis­es not only bet­ter pro­grams for end users, but a bet­ter life for pro­gram­mers.

“It’s about bring­ing human­i­ty to the work­place,” says Stadick, sit­ting in her team room at Intel’s Jones Farm cam­pus, where she over­sees the company’s efforts to imple­ment Agile man­age­ment strate­gies. It seems espe­cial­ly odd to see robots posi­tioned around her as she says this. But those robots – in essence stands with mon­i­tor screens – help to mim­ic face-to-face meet­ings with pro­gram­mers who may be in oth­er coun­tries, part of Agile’s empha­sis on direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion. In and around the room there is a 3‑D print­er, couch­es, and a large white­board with var­i­ous Post-It notes on it, and ideas scrib­bled across its sur­face. A large wall-size win­dow opens to trees, leaves wav­ing in the wind.

It’s a breath of fresh air for pro­gram­mers, to have such an open space that encour­ages indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and cre­ative prob­lem-solv­ing.

And it’s a stark con­trast to the tra­di­tion­al­ly heavy-hand­ed, bureau­crat­ic and par­ti­tioned approach to soft­ware that defined the indus­try in the past, an approach infa­mous­ly por­trayed in the 1999 movie Office Space. Think exas­per­at­ed engi­neers — “I am good at deal­ing with peo­ple!! Can’t you under­stand that?!” – sep­a­rat­ing devel­op­ers from the company’s clients. Think Bill Lum­bergh, hand­ing out week­end work and enforc­ing cov­er sheets for TPS reports. Think Peter Gib­bons, drown­ing in a sea of cubi­cles every morn­ing, doing just enough work to not get has­sled.The Old Way

“Six-by-six cubi­cles are not nec­es­sar­i­ly what humans are designed to do,” Stadick says.

As a new soft­ware hire 10 years ago, she saw first­hand the frus­tra­tions of just cor­rect­ing defects instead of pre­vent­ing them, and spend­ing “crazy hours” on the job and at home, just to achieve the same aver­age suc­cess rate, nev­er bet­ter.

“I saw how painful some of the ways we ran projects and teams were for peo­ple,” she says.

Today, with Agile Devel­op­ment, Stadick is hop­ing to dri­ve change not just at Intel, but across the indus­try.  Her suc­cess could not only rev­o­lu­tion­ize the way we lead our projects, but also the way we lead our lives.

There are still some obsta­cles, she con­cedes, not sur­pris­ing when try­ing to uproot an assem­bly-line man­age­ment strat­e­gy that hear­kens back to the Model‑T. But Stadick has faith in her team.

“We work with the some of the most intel­li­gent peo­ple in the world,” she says.

“We can do pret­ty amaz­ing things; there’s not a lot of things hold­ing us back.”

Unraveling the meaning behind TEDx: Part II

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TED is a non­prof­it devot­ed to spread­ing ideas, usu­al­ly in the form of short, pow­er­ful talks. But what does the acronym TED, and its spin-off TEDx, stand for? We explore the phi­los­o­phy, the mean­ing and the spir­it behind the TED con­fer­ences, one let­ter at a time.

—

E is for …

enter­tain­ment noun en·ter·tain·ment \ en-tər-ˈtān-mənt \ : agree­able occu­pa­tion for the mind; some­thing afford­ing plea­sure, diver­sion, or amuse­ment, espe­cial­ly a per­for­mance of some kind

“A window—it’s more enter­tain­ing than TV. Just ask a cat look­ing out, or a man look­ing in on a life he desires.”
―Jar­od Kintz

quote-Walt-Disney-i-would-rather-entertain-and-hope-that-38825

“Enter­tain­ment is tem­po­rary hap­pi­ness, but the real hap­pi­ness is per­ma­nent enter­tain­ment.”
―Amit Kalantri

“Reg­gae has a phi­los­o­phy, you know? It’s not just enter­tain­ment. There’s an idea behind it, a way of life behind the music, which is a pos­i­tive way of life, which is a pro­gres­sive way of life for bet­ter peo­ple.”
―Zig­gy Mar­ley

We begin with two obser­va­tions that, though per­haps com­mon­place, ought to be kept in mind. First, enter­tain­ment often does more than enter­tain — or, put dif­fer­ent­ly, enter­tain­ment func­tions are often inter­twined with nonen­ter­tain­ment func­tions. Accord­ing to Staiger, chil­dren and teens spent more time at movies dur­ing World War II in part because moth­ers were work­ing, so the­aters became de fac­to day-care cen­ters. Katz and Foulkes sim­i­lar­ly observe that fam­i­lies may watch TV togeth­er in order to bond.

Sec­ond, and regret­tably, “There are few things less enter­tain­ing than try­ing to define mass enter­tain­ment.”
[source: Stephen Bates and Antho­ny J. Fer­ri, “What’s Enter­tain­ment?”]

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TED talks are noth­ing if not enter­tain­ing. See for your­self at TEDxSalem: Tick­ets are avail­able for $50 for gen­er­al admis­sion and $40 for stu­dents at https://tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com. One tick­et includes a full day of talks, enter­tain­ment, recess activ­i­ties, swag, snacks, lunch and an after-par­ty.