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It does­n’t take much of a con­ver­sa­tion with Richard Sur­roz to real­ize that he’s basi­cal­ly made a hob­by of sur­pris­ing peo­ple.

After drop­ping out of high school at 17 to join the Army, Sur­roz lat­er went on to earn a bach­e­lor’s degree in soft­ware engi­neer­ing and a mas­ter’s degree in teach­ing, which he con­tin­ues to do for ITT Tech­ni­cal Insti­tutes, but it goes beyond that. Sur­roz man­u­fac­tures sur­pris­es, too. They come in the form of mod­ded com­put­ers that have tak­en the form of every­thing from wall art to a Star Wars clone troop­er to Autop­sy his pièce de résis­tance, a com­put­er mold­ed into the inner “organs” of a translu­cent man­nequin.

The last one graced was his first project to grace the cov­er of CPU Mag­a­zine.

“I can’t paint and I can’t sculpt, but I was able to look at the com­po­nents and make art­work out of them. When you think back to the old, big IDE cables, who says we can’t make origa­mi out of them?” Sur­roz said.

Sur­roz will be talk­ing about his pas­sion for com­put­ing in his TEDxSalem Talk, The Chang­ing Par­a­digms of Per­sonal Com­put­ing: Wear­ables and beyond. His talk is the result of his own evo­lu­tion with tech­nol­o­gy. Sur­roz’s eye for dis­man­tling com­put­ers and reassem­bling in new forms has earned him clients that span the globe. He’s also a reg­u­lar con­sul­tant for Nvidia, a San­ta Clara, Calif.-based graph­ics pro­cess­ing com­pa­ny.

“The inter­net has giv­en me reach across the globe. It’s not that I’m spe­cial, it’s the nature of the com­mon inter­ests. Because of that the polit­i­cal and phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers are tran­scend­ed. The inter­net makes it pos­si­ble to find each oth­er,” Sur­roz said.

As such, he’s enthu­si­as­tic about devel­op­ments in wear­able tech­nol­o­gy like Google Glass for its abil­i­ty to bring those con­nec­tions back down to the local lev­el.

“We could pass each oth­er in the street and nev­er know we had com­mon inter­ests, but wear­able tech makes those con­nec­tions pos­si­ble,” Sur­roz said. “Even more excit­ing is the way that tech­nol­o­gy might help us improve our own lives in terms of things like health.”

Eye con­tacts that also mon­i­tor blood sug­ar are a recent advance­ment in that area, but Sur­roz believes even greater heights are just around the cor­ner.

“We’re at the point where we have a pow­er­ful com­put­er in our pock­et, our band­width is capa­ble and our serv­er capa­bil­i­ty is where it needs to be. We’re reach­ing the point when we’ll be able to do high-end gam­ing or 3D ren­der­ing using the phone or tablet is an inter­face, but the work can done on a remote serv­er with much more pow­er,” he said.

To learn more about our poten­tial future, you’ll need a tick­et to TEDxSalem. Buy yours here.

Edi­tor’s note: Dr. Pamela Wible, a fam­i­ly physi­cian in Eugene, is one of our speak­ers from our inau­gur­al event last year. Her talk has gone viral since, and her ideas have been fea­tured in nation­al news out­lets such as Al Jazeera Amer­i­ca, Wash­ing­ton Post and Huff­in­g­ton Post. Who would’ve thought? TEDxSalem helped one Ore­go­ni­an’s idea spread to the world.

Below is her take on the nine months.

I’m not a small talk doc. My ther­a­pist calls me “the Dr. Kevorkian of med­ical taboos.” I’m most com­fort­able dis­cussing the uncom­fort­able — top­ics that scare off most physi­cians. In my TED talk, I bust through 3 taboos: human sex­u­al­i­ty, physi­cian-patient inti­ma­cy, and doc­tor sui­cides. Is there a con­ve­nient time to talk about all this? With over 100,000 views, I think the time is now:

In many cul­tures, those who trav­el into for­bid­den ter­ri­to­ry are ostra­cized. But some­times, the pub­lic demands—even craves the truth. There has been an over­whelm­ing pub­lic response to my TED talk and the media is buzzing.

The Wash­ing­ton Post asked to pub­lish my physi­cian sui­cide blog in their news­pa­per and online (with TED talk embed­ded). When doc­tors com­mit sui­cide, it’s often hushed up was the third most read nation­al news sto­ry that day. Due to high read­er­ship, they’ve asked for anoth­er arti­cle. The Huff­in­g­ton Post invit­ed me to con­tribute Why I Kiss My Patients. The Dai­ly Beast show­cased my TED talk in The Health-Care Sys­tem Is So Bro­ken, It’s Time for Doc­tors to Strike. Reader’s Digest inter­viewed me and so has Time Mag­a­zine.

As a result of my TED talk, I’ve been fea­tured in jour­nals such as Med­ical Eco­nom­ics and Ore­gon Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion. After post­ing my arti­cle: Physi­cian Sui­cide Let­ters which links to my TED talk, the edi­tor at one med­ical site e‑mailed: “We have nev­er had com­ments of that mag­ni­tude and it is utter­ly eye-open­ing for me.” I am now the top trend­ing author on KevinMD.com | Social media’s lead­ing physi­cian voice. My pre­sen­ta­tion is now list­ed as the No. 1 TED talk that med­ical stu­dents must watch here: Three TED Talks Med Stu­dents Should Watch.

After view­ing my TED talk, the pro­duc­er of Amer­i­ca Tonight sent a crew from DC to film me for 2 days. An excel­lent 11-minute pro­gram on physi­cian sui­cide aired on prime time nation­al TV with por­tions of my TED replayed! Though not acces­si­ble online, Here’s why 9 out of 10 doc­tors would­n’t rec­om­mend med­i­cine as a pro­fes­sion in a much abbre­vi­at­ed print ver­sion of that sto­ry.

I thought my TED talk was just for Amer­i­cans, until I was named New Zealand’s Com­pas­sion Hero and then fea­tured in the UK on Med­de­bate. Sui­ci­dal and depressed physi­cians and med­ical stu­dents have con­tact­ed me from all over the world after view­ing my TED talk. I pro­vide assis­tance and lives have poten­tial­ly been saved. I receive mail from patients too. They tell me I’ve helped them devel­op more heal­ing rela­tion­ships with their doc­tors.

I’m a small-town doc with big ideas. Peo­ple think I have a PR team. I do not. My TED talk has spread by word of mouth and click of mouse. In less than 6 months since my talk was uploaded, it has gone glob­al.

And this proves to me that one TED talk can change the world of med­i­cine.

Orga­niz­ing and putting on TEDxSalem takes a lot of work, and much of it goes unseen and unrec­og­nized. Usu­al­ly, that’s a good thing. If things go smooth­ly, you don’t notice those hard­work­ing folks in the back­ground.

That’s why now is the time to rec­og­nize our vol­un­teers. There are duties avail­able for every kind of vol­un­teer. You could just give your time for one day, or you could be more involved in build­ing the event.

Every one is need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed. Why should you get involved? Well, I’ll let our team speak for itself.

Tra­cy Rose Tor­res: I vol­un­teer because I want to keep great things hap­pen­ing in Salem. Tedx def­i­nite­ly falls under the cat­e­go­ry of great things. I may not be the best event orga­niz­er or net­work­er in the com­mu­ni­ty, but I feel like being there to help the peo­ple who are have an eas­i­er time is some­thing I can do! I became a vol­un­teer through be and try to help them out when­ev­er I can. I was a PA for Car­lee Wright, and real­ly is that a tough job? I think we have as much fun as we do work!

Car­men Her­nan­dez Armen­dariz: There was a call for vol­un­teers and I answered it. I did­n’t know a thing about TEDx. But as I looked around and found some of the TEDx talks online I thought how great it would be to hold one in Salem and won­dered if any­one would attend the event here in Salem. I worked on the side stage dur­ing the event help­ing with switch­ing screens from the Illu­mi­na­tion logo to the Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions last year. This year I’ll be receiv­ing, review­ing and help­ing the speak­ers with their pre­sen­ta­tions and dur­ing the event switch­ing from the logo to the Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions. LOL Keep your fin­gers crossed!

Lau­ra Heald Hofer: I vol­un­teered with Ted because I LOVE the whole con­cept of TED. 

I went in with an open mind and ready to help any­where and came out of the expe­ri­ence more enlight­ened, ful­filled and in awe of what a TED event is about. Giv­en the chance I would vol­un­teer for TED again in a heart­beat! 

I ran the “Love Let­ter” sta­tion and was lucky enough to be able to dis­trib­ute some of the Love Let­ters peo­ple hand­ed back to me to give out. 

Spread­ing kind­ness and hap­pi­ness with oth­ers through words, sto­ries and ran­dom acts is a won­der­ful way to cre­ate aware­ness.

A tru­ly amaz­ing event. Thank you TEDxSalem.

Scott Hoss­ner: Vir­tu­al­ly the entire staff at Allied Video Pro­duc­tions vol­un­teered at TEDx Salem because we were, quite sim­ply, excit­ed to help bring this amaz­ing pro­gram to Salem. Our goal was to, from a tech­ni­cal stand­point, help ensure Salem’s TEDx was on-par with the nation­al lev­el TED pro­grams. It was excit­ing to be a part of it!

Jyll Smith: I vol­un­teered for TEDx Salem last year because on more than one occa­sion I have geeked out on TED videos. So when I heard Salem was hold­ing one I knew I had to be involved. Though I did­n’t get to see many of the pre­sen­ters I did make new friends all while doing some­thing I love to do…coordinate peo­ple to make sure they are hav­ing a great time.

If you’re inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing this year, please con­tact us at mindie@tedxsalem.us or find us on Face­book! Also, don’t for­get to buy tick­ets here.

If you knew you had a finite num­ber of words you had left to speak in this life, what would they be?

Would they be words of love, heal­ing and under­stand­ing? Or would they defend jus­tice, brav­ery and sac­ri­fice?

What would the world look like if we all thought a lit­tle bit longer before we spoke?

Simon Tam will illus­trate at TEDxSalem this year how words have start­ed wars, can break or make rela­tion­ships and heal or hurt peo­ple.

“My talk in par­tic­u­lar is about the way we use lan­guage and how we should treat our lan­guage care­ful­ly and con­sid­er our words and make every word count,” Tam said.

Tam uses his words dai­ly to fur­ther his cause, com­mu­ni­cate his exper­tise and build rela­tion­ships. He’s a founder and bassist for an Asian Amer­i­can band, The Slants, and a pub­lic speak­er. He has writ­ten two books on thriv­ing in the music busi­ness and reg­u­lar­ly speaks about racial jus­tice and diver­si­ty.

Tam par­tic­u­lar­ly seems to enjoy using words to chal­lenge com­mon def­i­n­i­tions and cause us to rethink what they rep­re­sent. The fact that he start­ed an Asian band named The Slants is a good exam­ple. The name takes charge of the car­i­ca­ture of the slant­ed-eyed Asian, and gives it a new mean­ing, Tam says.

“It would be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk about our slant, or our per­spec­tive, as peo­ple of col­or,” he said. “It’s a play on words, re-appro­pri­at­ing the term.”

The band has become a way to hon­or Asian her­itages and activists and break stereo­types.

But no mat­ter what your goals or mes­sage is, choos­ing your words wise­ly can only help, Tam says. And that’s only the begin­ning.

Some say actions speak loud­er than words, but it is when they match your words that you are most effec­tive.

Cur­rent­ly, Tam is the mar­ket­ing direc­tor for Ore­gon Envi­ron­men­tal Coun­cil, but he has about a mil­lion oth­er jobs, tour­ing with his band, speak­ing at ani­me con­ven­tions and teach­ing.

We’re so glad he has cho­sen TEDxSalem as one of his many plat­forms to spread his idea. If we’re lucky, The Slants may also make an appear­ance.

Get your tick­ets at the His­toric Elsi­nore The­atre or online: http://goo.gl/pI3UJ2.

 

It would be easy to label Jef­fer­son Smith a politi­cian.

He’s the founder of The Bus Project, a for­mer Ore­gon state rep­re­sen­ta­tive and a for­mer can­di­date for Port­land may­or. These days, he hosts a radio show, titled Thank You Democ­ra­cy, on the Port­land-based radio sta­tion KXRY 91.1. It might appear dif­fi­cult to find the thread con­nect­ing his past pur­suits to the cur­rent one, but Smith has no such dif­fi­cul­ties.

“My under­ly­ing pas­sion is not a com­mu­ni­ca­tions medi­um, it’s democ­ra­cy. How do you get a group of peo­ple to make deci­sions togeth­er and live along­side each oth­er? How things are com­mu­ni­cat­ed to you is an impor­tant aspect of that,” Smith said.

Smith will be talk­ing about his lat­est pur­suit and some of the chal­lenges he and his col­lab­o­ra­tors ran into while set­ting up the new sta­tion, which went live in March, for his TEDxSalem talk in Sep­tem­ber. It’s titled The Next Gold­en Age of … Radio?

Smith hopes to counter the idea that radio is a dying medi­um.

“Peo­ple do lis­ten, radio shows are get­ting more and more cre­ative and, because the means of pro­duc­tion are get­ting cheap­er, it’s eas­i­er for lis­ten­ers to become cre­atives in the process,” Smith said.

The medi­um’s great strength is still the ease with which lis­ten­ers can tap into it.

“You could dis­trib­ute hand-held radios all over the world for $5 a pop. You don’t need a $300 phone and $150-a-month ser­vice plan. At the same time, radio sig­nals are sup­posed to be owned by the peo­ple, but a full-pow­er sig­nal might sell for $5 mil­lion in a major mar­ket,” Smith said.

After get­ting through the red tape of sim­ply obtain­ing the sig­nal, Smith said the chal­lenge of launch­ing KXRY turned into answer­ing the ques­tion of what role peo­ple play in mak­ing radio – espe­cial­ly at a time when Spo­ti­fy, iTunes and Pan­do­ra algo­rithms can play match­mak­er between lis­ten­ers and con­tent.

“What’s hap­pened with com­mer­cial radio is that it’s become dis­con­nect­ed from the com­mu­ni­ty, and that’s what its strength should be,” Smith said. “The cura­tion role is impor­tant. It’s not just pick­ing things you love, but help­ing you find the things you might love next.”

While music remains the dom­i­nant con­tent in radio, Smith said that radio can and should be a place where lis­ten­ers can find the ideas they’ll fall in love with next as well.

“The one thing that radio still does bet­ter than any­thing else is the real­time call-in. The sta­tion can bring togeth­er the right cura­tors to bring them all the best stuff,” he said.

Smith and KXRY might well be part of a new gold­en age of radio, but he’s also aware there’s still a big ques­tion yet to be answered.

“For radio to be suc­cess­ful, I think it has to answer the ques­tion of audi­ence engage­ment bet­ter,” Smith said. “What we want to work on is allow­ing the audi­ence to cre­ate things, like sto­ries or sound clips, that the sta­tion sends out to a wider audi­ence.”

He’s hop­ing the TEDxSalem atten­dees will be part of the answer.

Buy tick­ets here.