Megha Joshi

Among her many after­school activ­i­ties, Megha Joshi plays vio­lin in a stu­dent orches­tra. It’s the col­lab­o­ra­tion she enjoys the most about per­form­ing.

“Play­ing with a col­lec­tive group of peo­ple to cre­ate an amaz­ing sound is an irre­place­able and reward­ing expe­ri­ence,” she said.

Now she’s help­ing orches­trate her own TEDx event.

On Novem­ber 11, TEDxYouth@Salem will kick off its inau­gur­al event at the Elsi­nore The­atre in down­town Salem. This event will be run by teens, from the speak­ers to the event orga­niz­ers.

A vet­er­an of TEDxSalem, Joshi’s own expe­ri­ence last year at “Rev­o­lu­tions” inspired her to approach TEDxSalem co-cura­tors Bri­an Hart and Car­lee Wright ear­li­er this year about devel­op­ing a TEDx event for teens.

“A lot of my friends start­ed to ask me how they could get the same oppor­tu­ni­ty,” she said.

“After the amaz­ing expe­ri­ence of giv­ing [a TED talk] as well as being an audi­ence mem­ber, I real­ized that this event had to be shared,” she said.

The pri­ma­ry goal, said Joshi, is to inspire youth to get out into the com­mu­ni­ty and make a dif­fer­ence; “to take action on their ideas.”

“By build­ing this event from the ground up by youth for youth, I hope to real­ly get in touch with the teenage com­mu­ni­ty,” she said.

Joshi is no stranger to extend­ing her­self — In addi­tion to school­work and youth orches­tra, she also works part-time study­ing nan­otech­nol­o­gy and bio­med­ical engi­neer­ing at OHSU’s Zuck­er­man lab.

It’s her ener­gy that has tak­en a once-intrigu­ing idea and made it real, accord­ing to Bri­an Hart and Car­lee Wright.

“We have want­ed to do a youth event since we start­ed TEDxSalem, but we did not have enough resources,” Hart said.

“Thanks to Megha step­ping up, now our vision is becom­ing a real­i­ty, but bet­ter — not only does this event fea­ture youth speak­ers, but it is also ful­ly youth dri­ven.”

“We are proud to be men­tor­ing Megha and the team she has cul­ti­vat­ed,” Wright said, “espe­cial­ly when, accord­ing to the Ore­gon Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion 2014–15 Stu­dent Enroll­ment Report, Salem-Keiz­er School Dis­trict is the sec­ond largest in the state with just over 40,000 stu­dents.”

“TEDxYouth@Salem is giv­ing those stu­dents a plat­form to share their ideas worth spread­ing,” Wright said.

Although the event is tar­get­ed at youth, TEDxYouth@Salem is not just for teens, accord­ing to Joshi. So who should come?

“Every­one!” Joshi said. “Any­one who is will­ing to open their eyes to new ideas and lis­ten to what youth have to say will def­i­nite­ly enjoy this event.”

And what should peo­ple come away with?

“For the younger crowd, a sense that they mat­ter in the com­mu­ni­ty, and their actions can influ­ence many peo­ple,” Joshi said. “For every­one else, a new per­spec­tive on some­thing we may take for grant­ed.”

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TEDxYouth@Salem

9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Novem­ber 11, 2017

at the Elsi­nore The­atre in down­town Salem, Ore­gon

Tick­et infor­ma­tion com­ing soon
Check back with the TEDxSalem home page for the lat­est!