TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

TEDxSalem 2020

Jewelia Owens brings electric-guitar-infused folk to TEDxSalem

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If you’ve been out in the music scene, chances are you have heard Jew­elia Owens and her elec­tric gui­tar mes­mer­iz­ing the crowd.

If you grew up in Salem in the ‘90s you might have crossed paths with her too. With her mag­net­ic gui­tar and cap­ti­vat­ing voice, she isn’t one to eas­i­ly for­get, which is why you won’t want to miss her at TEDxSalem Jan. 4

Jew­elia Owens to play folk with elec­tric gui­tar for TEDxSalem VII.

She comes from cre­ative par­ents. Her dad was a play­wright and her mom act­ed in his plays. Grow­ing up, there were always fam­i­ly friends play­ing music around her. As a girl, Jew­elia played vio­lin and sang in the choir, but then as a high school fresh­man she met peo­ple who had gui­tars. One day some­one left a 12 string at her house, and she held on to it for a while and learned all the strings and chords

She has trav­eled a bit, seen Europe, and tried to move to New York once, but says she real­ly is a home­body. She has a large, close-knit fam­i­ly in Salem includ­ing aunts, uncles, cousins, grand­par­ent and par­ents. In fact, she lives with her broth­er and his girl­friend, who is also her best friend. Fam­i­ly is impor­tant to her. It was her uncle who first taught her gui­tar.

She loves that they get to pick and choose who hosts for the hol­i­days. But even though she loves Ore­gon, she wouldn’t mind see­ing “some­thing seri­ous­ly trop­i­cal, with clear waters and sun umbrel­las.”

By day you can find her teach­ing music at Riv­er City Rock Star Acad­e­my, and this fall she took a sec­ond job at Sil­ver­leaf School.

“It’s ful­fill­ing and chal­leng­ing to teach a class of chil­dren,” she said of her new gig at Sil­ver­leaf. “They have so much ener­gy!”

She also said that Sil­ver­leaf is fun because she teach­es kids whose par­ents just want them to have the expe­ri­ence of try­ing new things. And the kids don’t care what they play or if they sound good, they just bang drums and play the piano.

“My most fun kids are the ones with no direc­tion, I guess!” she laughed.

Over the years she has changed the direc­tion of her music, mov­ing from an acoustic gui­tar and easy-going folk songs to a dark­er folk on an elec­tric gui­tar.

As she pre­pares her setlist for TEDxSalem, she is think­ing about the theme – VISION and imag­in­ing what songs she can share that include this idea of vision; think­ing about where she is going and where she is com­ing from. It inspires her to think about life and what it means.

“I believe we are here for each oth­er. We real­ly are. Peo­ple are here for peo­ple,” she said.

“It is why we are all alive. All I want in the world is to spread love and kind­ness.”

You can find Jew­elia Owens on Face­book, Insta­gram, Band­camp, and of course, at TEDxSalem on Jan­u­ary 4.

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com

Nina Baliga: Accessible tech is better tech for everyone

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Nina Bali­ga is the man­ag­ing part­ner for Break­ing the Bias, a pro­gram that helps com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als cre­ate tools, meth­ods and strate­gies to build more inclu­sive work­places.

When she isn’t advo­cat­ing for acces­si­ble tech, she spends her time snow­board­ing, rock climb­ing, play­ing video games and spend­ing time with her hus­band Pierce and two dogs, Tavvi and Rook.

One thing that you wouldn’t know about the 39 year old is that she has a ran­dom col­lec­tion of belt buck­les from when she lived in the deep south. We are thrilled to wel­come Nina to the TEDxSalem stage Jan. 4th. 

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? Elaine Mari­no’s “Bring­ing the Work­place into the 21st Cen­tu­ry”. Elaine has been a thought leader in how we can build work­places that tru­ly val­ue diver­si­ty and inclu­sion. I’ve been inspired by her work for years.  

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? It’s all about acces­si­bil­i­ty. Hav­ing worked with build­ing web­sites and apps that are acces­si­ble for the visu­al­ly impaired, I want­ed to start build­ing things that would be acces­si­ble for peo­ple of all dis­abil­i­ties. I rec­og­nized from the very begin­ning that build­ing acces­si­ble prod­ucts and ser­vices means build­ing amaz­ing prod­ucts for every­one. 

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined? I knew that I would nev­er work a desk job. My biggest fear as a high school­er was the idea of work­ing in a cubi­cle. Even though I’ve held cubi­cle jobs, I’ve shown to myself that how we define work is up to us in many ways. I’ve been able to define my job in my own terms.  

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. I learned Irish for my lan­guage require­ment in col­lege. I would go to under­ground Irish-speak­ing pubs in Gal­way when I lived there for a sum­mer. You can imag­ine peo­ple’s faces when a brown 20-some­thing-year-old woman was going in there and speak­ing to them in Irish.   

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Video game design. I believe video games are not only an escape from our hec­tic lives, but can also be used as a tool for social impact. They’re a pow­er­ful form of sto­ry­telling that any­one can access.   

Go-to karaoke song? “Pour Some Sug­ar on Me” by Def Lep­pard.   

Under your bed right now? Prob­a­bly a whole bunch of dog fur. 

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Smooth

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com

TEDxSalem VII speaker Bassam Tarazi — Living Intentionally

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Bas­sam Tarazi is a Change Man­age­ment Consultant…but he wasn’t always. He has a back­ground in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing and start­ed his career as a nuclear engi­neer work­ing on nuclear sub­marines in Pearl Har­bor, Hawaii. Born and raised in Con­necti­cut, the 39-year-old now lives in Port­land with his wife, Saman­tha, and dog, Oliv­er. His hob­bies include writ­ing, read­ing, hiking/trekking, swim­ming, bik­ing, and watch­ing his beloved Arse­nal foot­ball club dis­ap­point him. He once con­vinced Fidel Cas­tro to sign his US pass­port with a Sharpie, but that’s not the only risky thing he’s done. Bas­sam has a dynam­ic list of chal­lenges he’s faced, which he will share more about at TEDxSalem VII.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? Simon Sinek’s talk was my first stum­ble into a TED Talk (at least from what I can remem­ber)

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? I’d say it’s that same talk. “Peo­ple don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Simon was one of the first peo­ple to real­ly dri­ve home that idea. Ever since, I’ve always tried to tack­le my “why” in life and to be sure I bring it across in all that I do.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? It’s not about what we want to do in the world, but who we want to be. I think we spend too much time think­ing about what we are going to do in life and we for­get to lay the foun­da­tion of who we are going to become. What do peo­ple say about us when we leave the room? When I think of vision, I think about what would go in my eulo­gy, not on my resume.

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life? That I grew up in the rel­a­tive time of plen­ty. In the his­to­ry of humankind, it is only for the slight­est sliv­er of it that we have the free­doms and time to explore our imag­i­na­tions and this world in the way that we can today. What an incred­i­ble gift that is.

What are some of the most impor­tant lessons you’ve learned in life? How did you learn them? 

You nev­er know when a smile might save some­one’s life. — My mom used to say that to us when we were kids.

“Make every deci­sion the right deci­sion.” When you are left with an either-or choice, just pick one and nev­er look back. If the choice you made does­n’t work out, you can’t look back and say, “I knew it. I should have cho­sen the oth­er thing.” You don’t know that. You could have been dead if you chose the oth­er thing. Learn what you learned in what you chose, dust your­self off and move for­ward. My father taught me that.

Writ­ing isn’t a man­i­fes­ta­tion of what I’ve dis­cov­ered, it’s a dis­cov­ery of what I’ll man­i­fest. Learned this one on my own, try­ing to write. I used to hold ideas in my head think­ing that once I fig­ure them out then I’ll write them down. But it does­n’t work that way. The best part of writ­ing is sit­ting down to write and then writ­ing some­thing you did­n’t even know was in your end. 

In five years you’ll be wrong. I think we some­times get too caught up in our visions for the future that we for­get to see what’s in front of us every day. When peo­ple ask me where do I want to be in five years, I always answer, “Liv­ing inten­tion­al­ly,” because when I go back five years and look for­ward, I’m nev­er where I thought I’d be. We design our ship and load our pro­vi­sions for what we think we will encounter over the hori­zon, but what we inevitably do encounter is nev­er what we expect­ed. So we cer­tain­ly have to choose and pad­dle in a car­di­nal direc­tion in life, but we should always be ready to adapt to what comes from beyond the hori­zon. This has taught me to not put too much weight on any deci­sion. Life will always throw a curve­ball, so it’s bet­ter to act while you can and adapt lat­er.

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. I have a stut­ter that I work around every day. One of the hard­est things for me to do is just say my first name when going around the room intro­duc­ing our­selves.

If you could live in the set­ting of any book or movie, with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly being involved in the sto­ry, which would you choose? Incep­tion; Imag­ine there was a world where you could enter peo­ple’s dreams?! That would be crazy.

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Rock­et sci­ence

Go-to karaoke song? The Killers “Mr. Bright­side” 

Where would you go in a time machine? Inside the com­mand mod­ule of Apol­lo 11 on top of the Sat­urn 5, ten sec­onds before liftoff. It was the great­est adven­ture of all time. Would have loved to be a part of it.

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com

Mike Studer: Physical therapist, world record holder, pun enthusiast

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Salemite Mike Stud­er nev­er imag­ined him­self as an endurance ath­lete, espe­cial­ly grow­ing up as a base­ball play­er in the 1980s when the thought of run­ning more than 360 feet at a time (the length of an inside-the-park home run) seemed point­less. But that is what he became and now holds the world record for the fastest under­wa­ter tread­mill marathon. A Phys­i­cal Ther­a­pist with a Master’s degree in Neu­ro­log­ic PT, Mike enjoys run­ning, bak­ing healthy food, puns and dad jokes. He is also a ded­i­cat­ed com­mu­ni­ty vol­un­teer — “I love work­ing with the Mar­i­on Polk Food Share sort­ing food as a team with peo­ple from our clin­ic; serv­ing at our church in dra­ma roles; work­ing a med­ical tent at local sport­ing events to pro­mote healthy activ­i­ties” — and will be able to add TEDx speak­er to his list of accom­plish­ments come Jan­u­ary 4, 2020, when he speaks about the regen­er­a­tive capac­i­ties of the human brain. So meet Mike, then join us for his “idea worth spread­ing” in Jan­u­ary.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? I believe that it was the 1998 Aimee Mullins inter­view TED talk. For obvi­ous rea­sons, this is rel­e­vant to my pro­fes­sion as a phys­i­cal ther­a­pist.

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? Per­son­al­ly, I am a bit of a health nut, and I very much appre­ci­at­ed Eliz­a­beth Black­burn’s TED talk about the Sci­ence of Aging, specif­i­cal­ly regard­ing the length and lifes­pan of DNA through telom­eres. I mod­i­fied my already strange the­o­ries on caloric intake and eat­ing in gen­er­al as a func­tion of this talk. 

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? The abil­i­ty to see what oth­ers might not. We have a human spec­trum of vis­i­ble light, that is well-stud­ied. How­ev­er, giv­en our indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences and inher­ent bias­es, we bring dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on human lim­its. I bring a per­spec­tive that caus­es me to believe in my vision for greater accom­plish­ments that what we present­ly achieve in peo­ple — and specif­i­cal­ly the human brain.

What is one of your favorite child­hood mem­o­ries? Pitch­ing the entire game of a lit­tle league all-star game and no-hit­ting the oppos­ing team. 

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life? My work eth­ic and my wife. 

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined? I nev­er imag­ined myself as an endurance ath­lete, grow­ing up as a base­ball play­er in the 1980s when the thought of run­ning more than 360 feet at a time (the length of an inside-the-park home run) seemed point­less.

What are some of the most impor­tant lessons you’ve learned in life? How did you learn them? Do the right thing. Admit to your­self and oth­ers when your con­cept of the right thing, was wrong. 

What is some­thing unex­pect­ed that has changed about you in the last few years? Med­ical advance­ments and our own fam­i­ly’s expe­ri­ences with chron­ic health con­di­tions, includ­ing pain and the rela­tion­ship to changes from the body to the brain and reverse…due to the pres­ence of chron­ic pain. 

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. I know more point­less facts than any­one real­ly should store in their brain. Triv­ia about sports, music, his­to­ry, etc. 

What song best describes your life? “I Did It My Way,” pop­u­lar­ized by Sina­tra or “It’s a Beau­ti­ful Day,” by U2

If you could live in the set­ting of any book or movie, with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly being involved in the sto­ry, which would you choose? “A Field of Dreams” or “Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry”

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? At about 12 years old, I con­fi­dent­ly but inept­ly sad­dled-up a Shet­land pony and pro­ceed­ed to ride it with my cousin, Fred Stud­er, 13, at the same time. Not long into the ride, the sad­dle proved to be too loose and we were soon upside down on a 5‑foot tall horse with­out enough ground clear­ance to ride upside down. 

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Jazz piano

What is the best gift any­one has ever giv­en to you? Love

Would you rather have a rewind but­ton or a pause but­ton on your life? Rewind. I have enjoyed many moments that I would glad­ly relive. 

Favorite book(s)? And why. Bro­ca’s Brain by Carl Sagan — the insights into how the brain oper­ates fas­ci­nat­ed and con­tin­ue to fas­ci­nate me. 

Top 3 songs or artists? Where the Streets Have No Name, Start Me Up, Beau­ti­ful Day. U2, Rolling Stones respec­tive­ly.

Go-to karaoke song? Every­body Hurts by REM

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Chunky

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com

Graphic designer shares vision for TEDxSalem’s 2020 logo

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When your job is to envi­sion a theme like “Vision,” it’s a lit­er­al chal­lenge. Or rather, the chal­lenge is to not be too lit­er­al.

That’s what graph­ic design­er Von Glitsch­ka encoun­tered in his approach to this year’s logo.

“Many hear the term vision and imme­di­ate­ly think of eyes or sight,” he says. “So instead of fight­ing that, we made this char­ac­ter rep­re­sent vision as it asso­ciates with see­ing the future, see­ing poten­tial, pos­sess­ing a pas­sion and love for some­thing and let­ting that dri­ve to accom­plish it ele­vate you to the next lev­el in pur­suit of your vision.”

His goal with the logo was “to devel­op an iden­ti­ty that would com­mu­ni­cate with and with­out type that still cap­tured the core mes­sage.”

Glitsch­ka has been involved with TEDxSalem from the begin­ning, first as a speak­er and through the years as the logo design­er. He says the event has helped fur­ther reveal Salem’s cre­ative side.

“This is a some­what small­er town as cap­i­tals go, but I’m always sur­prised to find out about clever, cre­ative, and pas­sion­ate projects and paths peo­ple are work­ing on.”

But it’s the con­tent that brings him back year after year.

“The theme is always of course inspir­ing, but it’s the unique con­tent that new indi­vid­u­als give on each year’s theme that makes it engag­ing,” he says.

As the next TEDxSalem approach­es, Glitsch­ka wants you to see your­self (dare we say envi­sion your­self?) with­in the logo and allow it to inspire you.

“The char­ac­ter rep­re­sents the atten­der,” he says. “We all have or can have a pas­sion, and when that moment of inspi­ra­tion strikes, it sets ablaze a new vision, and as we pur­sue that, it ele­vates us and we love to share it with oth­ers, and that improves cul­ture for every­one and moti­vates oth­ers to do the same.”

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It takes place 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets on sale now! Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com