TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

tickets

Marisa A. Zapata: Rethinking homelessness

By

Marisa A. Zap­a­ta is a researcher, edu­ca­tor and plan­ner. She is the Direc­tor of Home­less­ness Research & Action Col­lab­o­ra­tive and Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Land-use Plan­ning at Port­land State Uni­ver­si­ty. She holds a doc­tor­ate in Region­al Plan­ning, a mas­ter’s in Urban Plan­ning and a bachelor’s in Anthro­pol­o­gy. When not work­ing, you may find her play­ing flute, read­ing a book, tak­ing a long walk or play­ing a board game. In Jan­u­ary, Dr. Zap­a­ta will take to the TEDxSalem stage to address how we can solve home­less­ness by rethink­ing who has a right to hous­ing.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? My first TED expe­ri­ence was prob­a­bly “ille­gal” because it was a TED “style” talk but not offi­cial­ly through TED. One of my friends from col­lege was doing a talk about health care issues that she was study­ing as a med­ical doc­tor. It was won­der­ful to see her, a per­son I had known for awhile, being on a stage and shar­ing her knowl­edge. I learned a lot from the talk!

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? My cur­rent fave is by Gab­by Rivera who talked about cre­at­ing the first queer Lati­na super­hero. I didn’t grow up read­ing graph­ic nov­els, though my dad talked about his favorite super­hero — Spi­der­man. Like many things I have only real­ized as an adult, my lack of inter­est in a par­tic­u­lar thing was part­ly dri­ven by not see­ing peo­ple like me. I know a lot of peo­ple say rep­re­sen­ta­tion mat­ters, but it real­ly goes fur­ther than an image or a lan­guage. It’s also about ideas and con­ver­sa­tion styles and char­ac­ters who are like your fam­i­ly mem­bers. For me, super­heroes are about imag­ing dif­fer­ent types of futures. A super­verse with white men and hyper­sex­u­al­ized white women could nev­er be a future for me. But a Lati­na? That’s a super I can believe in. I also loved Gabby’s deliv­ery. Like Gab­by, I grew up learn­ing to tell sto­ries and for me, humor was a big part of that. See­ing her laugh on stage is a great reminder that humor can be such an impor­tant part of talks on seri­ous top­ics.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? I love this year’s theme. Vision can mean so many dif­fer­ent things, but I think all of those things involved how we share our thoughts, ideas, fears, and hopes. Whether through lit­er­al shared sight or through lan­guage, we cul­ti­vate how we live in com­mu­ni­ty with one anoth­er. For my work, I think about how to envi­sion just futures, and cre­ate path­ways to move us in those direc­tions while prepar­ing for uncer­tain­ty. A lot of this work is about fore­sight — try­ing to think about how our futures might play out based on our presents. I think this is espe­cial­ly impor­tant when think­ing about home­less­ness. We have what can feel like an over­whelm­ing set of tasks in front of us, and list of pos­si­ble options. Envi­sion­ing futures allows us to struc­ture the work and the options.

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. My health pre­vents me from work­ing out as hard or often as I want. I’d love to be doing one hour of spin­ning or jog­ging or bik­ing to work, but my phys­i­cal health doesn’t match that. I’ve come to appre­ci­ate a long walk, but also, I just want to go jump on a tram­po­line for an hour!

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? I rap­pelled down a 28-sto­ry build­ing for a Big Brother/Big Sis­ter fundrais­er with my Lit­tle Sis from the pro­gram. It was for “fun.” It wasn’t real­ly all that fun.

Favorite books? And why. 

Bless Me, Ulti­ma by Rudol­fo Anaya. The sto­ry of a young boy caught between two cul­tures as a young Lati­no liv­ing in the South­west res­onat­ed with me as a cul­tur­al­ly mixed Mex­i­can Amer­i­can from Texas. This book was the first time I read some­thing where mag­i­cal real­ism was inte­grat­ed into the sto­ry, and one of the first times I had seen my cul­ture described in a fic­tion­al sto­ry.

Invis­i­ble Cities by Ita­lo Calvi­no. It’s hard to explain too much about the book with­out giv­ing it away! Maybe I can leave it with — it’s my world view. We all may come from sim­i­lar places and see and expe­ri­ence our com­mu­ni­ties in rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent ways.

Go-to karaoke song? Fan­cy by Reba McEn­tire

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Chunky. All the way.

A ran­dom fact: A fire ant bite could kill me! 

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

Student scientist Mihir Joshi has a solution to save the ocean

By

The youngest speak­er to take to the TEDxSalem stage this com­ing year is Mihir Joshi, a 13-year-old stu­dent at South Salem High School. Mihir, who enjoys play­ing video games, prob­lem-solv­ing and run­ning cross-coun­try, at one time, was able to solve a Rubiks Cube in under 45 sec­onds. Always look­ing for solu­tions, this curi­ous teen will take to the TEDxSalem stage to share how he learned to pre­dict the change of Marine Pro­tect­ed Areas and what you can do to help save the ocean.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? I par­tic­i­pat­ed and spoke at the first-ever TEDxYouth@Salem event in Novem­ber 2017. (Check out Mihir’s talk here)

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? “This is What Hap­pens When you Reply to Spam Emails” by James Veitch. I love this TEDxTalk because of its amaz­ing use of humor.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? To me, Vision means to visu­al­ize some­thing that doesn’t exist today and strive to make it a real­i­ty because of your pas­sion and hard work.

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life? Being able to grow up in a pos­i­tive and sup­port­ive house­hold with amaz­ing par­ents and a great sis­ter.

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. I won home­com­ing court this year in my high school.     

What song best describes your life? “Haven’t Met You Yet” By Michael Bublé. I chose this song because I’m always look­ing for the next thing out there and I believe the best is yet to come.

Top 3 movies of the moment?

  1.     3 Idiots (Bol­ly­wood movie)
  2.     Guardians of the Galaxy 1
  3.     Ter­mi­na­tor 1

Top 3 songs or artists?

  1.     AJR
  2.     Jon Bel­lion
  3.     Khalid

Where would you go in a time machine? I would go back in time to watch Neil Arm­strong take his first step on the moon.          

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? How could any­one ever like chunky peanut but­ter! Smooth is the only option.  

Favorite col­or? Red

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

By

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

Become a TEDxSalem Patron

By

We can’t do this with­out your sup­port.

TEDxSalem is pro­duced entire­ly by vol­un­teers. No one is paid, includ­ing speak­ers, but we do incur sig­nif­i­cant expens­es. From food and drinks to venue rental, A/V pro­fes­sion­als, mate­ri­als costs, trav­el expens­es and even pay­ment pro­cess­ing fees, run­ning a large-scale event like TEDxSalem requires a sig­nif­i­cant bud­get.

New this year, TEDxSalem is offer­ing three tick­et lev­els: gen­er­al, stu­dent and patron.

While we have offered gen­er­al and stu­dent in the past, after receiv­ing numer­ous requests on how to sup­port our event beyond a gen­er­al tick­et we decid­ed to add a patron tick­et lev­el.

We aim to pro­vide as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble access to our annu­al event so they may join, engage, expe­ri­ence and learn.

A patron tick­et gen­er­ous­ly pro­vides funds to sup­port dis­count­ed tick­ets for local stu­dents to attend TEDxSalem. While we have pro­vid­ed stu­dent tick­ets for a num­ber of years, we have had to lim­it the num­ber avail­able due to fund­ing. The addi­tion of a patron lev­el allows us to expand our stu­dent tick­et offer­ings. Pur­chas­ing a patron tick­et declares that you believe in mak­ing our pro­gram acces­si­ble to every­one.

All of our fund­ing comes from a com­bi­na­tion of our event part­ners, tick­et sales and the sup­port of patrons like you.

TEDxSalem is orga­nized by The Mox­ie Ini­tia­tive, a reg­is­tered 501(c)(3) non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion. Dona­tions are tax-deductible, to the full extent of the law. Con­sult your tax pro­fes­sion­al for details.

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

Make the most of your TEDxSalem experience with these 10 tips

By

We’re less than 24 hours away from TEDxSalem VI. Don’t have tick­ets yet? Don’t wor­ry, you can still get them here.

Do we all have our tick­ets now? Good! Now read these ten tips on how to get the most out of your TED expe­ri­ence Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

10. Take notes! Bring a small note­book or down­load a notes app for your smart­phone. You def­i­nitely want to remem­ber those moments that made you smile, made you think or just jumped out at you. Take a moment dur­ing the event and at the end of the day to jot down the insights you gained.

9. Be present in the moment. We love that you want to Tweet and Insta­gram about your amaz­ing TEDxSalem expe­ri­ence. But don’t get so wrapped up in your phone that you miss a poignant moment dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion or a TED talk!

8. Be open-mind­ed. Some of the ideas worth shar­ing may be shock­ing. Some might be a lit­tle con­tro­ver­sial or entire­ly new to you. Don’t write off a TED talk even if you find your­self bristling at it. Be open to new ideas!

7. First in the door, last out the build­ing. Get there ear­ly. You can find your seat, chat up the per­son next to you, get com­fort­able and see what oth­er good­ies await through­out the day. Last year, par­tic­i­pants had the oppor­tu­nity to pur­chase books writ­ten by our speak­ers or get some awe­some TEDxSalem swag. Stay the whole day and leave late. Lis­ten to every sin­gle talk. Do the break­out ses­sions. Ask a mil­lion ques­tions. By the end of the day, you won’t want to leave!

6. Bring some­thing to share. It can be some­thing tan­gi­ble like your busi­ness card or some­thing that’s not like a thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tion or a great book you’ve read recent­ly.

5. Do your research! We love a good sur­prise, and we hope some of the top­ics and thoughts will be delight­fully sur­pris­ing. But there’s some­thing to be said for get­ting excit­ed about your favorite speak­er ahead of time! Take a moment to read the TEDXSalem blog for more infor­ma­tion about each speak­er. Revis­it last year’s speak­ers to get in the spir­it of TED! Or vis­it the offi­cial TED blog for more engag­ing TED talks and choose a few favorites.

4. Net­work, net­work, net­work! TEDxSalem is not a pas­sive or iso­lated expe­ri­ence. You are at the beau­ti­ful Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter with hun­dreds of peo­ple just as excit­ed about new ideas as you are! Talk to every­one. Intro­duce your­self. Don’t ask what they do for a liv­ing — ask what they’re pas­sion­ate about. Make friends, get con­tacts, dis­cuss the TED talks with them. Force your­self a lit­tle out of your com­fort zone and chat up a stranger. (Did the intro­vert in you just cringe? It’s ok. TEDxSalem is for intro­verts, too.)

3. Our vol­un­teers are a resource! They are the heart, soul and back­bone of TEDxSalem, and they are there to make your expe­ri­ence extra­or­di­nary. If you need any­thing at all, don’t hes­i­tate to ask them!

2. Be sure to par­tic­i­pate in the break­out ses­sions. One high­light of TEDxSalem is our speak­ers, but there’s so much more that goes on through­out the day. If you real­ly want to make the most of your time, don’t shy away from sit­ting in on the break­out ses­sions and shar­ing your own ideas. It’s all about mak­ing you think.

1. Immerse your­self in the spir­it of TED! TED is a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion devot­ed to spread­ing ideas, usu­ally in the form of short, pow­er­ful talks. It began in 1984 as a con­fer­ence where tech­nol­ogy, enter­tain­ment and design con­verged (hence the name) and now cov­ers almost all top­ics, includ­ing sci­ence, busi­ness and glob­al issues. Keep all of this in mind as you approach Jan. 6. The day is devot­ed to shar­ing ideas!

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5, 2019, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. 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.

Get your early bird ticket to TEDxSalem V

By

Ear­ly bird tick­ets for TEDxSalem V, “Through the Look­ing Glass,” go on sale on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 1.

A lim­it­ed sup­ply of ear­ly bird tick­ets will be avail­able start­ing at 9 a.m., through the rest of the month. 

With an ear­ly bird tick­et, you’ll get every­thing you’d get with a stan­dard tick­et (admis­sion to the full day of talks by our speak­ers, enter­tain­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion in recess breaks, hands-on activ­i­ties between ses­sions, plus food through­out the day, a gift bag and a few oth­er good­ies) but with a $10 dis­count.

Ear­ly bird tick­ets are avail­able in a lim­it­ed quan­ti­ty for a lim­it­ed time. Sales end on Sep­tem­ber 30 or when sold out.

Reg­u­lar tick­et sales begin Octo­ber 1.

Have you heard? Our theme this year is “Through the Look­ing Glass.” Learn about the design for our new logo.

Have you met our onstage host, Kei­th Seck­el? Check out his 2015 host­ing expe­ri­ence.

Have you seen our speak­er line­up? Check them out here.

So what are you wait­ing for? See you at TEDxSalem on Jan­u­ary 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

Tick­ets are avail­able online at tedxsalem.eventbrite.com.

Ear­ly bird tick­ets are $45 and avail­able until Sept. 30. Stan­dard advance tick­ets are $55. Stu­dent advance tick­ets are $45.

Ques­tions? Feel free to email us at info@tedxsalem.us.