There are moments when I love my job so much I think I may burst. Moments when I am amazed that this is what I get paid (paid well even) to do. This sunny February Friday was one of those days; I rushed out of school and up to Kitchener for a planning meeting about the TEDx event we are organizing for our Futures Forum group of students from the Waterloo Region District School Board.
March 21st is TEDxWaterloo, hosted at Centre in the Square. This is one of the largest Tedx events in the world, last year featuring the likes of Dr Roberta Bondar, Vicki Keith and Abby Sutherland. The place was packed and the energy palpable.
This year, just down the street at the Chrysalis theatre 300+ grade ten students will gather to watch a live stream of the event. Exciting enough, but we are aiming to recreate the feel of a live Ted event by adding as many authentic interactive experiences as possible. The folks at TEDxWaterloo have been amazingly cooperative about sharing their resources to customize an experience for these students.
I am hopelessly excited about this. There is a great group of university volunteers who are going to draw upon their connections to create neat displays of innovation for the kids to experience. Mathew Ho (of the recent “Legoman in space” fame.) will come in person after his talk to do a live QA session with the kids. They’ll get to see a little behind the scenes magic of the main event, via video and a presentation next week by Ramy Nassar the TEDxWaterloo director and co-host.
We are creating a truly amazing event, in true collaborative style and it embodies everything the Futures Forum program expouses.
This is awesome! I will be attending the event at the Centre in the Square. Will your students be tweeting or using other social media that day? I would love to follow along or even get involved in the sharing!
They will be tweeting for sure. Not sure what hashtag yet, but I’ll publish it once I know. Hopefully I will see you at the CITS; after we get the kids home a number of us will head over for the last session of the night. We are all really excited to see how it turns out. Perhaps the beginning of a tradition. Thanks for the enthusiasm and support Kim!