TED started in 1984 as a conference that each year brought people from Technology, Entertainment and Design together for short lectures (no more than 18 minutes) on their favorite topics. The talks were videotaped and made available for free on YouTube. That quickly made TED a global phenomenon.

TED’s motto is “Ideas worth spreading” so in that spirit, TEDx was created with the “x” symbolizing an local, independently organized TED event.
The first ever TEDx Lowell will be held this Sunday, April 27, 2014 at UTEC which is at 34 Hurd Street, right between the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center and the Lowell District Court. There are a total of 19 speakers in two sessions (with me being one of them). The first runs from 1 pm until 4:30 pm; the second from 5:30 pm until 9 pm. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the TEDx Lowell website.

Here’s a list of the speakers and topics for the first session which begins at 1pm:

Catherine Rymsha – Program Manager, Communications, Virtual, Inc.
“Want to Become a Better Leader? Here’s How: Just listen…”

David Parker – Executive Director, Merrimack Valley Sandbox
“Redefining Entrepreneurship”

Anand Mahurkar – Founder and CEO, Findability Sciences
“Big Data for Good”

Becky Curran – International Motivational Speaker
“The Media’s Perception of Little People and the Disability Community”

Alexander Martinez-Forte, Gregory Bohenko, and Aaron Stafford – Owners of Redestar Group and UMass Lowell Students
“Be a Giraffe: Head in the Clouds, Feet on the Ground”

Mike Tith – Senior Manager, Partnerships and Business Development, Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University
“Closing the Engagement Gap in Education and Life”

Kerry Akashian – Urban Literacy Coordinator at Massachusetts Department of Education

Dan Kennedy – Northeastern Professor, Panelist on “Beat the Press”
“Telling the Local Story: The Fate of Community Journalism in a Time of Cultural Upheaval”

Rachael Miller – Executive Director, Rozalia Project
“Innovation, Technology, and Optimism for a Clean Ocean”

Richard Howe, Jr. – Register of Deeds, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
“Failure as Opportunity: The Founding of Lowell, MA”

Speakers and topics for the second session which begins at 5:30 pm:

Tim David – Entertainer, Mentalist, and Speaker
“Restoring Human Connection”

Abby Fichtner – Hacker in Residence, Harvard Innovation Lab
“Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You”

Aldo Beqiraj – CEO & Co-Founder of Bringrr Systems
“The Internet of Everything”

Patrick Murphy – Former Mayor of Lowell
“Better Street Design for Economy, Health, and Wellbeing”

Cindy Stumpo – Star of HGTV Show “Tough as Nails”
“Being Successful in a Typically Male Field”

Katie Magrane – Executive Director, Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership
“Zero Robotics: Students in Control of Space Station Robots”

Arthur Graham – Clinical Manager at Next Step Bionics & Prosthetics, Inc.
“The Future of Prosthetics”

Kacey Hill – UMass Lowell Student
“Finding Sisu”

Ed Brown – Director of “Unacceptable Levels”
”A Quiet Violence”