SW Arizona News

The inaugural TEDxAWC event is almost here! TEDxAWC: Shift the Drift will take place Friday, March 17, from 4 -8 p.m. at the Arizona Western College Theater, 2020 S. Avenue 8E.

While tickets for the in-person event are sold out, TEDxAWC will be livestreamed starting at 4 PM MST on YouTube.com/AWCTV/LIVE. Completed TEDx Talks will also be shared worldwide on official TED platforms at later dates.

The conference will feature finalists selected to speak on the theme “Shift the Drift,” which is about introducing new perspectives to regularly practiced procedures in different disciplines. Conversations will be initiated on how to reflect and bring awareness to what the drift is, determine the need for new ideas worth spreading in our community, and assess the effectiveness of implementing new changes.

In addition to inspiring creativity and ingenuity, the event will honor the voices of AWC students, faculty and staff, the larger community of Yuma and La Paz Counties, and beyond. Event speakers include Valeria Bogorevich, Trisha Campbell, Shawn Clavell & Kevin Kato, Ruchi Lamba, Troy Love, Lily McNair, Trudie Milner, Shadi Vahdat, and Anne-Heather Welch. More information about the speakers can be found on the official TEDxAWC website here

The host for this historic event will be Lori Stofft, AWC Vice President for Advancement and Executive Director of the AWC Foundation. Stofft’s passion for community advancement, idea sharing, and storytelling is ever-present in her work with TEDxAWC. She will bring her expertise in public relations, communication, and cultural alignment to this volunteer role.

John Hessinger is also volunteering his time as the TEDxAWC official Speech Coach. Hessinger is the Community Development Director for Better Business Bureau serving the Pacific Southwest and an instructor of Speech Communications at AWC. He brings a dedicated blend of knowledge and community vision to the team. Teaching Public Speaking since 2009 for NAU and AWC, Hessinger employs enthusiasm and expertise as the TEDxAWC Speech Coach.

“The TEDxAWC executive board, speech coach, student volunteers, production crew, and welding crew have been passionately working over the last few months to put on one of AWC’s most awaited and most impactful events of its kind,” said TEDxAWC Director/Licensee Dr. Sara Amani. “Our inaugural TEDxAWC will be lined up with outstanding speakers from diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and professions. What they have in common is their passion and desire to connect with the community, and to share ‘ideas worth spreading’ on topics such as psychology, healthcare, fitness science, rhetoric and composition, and more.”

TEDxAWC was one of eight proposals approved through the 2022 AWC Innovation Fund, where faculty, staff and students had the opportunity to present a variety of ideas in hopes of being granted the funds to make their initiatives a reality. Dr. Sara Amani, Professor of Multilingual Composition/Specialist, was awarded $16,500 for her TEDxAWC proposal to implement the project. She was then able to secure the TEDx official license for the event from TED Conferences.

Add TEDxAWC to your calendar, and follow TEDxAWC on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, to help celebrate the incredible innovations and important ideas that will be featured. Photos of AWC welding students creating a sculptural set piece for the event can be found here.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, often in the form of short talks delivered by leading thinkers and doers. Many of these talks are given at TED conferences, intimate TED Salons and thousands of independently organized TEDx events around the world. Videos of these talks are made available, free, on TED.com and other platforms. Audio versions of TED Talks are published to TED Talks Daily, available on all podcast platforms.

TED's open and free initiatives for spreading ideas include TED.com, where new TED Talk videos are posted daily; TEDx, which licenses thousands of individuals and groups to host local, self-organized TED-style events around the world; the TED Fellows program, which selects innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities; The Audacious Project, which surfaces and funds critical ideas that have the potential to impact millions of lives; TED Translators, which crowdsources the subtitling of TED Talks so that big ideas can spread across languages and borders; and the educational initiative TED-Ed. TED also offers TED@Work, a program that reimagines TED Talks for workplace learning. TED also has a growing library of original podcasts, including The TED Interview with Chris Anderson, WorkLife with Adam Grant, Far Flung with Saleem Reshamwala and How to Be a Better Human 

Original source can be found here.