2nd round of talks returns to Austin

For Riverland Community College President Adenuga Atewologun, who is used to speaking in front of large crowds, being a first-time speaker at Austin’s second TEDxHoracePark talks was a bit nerve-racking.

“It’s actually more pressure than I anticipated,” he said. “It’s a different audience than I’m used to speaking to, but it’s a privilege to be asked to speak about AG, kind of the passion of mine in terms of science, engineering, merged with agriculture. So in that sense, it’s like going back to my roots, my academic training and background.”

Austin’s committee for TEDxHoracePark hosted its second round of talks meant to inspire ideas while sharing stories about Austin and society from 1:30 to 5 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at the lower level of 400 Fourth Ave. NE Saturday.

TEDx events were first launched in 2009 as the independently-organized offshoot of the popular TED Talks. Volunteers held Austin’s first TEDx event at The Hormel Institute in March 2014. Like last time, the subject for the talks was “Brain Food.”

Atewologun was excited to talk about a topic close to his heart. He hoped to inspire others with his discussion.

“I hope it inspires people to think beyond our immediate region and how we can do some impactful things in the area that would effect the use of water, energy, environment and food production world wide to conserve those resources,” he said.

Organizer Ann Hokanson was excited about the amount of participants this year and said last year’s event generated a lot of conversation.

“TEDx is all about local communities bringing their ideas out to share with local people and the world,” she said.

This year’s program drew about 60 people. Hokanson said the event had a good turnout, as the program is limited to 100 people attending. She said the program is meant to get people thinking in new ways about topics they may not otherwise have been exposed to.

Janis Frid, who attended last year’s event, was excited for this year’s talks and hoped to learn more about some specific areas.

“I want to learn a little more about Catherine [Haslag’s] science mentoring program, because I could do that as a retiree,” she said.

She was excited before the event to see how it would play out in the new location. She recommended people sign up for the next set of talks that come around.

“I definitely feel like it’s a worthwhile event,” she said.

All the TEDx talks are filmed. Austin attorney John Beckmann was one of the speakers in 2014, and his talk was a pick of the month and was featured on the national TEDx website.

This year’s speakers included Atewologun, KSMQ President and CEO Eric Olson, Haslag, Marc Anderson, Austin McCoy and Pete Wangen. Longer talks were blended with shorter ones. Co-organizer Kelsey Ritchie said the talks are designed to engage and connect with audience members.

TEDx speakers focus on local developments and current thinking on topics that affect people and the community.

Haslag talked about her idea to get mentors to help students with science projects.

“I began to realize that we had students in our community who did not have the help they needed to be able to participate in the science fair,” she said during her talk. “I wanted to find a way to help these kids.”

She described her idea to help the students, and said it all started with one idea, on observation.

“I had a vision in my head of a program where volunteers in the community worked one on one with students to help guide them through the process of completing an experiment,” she explained.

“The power of inspiring another to do something they had never done before, this was my hypothesis, my idea,” she concluded with a challenge to the audience. “What’s yours?”

Another speaker, Olson, talked about his experience working in a news station and the many years of learning one main lesson.

“Simple charge for you all — simply notice, is all I ask,” he said to the group. “Simply notice alternative solutions to situations around you, be they technological or human. Pull back from just one piece of technology — try it — or pull back from the standard way of thinking, how you always do things. Think critically, see if you can work your way to a solution in some other fashion.”

“In my view, success in life, or career, comes from noticing the tiny human moments happening around you day by day,” he concluded.

Organizers hope to hold the TEDx talks a third time and Hokanson said there may be one in March of 2017, but it’s still tentative.

Austin’s TEDx event was sponsored by KSMQ, the Austin Area Commissioner for the Arts, the Austin chapter of the American Association for University Women, the library, and the city of Austin. More information about TEDxHoracePark is available at www.facebook.com/TEDxHoracePark.

“Anybody who wants to learn more, we’re on Facebook, and anybody who wants to help or has a speaker idea for us, we’d love to have them contact us,” Hokanson said.