On Friday, April 17, SMU kicked off the 101st Founders’ Day Weekend celebration, a three-day festivity commemorating the establishment of SMU, with InsideSMU powered by TEDxSMU, a presentation by faculty, students and alumni.
TED – which stands for technology, entertainment, and design – allows thinkers to discuss how they intend to enhance society. Shaping society one idea at a time, TEDxSMU brought together an eminent salon of influential world changers.
A large gathering of attendees filled the seats of the Bob Hope Theater located inside the Meadows Museum, which celebrated its 50th anniversary that day. TEDxSMU’s InsideSMU featured talks ranging from poetry and philanthropy to innovation and love.
Ulrike Schultze captivated the crowd with her presentation on how social media shapes society. She delved into the sociological difference between an identified profile versus an anonymous one. Schultze also discussed how social platforms, such as Facebook or Second Life, sets society free to explore the world’s greatest adventure – a journey into our inner selves and who we can be as individuals.
Justin Mueller energized the audience by teaching them how to contribute to philanthropy on a student salary, or a “basically broke” salary. A student himself, Muller talked about his creative solution to altruism on a budget, preaching that even a small portion of time devoted to volunteering can mean a life-changing impact on a community and an individual.
Greg Brownderville made the crowd laugh through his affection for poetry. He shared a story how his living became a passion, how his father’s influence shaped his love for words, and the sentence that inspired him to craft poems: “Greg, you can have a lot of fun with funny words.”
Brownderville urged the crowd to fall in love with poetry, to allow words to drown us in their beauty and lift us to enhance the creative spaces we live in.
Frances Mitchel, a class of 2010 alumna, believes TEDxSMU can help bridge the gaps that exist between education and low-income families
“I think it’s a fascinating fusion between teachers, students, and alumni to explore the culture of education. Education has become so expensive over the decade and to make it more available to students represent one of the greatest challenges society has encountered,” said Mitchel.
The thinkers, leaders, and world changers present at TEDxSMU each presented their ideas aimed at satisfying society’s unlimited curiosities. Ideas that can inspire creative minds and craft a golden future. Ideas that can help answer the mysteries that hide in the deepest oceans and beyond the infinite reaches of space. Ideas worth spreading.
TEDxSMU is more than a platform to propel these ideas into something more, but rather a trumpet call to invigorate and enthuse others to create more, to impassion our community to race above and beyond those who came before. For a community inspired with ideas is a community inspired to change – the greatest idea of all.
