Windward Hosts Inaugural TED-based Conference

Via the Windward Bridge.com

By Robbie Brussell ‘12
Online Editor

On May 31, Windward held its first local “Windward Ideas Worth Spreading featuring TED Talks” conference.

According to the organization’s website at www.ted.com, TED is a nonprofit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading,” which began in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, U.K., each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the TED Fellows program,TEDed (for education), and TEDx programs, wherein an organization can become a “satellite” conference.

The Windward conference, spearheaded by Director of Communications Stephen Johnson and his 8th Period TED class, was dedicated to Art Nagle, former Director of the Upper School, who passed away in 2009 from cancer and had hoped to bring the TED videos and ideas to Windward students.
“In 2009, we had a great idea to connect TED and our students,” Johnson said in his introduction. “And [Art] really was the genesis of this idea.”

Talks at the conference ranged from a comparison between American and ancient Roman economy from history teacher Rob Latimer, a glimpse into the world of microstructure from physics teacher Simon Huss, a Skype (from Germany) chat with TED speaker Josh Klein, who did one of the most popular TED talks about the intelligence of crows. Windward junior Alex Nichols ‘12, who was a major curator of the class and conference, worked hard to make the Skype connection with Klein. Lorraine Bubar spoke about dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, and counselor Karolina Saloun told the more than 50 audience members about what it takes to learn trapeze. The final speaker was Rafe Furst, Windward alum from 1986, who did a brief talk on how Windward influenced who he has become today.

“I’ve been involved for the TED community for years … and I got really into it … and they told me there was this teacher at Windward [Art] who had a wish to bring TED to Windward, and I contacted the school and wanted to make that wish happen,” Furst said.

“And so Rafe and I devised an 8th period class, and Alex Nichols [‘12] was really interested in doing this too, in bringing this to Windward students,” Johnson added.

The talks were followed by a discussion in which the audience engaged the speakers about the importance of each lesson and how they apply to everyday life.

The group plans on doing the TED conference next year and into the future at Windward.