Shyam Ganesh Babu was about to log a little study time for the medical college admissions test one day last summer when he pivoted to a very different task.
The University of South Carolina Honors College senior applied to stage a TEDx Talk in Columbia. Since August when the application was approved, Ganesh Babu and a team of eight USC students have been hard at work, planning and organizing TEDxCongaree Vista, which will take place March 14 in the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. The sold-out event will be live streamed and posted to the TEDxCongaree Vista YouTube channel.
TEDxCongaree Vista will be the first such full-scale event in the Midlands in more than 10 years. Other local TEDx events during the past decade, such as a youth event and events at Columbia College and USC, were smaller events aimed at more targeted audiences.
“There’s a TEDx Charleston and TEDx Greenville every year, but Columbia hasn’t had a full-scale TEDx event in a decade other than a few talks that operated under different licenses,” says Ganesh Babu, a Carolina Scholar who graduates in May and plans to attend medical school. “I figured USC students are in a unique position to put this on. We’re hoping to get more people around the city on board to keep this going in the future.”
Independently organized TEDx events have been staged in major cities around the world since 2009, an offshoot of the larger TED conferences that began in 1984 to examine the convergence of technology, entertainment and design. TEDxCongaree Vista will follow the organization’s time-tested formula of presenting speakers whose topics are likely to spark conversation and inspire action.
“We have a colon cancer survivor whose story is deeply moving. Another speaker shares a powerful experience of living with bipolar disorder and being criminalized for it,” Ganesh Babu says. “We also feature entrepreneurs who started from nothing and built something incredible — stories that are truly inspiring. And of course, we have speakers whose talks are lighthearted and genuinely funny, so there will be moments of laughter as well. It will be day full of really cool experiences because you’re experiencing their stories and all these different emotions.”
Luke Jannazzo, a computer engineering Honors College junior on the TEDxCongaree Vista organizing team, says the theme of the event is focused on Columbia’s future.
“It’s important that our speakers highlight their ideas and accomplishments but also the ideas that are in Columbia,” Jannazzo says. “That’s the idea behind the theme of change makers —that people in Columbia have the ideas and energy and innovation to build things that work. And, hopefully, that inspires the next change maker who listens to the TEDxCongaree Vista talks.”
The student organizing group has founded a nonprofit called Changemakers Events to work in collaboration with USC students, businesses and local leaders to perpetuate future TEDx Talks and similar events in Columbia, Jannazzo says. “We’re definitely thinking about how to make it last beyond our time here,” he says.
In addition to Ganesh Babu and Jannazzo, the USC student team organizing TEDxCongaree Vista includes Darssan Eswaramoorthi, Sai Varun Nallu, Simran Tippabhatla, Vaishali Allibada, Mohin Amin and Owen Coulam. The team is still soliciting volunteers and sponsors for the event. More information about TEDxCongaree Vista is available at tedxcongareevista.com.
Speakers for the TEDxCongaree Vista
Elise Partin, mayor of Cayce, South Carolina
Tyson K. Brown, executive director, Project OneWay
Ivan Segura, director of multicultural affairs, S.C. Commission for Minority Affairs
Shannon Ivey, founder, #whatshesaid project
Andrew Nye, founder and CEO, Qatalyst Health
Kimberly Smith, CEO, Health Evolve Technologies
Fabio Matta, professor, civil and environmental engineering, University of South Carolina
Melissa Boylan, family medicine physician, Noreta Family Medicine
Alvin King, founder and executive director, Range Fore Hope Foundation
Christina Jones, licensed professional counselor, University of South Carolina
Risdon N. Slate, professor emeritus of criminology, Florida Southern College
Majd Abdallah, founder, Foster The Bear Foundation
Kevin Williams, co-founder, Drawbridge Solutions
Tyler Robertson, founder and CEO, Diesel Laptops
Jordan Thomas, co-founder, share ONE love
Matt Vaadi, CEO, guHRoo Payroll and HR