TEDxTC: Play, Learn, Build & Share.

Sunday, November 20th, 2011 - Event begins at 4:30 pm, registration open at 4:00 pm.

Reception opens at 6:30 PM in Elements Cafe.

TEDx Organizers all over the world will be holding TEDxYouth events on November 20th, 2011.  In this spirit, TEDxTC will be hosting a TEDx event built off the same theme, but with a slight twist - this event is for Mentors and the Youth they inspire.

Come one, come all - but if you have a young person in your life you would like to inspire or simply introduce to TED - this event is for you! 

TEDxTC speakers are always from our community.  We are so pleased to present this event's speakers:

Solome Tibebu

Solome Tibebu founded Anxiety In Teens Non-Profit, LLC- a mental health help site for youth - as an anxious 16-year-old in 2006. Since then, she has built the organization to reach isolated youth with anxiety, inform and educate those teens and their friends and families, as well as inspire recovery and awareness. She is a senior undergraduate student at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is also the founder of Cognific, a Software-as-a-Service that facilitate mental health homework computer games for youth patients and analytics platform for psychotherapists. 

Greg Tehven

Ten days into his college career at the University of Minnesota, Greg launched a vision with three friends to change the world. These four students worked to create a Pay It Forward Tour, a community service project on wheels. Since its inception, Students Today Leaders Forever (STLF) has sent out 304 Pay It Forward Tours with 12,000 participants performing a collective 170,000 hours of community service. Students Today Leaders Forever won the first ever Minnesota Social Entrepreneurship Cup in 2008. That September, TIME Magazine listed STLF as the #2 way to Serve America in its piece on 21 Ways to Serve America.

Greg spent seven years building STLF focusing on growth and expansion. Greg serves on the Wisdom Council for Volunteerism.org, was the advisor of the Metro Student Council Ambassadors of Fargo Moorhead. In his three years of service, his students have led the Fill the Dome project collecting a total of 200 tons of food and raising over $150,000 and appearing on Good Morning America each year. He also served as a board member of the Metro Youth Partnership of Fargo Moorhead and GiveMN.org out of Saint Paul. He spent two years teaching leadership classes at the University of Minnesota. His personal mission statement is simple: To challenge, inspire and encourage young people to live a life of excellence.

AnnMarie Thomas

AnnMarie is an engineering professor who is passionate about PK-12 education, kids as makers, and the importance of play.

She joined the Engineering faculty of the University of St. Thomas in the fall of 2006. Previously, she was a faculty member at Art Center College of Design, and completed a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering at Caltech. She is the director of the UST Design laboratory and leads a team of students looking at both the playful side of engineering and ways to use engineering design to help others. Thomas is co-director of the University of St. Thomas Center for Pre-Collegiate Engineering Education which runs engineering education programs for PK-12 educators.

Thomas has also worked on underwater robotics (at MIT, Caltech and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), specializing in biologically inspired propulsion. She has consulted on projects ranging from the design/creation of a "musical earthquake-playing robot" to the initial research for a book on earthquakes in Los Angeles. At Caltech, she founded the Caltech Robotics Outreach Group.

John Turnipseed

The story of John’s life and his families struggles have been written over generations. Beginning with his father and extending to his grandson, four generations of  Turnipseeds have been: shot, in prison, high school drop-outs, violent, deadbeat dads, un-fathered. Thirty (30) extended-family members are in prison, (10) for murder, and they formed The Rolling 30 Blood Street gang.

This story is replayed across America in all urban communities.

John spent 10 years in prison, over three terms, then came into The Fathering Center at Urban Ventures as its first client. He now has built a program that reaches 600 men and 200 women a year. His work has attracted the Amicus organization to select him their first Everyday Hero featured in a TPT public television series.

John Turnipseed is currently the Director of the Urban Ventures Center for Fathering in Minneapolis. He is a product of violence on the streets and in prison, and his goal now is to instill a conscience back into society and our culture.

Please note: The event begins promptly at 4:30pm.  Seating is on a first come, first served basis, so arrive early for best seating options.