After a few months of planning, the TedX Club will hold its first speaker conference of the year on Nov. 30. The theme of this year’s event is “Igniting Ideas.” During their meeting on Nov. 15, they discussed event logistics and preparation.

Club president Jeremy Tien prepared members by sharing how to manage ticketing, food and technology, such as slides and lighting.

“Most of the jobs and the hard part is on the day of because you need a lot of people to run such a large event,” Tien said.

Tien recalls his first experience with the TedX Club as mundane.

“I remember my first year was just running around and making people were seated correctly and the next year I made sure people were ticketed,” Tien said.

Tien says the hardest part of reaching out to speakers is done. This is thanks to some of the club members’ connections.

“The officers all had people they knew right off the bat who they wanted to contact and why they were interesting,” Tien said.

Since they have found the speakers for the event, members are now focused on how they plan on helping during the event. Junior Sarthak Kamat, for example, hopes to help with the technology aspect. He will take care of the lights, sounds and projector.

Kamat has been a part of the TedX club since May of 2018. His interest in joining was prompted by his love for watching Ted talks. By watching the Ted talks, he hopes to see new perspectives and open his mind to new ideas.

“What’s great, is getting out of your bubble and your comfort zone,” Kamat said. “Normally you get stuck in an ideological echo chamber where all the inputs that you get in a day confine you to a particular line of thought without opening you up to new ideas.”

Junior Iris Yuh shares a similar sentiment to Kamat, and she hopes to see how the club would run the event.

“I personally like watching Ted videos and I wanted to see how they would run it,” Yuh said.

More information about the event can be found on the club’s Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/TEDxMontaVista/?ref=br_rs