Impact.
That’s the theme of this year’s TEDxVictoria event. Featuring an array of speakers from all walks of life, TEDxVictoria is the largest TED event on Vancouver Island, and this year’s conference is shaping up to be the biggest, and most impactful, TEDxVictoria yet.
Camosun (and Nexus) alumnus Dylan Wilks is the creative and licensing director for TEDxVictoria, which will be held at three venues, including Centennial Square.
“The main event is in the McPherson Playhouse,” says Wilks, “where we’ll also be putting a lounge upstairs where people will have an opportunity to chat and interact with our speakers. We’re also taking over City Hall with interactive art we call the ‘active space,’ which is hands-on stuff for people who are looking to be more hands-on and engage with something.”
In addition to the main events at the McPherson Playhouse and City Hall, a multitude of food trucks will be at this year’s event, as well as a surprise event taking place in Centennial Square (“You’ll be able to hear it from Esquimalt,” teases Wilks).
True to its theme, Wilks hopes that this year’s event will leave participators with the desire to make an impact themselves.
“What is the point of all this? What does it mean? This year we wanted to make sure the ideas being presented are less abstract, less about the change you wish to see in the world but more about the practice, something you could get involved in if you wanted to,” says Wilks. “A lot of people attend just to passively observe, and that’s cool, but if you wanted to get involved it’s there.”
Even if those attending TEDxVictoria aren’t intending to get involved, the purpose of the event is also for people to make an impact in their own lives.
“The lasting impacts are the conversations, the connections you make with others while you’re there,” says Wilks. “The only time a doctor and a scientist see each other is when the scientist is sick. But that’s the miraculous part of the TED platformŃyou’ve got the doctor and the scientist in the same room, along with the engineer, the businessman, the community leader, the politician, and so forth.”
One aspiring young scientist is speaking at this year’s event. Nathan Kuehne, a Grade 12 student at Glenlyon Norfolk school, received a gold medal at the Canada-Wide Science Fair for his work developing a home diagnostic tool for PKU (phenylketonuria). He hopes to use his innovations to impact people’s lives in a meaningful way.
“Health sciences can have a wider scope than people first believe,” says Kuehne. “When I do disease detection and management, not only does it affect those with the disease, but their families and children and the support networks around them as well. My ultimate goal is for this detection process to be in the homes of PKU patients all around the world. It might not happen soon, or at all, but my goal is to make that impact on patients real at some point.”
Kuehne is excited to inspire people at this year’s TEDxVictoria event, as he believes that is the TED platform’s primary purpose.
“At a base level people should be entertained, but the nature of TED is to inspire people. It’s rare for a high-school student to be involved in the things I am. I know that ‘It’s never too late to start’ is a cliche, but you can impact people in ways you might not realize and without much prior knowledge. It’s not hard to make an impact.”
Another speaker at this year’s event is Nicole Sorochan, the driving force behind Amplify Her.
“Amplify Her is first and foremost a documentary film that focuses on women in the electronic music industry,” says Sorochan, “but the whole thing is a feature film, six-part graphic novel, and a six-part motion comic series that features 19 women. My presentation is about my own personal transformation working on the project. This project was really challenging for me because I would have to interview women and deal with some things I had kept buried and hidden.”
Sorochan will use her experiences working on Amplify Her as the heart of her presentation. She hopes to use this experience to impact people in the same way it has impacted her.
“Part of my message is that a lot of the traits we view as weak, maybe it’s time to unlock that and unleash it. Sometimes our biggest wounds are ultimately our greatest gifts. Impact, for me, is about reaching out. It’s about change.”
TEDxVictoria is shaping up to be an impactful one. While it is slated to be the largest Victoria event yet, Wilks warns that this may be the last.
“This has been a volunteer effort for five years, and many thousands of hours have been put into this event. We’re getting to the point now where our team could use a break. We love it, but we could use a vacation, and that will probably happen after this one.”