Day 52 - TEDx Baltimore

January 30, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

Photo by Bonnie Schupp taken from stage left and then mirrored in post processing. TedxBaltimore letters commissioned and rented from Feats and X's purchased from Woodland Manufacturing. See links at end of blog.

TED was conceived in 1984 by Richard Wurman, an architect and graphic designer who became aware of the coming together of technology, entertainment and design in today’s world (TED). Its mission:  “We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world.” Its format includes speakers who share ideas with slides projected behind them in about 18 minutes each. From TED has sprouted many local conferences called TEDx, organized by communities who also believe creative ideas are worth spreading.

Today I was treated to a banquet of creative ideas and thinking at TedX Baltimore on the Morgan State University campus. For example, today there was Wally GBX who creates virtual geoglyphs, Jim Hendler who set out to prove Stephen Hawking wrong, Brian LeGette who provided an equation for evil and good,  Andrea Spilliadis who wants to unleash revolutionary imagination (and eradicate the cops in our heads), Shanaysha Sauls who claims we are “choking on carefulness,” Shuangyi Li who thinks we should dare ourselves more, Kayti Didriksen who praised the power of blind contour drawings, Lucas Benitez who is changing the plight of farm workers with the Fair Food Program, and Greg Cantori who presented a fascinating view of how to measure our quality of life (and it is not by measuring the GDP). And these are just a few examples of speakers besides spoken word artist and dancers.

Listening to these ideas today energizes me and leads my mind to make new connections. What a way to spend a day.

My gift was a banquet of creative ideas.

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TEDxBaltimore stage letters from Feat: http://www.featsinc.com
Stage X letters from Woodland Manufacturing: http://www.woodlandmanufacturing.com/painted-corafoam-letters.html

DAY 53 Positioning of Ifs

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html