Fresh Thinking and Startling Ideas at USC

By Ariel Carpenter on April 1, 2009 7:53 AM

Just before the inaugural TEDx USC “Ideas Empowered” conference began at Bovard Auditorium on March 23, a hum of anticipation hovered above the more than 1,150 attendees as they excitedly talked about what was in store.

This, after all, was the first independently organized TED event. TED (originally “Technology, Entertainment, Design”) is typically an invite-only soiree of brilliant rocket scientists, artists and visionaries inciting attendees to think differently and explore the unknown. So it was no surprise that laptops were splayed open and iPhones were clicking on Twitter - all feeding cyber space with buzz and anticipation.

Then it happened. The audience, which included more than 600 USC students, thanks to a sponsorship by the USC Office of Student Affairs, became mesmerized by a brilliant cacophony of sounds from the darkened stage. As the lights came up, Qi Zhang, a master’s student at the USC Thornton School of Music, emerged - unleashing the sounds of her Yamaha Electrone, a rare, imported instrument specially programmed by Zhang herself.

So began TEDx USC “Ideas Empowered.” A fitting start to a six hour-plus production that would deliver on its namesake and then some.

TED began 25 years ago as a conference to bring together some of the world’s greatest thinkers and doers and share “ideas worth spreading.” Over the last decade, TED has gained new momentum at the hand of new media executive Chris Anderson, who brought new life to the conference after acquiring and making it a nonprofit in 2001.

Krisztina Holly, USC’s vice provost for innovation and executive director for the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, secured USC as the first university to pilot the TEDx program. The “x” stands for independently organized event - a new program TED is rolling out to select organizations around the world later this year.

“USC was a natural choice to extend and nurture the TED brand and host this experimental program,” Holly said. “USC is committed to nurturing a culture of innovation and as part of that, our responsibility is to challenge people with fresh thinkers and startling ideas. Why not allow the water to rush over the edge a little bit?” Holly said. “With unexpected experiences come new ways of thinking, and that’s what we want to invoke.”

After a brief introduction by Anderson, USC Executive Vice President and Provost C. L. Max Nikias took the stage, touching on USC’s interdisciplinary rigor and challenging the audience to embrace the unexamined.

“Intellectual friction creates intellectual fire,” which allows us to discover new ways to change the world, he said.

The program included a mix of previous TED 2009 presentations displayed on a big screen above the stage and live talks by innovators from USC and beyond.

Presenters included USC School of Cinematic Arts alumna Kellee Santiago, the co-founder of thatgamecompany; Paul Debevec of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies; Mark Humayan of the Keck School of Medicine of USC; Donal Manahan of USC’s Wrigley Institute for Environmental Sciences; and professor Dave Logan of the USC Marshall School of Business.

Topics ranged from Debevec’s digital artistry in creating photoreal digital actors to Manahan’s “Blue Revolution,” which examines the cultivation of oceanic life to unlock the future of human sustenance.

The TEDx USC event also featured presentations by Biosphere 2 crew member-turned technologist Jane Poynter and Finnish physicist Markus Nordberg.

At one point, Holly announced that the event was the No. 2 trend on Twitter. (In fact, it was No. 1 shortly before until celebrity news bumped Jennifer Aniston into first place.) She then read some of the “tweets” being posted in real time by the audience, including Anderson himself.

Throughout, attendees were entertained by a selection of short films created by students from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. They also were treated to a special screening of Look at Life, George Lucas’ first USC student film.

“This is everything I expected it would be,” said audience member and USC freshman Daniel Killam. “I’m learning about new things and trying to learn to understand things I may have not gotten in the past.”

Michael Pattison, another USC freshman, said: “I feel privileged to go to a university where these types of opportunities are available to students. This is very cool and very exciting.”

“Getting TED out of its small enclave and opening up the experience was really a smart move,” said Norman Hollyn, an associate professor at the School of Cinematic Arts. “The combination of video and live presentations is a great idea. I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

What were participants tweeting about at the conference? Here’s a selection of raves that were posted in real time and after the event:

andrewmcnally: following #tedx usc on here, since i'm stuck in class all day. i think this is the kind of thing that twitter is made for.

autonomylost: My mood & general outlook on life have been overwhelmingly more positive this week & I blame #tedx usc.

markmamaradlo: still thinking about #TEDx USC. i hope to see more of these “independently organized TED events” in the future.

chews: Is happy to be sharing the air with such amazing people. What does TED do? Transformations, that's what.

pnootwo: back from TEDx USC, humbled.

TAGS: innovation

Search search

Search prior to August 2008