On Saturday, April 5, The Maine Journal publications sponsored the first TEDxUMaine event on The University of Maine campus, where seven talks were given by nine students.
Jennifer Chalmers and Phillip Kolmar, event coordinators and UMaine undergrads, invited all UMaine students to the opportunity to speak at their event, and then a panel of faculty chose the applicants, which allowed them a platform to share their exceptional work and ideas before roughly 50 present people, as well a live-streaming audience.
The four-hour event was divided into two themed halves. Stephanie Whalley, Jana Darlington and Kyle Stetson spoke on matters of consciousness and John Bell, Richard Corey and Bethany Engstrom, Isaiah Mansour and Graham Morehead spoke about connectivity.
“Don’t wiggle your toes in the water, dive head first” said Darlington referring to public speaking. She hates public speaking, but felt that the TEDxUMaine talk would be an opportunity to help her improve as well as share her message, an all inclusive discussion about interracial tensions in the black community titled “50 Shades of Black.”
“People of all shades fought for our singular rights here in the US. So now why are we deciding to separate ourselves?” asked Darlington.
She found this divide among the black community at her high school in Boston, Mass. She says that though she was not targeted for having a complexion in between light and dark, she noticed how people made jokes about themselves and others as a coping mechanism.
“There’s an extent to which [the jokes] shouldn’t sit well with us.” Darlington said. “We’re suppose to unify, people are suppose to work together and we’re suppose to succeed to together.”
Stetson, a fifth-year political science undergraduate, shared in his talk how he and two friends have begun to find success in their business, Fields of Blue Aquaponic Technologies. These gardens will allow people to maintain their own gardens year-round and he believes it is a resource that would be very applicable to residents of Maine. He half-jokingly says it could be the “victory garden” of our time. Stetson found his inspiration in aquaponics from watching a TED talk on vertical farming, and felt both honored yet nervous to give his own TEDxUMaine talk after watching many people of high caliber speak on the TED talks.
The experience allowed students to put their own ideas out there, as well hear from others.
“I wish mine had been nearly as cool as Graham’s complexity modeling,” Stetson said.
Graham Morehead, whose future goal is in complexity and applications to language technologies, inspired the other participants with his knowledge in mathematics and his idea of how we interpret language differently.
Mansour, the first-year undergraduate from Fairfield, CT brought his creativity forth by sharing his composed spoken word pieces while playing “loops” with his bass guitar and effects board.
“He’s like a young Reggie Watts,” said Stetson.
Chalmers believes that the take home message from this event is that students at the University of Maine have insightful and inspiring ideas worth spreading. She hopes to hold another TEDxUMaine talk and turn it into an annual event.