We are always looking to feature interesting films between talks, and here in Rochester, we have a great burgeoning film scene to source from. This piece did not reach our attention through the film community, however, but through the health care business. We were sent this film through the URMC, where Dr. Wilson is a radiologist. As I watched this film, I was immediately moved by both the message and the mode. Phil Night’s timing an...

This last year saw TEDxRochester forming great partnerships with some amazing groups and organizations in the area.  As an alum, our partnership with the University of Rochester is one of my faves.  In doing research on the folks we were meeting with I came across one person who had played a part in the formation of $eedNY. $eedNY was a campaign to create a fund in New York state to provide capital to entrepreneurs just starting out on...

Sometimes we are so enamored with new developments that we lose sight of the simplest ideas. Embracing the bicycle as a solution to traffic, pollution, and health problems is one of those solutions that just seems too simple. But it has been shown to make cities more livable, and and certainly healthier. Jon Schull is the director of the innovation center at RIT, and has been a great promoter of new ideas around the world, but his passion...

Jim is an example of when greatness is “thrust upon us” against our will. What started as a simple notion to save the money of taking his kids to skate-parks in the region, became a crusade to promote youth activity in urban areas, in a safe and healthy environment. He’s been fighting for the Roc-City Skatepark now for nearly four years, and is starting to make headway. His story inspired us to fight the good fight and...

Jim is the Communications Manager of COOL Rochester, a volunteer organization committed to educating homeowners in ways to reduce their energy usage. For the last half of his life, he heard rumblings of the coming global warming, but he was convinced that it would not be a problem for him or his children, or even grandchildren. In 2007, Jim watched the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” and it became apparent to him that the problem of...

I found out about the Museum of Kids Art thanks to a bumper sticker I saw in a parking lot one day(turns out it was Michelle Cardulla’s car.) I followed up on it and thought the concept looked really cool just from browsing their website. Then, I met Michelle. MOKA (not to be confused with our other Moka, Lantum) is a fantastic program that I would love to see expanded not just across the city, but the entire country. Michelle has...

Let me warn you first: if you have children, this talk is going to touch you deeply. After the first meeting we had with Ralph, I went home and hugged my two year old daughter hard. What Ralph has to teach us about lead poisoning is terrifying primarily because it’s new information to a lot of people. I always had this vision of what lead poisoning is and what the cause is. I would have never guessed how wrong I truly was. Ralph...

Hailing from Cameroon, Moka is a man of many talents. Not least of these is his passion: building affordable, eco-friendly homes using little more than the earth available at the build site. I haven’t had the chance to check out the eco-dome he’s built here in Rochester, but Gary did, “You’re driving down this urban city street and then you’re immediately on Tatooine.” The technology is cool, and the...

Karlie’s passion is open source technologies and what they mean to our future. In this talk, she brings up some very overlooked and important ideas. Too often, the talk around technology education is centered around white collar work and its accessibility to those from the lower socio-economic brackets. But, as Karlie shrewdly points out, technology has become so ubiquitous that technological illiteracy will present a significant...

I got to meet Almeta for the first time on the night of our rehearsals. She did the song of welcome you’re about to hear for us without a mike and she filled the room. Almeta is a force of nature, one that is full of joy and hope and I consider myself so much better for knowing her. As 9AM rolled up, I let her know it was time for her to begin by simply telling her “Almeta…please wake these people up!” And, she in no...

Author Steven Johnson (The Invention of Air, Everything Bad Is Good For You) has for many years pursued the notion that our modern, fast-paced, pop-culture learning has actually fostered higher learning skills instead of the popular notion that it erodes our tolerance for deeper understanding. He has a new book coming out on October 5th, called Where Good Ideas Come From which argues for incubation, collaboration and interaction. Below is a...

Tony and I will be walking around the Imagine RIT festival this year, hoping to meet exciting people and see great ideas. If you see us at the festival with our TEDxRochester shirts, stop and say hi! The event is free on the RIT campus on Saturday, May 1 from 10AM – 5PM. Go to http://www.rit.edu/imagine/ for more information. Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival is a campus-wide event that showcases the innovative and...

Larry was one of our last minute additions to the program. Because of this, his talk was quite a bit shorter than we would’ve liked, but I think he manages to hit the mark brilliantly in the time allotted. An artist with a most unusual medium, Larry uses his talents not just to entertain, but to educate and bring people together. He has worked with disparate groups all over the world, and was able to get people who didn’t...