TEDxMidAtlantic Stage, MICA Brown Center, Falvey Hall
I had the pleasure in playing a small part in bringing a very important kind of event to Baltimore, Maryland. This event was the first TEDx MidAtlantic Conference. TEDx started as a sort of franchise branch off of another conference called TED, a well-known annual, invitation-only conference devoted to “ideas worth spreading.” TED is famous for its lectures, known as TED Talks, which originally focused on technology, entertainment and design, Which it’s name, TED, was originally derived from. But now since it’s first conference in 1990 it has expanded in scope to a broad set of topics including science, arts, politics, education, culture, business, global issues, technology and societal development. TED was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in 1984, and has made a mission of “leveraging the power of ideas to change the world”. Some of the speakers who have spoken at past TED Talks have included the likes of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, physicist Murray Gell-Mann, former U.S.Vice President Al Gore, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Zoologist Jane Goodall, and Evangelist Billy Graham.
Dave Troy, TEDxMidAtlantic Curator
The first TEDx started as a pilot program at the University of Southern California, calling it self TEDxUSC. The idea of TEDx has flourished and grown to over 50 side now Baltimore hosted it’s own TEDx talks for the Mid-Atlantic Region. The event was spearheaded by a man who had a significant impact on my path into computers, Dave Troy. Dave started out selling computers out of high school with a store he started called Toad Computers. Which then grew out to become ToadNET, one of the first low cost ISPs for the Maryland area. Dave was active in supporting open technology development and soon with the boom of the Dot-Com era he because a luminary in the east coast for Tech entrepreneurship. After selling his ISP, Dave started other projects. One of his most popular was Twittervision, a mash up of google maps and twitter posts that showed where people were tweeting on Google Maps in real time. He also started the first Co-Working space in Baltimore called Beehive Baltimore. He and many others; including myself, helped to develop this event, hopefully placing a beacon for thought provoking change in the Mid-Atlantic region.
