“If your journey through life was a body of water, every ripple would change your direction.”
This is how Erica Mandato, one of the speakers for this year’s TEDxMcGill event, started off her speech, perfectly encapsulating the essence of the theme ‘Ripples.’
On Sunday, February 9, TEDxMcGill’s yearly speaker-series event took place in the historic space of Le National. Amidst the rustic ambiance, creaking floorboards, and centenarial architecture, bright and innovative ideas were shared with a captivated audience. TEDxMcGill is an independently operated event organized under the umbrella of TED, with the goal of highlighting ‘ideas worth spreading’ by inviting innovative speakers to share their insights with the world in 18 minutes or less.
Selected from a pool of 125 applicants, the most competitive year yet, this year’s event featured the talks of seven individuals: Charlotte Spruzen, Michael Zegarelli, Yasmine Elmi, Charlie Scholey, Asmaa Housni, Erica Mandato, and Iyngaran Panchacharam. The speakers were diverse in experience and perspectives, ranging from undergraduate, masters and PhD students at McGill, to career professionals.
When asked about the choice of the theme ‘Ripples,’ TEDxMcGill’s Chair Katherine Squitieri said they wanted “to express the diversity and variety of information that you can find in a TED talk and make sure that speakers had the freedom to express their ideas without feeling constricted to one theme or narrative.” And so just as ripples spread when a drop hits the surface of the water, each speaker had the opportunity to illustrate how their ideas and experiences can create ripples throughout our collective lives. These ripples took many different forms, and just as the executive team had intended, each speaker molded the theme to fit their experiences.
Charlotte Spruzen kicked off the event by introducing the notion of uniformitarianism, discussing how geological principles affect the past in the same way they do the present. She illustrated this with a picture of sand waves shaped by the wind next to a fossil of similar sand waves from millions of years ago, frozen in time. In a geological era so influenced by human activities that we’ve named it the Anthropocene, after ourselves, it is critical to understand how these ripple effects can permeate through time at a much larger scale. Spruzen highlighted that the negative effects of climate change can and will affect our planet for thousands of years to come, and we must come together to fight it.
Michael Zegarelli, VP of project management at Colliers Project Leaders, continued the discussion by focusing on adaptive design. He emphasized that the time for turnkey, traditionally master-planned cities is over: we must incorporate human creativity and freedom into city planning. He showed participants that our cities must be flexible systems that can adapt and change in needs over time, empowering individuals to shape the space that they call home. He concluded by saying that we must “stop building cities that answer a question and start building cities that spark a thousand new ones.”
Audience members were then immersed in Yasmine Elmi’s story of refusing an acceptance into medical school, in protest of the ripples of structural racism permeating the systems of the healthcare industry. Yasmine shared that the echoes of laws banning people of colour from attending medical school, as well as victims of discrimination by the healthcare industry have inspired her to refuse to participate in this broken system. Instead, she chose to follow her ripple, and now advocates for diversity and inclusion within the healthcare system.
The conference then changed beats when speaker Charlie Scholey came onstage to share the benefits of comedy – while stepping on a fart cushion and throwing it off stage. Next up was a serendipitous performance by the Soulstice A Cappella group, sending melodic ripples through the crowd as their voices filled the walls of Le National. And if that wasn’t enough of an energy boost, the United Groove group showcased their dance skills with an upbeat performance to today’s most trending songs.
The following talks were then very diverse in nature, representative of the diverse experiences of the speakers. Asmaa Housni talked about the paradox of knowledge, concluding that power isn’t inherent to knowledge but rather stems from how we engage with it. Erica Mandato followed up with how her experiences with death have shaped her understanding of life and the social connections we create through it. Mandato expressed to the crowd that loneliness is the new silent killer, as more of us feel isolated in modern life. She stressed that social connection is more important now than ever. “We must reconnect as a community. Every meeting with a stranger is an opportunity to open our minds and hearts,” she shared during her speech. Finally, Iyngaran Panchacharam concluded with a talk about AI, stating that through self awareness and literacy, advocacy, and resilience, “we all have a vital role in producing and controlling the ripples of AI.”
One of the many goals of TEDxMcGill is for “people to be inspired throughout the year and continuously engage with these ideas beyond the event itself,” said Squitieri. It is the executives’ hope that the talks held during this year’s speaker series go beyond the event and have thought-provoking effects on the broader TEDx ecosystem. This is the fundamental idea behind the ripples theme: for ideas to spread and ripple across our community.
“TEDx is the network of people, the dedication that everyone has; all collected under this essential idea of sharing things we’re passionate about and connecting with others through words and speeches,” said Squitieri. She adds that “It’s inspiring to see speeches take on a life of their own outside of the event. We’ve had quite a few talks take off and TED’s platform and reach people far beyond Montreal outside of Canada. And something stemming from something so small as what we’re doing and hearing feedback from people on a different continent is really interesting.”
After the conference ended, TEDxMcGill staffer Le Thuy Dong Nguyen told the Daily that “what’s really important is to pass on knowledge to drive action in the world […] I hope the audience can take away important lessons from the insights shared and bring it to their communities.” And they really did. Audience members described the event as “inspiring and emotional.” One member even told the Daily that these talks sparked an inspiration to incorporate some of the discussed subjects into his artwork.
This conference showcased how no ripple is too small. In this time of uncertainty, social disconnect, and adversity, we all have a role to play in bettering our society. In the words of an African proverb, ‘if you think you’re too small to have a big impact, you’ve never spent the night with a mosquito.’ And as Yasmine Elmi shared in her speech: we should all strive to “be the mosquito.”