Thanks for your post! I organized a TEDx event which took place in April of this year so I’d like to add my insights into two ways in which more EA TEDx talks can be initiated (A. joining existing TEDx events & B. organizing TEDx events) .
A. Get yourself (or someone suitable) into a TEDx event line-up
(NB: you don’t need to be a student! Nor someone related to the university at which the event is held!)
Step 1: spot event organizers
•Do you already know someone involved in organizing a TEDx event?
•Alternatively: take a look at this map https://www.ted.com/tedx/events and see which events are +/- 2-12 months from now and at a distance you’d travel to (at your own costs/maybe there are some EA funds available for a cost like this?), go to the relevant event pages, check who the organizers are at the bottom of the page, and find their contact info (Linkedin/social media page DMs/whatever the internet can find you)
Step 2: contact the spotted event organizer(s)
•Send the organizer(s) a message introducing yourself, asking if they are still looking for speakers for their line-up, and pitching your idea for a TEDx talk. Contact as many as you can for optimal odds :)
(one of the people who ended up being a speaker at our event got himself into the line-up by finding me on LinkedIn and messaging me, and maybe 2-3 people tried in total, so it’s possible! And likely not something so many people do that you wouldn’t stand out by proactively trying.)
B. Organize a TEDx event and invite an EA speaker
•You can organize an event for your university or another type of event such as a ‘studio event’, a TEDx youth event (for schools), a business event (internally for a company), a library event and more. Anyone can take initiative and apply for a license with TED which (when approved) allows you to use the ‘TEDx’ platform in exchange for adhering to their rules.
note: one of these TEDx rules is diversity of topics of the talks at an event, so an event with several speakers on EA ideas might be difficult to get away with (but it may be possible when you approach it strategically).
•Organizing a TEDx event is a large time commitment but it could be worthwhile if you want to gain skills/career capital and at the same time offer a stage to EA ideas. I personally feel that I learned a lot (!) from organizing this (e.g. leading a team, finances, logistics, project management etc.), and I think it has quite some CV value as well as the name TEDx looks good.
Edit: turned this comment into a separate post: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TqNAgPpNwu6dCrycN/how-to-get-ea-ideas-onto-the-tedx-stage
Thanks for your post! I organized a TEDx event which took place in April of this year so I’d like to add my insights into two ways in which more EA TEDx talks can be initiated (A. joining existing TEDx events & B. organizing TEDx events) .
A. Get yourself (or someone suitable) into a TEDx event line-up
(NB: you don’t need to be a student! Nor someone related to the university at which the event is held!)
Step 1: spot event organizers
•Do you already know someone involved in organizing a TEDx event?
•Alternatively: take a look at this map https://www.ted.com/tedx/events and see which events are +/- 2-12 months from now and at a distance you’d travel to (at your own costs/maybe there are some EA funds available for a cost like this?), go to the relevant event pages, check who the organizers are at the bottom of the page, and find their contact info (Linkedin/social media page DMs/whatever the internet can find you)
Step 2: contact the spotted event organizer(s)
•Send the organizer(s) a message introducing yourself, asking if they are still looking for speakers for their line-up, and pitching your idea for a TEDx talk. Contact as many as you can for optimal odds :)
(one of the people who ended up being a speaker at our event got himself into the line-up by finding me on LinkedIn and messaging me, and maybe 2-3 people tried in total, so it’s possible! And likely not something so many people do that you wouldn’t stand out by proactively trying.)
B. Organize a TEDx event and invite an EA speaker
•You can organize an event for your university or another type of event such as a ‘studio event’, a TEDx youth event (for schools), a business event (internally for a company), a library event and more. Anyone can take initiative and apply for a license with TED which (when approved) allows you to use the ‘TEDx’ platform in exchange for adhering to their rules.
note: one of these TEDx rules is diversity of topics of the talks at an event, so an event with several speakers on EA ideas might be difficult to get away with (but it may be possible when you approach it strategically).
•Organizing a TEDx event is a large time commitment but it could be worthwhile if you want to gain skills/career capital and at the same time offer a stage to EA ideas. I personally feel that I learned a lot (!) from organizing this (e.g. leading a team, finances, logistics, project management etc.), and I think it has quite some CV value as well as the name TEDx looks good.
•To get a better picture of what organizing a TEDx event looks like, check out the organizer’s guide linked below and feel free to contact me for questions/advice (alexandrabos@live.nl) https://www.ted.com/participate/organize-a-local-tedx-event/tedx-organizer-guide