By Bronywn Scott
Published: June 18, 2013
Ten people have been selected to speak at TEDx Squamish, a community event that will bring together a diverse range of speakers to debate, discuss and define the cultural identity of Squamish.
Educator Anne Thomson, Sea to Sky Gondola GM Jayson Faulkner, youth advocate Cindy Pettit, artist Stan Matwychuk, Quest Chief Academic Officer Ryan Derby-Talbot, journalist and writer Arno Kopecky, historian Eric Andersen, Squamish Nation community leader Alice Guss, mountaineer Sean Dillon, and humanitarian Ian MacKay will speak at the TEDx Squamish event.
Brackendale resident and media personality Tamara Stanners will MC the event.
“There really hasn’t been any event that brings everyone into a room and gets those people talking.” Craig Davidiuk
The speakers will talk for 18 minutes or less at the event at Quest University on Nov.2, from 2-9 p.m.
Rather than being planned by the TED organization, TEDx events are put together by independent groups interested in generating a dialogue about issues pertaining to specific communities.
For TEDx Squamish, the issue at the fore is the shifting demographics of the community.
“I feel that there’s been so much change in our town the last three or four years,” said Craig Davidiuk, the event organizer.
“There really hasn’t been any event that brings everyone into a room and gets those people talking at one another.”
By providing a venue for the different enclaves of the community to come together, TEDx aims to debate and solve local issues and create positive change, said Davidiuk.
While the TED platform is adopted at TEDx events, they are different in terms of size and scope.
“Lots of groups around North America organize these, probably hundreds and hundreds,” said David Helfand, president and vice-chancellor of Quest University.
He’s also president of the American Astronomical Society and spoke at TEDx West Vancouver ED last month.
“They’re really quite, quite good,” he said of the spinoff TEDx events.
While a leader in astrophysics and academia as well, Helfand likely won’t be speaking at Quest in November because he’s already expecting to speak at a San Francisco TEDx event in the fall, and each talk has to be different.
Tickets for the event are $60, and still on sale.
