TEDx St. Cloud Thursday at The Paramount Center

(KNSI) – TEDx Saint Cloud takes over The Regency for a reception and registration, followed by the program at the Paramount Theatre on Thursday evening.

The event is run independently of the TED Talk series. Spokesman Brian Rose says the St. Cloud session focuses on a local slate of speakers. The organizing committee has been hard at work since January to create this year’s lineup, says spokesman Brian Hart.

“We have a curation team of about a dozen people and we look to have a real variety of topics. One of the things people always tell me after they attend our event is they can’t believe the range of topics. So, there will typically be a science or technology topic, maybe a health care topic, personal development or leadership.”

Speakers are finalized by April and then get a coach to help develop their talk in June.

The segments are only 10 minutes long, designed to mimic Silicon Valley pitches, like what you would see on the reality television show Shark Tank. TED was started in 1984 using those same Silicon Valley pitches as an inspiration. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design.

Hart says the subjects will often be uplifting and cover a variety of subjects. There is a theme that ties it all together though.

“And we were thinking, you know, of the experiences we’ve all been through together over the last couple of years. How could we kind of subtly acknowledge that and so we thought about, ‘Well, we’ve all been rattled.’ And so we hope that speakers this year will rattle our audience in a good way.”

Hart spoke Monday morning with KNSI’s Bob Hughes. Tickets are 42 dollars and can be purchased here.

The full list of speakers includes:

*Santo Cruz, CentraCare senior vice president and chief legal officer.
*Kari-Shane Davis Zimmerman, theology professor at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University.
*Ettien Koffi and Mark Petzold, Saint Cloud State University professors in linguistics and computer science
*Grace Leapaldt, a graduate from an area Chinese language immersion program.
*Heather Weems, the first-ever female commissioner of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference.
*Matteo Mackbee, owner of Krewe Restaurant, Flour & Flower Bakery, and The Land by Model Citizen in St. Joseph.

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