This past Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending TedxPSU. The theme for 2015 was Push to Start and it really pushed me to start doing more for my fulfillment and the better of this world. It was an event full of so many dynamic speakers that I cannot tell you full my heart was after attending. I had a pretty busy week ahead after this conference but it was really important to me to attend and see the excellence of the speakers the committee invited.
I had a couple of favorite speakers. First, John Roe basically knocked my socks of on thinking of the world of finite resources and how math is the answer. As an industrial engineering major, I see the world as a huge linear program with a ton of constraints. If we can solve it successfully, we can really make a difference in the lives of everyone and keep the earth safe.
My second favorite speaker of the day was our football coach James Franklin. I did not know so much about his background or what coaches really do until after his speech. He basically studied all of the relationships in his life , has a degree in psychology and took 10 years of experience to really understand his coaching style. From there, he has formed a coaching style that is based on relationships, respect and hard work. I rally want to emulate this with any teams I have on the manufacturing floor.
Mt third favorite speaker was David Hughes. He really had an interesting approach to improving the lives of people in third world countries. He studies diseases of plants and ants. These diseases can decrease crop yield, risking the families livelihood and health due to not enough to eat or sell. His idea is to use a website with pictures to compare and diagnose the plant diseases. This can help increase the yield because many things can be treated or saved if caught early. I really think that this approach to solving simple problems is something that I have to keep in mind for my career.
An honorary mention goes to Darla Lindberg with a design and systems based approach to solving huge scale problems like natural disasters. Her slides, style and message were awesome!
Overall, I had a lovely time. After I graduate, I would love to be invited to a Ted conference or buy tickets to one in a place near me. I love to learn and the day was full of learning, thought and definite plans to help change the world I live in :]
For a written recap of all the talks -
check out this link. The videos should be up online soon and I will post the link!
