TEDxUNCCharlotte, originally scheduled for March and postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will air via YouTube live Sept. 15-17.
“TEDxUNCCharlotte demonstrates UNC Charlotte’s resilience and adaptability in the midst of an ongoing pandemic,” said Michael Maksymowski, assistant director for Leadership and Community Engagement, and the event’s organizer. “Our speakers have adapted their talks to reflect major events that have occured since March. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations, COVID-19, and the 2020 election will be reflected in this virtual event.”
Each night will feature three to four speakers sharing ideas curated around small themes:
Tuesday, Sept. 15: Shifts in Paradigms
- Maggie Brown, an undergraduate student, will talk about how intelligence is viewed
- Fatma Mili, dean of the College of Computing and Informatics, will discuss computing democracy and ethics
- Margaret Kocherga, doctoral student, will feature her story as a dancing scientist
- Colby Ford, ’14, ’15 M.S., ‘18 Ph.D., a researcher in the Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics, will talk about new science fields and offer ways students can explain their work to their parents who think they deal with robots
Wednesday, Sept. 16: Inclusion Drives Innovation
- Ashley Rivenbark, community member, will explore the role of inclusion in innovation
- Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, software and information systems professor in the College of Computing and Informatics, will speak on user interfaces and making technology bilingual
- Diana Rowan, professor in the School of Social Work, will speak on battling covert racism
Thursday, Sept. 17: Re-Imagining and Re-Examining
- Octavio Lopez, undergraduate student, will talk about social media as a religion
- Connor Wood, undergraduate student, will address student housing costs and housing insecurity
- Brittany Danielle Hunt, doctoral student, will discuss Native culture in the South and disrupting the Black and white racial binary
- David Goldfield, faculty member and Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History, will speak on the current political environment and solutions moving forward
Speaker biographies are available on the TEDxUNCCharlotte website.
The talks will start at 7 p.m. each night with Zoom sessions to follow. Viewers will be able to ask questions and engage with speakers at that time.
This event is free and open to the public. To participate, viewers are encouraged to pre-register on the TEDxUNCCharlotte website. Registrants will receive email reminders with YouTube live links for the talks, and they will be entered to win TEDxUNCCharlotte T-shirts, notebooks, pens and lanyards.
“TEDxUNCCharlotte always strives to reflect the community and current themes as we share ideas worth spreading,” Maksymowski said.
For more information, contact Maksymowski at mmaksymo@uncc.edu.