TEDxSeoul Int’l School, the first officially licensed TEDx event took place on Dec. 9 in the school auditorium featuring speakers Kyla Kim, Jihu Kim, Mathieu Andre-Sloan, and Jason Lee.
For a bit of context, TED began in 1984 as a conference that converged technology, entertainment and design, but today, it spans a multitude of worldwide communities and initiatives exploring everything from science and business to education, arts and global issues.
The application form of receiving a license to host a TEDx event was a rigorous process followed by a series of questions that confirm the applicant’s ability to host and gather diverse ideas from their surroundings. The application for TEDxSeoul Int’l School highlighted the academic research and interests of the student body. After collecting the data, the applicant is able to answer the application form which is supposed to be focused on the school’s passion. If successfully granted the license, the applicant is now the organizer of the TEDx event they have applied for.
There was also a TEDx team to prepare these aspects for the event: speaker training, logistics, marketing and design, and communications. All the team members were actively involved in selecting speakers through an audition process, which included several questions for the speaker to answer. The questions ranged from their passion and motivation to who the applicant is as a person.
Speakers may come from other countries and schools. Once they have been selected, they are trained according to the specific TEDx style of speech by speaker trainers on the team from the school, and are asked to complete assignments, edit scripts, write personal descriptions for the TEDx website, and so on. The entire year up until the event is dedicated to the speakers and the conference.
“I think that the TEDx team experience was something very unique and dear to me,” Tyler Castaño, TEDx team member, said. “It was a great experience getting to know different applicants in South Korea.”
This year’s event focused on the recordings and online video productions of the TEDx event rather than being in-person. However, for the second TEDxSeoul Int’l School event, applications are expected to open internationally, and will become an in-person conference.
“This year’s TEDx conference was something entirely new to our school, and I hope with the hard work we put in, the community that we can influence expands,” Joonmo Ahn (10), TEDx team member, said.
If there are any questions, please contact these following email addresses:
