A TEDx event is a local gathering where live TED-like talks and performances are shared with the community. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis. The content and design of each TEDx event is unique and developed independently, but all of them have features in common.
This year, Beechen Cliff is hosting a student-run TEDx event, based around the theme of ‘Let’s Look Forward’, focusing on what we, as students, have to look forward to in our futures. After more than 18 months of uncertainty, stress and anxiety caused to young people as a result of the pandemic, we are incredibly proud and excited to be launching TEDxBeechenCliffSchool 2021 at 7pm on Thursday 14th of October. We had planned to run the event in July but unfortunately had to postpone at the last minute due to a severe increase in the number of Covid cases and isolation periods across the local community.
TEDxBeechenCliffSchool is all about the futures of young people and showing that, despite Covid and everything we have all been through, our best days are ahead of us.
The recent change in Covid-19 regulations enables us to run our event with a live in-person audience of up to 100 attendees. Alongside this, we will also be running a livestream on the Beechen Cliff YouTube channel to allow us to expand our outreach with our local community. The link for our livestream is https://youtu.be/FFgrPOMY6H0. From the outset, we wanted this to be a positive community event that brings students and local people together after a really challenging year and by running the event both physically and virtually, we can welcome vastly more people to our event to celebrate everything we have to look forward to. With this in mind, we have recently reached out to potential VIP guests from across Beechen Cliff, Bath and the West of England to join us for the event, as well as local schools whose students are also more than welcome to attend.
We have an incredible speaker line up covering a wide array of topics from youth politics, to climate change, to societal progress and much more besides. This broad range of speakers and subjects supports our theme of ‘Let’s Look Forward’ and demonstrates that, despite Covid, we can be optimistic about the future.
Our speakers and their talks include:
Sophie Sullivan ‘A More Equal Society’- The campaign for greater representation and equality in society
Jasper Thompson ‘Helping Bristol’s Homeless’ – The Help Bristol’s Homeless project of up-cycling shipping containers into secure, environmentally housing for homeless people
Klaus Riekemann ‘The Importance of Decisions’ – Being an Olympic gold-medal winning rower and the importance of decision making
Dr Bill Wilkinson ‘The Challenge of Climate Change’– Political, societal and technological progress in the challenge against climate change
Eddie Ilic ‘Eddie’s Street Cuts’– His hair-cutting for homeless people project and mental health
Rupert Tobin ‘Freedom or Success’ – What a successful future society will look like and its relation with freedom.
This is an incredible opportunity for students and local people to participate in a fantastic community project. People are able to follow our event with our Instagram (@tedxbeechencliffschool) and Twitter (@TEDxBeechen) accounts, where they will be able to see all of our speaker releases so far and further updates to come.
Ed: West England Bylines writer Toby Hawkins, and his fellow students are hosting a TEDx event at their school, Beechen Cliff, on 14 October. We publish their press release here and encourage readers to support this event.
