TEDx Aims to Return to Menlo After Two Year Hiatus

by GEOFFREY FRANC

Menlo’s TEDx club aims to host an event on Sept. 30, 2023, two years after its first event. The afternoon event will be free of charge and aims to host four to six speakers, according to club president and junior Arjun Saluja and vice presidents and sophomores Lauren Mrva and Sienna Swanson.

TEDx is a spinoff of the TED — short for technology, entertainment and design — speaker series, famous for its TED talks given at an annual event in Vancouver, British Columbia. The “x” in TEDx signifies that the event is independently organized with a license to use TEDx branding.

To secure the rights to use TEDx branding, the club must renew an annual licensing application to TED. According to Saluja, that application is still being processed, which means that plans, including the speaker lineup, cannot be finalized.

club has been reaching out to potential speakers and is advertising the event in Menlo’s weekly student announcements.

At the 2021 event that Saluja helped organize, speakers varied from professionals to teachers and even students. For example, epidemiologist Larry Brilliant spoke about COVID-19, and current senior Sean Nesamoney presented about the intersection of neuroscience, technology and music. However, Saluja said there are no set criteria for who can speak at the event next fall. “Ultimately, we are looking for speakers who can offer a unique perspective on an issue, can teach the broader Menlo community something or even just share an interesting experience or story,” Saluja said.

The 2021 event hosted a total of eight speakers. However, Saluja said he felt this made the event too long. “I don’t think that people would be as willing [...] to attend an all-day event on one of their Saturdays,” Saluja said.

their lessons, according to Mrva. The traditional TED talk is in a lecture format, but Mrva said the club is also considering employing a conversational presentation style. With a conversational style, speakers would discuss a topic with an organizer in front of an audience.

Currently, the club can only make tentative plans for the event, but Saluja said the club is set up to start work in earnest once their renewal application is approved, which he expects to happen in late March or early April. “What we’ve done is we’ve constructed a really great team to help specialize in specific areas whether that be getting speakers, getting logistical information, securing the Spieker Center, speaking with the administration, or speaking with TED [or] working with the stage and the props and the tech,” Saluja said.

Saluja added that an event of this magnitude requires dedicated work that the team will need to put in in the coming months. “It requires a lot of patience, a lot of time and it requires a really good team,” Saluja said.

Saluja first joined the club as a freshman during the 2020-21 school year, but since that first event, no TEDx event has been held at Menlo due to “leadership issues,” according to Saluja. However, Saluja hopes that, after the upcoming event, TEDx will become an annual occurrence at Menlo.

However, according to Saluja, the

Instead, Saluja said he plans to keep the event to an afternoon with fewer speakers. “I feel like we can do just as good an event with a two or threehour thing,” Saluja said. “We want it to be an engaging event that brings in people who will come and watch it.”

The organizers are still deciding how the speakers will deliver