TEDx Makes a Splash

Branko Cerny '13 and a team of 20 volunteers put together an innovative conference on campus in late April. Called TEDx and based on the 25-year-old national TED conferences that draw together leaders in technology, entertainment and design, the one-day event featured 18-minute talks by Dartmouth professors and four shorter talks by students. "We were looking for a diverse spectrum of speakers who all have done some innovative research and are able to present their wisdom in a very digestible, engaging manner," says Cerny. Nearly 700 attendees came for a lineup that ranged from philosophy professor Larry Crocker's "Lets Turn Prisons into Colleges" to language professor John Rassias' "Teaching Heart to Heart." "What's great about American schools like Dartmouth is that you can pursue large projects on your own and they'll support you," says Cerny, who is from the Czech Republic. (That's Cerny above, middle, with fellow TEDx planners C. Clark Moore '13 and Sarah Cashdollar '13.)