Recently, a crowd of over 60 students gathered to share ideas and support each other at the TEDxFIU Club’s new signature event: Your Speech, Your Night where students presented “TED talks.” With the deadline for applications for FIU’s TEDxFIU 2015 event looming, the event provided an open forum for speakers to share their stories and get invaluable feedback to help shape their talks. Some students wanted to share their research, some wanted to partake in the open mic experience, and some wanted to practice talks before recording them for submission to TEDxFIU. As a result of the event and the positive crowd feedback, students Patricia Kayser and Andrew Smith both submitted applications for TEDxFIU.
Club president Gisela Valencia commented on the event: “Your Speech, Your Night is an amazing event that really exemplifies the TEDxFIU Club’s goals: the exchange of ideas within the FIU community, the chance to practice public speaking skills, the opportunity to encourage speakers and to hear everyone’s voice, and to provide a platform for students applying to speak at TEDxFIU. It was a great night!”
Ten speakers, representing a wide range of majors, were pre-selected and coached by the club to present at the event. After the speeches, audience members were invited to participate in an open mic speech portion. From Liberal Arts major Patricia Kayser’s resonating presentation on how she was inspired to start the AutismAndMusic organization by her brother who has autism, to Communication Arts major Diego Saldaña-Rojas’ analysis of the dangers bicyclists face on a daily basis, to Psychology major Orlando Olano’s proposal for the implementation of the Civic Duty Act, FIU students impressed and inspired the crowd as they spoke on topics they were passionate about.
The TEDxFIU Club brings together students who are interested in public speaking and sharing great ideas. Its secondary purpose is to give members a platform from which they can work with others to prepare a “TED talk” and perfect it. In addition, club members engage in various activities, such as speech viewings and analysis, speech competitions, and the preparation of different types of speeches, all of which help members become effective public speakers and public speech consumers. The new deadline to apply for TEDxFIU is April 21. For more information: http://tedxfiu.com/
