TEDxThacherSchool

Juniors Katie O'Neill and Mary Yan bring in speakers with ideas worth spreading.
The TEDxThacherSchool event, now in its second year, brought four new speakers and a talented musical duo to campus last Friday night. The Thacher community, as well as students from Ojai Valley School, Nordhoff, Villanova, and Oak Grove gathered in the Milligan Center for the Performing Arts for three hours of inspiring and thought-provoking entertainment. 

TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment, and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics—from science to business to global issues—in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.

With one successful TEDx event under their belt, Katie ONeill 18 and Mary Yan 18 partnered with faculty member Dr. Jon Swift to present four speakers with diverse topics under the the single theme of Unchartered Territory. Katie and Mary started arranging for this year's event in the spring of last year and put in an estimated 200 hours of work to bring TEDxThacherSchool 2016 to fruition. 

Their long hours of hard work paid off with a seamless and inspiring event. As one Thacher student commented, I don't want another weekend to go by without doing something significant.

Mr. Sawyer remarked, The whole evening was enlightening and inspiring, and will definitely contribute to the overall happiness of our community.

The night was hosted by New York based news reporter for Channel 7 Eyewitness News Sandy Kenyon CdeP 1974, who introduced the nights four speakers. Each of the speakers adhered to TEDs mission of presenting ideas worth spreading in 18-minutes or less. The live talks were interspersed with two recorded TED talks: The danger of a single story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and What's left to explore by Nathan Wolfe. 

Additionally, the audience was treated to the musical talents of The Matheson 2 an identical twin guitar and drums duo.  

The nights four speakers included:

Heather Knutson
Professor in Geology and Planetary Science at Caltech

Chris Malloy
Documentary and commercial filmmaker

William Hockey
Co-founder of Plaid, a software startup

Christine Carter
Sociologist and Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and author of The Sweet Spot and Raising Happiness
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Notice of nondiscriminatory policy as to students: The Thacher School admits students of any race, color, national, and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the School. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national, and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other School-administered programs.