TEDxUCLA held its first conference since 2023 Tuesday night, featuring business owners, researchers and a speaker from UCLA’s custodial unit.
The conference, which drew about 300 attendees to the Northwest Auditorium, hosted 10 speakers. TEDx events are independently organized local events that are licensed through nonprofit media organization TED and share TED Talk’s storytelling style.
Cylin Wang, a fifth-year art history and materials engineering student, said she was inspired to organize the event at UCLA after attending TEDNext, a conference hosted by TED that focuses on up-and-coming speakers, in November.
Wang added that a TED Talk about mushroom leather inspired her to change her major to materials engineering.
“To this day I do not remember the person who gave this TED Talk, because to me, that’s the most beautiful part about this stage, is that when you’re on this dot, you’re just a messenger and an idea,” Wang said at the event.
Only current UCLA staff and students can organize TEDxUCLA, so she renewed the TEDx university event license for UCLA shortly after attending TEDNext, she added.
Wang said her team of 15 student volunteers selected speakers, adding that more than 150 people applied to speak at the event. Final decisions were made through member voting, she added.
TEDx events prioritize giving the stage to non-professional speakers, so 10 volunteer speaker coaches helped them prepare for the event, Wang said.
Paulina Amador, one of the coaches, said she trained Celine Shaw, a quantum optical physicist and professional ballerina who spoke at the event.
“It’s a lot of work, from crafting their talk, helping strategize it, go through what we call a through line – which is one clear idea that speaker has to have to be able to qualify for the TEDx stage,” Amador said. “That’s part of the TEDx expectation that you have one clear idea that is an idea that matters, that it’s presented in a completely new way and that it’s a contribution and a gift to the audience”
Shaw, a UCLA alumnus, showed her journal containing invention ideas during her talk. She displayed the pages, which were filled with sketches and studies on topics ranging from morning glory flowers to the geometry of a dolphin’s body and shared their potential applications to wildfire protection and deep space navigation, respectively.
Beril Böcekler, a backstage manager and fourth-year sociology student, said she started preparing for the event around 8 a.m. Organizing the event was challenging because members had to manage logistics such as licensing, t-shirt designs and rehearsal coordination, she added.
“I’m really grateful for the opportunity because I gained a lot of skill sets like time management, problem solving, teamwork,” Böcekler said.
Rajan Foster, a second-year mathematics of computation and political science student who attended the event, said as someone interested in the intersection of science and art, he was fascinated by how Shaw connected her paintings to mathematical concepts.
“It really feels like she’s a generational talent in many senses,” Foster said.
Böcekler said she was particularly moved by Daniel Estrada, a senior custodian at UCLA who talked about taking owning one’s duties even in challenging circumstances.
Estrada recorded the first half of his speech and gave only the final segment in person because he could not get off of his custodial shift that night, Wang said at the event.
Estrada, who has worked the night shift for the past 15 years, said he has watched some students fail to appreciate the hard work of the custodians.
“How are you going to change the world if you can’t even flush a toilet?” Estrada said. “How you do the small things – that’s how you do everything.”
Kate Bridges, an attendee and former teacher, said taking numerous classes at UCLA and regularly watching TED Talks on YouTube inspired her to attend. She added that she enjoyed a talk by Tiffany Barber, an assistant professor of African American art at UCLA, on sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois created hand-drawn data charts depicting literacy rates, land ownership and class structure among African Americans after emancipation.
“For the first time they made concrete the reality and the pain and suffering and marginalization of a whole group of people, and making it concrete in this beautiful, scientific yet aesthetically gorgeous way,” Bridges said.
Cindy Hsu, a fourth-year design media arts and gender studies student who attended the event, said she was surprised to learn from a talk by Jaimie Krems – an associate professor of psychology and the director of the UCLA Center for Friendship Research – that a lack of social interaction can incur the same harm as smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
Hsu said Estrada’s presentation was refreshing to hear because she believes everyone – not only those with established names – deserve a place on stage.
“When ideas get shared, the world becomes a better place, and let me tell you, every perspective that you hear from another human being is going to affect your life without you knowing,” Böcekler said.
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