TEDxSMU: My TED Moment and Other Thoughts

October 11th, 2009 by Ajay Waghray

Good afternoon. Ajay Waghray here, I was live-blogging for the TEDxSMU event yesterday. I hope everyone either enjoyed following the posts yesterday during the day or reading them today after everything is all said and done. It was a great deal of fun, I hope it shows.

Last night a friend of Cohabitat mentioned to me at the TEDxSMU after party that I should post something about my experience after I’ve had some time to meditate on it for a bit. I thought about that, mulling it over before ultimately deciding it was a great idea.

So here I am, sitting in my apartment with my running clothes on, shoes and all. It’s a cloudy day out, a little chilly, and I’m supposed to be doing something other than writing this post. The Cowboys are playing at this very moment (I caught a little bit of it, it wasn’t pretty), I finally watched The Office with a few more shows to go on my DVR to catch up on. “Why the heck are you telling us all this? I don’t care what you’re wearing or what shows you need to watch.” The reason I’m saying all this is because it fits into the larger point of the feeling I currently have coursing through me right now about all of those things.

It all just doesn’t seem to matter.

Yesterday, through my own tenacity and Blake Burris’s generosity, I had the experience of a lifetime. I got the chance to experience a TED event, something most people will never get to say. I can write here without being disingenuous in any way that the experience has altered my perspective and changed what I consider important. I met some incredible people that really have inspired me to want to do something, to make an impact. All of this makes the Cowboys losing to the Chiefs or what happened on Heroes completely insignificant. TEDxSMU has put my focus back where it belongs: on what I can do to change everything.

I’m not completely sure what I’m going to do. I made an attempt at fleshing it out last night, there are some things to consider. Still, to have so many wonderful, gifted people telling you that you’re talented and on the right track…there’s nothing like it. I’m determined to make the most of it.

I was also told that I should include my own TED moment. I’ve heard of these before, where it’s something that could only happen at TED or just affects you personally. Honestly, it’s really hard to say just one of those moments was awesome! There were so many great ones from beginning to end. I’ll take a stab at it though.

My TED moment came in an unexpected moment at the after party. If you’ve ever been to a TED event, you know how awesome the after parties are. If you haven’t, though, I personally think it’s where the magic happens. Maybe this is because I was busy covering the event during the day, but the after party is where everyone can loosen up and you can chat with your favorite speakers or just whoever else you find really interesting. I ran into all kinds of people I really wanted to talk with, it truly was my favorite part of the day. There was one moment that really stuck out to me and meant a lot though.

I was in the beverage line chatting with some folks when Turk Pipkin came up. His talk at TEDxSMU about The Nobelity Project was really fascinating, a look at Nobel laureates pitching in to solve the world’s problems. It was an intriguing part of TEDxSMU, especially when I noticed that Steven Chu was included in the trailer he presented.

The appointment of Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy was an appointment that I was especially thrilled about. Energy is such an important issue to me, this country, and the world, that I felt they really needed to get the right person in there. Instead of picking who I expected they would, however, they went above and beyond my expectations and selected a Nobel laureate to the post. A true man of science like myself that also was an adept administrator who could get things done. I did my research shortly after his appointment. Needless to say, I was impressed.

Anyway, so I grabbed Turk for a minute and congratulated him on a great talk. There was plenty of discussion on what he had done in Africa, the trailers posted online, etc. Eventually, it got to the point where I could ask him the burning question in my mind: “So what was Steven Chu like? I saw that you interviewed him for the movie.”

Turk just kind of looked at me for a minute and paused before telling me about the interview. Apparently Mr. Chu was a very bright man as I had hoped, telling Turk what amounted to a very compelling set of solutions for energy problems. He then at the end said this: “Interesting question by the way, I’ve met very few people who even know who Steven Chu is. I’m impressed.”

YOU are impressed with ME?

Dude. I think I can die now.

Thanks for reading everyone.

-Ajay

Tags: TED, TEDxSMU