TEDxWomen: Conversations All Women Should Be Having
When I received the invitation to attend the first TEDxWomen event being held at the Paley Center for Media on the same day in both Los Angeles and New York City I never imagined it would become a life-altering moment for me in so many ways.
Nor did I pack enough tissue paper in my bag for the emotions which would hit us all with each honest and gripping story after another that graced the bi-coastal stages.
The day was hosted by Pat Mitchell, President and CEO of the Paley Center for Media, and was divided into four segments alternating between each coast. The four curated topics were Resilience, Relationships, ReBirth and ReImagine. Each of the topics was created to serve as a continuation of the conversations started during the first-ever TEDWomen conference which took place last December and connected over 10,000 people all over the world through locally organized TEDx movements.
Each of the four segments included an impressive lineup of women (and some men) who got on stage to bare their souls and inspire us with their stories of creativity, losses, triumphs, "aha" moments, struggles, connections, persistence and aging; all ending with the most igniting sense of positivity, without clichés or romantic notions of unreachable goals.
The underlying tone of all the conversations was transmitting all this collective knowledge to the future generation of women which lies in our girls. How can they, through our life-learning process and adequate education, receive this information now to be change-agents and live with a belief of a field of endless opportunities for them?
That future is already here, if we can judge by the three stunningly brilliant Google Global Science Fair champions who shared with us their winning projects. Lisa Ling hosted the Re-Imagine sessions from L.A. and was obviously excited to introduce these teens (Shree Bose, Naomi Shah, and Lauren Hodge) who had the whole Los Angeles room of intellectual women laughing in positive disbelief and in awe of their brilliance and confidence in presenting their award-winning ideas.
Continued on the next page
Follow Technorati