TEDx times Ten: Ideas, inspiration abound
Photos courtesy of Mark Michaelis/TEDx Coeur d’Alene Joshua Dahlstrom explains how to turn ideas into epic adventures. All it takes is desire and whole lot of commitment. Dahlstrom helped envision the epic adventure that is Hayden Canyon Charter School.
Rebecca Schroeder details the steps she took to find a cure for her son’s cystic fibrosis. Through research and advocacy, Schroeder helped fuel a medical breakthrough for people suffering from the genetic disease.
Jim Smidt oversees the Cornerstone Cottage, a residental treatment facility for adolecent girls with a histor of trauma, in Post Falls. He praised the vision and dedication of his staff in helping girls break the cycle of intergenerational abuse. (Photo Courtesy of Mark Michaelis/TEDx Coeur d'Alene)
Arthur Price explains the importance of business practices in non-profit organizations. Price is the operations director of Capable, a non-profit working to unlock the economic potential of people living in extreme poverty in Uganda. (Photo Courtesy of Mark Michaelis/TEDx Coeur d'Alene)
Julie Stratton urges the audience "to take off your blinders and lean into one another with the intent of learning one another's stories". Stratton champions LGBTQ issues in north Idaho. (Photo Courtesy of Mark Michaelis/TEDx Coeur d'Alene)
Editor’s note: Did you miss TEDx Coeur d’Alene? Fear not! This is the last installment of a three-part series highlighting the presentations Saturday.
By JENNIFER PASSARO
Staff Writer
COEUR d’ALENE — A nonprofit organization, TEDx runs almost exclusively on volunteer hours.
The speeches run on decades of experience, dedication, and desire.
Entrepreneur and success coach Joshua Dahlstrom nurtures ideas into epic adventures. He finds his mind most at ease when moving outdoors. He encouraged the TEDx audience to use a filter of unlimited potential when embracing their imaginations.
“Today I have a new idea,” Dahlstrom said. “I would like to help kids who have a busy mind like mine. In September 2020, Hayden Canyon Charter School will start its own epic adventure.”
Hayden Canyon Charter School started as a radical idea for better education. With desire, vision, motivation, commitment, and action — Dahlstrom’s epic method — the idea began to take shape.
At HCC, learning will be student-led and peer-graded. The learners will sit at tables where they look to one another, instead of in rows looking at educators.
Rebecca Schroeder had an idea.
She was going to save her son’s life.
Through her research and advocacy, breakthrough treatments emerged for people, like her son Brady, suffering from cystic fibrosis. Now 90% of all people living with the rare genetic disease have normal, healthy life expectancies.
Schroeder translated the world of genetic biology, pharmaceutical research, and federal policy into a rich story that was easy to understand.
“Watching this medicine, this lifeline, roll out to families has been a miracle,” Schroeder said. “To watch my son laugh without coughing. Honoring the gift we’ve been given means we keep that ball rolling. We won’t stop until 100% of the people have a cure.”
Medicine, in its various forms, held gravity on the TEDx stage.
Jim Smidt directs Cornerstone Cottage in Post Falls, a residential treatment facility for adolescent girls suffering from severe trauma. On average, the therapeutic program helps 10 girls annually. With a staff of 30, they address and heal the devastating effects of physical abuse, sexual abuse, abandonment, and neglect.
“Here’s the good news,” Smidt said. “They get better. Eighty-seven percent walk out showing marked improvement. We could talk about the modalities of our treatment. But the one thing that makes a difference is not a thing, it’s the people. The people make all the difference.”
Smidt asked his employees to stand. The audience applauded them. He then asked all the social workers in the room to stand, the educators, the therapists. The audience applause rose up around them.
“These girls get better because for the first time in their lives they have someone who believes in them,” Smidt said. “This group of staff are underpaid and overworked. So why do they do it? They have the ability to see beyond behaviors, to give the girls a chance at a future.”
Arthur Price works to give the world’s poorest people a chance at a future.
Price directs operations for Capable, an economic development organization that seeks to lift subsistence farmers in Northern Uganda out of extreme poverty. The progress in that type of work is difficult to measure. But Price challenged that. He figured out a way for nonprofits, like Capable, to measure outcomes in the same way for-profit companies do.
“How do we solve problems in the uncomfortable middle between nuance and numbers?” Price said. “Poverty is complex.”
Measuring poverty requires precision, proximity, and empathy. Price has developed analytical systems that do just that. With a clear understanding of what is effective in the organization’s practices, Capable has been able to lift more Ugandans above the extreme poverty levels of $1.90 a day. There are still 14 million people living below that amount in sub Saharan Africa.
Price put numbers on an incredibly nuanced organization to better understand its value to society.
Throughout the TEDx Coeur d’Alene event, the number 10 frequented the speeches. Ten years is the number of years Rebecca Schroeder has spent researching cystic fibrosis. Dr. Melanie Bowden studied for 10 years to earn her veterinary degree. One in 10 veterinarians who have died since 2010 died by suicide. In 10 years, Jim Smidt might serve only 100 girls at the Cornerstone Cottage, but those 100 girls will have a far lesser chance of becoming another statistic. The 10th leading cause of death in the world is suicide.
It takes decades to create 18 minutes on a TEDx stage, but only a few minutes to get a TEDx audience buzzing.
“I teach high school, so if there is not a hum in the background, I’m confused,” event organizer Eric Edmonds said.
“Time is fluid in the TED world,” Nick Swope, co-organizer of the event, said as the audience swayed under the vast worlds presented in so many well choreographed speeches.
“Early this morning I saw two people walking down the hallway introduce themselves,” Swope said. “As they walked to get coffee they began to talk about ideas they had and how they could turn those ideas into adventures. We are creating a space where we can get to know each other.”
LGBTQ advocate and teacher Juli Stratton expressed how excited she was to honor the TEDx stage by speaking without notes. It’s one of the rules of TEDx, along with the intention of the event to give a platform for those who don’t usually have one.
“This is my Ironman,” Stratton said.
Stratton invited the audience to experience her move from a vibrant gay neighborhood on the north side of Chicago to Post Falls. She felt isolated and judged. With great vulnerability she told of the tipping point, where she had to step away from her fear and choose to make this new community her home.
After the Pulse shooting in Orlando, Florida, killed 49 people in June of 2016, Stratton said she was reminded that the LGBTQ community are a target of hate, a target of oppression.
But she decided to do something about it. She organized a vigil in McEuen Park. Several hundred people showed up to support the LGBTQ community.
“It opened my heart to being seen and feeling supported and safe,” Stratton said. “Because of my queer identity, I’ve lived on the margins of gender for most of my life. The vigil showed that there are people here who really care about me and my identity.”
Stratton paused.
“I am a wife. I am a daughter grieving the loss of her mother. I am a part of you that wants to belong. I would invite you to go out and share your stories. Take off your blinders and lean into one another with the intent of learning one another’s story without trying to change it.”
To get involved in TEDx Coeur d’Alene as a volunteer or to apply to speak at next year’s event, visit tedxcda.com.