St. Cloud hosted a TEDx Thursday, October 11, 2018, at the Paramount Center with various speakers from the St. Cloud area.  

TEDx is a self-organized, local event that helps people share ideas and come together for various TED-like experiences.

The schedule for the TEDx:

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm Social Hour

6:30 pm – 7:30 pm First three speakers

7:30 pm – 8:00 pm Short break

8:00 pm – 9:00 pm Last three speakers

The first speaker was Eric Sannerud, the CEO and co-founder of Mighty Axe Hops, a hops farm in Benton County. Hops are flowers from the plant Humulus lupulus; they are used as a bittering, flavoring and stability agent for beer. Sannerud talked about the importance of farmers, and how they are essential in rural communities. He made points such as farmer’s make very little money from their crops, and it is not just a farmer’s problem anymore, it is everyone’s problem. He also pushed for action in asking what we can do to change this and answered simply, we can vote. He encouraged the crowd to use their voices to help local farmers through legislation and voting.

Beth Berila is the Director of the Gender and Women’s Studies Program at St. Cloud State University. She is also a professor in the Gender, Ethnic, and Women’s Studies Departments. She talked about the importance of seeing people for who they actually are, and not trying to dehumanize someone in order to make others feel comfortable. She also stated that we should not ignore the differences between others but that we should all be comfortable enough that we can talk about various religions, races, gender identities, and sexual orientations without any judgment.

The next speaker was Mark Gill. Gill is a technology evangelist and Direct of the Visualization Lab at St. Cloud State University. He also teaches various courses in software engineering. Gill talked about how people of all ages need to embrace technology. Technology is our future and we have to start accepting that and, when we do, we can have a more advanced and vast future. Technology can improve our health and jobs and overall, our lives.

After a short 15 minute break (including desserts!) there were the last three speakers of the night.

Jolene Singh is a trauma and general surgeon at the St. Cloud Hospital. Singh has been practicing for six years in St. Cloud. She was the fourth speaker of the night and talked about how she has been performing robotic surgery for over a year now. A lot of people have made misconceptions on robotic surgery and how it works. The “robot” is not actually performing the surgery, it is just helping the surgeon in many different ways. By using this robot, the surgeries are performed better and recovery time can be dramatically shorter than normal.

The next speaker was Cynthia Terlouw. She has spent over 30 years working with troubled kids and has opened up one of the first Safe Harbor programs in Minnesota. The Safe Harbor program helps victims of sex trafficking and exploitation. Cynthia talked about the importance of helping sex-trafficked girls, making sure they are in an environment that is safe for them and without judgment, and a place that will help them get back on their feet and eventually try to get them back out into the world.

The last speaker of the night was Chief of Police for the city of St. Cloud, Blair Anderson. Anderson talked about the importance of kindness. How even the smallest good deed (paying for someone’s groceries or coffee, leaving the door open for someone, etc) can make someone’s day and will lead them to remember how kind a complete stranger was to them. It can be so small that you will forget it the next day, but your good deed will be imprinted on the other person for the rest of their life.

Blair Anderson finished the night with a powerful closing sentence, “We would all rather live in happiness, connectedness, and peace rather than tension, isolation, and fear.”