I attended the TEDx Portland event on May 30th, 2015 and had planned to see my colleage and teammate Maurice Conti but his appendix had other ideas. TEDx opened with a shout out to Maurice to get better and they are looking forward to him at TEDx 2016.

What is TEDx?
”In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.“

Some of the highlights for me personally:

• Jon Wexler of Adidas kicked off the event and was hilarious and told a really great example of how tweeting can lead to unexpected impacts whern he accidently tweeted about a major event before PR had planned to announce it making him the most popular person in the sneaker world on Twitter that day, and certainly not the most favorite person in the office. You can do a great deal of damage in 140 characters.
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  Vidya Spandana presented her amazing story of dropping out of the tech world where she was a big success and the journey around the world living poor working menial jobs off the grid in order to restart her brain and life and eventually sitting on a presidential appointment.
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  Karen Gaffney – Changed our perception on Down Syndrome and the accomplishments she has done. Karen is an amazing lady and swimmer.
• G Douglas Bundy – This is the school teacher I always wanted.
• Cameron Smith PhD a Portland State University Professor and cofounder of Pacific Spaceflight is taking what used to be a $1000,000 per spacesuit unit cost and bringing the cost down to $1000 and packed with innovations and pure 100% ingenuity.
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  Benji Wagner strong bearded founder of Poler explained how to get out there and not get phrozen by your phones. Funny and great speaker!
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  Regina Ellis Chief Joy Officer and founder of the Children's Cancer Association. This presentation by Regina was on the Joy Effect and her truly moving personal story of her daughter that had the audience in tears and truly moved.
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  Entertainment was provided by local groups The von Trapps, Jacob Miller and the Bridge City Crooners and the unforgettable Con Bro Chill.
  
  See Con Bro Chill at TEDx Portland 2015
  
• TEDx Portland featured great lunch and breaks with local Tillamook Cheese providing yogurt, Stumptown Coffee providing cold brew coffee and the famous Salt and Straw providing my favorite Sea Salt and Caramel ribbon ice cream. Local winery and also world famous beer brewer Rogue created a special Tomorrows IPA for the TEDx event.
  
• Check out “Yesterday's Tomorrow – A Portland Journey” that was announced at TEDx by the Oregonian and produced by Uncage the Soul Productions on Vimeo.
  https://vimeo.com/127954097
• Speech of Arrested Development and more gave an amazing presentation and personal story of his grandmother. He had the crowd on their feet.
  
• Renny Gleeson summed up TEDx Portland 2015 so very well and it seemed “Mind Blown” was unanimous.

The events was live streamed over the web and recorded videos of the presentations will be posted shortly at: http://www.tedxportland.com/

What an amazing experience TEDx Portland was and I will definitely attend again next year.

Shaan