Theme: Disruption and Deviation

A young traveler wanders aimlessly along a dirt path under the scorching sun of the desert in search of water. Every so often, there is a fork in that path. There exists other paths that branch off the one that he is on. He cannot see where those paths lead, only that they stretch endlessly into the horizon. Every step of the way, there is a lingering question. Is this the right path? Is this the path that society tells me to be on or the one I tell myself that I should be on? What happens if I leave from this path? What will become of me?

Change can be a blessing as well as a curse, and in a world of constant ideological and technological evolution, there exists friction between those resisting and those accepting of disruptive and deviant activities.

With an impact blind to industry or profession, these two profound ideas have the potential to shift our thoughts forward into realms previously unexplored, and together, represent the driving force behind history's greatest leaps from the status quo.

Deviance is all around us and most importantly, it is within us. What makes a difference is whether or not we act upon the driving force that the deviance begets. How we adapt to disruption and deviation in our lives, is solely upon us.

On February 22nd, 2015, TEDxColbyCollege welcomes you to explore the intricacies of disruption and the promises of deviation through the lens of academics, innovators, and visionaries.

Mayflower Hill Drive
Waterville, Maine, 04901
United States

Aquib Yacoob

Aquib Yacoob is a 21-year old human rights and social change activist. A New Yorker born and raised in Guyana, South America, Yacoob is in his final semester at Colby College completing an independent major in Health, Culture and Society. He returns to Waterville after a year-and-a-half of travel and research, learning and unlearning from communities across the globe, from Katmandu to Curarrehue to Ferguson.

Brian Martinez

Brian Martinez is a sophomore from New York City majoring in Sociology, with a minor in Philosophy. Coming of age during a period of great spatial change in Bushwick, Brooklyn--and all throughout the city of New York--Brian has great empirical understanding of gentrification in urban spaces. At Colby, he hopes to supplement his empiricism with an understanding of the economic and social underpinnings of gentrification in the urban context.

Brian Westerman

He is currently a junior at Colby majoring in Psychology-Neuroscience. He hails from Southbury, Connecticut and is the president of the Mindfullness Club on campus.

David Rabjohns

David started his career at IBM in 1984 at the beginning of the personal computing revolution. He studied marketing at the Cass business school in London, but not content with academic theory later rode a motorcycle from Sydney to London in order to explore what really made the world tick. He rose to become the youngest ever EVP strategic planning director at the global advertising firm Leo Burnett before leaving to start his own business, MotiveQuest, in 2003.

Eric Barthold

Originally from Lyme, NH, Eric studied English and Education at Colby, where he also played soccer and ski raced. While at Colby, he co-founded Mules Against Violence (MAV), whose mission is to raise awareness of sexual violence in the Colby community as well as challenge gender roles and sexism at Colby. As president of MAV, Eric developed a curriculum for facilitated conversations with all of Colby's male sports teams. Since graduating from Colby in 2012, Eric has taught English and coached both soccer and ski racing with ages ranging from middle school to college, and has adapted his conversations (now titled "Man Up" and Open Up) in order to bring them to schools throughout New England.

Henry Beck

Henry Beck '09 has represented part of Waterville and Oakland in the Maine Legislature since 2008. A Waterville native, he graduated from Colby College in 2009. Prior to serving in the Legislature, Henry was a member of the Waterville City Council while at Colby, He is the House Chair of the Insurance and Financial Services Committee, and works as an attorney in Waterville.

Joseph Atkins

Dean Atkins was born in central NY and came of age during the civil rights movement in the 1960’s. After a decade of working at various jobs including a garbage man and construction work, he studied electronics at a community college and got a job with IBM. His talk will focus on how life led him from IBM to Colby. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree from Vassar College (double major in Computer Science and Cognitive Science) and his Doctorate in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from the University of Rochester. He came to Colby in 2002 as a one year sabbatical replacement professor in Psychology.

Leah Breen

Leah is a senior at Colby with a double major in Government and Global Studies and a minor in Anthropology. After interning in Liberia during the Ebola epidemic and in Guatemala at a family planning organization, she is particularly interested in reproductive health policy, international development, and conflict studies.

Nick LaRovere

Nick LaRovere is a person passionate about success. Born and raised in the Boston, MA area amongst a close-knit Italian-American family, Nick is now a senior Economics major and Italian minor at Colby College and looking onto the next step after graduation.

Pandit Mami

Pandit Mami is from Sierra Leone. He received his education from UWCSEA, Singapore; University of Haifa, Israel; and Colby College, Maine. In recent years, he has served as his country’s youth ambassador to the House of Commons, the One Young World Summit, and the Asian Youth Leadership Summit. In addition to traveling the world, being in many regions and countries, Pandit is a war survivor who has transformed his difficult childhood into a catalyst for motivation and perseverance. He is currently the Midwest Regional Campus Coordinator for the Zionist Organization of America.

Sebastián Molano

Sebastián Molano, a native from Colombia, is a development worker with extensive experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. Driven by a passion for social justice and equality, Sebastian created the Defying Gender Roles group (www.defyingenderoles.org), an initiative that contributes to deconstructing harmful gender roles traditionally attributed to men and women in society. Selected as the commencement speaker for his graduating class, Sebastián Molano is an alumnus of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also a regular contributor to the Good Men Project and Words in the Bucket.

Walter Hatch

Walter Hatch is associate professor of government and director of the Oak Institute for Human Rights at Colby College. He teaches and writes about international relations, the politics of Japan and China, and the political economy of regionalism and development. In previous lives, he worked as a shrimp processor, a cabinet maker and as a reporter.