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. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Irmo High School
6671 Saint Andrews Road
Columbia, South Carolina, 29212
United States

Aidan Forster

Poet

Aidan Forster is a queer poet and essayist from Greenville, South Carolina. A 2018 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, his work has been honored by the National YoungArts Foundation, the Poetry Society of America, and the Poetry Society of the United Kingdom, among others. His work has appeared in BOAAT, Columbia Poetry Review, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, and Tin House, among others, and he was a 2017 Tin House Scholar in Poetry. He reads poetry for Muzzle Magazine and works as an Associate Editor for Sibling Rivalry Press, a small press dedicated to LGBTQ+ literature. A graduate of the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities’s creative writing program, he is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Literary Arts and Public Health at Brown University.

Jamie Margolin

Activist

Jamie Margolin is an activist, student, author, and co-founder of the youth climate justice movement Zero Hour, which mobilizes young people all over the world for emergency climate action. Her activism is rooted in her love of both the American Pacific Northwest, where she grew up, and the wilderness of her mother's home country, Colombia, both of which are deteriorating due to human causes. Her identity as a queer, Jewish, Latina motivates her to fight for the marginalized and get to the root of the problems that hold down our world.

Michael Lloyd-White

In 2012, at the London 7th General Assembly of The World Kindness Movement, Michael became the first elected Secretary-General, having presented his ambitious strategic plan on operationalizing kindness to the international community. His commitment to this mission saw him honoured with the prestigious Men In Black Award “Most Inspiring Man 2018” and secure numerous messages of support from Australian leaders including the Australian Commissioner for Human Rights, State Premiers, the Vice Regal, and two serving Prime Ministers. He currently serves as the CEO and Secretary to the Board of World Kindness USA.

Victor Mardikian

Artist

Victor Mardikian is a fourth-year undergraduate architecture student at Clemson University. In the summer of 2018, he acquired a prestigious internship in Paris immersing himself in a rigorous learning experience that reinforced his interpretation of design. He is particularly interested in the subject of memory and the narrative capacity of architecture to address its increasing lack of receptivity by coalescing elements from context, communities, culture, technology, and ecology. He plans to pursue his studies in graduate school to further his education.