Watch now: TEDxPortland | History and Hope
'History and Hope' features past TEDxPortland speakers who reflect on issues like racism in the community and the impact of COVID-19.
TEDxPortland: History and Hope
TEDxPortland organizers had to make a decision. As the COVID-19 epidemic caused sports, then concerts and then cities and entire states to shut down, they had to face the question of whether to cancel their event to celebrate their landmark tenth year.
The event was to be their biggest-ever production and was to be held at Portland’s Moda Center arena. TEDxPortland was already known as the largest independently-organized TEDx event in North America. Hosting the 2020 event at the arena, in its nearly 7,000-seat 'Theater Of The Clouds' configuration, would have made this the largest indoor TEDx event in the world and would have cemented the place of TEDxPortland and the northwest TED community, as they like to refer to themselves, as the preeminent event of its kind.
When the organization's board met to discuss the possibility of canceling the event, which had taken years to organize, the inertia of what was planned met squarely with the reality of a pandemic: You can't host a gathering of thousands no matter how many calls, emails, contracts and months of planning had gone into it. It would not be safe. The organizers had to make the same call that many businesses, restaurants, hotels, schools, and tourist attractions had to make: reschedule the event.
"It was a tough decision, but it was the right decision," event co-founder and curator David Rae said in a video message posted on their website. "We will get through this and when we get on the other side of it, the celebration for Year 10 will be one for the ages."
For a group whose purpose is to gather people and share ideas of innovation, resilience, perseverance and solutions, they were suddenly left with few options to achieve anything like that in 2020. With the support of their partners, the call was made to postpone the event at the Moda Center for a year. Like the Olympics and many other significant gatherings, 2021 became a viable option for a 'Year 10' celebration.
But a hallmark of TED talks everywhere is that they explore the direct connection between ideas and the challenges that communities face. The idea of waiting a year during a historic pandemic and not being involved, and not acknowledging the actual 10-year anniversary, led the TEDxPortland organizers to reach out to their media partner, KGW, about creating a virtual experience for 2020.
Already working remotely themselves, the team at KGW began innovating plans for a remotely produced broadcast special and a series of digital presentations with the TEDxPortland team. With social distancing in place, TEDxPortland assembled speakers from the nine prior years to have conversations with KGW anchor Brenda Braxton and notable TEDx presenters. The conversations they had ranged from the pandemic and how it affects the greater community to how individuals can empower themselves to thrive in the face of adversity.
But the nation faced yet another challenge. The death of George Floyd, while in police custody in Minneapolis, shortly after the death of Breonna Taylor at the hands of police in Louisville, Kentucky, triggered a wave of social movement and calls for change. Racism was again in the forefront of a national debate, as well as here in Oregon, with protests and demonstrations organizing around the state mirroring those spreading worldwide, TEDx organizers decided to again re-focus their program to include frank talk about racism in the community, as well as acknowledging the struggle of farmers and the fragile community of Portland's beloved restaurants during the pandemic shutdown.
TEDx producers also went through their powerful catalog of Talks from previous events to glean important perspectives on racism, equity, and justice in America.
"History & Hope" is an exploration in how, in the organizers' words, to bring our community together at this important time.
“History & Hope” was broadcast on KGW on Saturday, June 20. You can watch it right here, and you can find the program and past TEDx presentations exclusively on the KGW/TEDxPortland YouTube playlist.
This article is part of a continuing series presented by KGW in partnership with TEDxPortland.
Greg Bell Motivational speaker
Greg Bell, a Portland, Oregon based motivational speaker, author, and leadership coach, holds the auspicious title of being the first speaker at the very first TEDxPortland event in 2011. Reflecting back on that day he says that not much of his thinking has changed about his personal direction and advice for others, even in this time of quarantine and pandemic. He says asking the question of yourself "What's going well?" rather than dwelling on the negative is still very applicable in these troubling times because, in his words, "having that positive focus gives you the fuel to deal with the challenges."
His talk in 2011 was titled "Water the Bamboo" where he shared the real-world analogy of how it takes three years of watering a bamboo forest before there is any growth above ground. Then, once the strong root system is established, the forest will grow as much as four feet a day. He translated that philosophy of building a history of positive thought into the foundation of his program that helps individuals and corporations achieve growth and greater success. He also shared with the TEDx audience the story of his childhood, humble by the measure of wealth but rich in the measure of inspiration and love he experienced from his family and community.
WATCH: Greg Bell's TEDxPortland talk titled "Water the Bamboo":
For a complete listing of stories in this series go here and visit the KGW YouTube channel TEDx playlist.
For more information on TEDxPortland, visit their website.
This article is part of a continuing series presented by KGW in partnership with TEDxPortland.
Anna Debenham The Insight Alliance
In her 2019 TEDxPortland talk, Anna Debenham shares her personal journey to wellness and credits a breakthrough that she had when, during a time she grappled with an eating disorder and substance addiction, she realized: "I'm not broken. There is nothing wrong with me. I didn't have an addiction problem, I had a thinking problem."
It is from that personal realization that she was inspired to develop a program to reach out to people who were incarcerated and help them find a new direction in their life and their thinking.
Anna helped found the Portland, Oregon based Insight Alliance, an organization that works with men, women, and youth in the prison system both in Great Britain and in the United States, to help foster new pathways of understanding and self-realization so that the person feels more empowered to change their lives in positive ways. The group uses creativity and the arts to help participants develop new life skills and a better understand of themselves so that while they are in the prison system they make better decisions and when they are eventually released they have a better chance of building more sustainable and stable lives. The group has been credited with helping lower recidivism rates in programs where they have been active, including significant improvements within the youth programs.
The Oregon-based group states their vision to be one that works to foster "kinder, stronger and more equitable communities propelled by individuals leading healthy, prison-free lives".
Anna Debenham's 2019 TEDxPortland talk:
For a complete listing of stories in this series go here and visit the KGW YouTube channel TEDx playlist.
For more information on TEDxPortland, visit their website.
This article is part of a continuing series presented by KGW in partnership with TEDxPortland.
Julia Niiro MilkRun
In her 2019 TEDxPortland talk, Julia Niiro took the audience through her own journey from corporate agriculture marketing to owning and running a small farm in Canby, Oregon to starting what she hoped would be a simple way for people to get better produce direct from farmers. She went on in her 2019 TEDx talk at the Keller Auditorium in Portland to describe how what started with one pig farmer developed into what would become MilkRun, a company that connects food producers and small farmers directly to people, without the grocery store food chain in between.
In her KGW interview with Brenda Braxton, Julia talked about how, to her, it is more than about her company and the business, it is about feeding people, and how, during this pandemic, that has become vital. She and her coworkers stepped forward to help farmers, who were at risk of losing everything when the food economy shut down, get their produce to people who were suddenly in great need. It is this model, she believes, that is is necessary to save the small American farm. As she said in her TEDx talk, many are facing extinction in the current agriculture model that favors the large industrial supply chain. What seemed 'insurmountable,' she says, was made simple not by inventing anything new, but by connecting what was already there, cell phones and apps, to the challenge of getting food from a small farm to someone's home.
Julia describes growing her idea for MilkRun, from her own farm in Canby, Oregon to a new model in how people can get their food.
Julia Niiro's 2019 TEDxPortland talk:
For a complete listing of stories in this series go here and visit the KGW YouTube channel TEDx playlist.
For more information on TEDxPortland, visit their website.
This article is part of a continuing series presented by KGW in partnership with TEDxPortland.
Gregory Gourdet and Elias Cairo Portland restaurant scene
"It was one of the hardest things that ever happened to me," Elias Cairo, founder, and proprietor of Olympia Provisions Charcuterie said about the COVID-19 pandemic shuttering his operation. "The first wave that hits you is that you have all these unbelievable employees and you can't even open your doors. What do you say to them?"
The ripple effect of a nationwide shutdown on the restaurant industry hit home for most if not all Oregon proprietors, like it did for Cairo. In a community that prides itself on its world-class restaurants, farm-to-table ethos, and direct connection between neighborhood chefs and the neighborhoods they serve, closing the industry affected tens of thousands - all at once. It's not just about business, though.
"Most of us do not open restaurants to be successful business people," says James Beard award semifinalist Gregory Gourdet, executive chef of Departure restaurant in Portland, "It's because we feel passionate about serving others, we feel passionate about the culinary arts, we feel passionate about the ingredients Mother Nature provides."
Both Gourdet and Cairo talked about their life journeys on stage at TEDxPortland, Gourdet in 2015; Cairo the next year. How they both came from parents who had immigrated to the United States, scraping together an existence for their families, and how both found the support in the community of restaurants when life became challenged.
It is that same support they now ask - but of the community. More than waiting for restaurants to reopen, both Gourdet and Cairo ask the community to reach out and help support the people whose lives have been put on hold. Gourdet, in his May 2020 interview with KGW, noted the proposed federal Restaurant Stabilization Fund which, if enacted, would help support the half-million small restaurants in the United States. As of this writing of this article, the proposal was not yet enacted and had been moved to further discussion as part of a $3 trillion relief package under consideration in Washington. As both Gourdet and Cairo are very aware, a single restaurant closing affects an entire economy of small businesses. Support from all sources, federal, state, and local, is needed, not so much for themselves, but for the thousands whose names are not on the marquis.
Gregory Gourdet's 2015 TEDxPortland talk is titled "Look in the Mirror: A life reinvented".
Elias Cairo's 2015 TEDxPortland talk is titled "Entitlement is a Stinky Cologne":
"History & Hope" aired on KGW, Saturday, June 20. You can watch it in the player above or on our social channels including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Find the program and past TedX presentations exclusively on the KGW/TedxPortland YouTube playlist.
For more information on TEDxPortland, visit their website.
This article is part of a continuing series presented by KGW in partnership with TEDxPortland.
Dr. Rachel Knox Endocannabinology and Cannabinoid Medicine
Dr. Rachel Knox is on a mission. In her 2019 TEDx Portland talk, she challenged everyone listening to think differently about their health and their bodies. As a physician, she has dedicated her life and practice to understanding a wellness model that is an alternative to what is considered the standard. She champions a greater understanding of what is called the endocannabinoid system of the human body, a connective system of chemical signaling that, in her understanding, helps keep the body regulated and balanced.
If the word sounds familiar, it should. Dr. Knox is a proponent of a return of cannabis as a prescriptive therapy and emphasizes in her lectures and practice that it had been used in medical practice for centuries until it was banned in the early 20th century, primarily because of the hallucinogenic effects of THC, of the compounds that naturally occur in marijuana. But it is the other compounds found in cannabis, CBD in particular, that Dr. Knox and others believe have valuable therapeutic and medicinal effects.
In her May 2020 conversation with Brenda Braxton, when the talk shifted to the ongoing adoption of more mainstream cannabis use, Dr. Knox shared that for economic reasons during the pandemic and shutdown of the nation, she believes the expansion of cannabis deregulation will be more widely considered because of the taxation benefits it could provide state and local governments.
It is also her belief that a better understanding of the endocannabinoid system is a matter of self-empowerment with the understanding that if positive and holistic healing and health are kept in better balance the need for standard medical intervention is reduced.
Dr. Rachel Knox's 2019 TEDx Portland talk:
For a complete listing of stories in this series go here and visit the KGW YouTube channel TEDx playlist.
History & Hope” aired on KGW, Saturday, June 20th. You can watch it in the player above or on our social channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Find the program and past TEDx presentations exclusively on the KGW/TEDxPortland YouTube playlist.
This article is part of a continuing series presented by KGW in partnership with TEDx Portland.