We're happy to announce that TED just renewed our license (did you know that every TEDx event in the world must apply for re-licensure each year?), and we can share the date with you for our next event. Mark your calendar and plan to attend -- once again at the beautiful, historic Grand Oshkosh -- on Saturday, October 5, 2019.

Ideas Are Spreading!

The TEDxOshkosh team is thrilled to announce that people worldwide have been cumulatively viewed over 250,000 times. We're proud to "export" these great ideas from our small Midwestern city.

Spread the Videos Further

Why not share them with friends and colleagues? To make it a bit easier, here are links to all three years of TEDxOshkosh videos:

• 2018
• 2017
• 2016

Do you have an innovative idea? A great thought? We want to see you at TEDxOshkosh Pitch Night on February 26th. It’s where potential speakers of TEDxOshkosh pitch their great idea in hopes of presenting it on our main stage on November 10th.

2018 Speaker Pitch Night will be held on Monday, February 26th from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. at the Waters at 1393 Washington Avenue in Oshkosh. Both potential speakers and the general public are invited.

TEDxOshkosh spreads ideas and perspectives to spark conversation and connections in the community.  Those interested should bring their idea to the Pitch Night and give the TEDxOshkosh team their best 4 minutes. Speakers are encouraged to show up promptly at 5:30 p.m - no registration needed - and speaker candidates will take the stage on a first come, first served basis. At least one of the ideas from Pitch Night will show up on the stage for TEDxOshkosh 2018.

TEDxOshkosh is searching for ideas that break through borders, change lives and ultimately can change the world. Most importantly, we are seeking ideas that are new. The TEDxOshkosh team encourages scientists, artists, technologists, businesses, not-for-profits, charities, young and old, and all diverse sections of society to pitch their idea to speak at TEDxOshkosh 2018. If you, your work, or your community project is working on something that encompasses the theme of “ideas worth spreading” then TEDxOshkosh wants to hear from you.

By: Christine Roth, Ph.D., Director of the UW Oshkosh Department of English Graduate Program

Editor's. note: When the TEDxOshkosh team discovered that UW Oshkosh Professor Christine Roth had incorporated TEDxOshkosh as a part of this semester’s Honors Advanced Composition class, we just had to ask her to write a guest blog post for us.

I teach Honors Advanced Composition at UW Oshkosh, and I have always asked students to write a researched critical essay as their final project. This fall, however, my students will finish the semester with a public TEDx-style Talk instead of a traditional academic essay. The folks at TEDxOshkosh learned about what we are doing in class and invited me to write a blog entry about the experience.

Part of the UW Oshkosh Honors College’s mission is “to challenge the university’s best students to be critical thinkers, problem solvers, and community leaders.” Since 1984, TED has presented us with a similar kind of challenge, connecting innovative thinkers with an intellectual community that shares their passion for ideas that make us think, that offers solutions and new perspectives on issues of the day, and inspires people to make a positive difference in their communities. The model seemed ideal for a group of bright, engaged students from diverse academic disciplines, backgrounds, and writing styles.

TED and TEDx Talks are created to “spark conversation.” This is important. Students feel a lot of pressure to be correct. And there is a time for that. In formal writing assignments, we want our research to be rigorous, we want our data to be sound, and we want our grammar and spelling to be free from errors. But I also want my students to be interesting. When a student makes an argument about a text, I want that student to be able to respond to the question “So what?” In other words, I want that student to know what makes the argument interesting to other people. If it’s not interesting, it might not be worth writing out. And to be interesting is to take an intellectual risk. It is to question what we think we already know and to offer a fresh perspective that makes people want to share their own thoughts and responses. It is the kind of exchange that lies at the very heart of academic work.

Unlike traditional student essays, though, TED and TEDx Talks are written for and delivered in front of an audience. This is also important. Students must shape their argument for a specific audience’s interests, needs, and knowledge base, and they are immediately accountable for the views that they express. No longer are they writing within a sort of vacuum, waiting for the professor to respond with private comments and praise. They are communicating with their peers, professors, and colleagues in a way that anticipates a number of professional situations for which I am supposedly training them.

Students prepare for the TEDx-style Talk in much the same way that they would prepare a traditional essay: they identify a topic that they (and their audience) will find interesting, they research that topic to learn what others have said, they respond to that conversation with an original but informed position of their own, and they craft a document in which they articulate, support, and comment on that position. But I see students thinking about this project differently. They want to say something meaningful to their audience. They want to say something that gets people talking. And they want to say it well.

Our whole class will be at the TEDxOshkosh event on November 4. We’re all excited about it. Many of the students are looking forward to hearing particular talks already—many on subjects that fall well outside of their disciplines. My hope is that this experience will help foster a lifelong pursuit of knowledge in my students and teach them not only how to do their jobs better (whatever those may end up being) but also how to live more curious, engaged, interesting lives in general.