TEDx returns to Rexburg on city’s 139th anniversary

REXBURG, Idaho (KIFI) - TEDx Rexburg opens next Saturday at the historic Romance Theatre.

This is the first time the event has been held locally since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

"Ted started back in 1984 in the San Francisco Bay Area and Ted stands for technology, entertainment, and design," event director Mia-Lisa Adams said. "And so the best of the best in those three fields would get together once a year and have a conference and talk about the new idea that they could share to make other people's lives easier."

Since 2009, TED began organizing local, independent events through TEDx. The Rexburg TEDx brings local and out-of-state speakers to the area to share their ideas.

“It's not meant to be inspirational, it's not meant to be transformational or motivational," Adams said. "It's supposed to be an idea that people can implement. So people who come to Ted X are open-minded. Their thought leaders, they’re discovers are adventurers or innovators or entrepreneurs. They love discussions, thinking about ideas that are worth spreading.”

TEDx Rexburg hosts speakers such as local entrepreneurs to running coaches from as far away as Kenya. Most speakers are experts on their subject matter, such as Seth Robins who teaches college success at BYU-Idaho.

Robins plans on sharing his knowledge of finding individual success through small changes in effort.

"I'm just speaking about how ideas aren't the things that change our lives, what we do with ideas change our lives, and how change is a little bit simpler than we might think," Robins said. "And even giving just a little bit of change, you know, change and improving in the short run, it might not seem like it's getting us the improvements we want but if we sustain that over time, it actually will lead to that."

Other speakers will focus on more sensitive topics, such as sexual assault.

"I'll be talking really heavily about an experience that happened to me when I was a 14 year old in High School," local entrepreneur CJ Krainock said. "And it's going to be really deep and I'm really excited to speak about it and be able to help other people who might have gone through something similar."

The conference opens at 6:30 p.m. March 12, just in time for the City of Rexburg's 139th birthday.