TEDxRM, founded by sophomore Niya Bansil, freshman Shyla Agarwal and sophomore Julia Chang, aims to provide students with opportunities to improve their public speaking and research skills in an open, constructive environment. Members educate their peers on issues that they are passionate about through the form of TED talks. Joining TEDxRM means learning and building skills in public speaking and research, learning about issues you had never considered before and having fun all without much commitment involved.

TED talks (Technology, Entertainment and Design) are informational speeches and events delivered by speakers ranging from Bill Clinton and Bono to regular people. These speeches are all hosted by the nonprofit TED Conferences, LLC. TEDx is a program started by TED conferences to give a voice to “ideas worth spreading” in local communities around the world. It allows for local people to organize, curate and host their own TEDx live speech and watch other recorded speeches in their communities.

Niya Bansil, co-president and co-founder of the club, cites Winston Churchill High School as her inspiration to start the club at RM.

“I’ve been wanting to work on my public speaking skills. When I saw Churchill’s TEDx club on [social media], I thought it was really cool,” she said. “I realized that RM didn’t have anything like that, so I thought it would be fun to start something like that so I could work on my public speaking and also help others.” 

Next, Bansil reached out to her friends, Agarwal and Chang, to collaborate on establishing the club.

“We looked into finding a sponsor by asking a bunch of our teachers [if they were interested]. Mrs. Hodge looked really interested, so we gave her some more details and then she became our sponsor,” she said.

The application process to launch a new club was a lengthy and somewhat frustrating process for the club.

“We had to apply to administration, and it took about 2 weeks to get approved. Because of the delay, we missed the club fair,” Bansil said. “We’ve been trying to reach out [to the school community] to get the word out there.”

The TEDxRM leadership created an active social media presence to spark the interest of RM students.

“Promotion through instagram was how I heard of the club,” sophomore Vihaan Rathi said. “The idea of giving TED talks has always intrigued me, and it’s a super cool club for people to just share their experiences and interests, or to practice public speaking in general.”

The TEDxRM club plans to organize events where students have opportunities to both give TED talks on issues they’re passionate about and listen to other students’ TED talks to expand their knowledge.

“We have to apply through the TED organization to run an official TED event, so we plan to run one in the winter in December or January,” Bansil said.

While awaiting approval from the TEDx program to host official events, the members of TEDxRM will spend their time honing their skills and learning their craft. 

“At our biweekly meetings, we will watch TED talks that have been published online for inspiration and give members the opportunity to do informal TED talks. We’ll give around a week to write a speech and then just informally present it to everyone else in the club,” Bansil said.

Although there are a variety of public speaking clubs already in place such as Debate club, Mock Trial and Model UN, the TEDx club has a unique value that differentiates itself.

“With the other [public speaking clubs], you compete against other people with the goal of winning. With our club, you have a lot more freedom to just share about any issue you’re passionate about without guidelines against you,” Bansil said. “I think it’s more supportive and low-commitment.”

The club had their first interest meeting on Nov. 2, where leadership spoke to their members about their purpose and plans for the year. 

“The interest meeting was very well organized,” sophomore Elli Jacobs said. “Based off this interest meeting, I know that there will most likely be a large event held in the spring for students and teachers to give TED talks about any topic.”

TEDxRM meets every other Wednesday in room 156 at lunch and can be found @tedxrm on Instagram. The leadership team is excited to fulfill a need in the school community and establish their club for the years to come.