TEDxLakeheadU 2025 aims to connect change

Thunder Bay - The theme of TEDxLakeheadU 2025, held Saturday at The Outpost, was "Connecting Change."

TEDx aims to spark conversation, connection, and community.

"We have about 100 guests, sponsors, partners, and speakers attending. We are gathered here to bring forward new ideas, innovation, around how we can better connect and how we can bring good change to our community," said Faraz Khorsandi, event lead and Lakehead University Student Union president.

He said TEDx hasn't been held in Thunder Bay since 2019, and before that, it was 2015.

"You can see how many years it's been since Thunder Bay had a TEDx. After six years we can finally host it, and we're very excited, and we see the excitement from community members and students attending today."

Khorsandi said TEDx is an independently organized TED event, representing technology, education, and design.

"People get on stage, give different talks, bring new ideas and innovations from different disciplines, and have their own guidelines, rules, and regulations."

Khorsandi said there are 11 speakers in total. Five are local, two are from the United States, one is from Calgary, and three are from Toronto.

The theme "Connecting Change" was created by Khorsandi.

"When I came here as an international student in 2022... I could see so much disconnect between the key stakeholders in this city. There is a force within people that doesn't want to accept change, and for me, that was a problem," Khorsandi said.

Dr. Chris Alexander, an associate professor of video game design and educational technology at Toronto Metropolitan University, said he was grateful to be invited to Thunder Bay.

Alexander said, "In my talk today, I talked about how AI can enhance the way educators teach, and told four specific stories to illustrate how AI can be applied in elementary, secondary, online, and higher education."

He said the crowd's atmosphere was welcoming and enthusiastic, and everyone was engaged.

"I hope people realize that most of those with negative views on AI and education are trying to stop others from trying it. I want to encourage parents, teachers, teacher training institutions, and especially students to try it.

"I gave concrete examples to show them ways they can try," Alexander said.

Albert Brulé, CEO of the United Way of Thunder Bay, said he was impressed by the effort the organizing committee put into this "amazing" experience.

He said, "The theme 'Connecting Change' resonates closely with the work I do at United Way, so it was a great honor to give a talk today on how people can come together to solve poverty."

Brulé hopes this is the start of more opportunities in the future.

"It's truly inspiring. We have local speakers, which is fantastic, and people from across Canada and the U.S. coming to Thunder Bay to share their expertise and ideas to help motivate and inspire all of us in this community," he said.

Brulé's talk was titled "United: Anything is Possible."

"What I really want to convey to the audience is that when we come together as a community, when we truly work hard and proactively as a community, we can make things better, and we can solve some of the most challenging issues facing Thunder Bay and the region.

Brulé said, "Whether it's homelessness, food insecurity, or youth drug use, whatever the challenge, we can make a difference, and we must."

Ben Wise and Darren Chiu, co-founders of Captivate, gave a talk at TEDxLakeheadU 2025.

"Our theme was the ecology of influence and how to use it to create change, which is also the theme of the whole event," Wise said.

It was so much fun, Chiu said. "The audience was engaging. We could see their reactions. We could see everyone smiling."

"We hope that people trying to drive change now have better skills or a toolkit to do so. When people try to convince someone to do something or change or do something differently, we give them all the logical reasons, but research shows that is extremely ineffective.

Wise said, "If people learn one thing, it's that it starts to be appealing on an emotional and human level, not just rattling off data, facts, and logic."

Source:  https://www.tbnewswatch.com/success/tedxlakeheadu-2025-aimed-to-connect-for-change-10308027