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TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

2015 TEDxSalem

Noah Schultz: Incarcerated at 17, writer and poet at 18, TEDx speaker at 23

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Noah Schultz
Noah Schultz

Try to describe Noah Schultz in just a few words and you can’t help but slip in a few tan­ta­liz­ing details.

He’s a writer and a poet. He has major dreams for Ore­gon and for him­self. For the past sev­er­al years, he’s been incar­cer­at­ed at the MacLaren Youth Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty. Cur­rent­ly at a work study tran­si­tion pro­gram in Flo­rence, he’ll be tem­porar­i­ly released just in time to join our ros­ter of speak­ers at TEDxSalem.

But since he has such a way with words, we thought we would let him do the intro­duc­ing.

How did you come to learn about TEDxSalem? What made you want to get involved?

I was dis­cussing my goal of speak­ing at a TED event with a friend of mine when she men­tioned know­ing some of the orga­niz­ers. I got very excit­ed and asked her if she would be able to con­nect me with them. TED pro­vides the plat­form to deliv­er hope through a pos­i­tive mes­sage, or new idea. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

Tell me a lit­tle more about the sub­ject of your TED talk.

My talk is an infu­sion of poet­ry, my life sto­ry and the wis­dom I have learned from the expe­ri­ence of being incar­cer­at­ed at an ear­ly age. I want peo­ple to walk away from this talk ready to take on the thing they have pushed to the side. Humans are meant to per­sist, sur­vive and reach unimag­in­able lev­els of excel­lence. I hope this talk stokes the inner fire inside of them.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

You’re a tal­ent­ed writer, and your work has been show­cased online. What orig­i­nal­ly got you into writ­ing?

Thank you, I feel very blessed to have been well received in that area.

When I was 18, I signed up for a group called Write Around Port­land. This is a non­prof­it locat­ed out of Port­land who was offer­ing their ser­vices to MYCF (MacLaren Youth Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty).

This was where I was exposed to cre­ative writ­ing. We were giv­en jour­nals and spent two hour ses­sions writ­ing to prompts and shar­ing with oth­ers in the group. In this class, I felt like what I had to say mat­tered. The feel­ing writ­ing gave me was like no oth­er. This was the one place I could escape to. It was and is my ther­a­py.

Can you talk more about the expe­ri­ence of being incar­cer­at­ed at 17?

There is a lot I can say about that expe­ri­ence. I am going to save that for the talk. To be incred­i­bly brief, I can say that this has been some­thing that has altered my life path for­ev­er.

What would you most want peo­ple to know about you?

I would want peo­ple to know that I care about them, off the bat. I believe that we are all con­nect­ed through the beau­ty of life. Each one of us makes up a piece of some­thing big­ger. That way of think­ing con­sis­tent­ly influ­ences each of my inter­ac­tions.

I would also want to let them know that I am a very ambi­tious indi­vid­ual who is focused on mak­ing a pos­i­tive impact on the plan­et Earth before leav­ing it.

What are your plans for the future?

When asked this ques­tion my brain usu­al­ly goes into a state over­load. I have so many ideas with writ­ten plans of action ready for imple­men­ta­tion upon my release.

I am an aspir­ing social entre­pre­neur who is pas­sion­ate about the erad­i­ca­tion of pover­ty, human traf­fick­ing and envi­ron­men­tal issues. At this moment, I am work­ing on devel­op­ing and launch­ing a Kom­bucha busi­ness and pub­lish­ing my first book.

See Schultz and oth­ers speak at TEDxSalem Oct. 3.

The all-day event is $40 for stu­dents and $50 for the gen­er­al pub­lic and includes talks, enter­tain­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion in recess breaks, hands-on activ­i­ties between ses­sions, plus food through­out the day (break­fast, coffee/tea/water, snacks and lunch), a gift bag and a few oth­er good­ies. Find your tick­ets here.

TEDxSalem speakers: Where are they now?

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elaineEvery year, TEDxSalem speak­ers inspire us with their unique ideas that shed light on the world around us, but where have these ideas tak­en them since leav­ing the stage?


We caught up with sev­er­al past speak­ers to see where they are now. Here’s what they had to say:

Jonathan Chase, who spoke last year about the inner work­ings of the autis­tic mind, is con­sult­ing at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty to help sci­en­tists bet­ter under­stand research par­tic­i­pants on the autism spec­trum. He has also kept busy pre­sent­ing at con­fer­ences, uni­ver­si­ties, work­shops and offer­ing train­ing for par­ents, pro­fes­sion­als and JCPlayingBassedu­ca­tors.

“TEDxSalem was a great expe­ri­ence and led to a lot of inter­est in what I do and my unique approach to autism sup­port,” he said.

Travis Jank, who talked about Bit­Coin , a type of dig­i­tal cur­ren­cy, start­ed a new com­pa­ny with fel­low speak­er Richard Sur­roz , called the Nerdy Nin­jas, to pro­duce show­case PCS and to do events includ­ing the Vanil­la Ice Project.

SIMON_TAMSimon Tam, who talked about mak­ing every word count in 2014, has done four more TED talks and is tour­ing the coun­try with his band, The Slants. Cur­rent­ly he is head­ed to Wash­ing­ton DC for a case that might expand the First Amend­ment. Plus he devel­oped a great new taco recipe.

Jef­fer­son Smith, who talked thank­less jobs last year, has con­tin­ued to build XRAY.FM, a start­up radio sta­tion vot­ed Portland’s Best Radio Sta­tion this sum­mer. He is also work­ing with a crew of fel­low vol­un­teers to orga­nize a sto­ry­telling series focused on rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty grat­i­tude. The crew is called SuperThank, and they have start­ed a pod­cast and radio show.

“Sept. 21st is World Grat­i­tude Day,” he said, “and we’ll be doing some ridicu­lous things.”

Patrick Spencer, who talked about the Cork For­est Con­ser­va­tion Alliance in 2013, has helped expand its pro­grams to all sev­en cork-

Patrick Spencerpro­duc­ing coun­tries. The Alliance’s cork recy­cling pro­gram now has more than 1,000 drop-off loca­tions across the Unit­ed States and Cana­da.

“The most excit­ing news is that we have launched an eco-tour of the cork forests in Spain,” he said. “We were very hon­ored to have the eco-tour fea­tured in the New York Times Trav­el sec­tion.”

Thank you to all our speak­ers who shared updates. This year’s line­up of TEDxSalem speak­ers promis­es to be just as excit­ing. Get your tick­ets at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Speaker fights for social justice on and off the clock

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CM Hall a proud native Oregonian committed to equality and social justice and a fierce Words With Friends player. She is also a 2015 TEDxSalem speaker.
CM Hall is a proud native Ore­gon­ian com­mit­ted to equal­i­ty and social jus­tice and a fierce Words With Friends play­er.

Being a sign lan­guage inter­preter gives you a win­dow into the most inti­mate details of people’s lives and can put you on the nation­al polit­i­cal stage. Just ask CM Hall, a 2015 TEDxSalem speak­er.

She served as a mem­ber of John Kerry’s senior staff dur­ing his run for pres­i­dent in 2004, includ­ing mak­ing sure ASL inter­preters signed every speech. She has also inter­pret­ed for Pres­i­dent Oba­ma. Five times.

“That’s a pret­ty good gig if you can get it, right?,” she said.

If it sounds like she’s try­ing to recruit inter­preters, it’s no acci­dent. She helped launched a nation­al cam­paign to inspire the next gen­er­a­tion of ASL inter­preters to help fill a short­age.

Now she works as project coor­di­na­tor of the West­ern Region Inter­preter Edu­ca­tion Cen­ter at West­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty. She teach­es Deaf­Blind Inter­pret­ing and LGBTQ Stud­ies.

When Hall dis­cov­ered ASL inter­pret­ing in col­lege, she was drawn to the ges­tures. It remind­ed her of the­ater because it embod­ied a con­ver­sa­tion, but it was the social jus­tice piece that hooked her for good.

“When I start­ed to learn about Deaf cul­ture, it sparked my social jus­tice bend. This isn’t about a com­mu­ni­ty with a dis­abil­i­ty,” she said. “This is about a com­mu­ni­ty that is lin­guis­ti­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly oppressed.”

Despite ded­i­cat­ing more than 23 years to learn­ing the lan­guage and earn­ing awards for her advo­ca­cy, she still rec­og­nizes that she’s an aud­ist, some­one who behaves or is treat­ed as if they’re supe­ri­or based on the abil­i­ty to hear. If you’re a mem­ber of the hear­ing com­mu­ni­ty, she said, you’re an aud­ist. You can’t help it.

That doesn’t stop her from fight­ing for equal access.

For exam­ple, she coor­di­nates a men­tor­ship pro­gram that match­es sea­soned inter­preters with new inter­preters in 11 states and ter­ri­to­ries to boost qual­i­ty access for the Deaf com­mu­ni­ty. She also fights in lit­tle ways. In July, she start­ed a change.org peti­tion to add the ASL “I Love You” emo­ji to mobile tex­ting appli­ca­tions. She said she feels lucky to do the work that she does.

In her free time, she advo­cates for the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty. Yes, she does social jus­tice for fun, too. Cur­rent­ly she chairs the Equal­i­ty PAC for Basic Rights Ore­gon. To learn more about Hall’s life as a sign lan­guage inter­preter, LGBTQ advo­cate and self-described queer, catch her TEDxSalem talk Oct. 3. Get your tick­ets at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Fearless on the streets of Salem

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The TEDxSalem team was at Salem Sun­day Streets on Aug. 30 ask­ing peo­ple “What is Fear­less?”

Here’s what Salem had to say:

Frank of Prismagic
Frank of Pris­mag­ic
Ken
Ken
Brady
Brady
David of City of Pieces
David of City of Pieces
Karen of City of Pieces
Karen of City of Pieces
Brian
Bri­an
The Venti's Rooster
The Ven­ti’s Roost­er
Freddy
Fred­dy
Jamie
Jamie
Kerry
Ker­ry
David
David
Ja Feels
Ja Feels
Denise
Denise


No Caption NecessaryNo Cap­tion Necessary…is there?

What is fear­less to you? Let us know Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 3 at TEDxSalem.

Get your tick­ets at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

 

David Craig: Understanding our world through birds

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bio_headerIn city life, you may not see many wild ani­mals. A cougar sight­ing is com­mon­ly a sub­ject of a local news sto­ry — and much con­ver­sa­tion.

But birds? They’re every­where. Maybe they’ve nest­ed on your prop­er­ty or they’re eat­ing feed your neigh­bors throw out. Maybe they wake you up ear­li­er than you’d like, chirp­ing near your win­dow.

How often have you won­dered why a bird is in your neigh­bor­hood, ver­sus anoth­er part of the world? How often have you won­dered what the bird’s sto­ry is?

David Craig, a pro­fes­sor of biol­o­gy at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty, has built a career around ask­ing and answer­ing these ques­tions.

Craig has been inter­est­ed in the world around him and the crea­tures that live in it since he was a child. He says most chil­dren are, and many grow out of it. Craig nev­er did.

Craig says answer­ing the ques­tions of why birds set­tle where they do and where and when they migrate can answer a lot of ques­tions about our­selves and our world.

“I think under­stand­ing our place in the nat­ur­al world is always impor­tant,” Craig said. “There’s a long his­to­ry of birds being able to  tell us real­ly quick­ly about the envi­ron­ment before peo­ple have to make deci­sions that are going to affect peo­ple.”

Ospreys and eagles were the ones who told us DDT, a pes­ti­cide, was harm­ful, Craig said, when their eggs stopped hatch­ing and their pop­u­la­tion declined. We lat­er learned that DDT was caus­ing can­cer in peo­ple, he said.

In recent years, hob­by­ists have been con­tribut­ing to sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge by tak­ing pho­tos of birds with tags that sci­en­tists else­where have put on them and help­ing them track them through the Inter­net.

The new tech­nol­o­gy and new twist on bird­ing is attract­ing a younger gen­er­a­tion of bird­ers, Craig said.
Want to learn more about how you could get involved? You can see his talk at TEDxSalem on Oct. 3 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Get your tick­ets at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Dr. Mark Davis: When waste becomes the cure

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Mark HeadshotThey say one’s trash is another’s trea­sure.

Dr. Mark Davis has built a med­ical career on this con­cept.

To many, poop means very lit­tle. It’s just waste, to be flushed away and rarely spo­ken of.

But for some peo­ple, it’s a sig­nif­i­cant health prob­lem that severe­ly impacts their qual­i­ty of life. And the only solu­tion is more poop.

Let me explain.

Davis, a Port­land-based natur­o­path­ic physi­cian, has ded­i­cat­ed his career to help­ing peo­ple with stom­ach con­di­tions — espe­cial­ly those who have tried every­thing, to no avail.

At TEDxSalem on Oct. 3, Davis will speak about the work he is doing to improve the lives of those who have stub­born inflam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease and infec­tious col­i­tis.

Davis comes from a fam­i­ly of sci­en­tists and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, and he nat­u­ral­ly formed an inter­est in a career in the field, as well.

But unlike con­ven­tion­al med­i­cine, which he says is more focused on fix­ing bro­ken bones and patch­ing up bleed­ing parts, Davis was inter­est­ed in a more holis­tic type of med­i­cine.

When he dis­cov­ered natur­opa­thy, he knew it was right up his alley.

He got into gas­troin­testi­nal health because of the influ­ence of his men­tor, Dr. Steven Sand­berg-Lewis, who is a gut health expert, Davis said.

Davis found that while many peo­ple suf­fer­ing from bow­el dis­eases found relief through diet, nutri­ents and herbs, there were some peo­ple for whom noth­ing seemed to work.

He did some dig­ging into sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture, and he found an answer that has helped many peo­ple: fecal trans­plan­ta­tion. In oth­er words, he takes donat­ed fecal mat­ter from healthy peo­ple to trans­plant it in sick people’s intestines through an ene­ma.

Today, he runs his own donor bank at his prac­tice and con­tin­ues to help peo­ple who have tried every­thing to relieve their bow­el dis­ease symp­toms with no suc­cess.

You would have to attend TEDxSalem to learn more about fecal trans­plan­ta­tion, what Davis has done to make the process more — well, appe­tiz­ing — and the bar­ri­ers the gov­ern­ment has placed on peo­ple who would ben­e­fit from this treat­ment.

Tick­ets are avail­able at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.