Sometime before xmas I was working from home and there was a bang on the door (around school drop-off time). I opened it to find Clive, the curator of TEDxAberystwyth, wanting to discuss lineup, promotion and so on. I’d been heavily involved in the first one as an organiser, on the small team that pulled it together. So I am familiar with the rules of TEDx and have even negotiated the whole “building a TEDx-compatible website” and “booking a room and making it look a bit like a TEDx event” things.
The knock on the door turned out to be my “Would you like to do a TEDx talk?” call, as there had been a couple of COVID-related dropouts. Indeed it turned out to be that call for my husband, too, so Clive got 2 talks for the price of one that morning.
My talk is on girls in computing and how one can engender (ha ha I said gender see what I did there?) enthusiasm and a sense of belonging in tech for young women and girls. It’s now up on the TEDx youtube channel so if you want to you can watch it here:
I have to admit, I hadn’t anticipated “my ted talk” being written with, like, 2 days notice. I also hadn’t anticipated that it would be recorded over zoom with an audience of 2 people (the TEDxAberystwyth core team) in my own dining room. But! That’s pandemic for you – sometimes it throws up opportunities and challenges we didn’t expect. And sometimes those opportunities and challenges don’t come with the red carpet or the big TEDx letters. I did it and now there it is.