The Leadership Education And Development team at the Student Activities Center will host an official TEDx event at Iowa State for the first time ever. The event will take place from 5 to 10 p.m. March 29 in the Maintenance Shop of the Memorial Union.

Approximately 50 people submitted proposals hoping for a chance to be chosen as a speaker at the “Bold Innovations” themed event. A committee has been reviewing those ideas and will notify on Jan. 22 eight to 15 people who have been chosen to present.

Speakers will present their ideas to a live audience of 100 people on the day of the event.

“There is a place online where you can register to attend the event because according to regulations, we can only have 100 viewers present at the event,” said Kelsey Grote, graduate student in higher education and one of the coordinators for the event. “We have a date that we are going to lottery select people to attend the event.”

While only 100 viewers can be present, different areas around the Memorial Union will live stream the event. 

“I just want to encourage everyone to apply to watch because it is the first ever Iowa State University TEDx event,” Grote said. “It is going to be really neat, and we’ll have a lot of fun things there, so it will definitely be worth your while.”

The Student Activities Center brought the TEDx event to campus for a couple of different reasons.

“We saw that other schools had done the TEDx event and thought that Iowa State would be a really great place to host it,” said Kevin Merrill, leadership and services programs coordinator for the Student Activities Center. “Also knowing that we have had Nobel Prize winners and other influential individuals come through Iowa State, we thought that it would be a good idea to have some kind of avenue for speakers who have something to contribute to the larger community.”