Local School To Host TEDx Event To Help Boost Hope Post Pandemic

CHESTNUT HILL, MA — The Beaver Country Day School is hosting a TEDx event on April 24, and already more than 200 people have signed up to attend, according to the organizers.

Six speakers are set to give short talks that play off of the event theme: Hope For Tomorrow.

Organizers, students from the school, said they hope it will generate optimism and action as society looks toward a post-pandemic future.

How a school came to host TEDx Talks

In 2018, three students — Eliana Verdi and Abby Burgess and Jules Holland spent many nights at one another's houses watching TED talks and were inspired to host an event at their own school. That year, they hosted a pilot event called BVRx, and applied for an official TEDx license, which was approved for the fall of 2019. As a TEDx event, in-person events must be capped at 100 attendees, and in 2019, they had a full house and got rave reviews.

So they decided to make The Beaver Country Day School TEDx event an annual occurrence, and then the pandemic hit.

They've been planning for a virtual second event since the fall.

"The process is long and tedious, including recruiting speakers, selecting speakers, coaching the speakers, marketing the event using social media and other tools, building our website," said senior Abby Burgess.

This year's organizers, seniors Eliana Verdi, Abby Burgess and junior Max Schreiber and eight "ambassador" helpers held a marathon brainstorming session in December to come up with the theme: They circled around general themes of change, voice and hope, before ultimately landing on "hope for tomorrow."

"We felt as though 'hope' was very timely and relevant," Burgess said.

They selected speakers in February and have been coaching them since. Because the event is virtual, they professionally pre-recorded the talks at Red Sky Studios, a studio space in Allston. They hired Davideo Company for audio and visual components.

What do they hope people will take away from the event this year?

"We have six AMAZING speakers who have been working so extremely hard on their talks," Burgess said. "We hope people walk away from this year's event feeling inspired and ready to take on a post-pandemic future."