Xploring Inside-Out: The TEDxIfe Live Story

For within us, in ourselves can we find the greatest answers, the truest thoughts and the dearest secrets’- Caleb Adebayo.

The atmosphere of Thursday’s evening was electric, the exuberance gripping, expectations rising higher than Everest at its peak, and despite the mild pattering of rain on the rooftops and window panes with the temperature of the room slightly lowered, attendees as the first event of TEDxIfe held this year confess they have never felt so comfortable in a room brimming with ideas, mind-boggling questions and unusual answers.

As a buildup to the main TEDx event tagged ‘Solving X’, TEDxIfe has begun a series of events. One of these is the TEDxIfeLive that held on the 9th of October 2014. The event marked the 4th TEDx event hosted by TEDxIfe. It was held at the COEX cafeteria on Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

Apart from being an opportunity to share ideas with global thinkers and doers, via the streaming of the just concluded TEDGlobal, the event served as a platform for easy interaction with indigenous thinkers and doers from the campus community. Selected talks from TEDglobal were streamed and five student speakers carefully selected from the campus community were lined up. Simply put, it served as a merger of both worlds, our small niche, the campus community, and the global community.

Besides a chance to sit back, and listen to a variety of shared responses, attendees had the platform to interact with speakers from the campus community as well as share ideas on the TEDGlobal talks.
The event began with opening statements by the co-organisers of this year’s TEDxIfe event, Emmanuel Adegboye and Nonso Eze. They spoke on the main TEDxIfe event set for Nov 15. The streaming of the TEDGlobal talks commenced almost immediately.

Kola Badmus was the first of the four to speak. Recognised for his creative craft and design in nature-derived accessories, his brand has become acclaimed and has found its own niche sooner than later. Kola spoke for less than ten minutes on how he was challenged to solve his x’es, surpass conventions and ‘usuals’ in order to break into something different. For a few seconds after his talk, Deji, the compere for the event engaged him with a few questions, the answers of which were insightful and got attendees applauding.

A TEDglobal talk followed immediately, after which Funke Alao took to the stage with a challenge that spurred everyone to question boundaries. Being mostly a student audience at the event, her emphasis on student monthly allowances and the need for something more than just another student doing what every other person was doing, reached out to the audience quickly. And from the stage, it was as though there was an invisible cord that connected her to everyone in the room. Soon, she was not in the lights and on the stage anymore, she was on our minds, in our hearts, tugging at our beliefs, daring us. A TEDglobal talk followed when she left off speaking.

The mode in which the talks were alternated were very fitful, like holding binoculars to a silver frame with gold apples, zooming in and capturing the apples, then zooming out to capture the frame. It was like turning trouser pockets in and out, searching for something. It was exploring inside-out. Touching the within and the without.
A short break was allowed for a few minutes to allow speakers and attendees to interact. Interactions bordered on the TEDGlobal talks, ideas, the TEDxIfe past and future events as well as catching up on old acquaintances, meeting new friends, and small chatter. During the interlude, snacks and drinks were passed around.

The second session resumed with Ore Ajewole, host of the popular, Ore Ajewole talk show on campus. Ore;’s personality led her to almost leave the stage in a bid to connect with her audience. An illustration of her taking risks and overcoming fears that cannot easily be forgotten is that of her putting on leggings for the first time. She made us understand how such a small decision could mean a lot when it came to breaking conventions. For everyone, Ore was the speaker who elicited humour with her true-to-life illustrations.

Two volunteers for TEDxIfe, Nike and Nnanna were up next to talk about 1000 voices, a novel and groundbreaking concept introduced for this year’s event and powered by Sono messenger. 1000 voices is a platform for people to add their voices to the growing conversation around Solving x. In thirty seconds, people record their voices online as they speak about solving life’s x-like complexities. The idea piqued the interest of attendees. Nike also spoke on the social media activity going on for TEDxIfe events at the time. Boye was number four and was the techie guy. Apparently this guy writes codes and he loves doing it. Boye’s talk endeared us to him. His story of his decision to stay in Nigeria to make things work despite offers from Europe was a food for thought for many who think their ticket out of misery is a plane ticket out of Nigeria. Boye’s enthusiasm and love for what he does was infectious and soon even those who only knew how to write love songs had a thing tingling in their hearts for this code writer.
Finally we had Segun as the last student speaker crown the evening as he spoke about his experiences and how these experiences have in their individual bits formed a collage for his resilience and proffered answers to questions that have cropped up during his lifetime.

Emmanuel Adegboye later came up to talk about the TEDx experience and what it means as well as this year’s TEDxIfe event, the speakers and the mode of registration. For him, inspired by the talks he had heard, coming upstage to talk was breaking his conventions and stepping out of his boundaries as he was always the behind-the-scene guy.

The event wrapped up in a bit after a few more TEDglobal talks. The event recorded over fifty attendees, apart from speakers and TEDxIfe volunteers, and warm conversations ensued among everyone afterwards. To many, the event was a teaser for the main event in November, and their firm, collective decision was not to miss the main event.