By Connor Hawthorne, Staff Writer
We are the future. This was the message repeated again and again at the TEDx event at River Hill this past Sunday, where 10 different speakers, ranging from County Executive Calvin Ball to River Hill students, gave TED talks about how we can build a better future.
Topics from leadership to artificial intelligence to the national debt were covered throughout the engaging two-hour event. Half of the speakers were River Hill students, with the rest being an assorted group of scientists, politicians, and community leaders. The event was started last year by River Hill sophomore Ishaan Busireddy as a way to develop a place for public discourse about issues that affect us students.
Out of all the accomplished presented at the event, perhaps the most notable was Dr. Calvin Ball, the current Howard County Executive. Dr. Ball’s talk on transformative leadership explained how his feelings on leadership have changed throughout his life, and what we can do to be leaders striving for a better future. As a child, Dr. Ball thought about leaders as people who gave directions and had all the answers to problems. As he grew older, however, he realized that there is a different kind of leadership: one “where you respond in certain types of situations.” He explained, “I started seeing there were different types of leadership, and that I could be a different type of a leader.” This chance to “change the landscape” is what drove him to run for the position of Howard County Executive. Dr. Ball’s message to River Hill students was to “think about the world, think about how you interact with that world, and then think about what could be,” and “the systems that you can create will be the systems that launch the future.” Mr. Ball ended his speech with the poignant message, where he said that “each and every one of you are creators of the future.”
Dr.. Ball’s captivating speech on leadership was followed up by several others about emerging technologies in a diverse group of scientific fields. The speeches examined topics ranging from Dr Richa Agarwal’s talk about tracking food pathogens to Natalie Buscemi’s speech about LED light bulbs, alongside an assortment of talks about the applications of artificial intelligence by several River Hill students.
Another leader that spoke at the event was our very own Student Member of the Board, Abisola Ayoola, a student from Wilde Lake High School. Ayoola discussed the benefits of student leadership in high school, and proclaimed, “I truly believe that high school is one of the best places to experiment with leadership.” Building upon similar themes as Ball’s speech, she contested the traditional definition of leadership as someone who commands, but rather defines, leaders as “the ones who show up and get things done.” Ayoola explained that “Leadership is not about giving directions, but showing direction.” She explains that the key to leadership is learning how to “amplify your own talents to serve others” and “part of being a great leader is putting discipline over pride.”
Dr. Ball wasn’t the only politician to speak at the event. River Hill was fortunate enough to welcome Natalie Ziegler, a member of the Maryland House of Delegate. Delegate Ziegler spoke about the challenges facing Maryland that we all need to work together to overcome. Mrs Ziegler noted that although there is general consensus that we need to work together, “it’s amazingly hard to agree on how to get there.”
According to Ziegler, one of the biggest challenges facing us is “the growing gap between the haves and the have nots.” She explained how when adjusted for inflation, the cost of living for the average American has increased over the past forty years, while wages have not. Mrs Ziegler elaborated that in order to fix this problem we all need to work together since “we can’t have a sustainable future with an economy that doesn’t work for a huge percentage of America.” Mrs Ziegler’s talk emphasized the importance of education and how people need to work together in order to secure a better future.
Overall, the event was a great success with a plethora of informative and interesting speakers. With such a professional atmosphere, it is easy to forget that this event is the brainchild of our very own River Hill student, Ishaan, who shared that he organized this event last year because “there were so many competitive events, but I didn’t think there was a way for people to express what they wanted to: express their ideas. I wanted to make a friendly and free environment where they could express their ideas to the community.” Ishaan regards this year’s event as more successful than last year, especially because the organizers have learned from their mistakes. Ishaan hopes to have this event expanded to other schools in order to be accessible to more students.