Palo Alto High School’s TEDx Club will host a series of student, teacher and professional TEDx speakers during various class periods tomorrow in the Media Arts Center. Each speaker will deliver a short talk on a topic of his or her choice, from medicine and physics to music and writing.

TED is a nonprofit organization, which aims to spread ideas to the whole world, according to its website. TED started as a conference where “technology, entertainment and design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages.” These ideas are shared in the form of talks, 18 minutes or fewer. The “x” in “TEDx” signifies an independently organized event, where communities can create and host their own TED events.

Below are previews of the talks that will be offered.

Thomas Tayeri, Period 1

Tayeri is an ophthalmologist and the founder and CEO of Palo Alto Eye Group. He will talk about the problem of blindness around the world.

“Specifically, I will give examples of what a local nonprofit is doing to eradicate needless blindness in developing countries,” Tayeri said via email.

Rolina Wu, Period 1

Wu, a senior at Paly, will raise awareness on the importance of scientific journalism.

“I believe that as consumers of journalism and creators of social journalism, it is important to understand that scientific news articles do not necessarily represent facts,” Wu said. “It is important to always check the credibility of cited sources and the validity of conclusions before sharing articles as facts to our friends.”

Adi Beth, Period 2

Beth will be discussing the importance of music in our lives.

“Music has been the force guiding mankind on our quest to discover who it is we are through the cultural evolution that brings us to where we are at today,” Beth said. “We’re at a super important point in history today because I believe that with the proper awareness, we as a generation can finally transcend the cultural barriers that have always held us back. And I’m going to explain how were going to do that.”

Anna Lu, Period 2

Lu, a junior at Paly, will talk about the definition and importance of introversion.

“Because our society seems to place a bias on supposedly-extroverted traits, I think that it’s extremely important for all of us to accept who we are and what makes us special,” Lu said. “Not to mention that introverts are on average more intelligent than extroverts.”

Karina Chan, Period 4

Chan, a junior at Paly, will be discussing the role of judgment in Palo Alto.

“Judgment is inevitable but so powerful that it shapes peoples’ lives,” Chan said. “With so much influence, judgments are something that we need to be more thoughtful about before acting upon them.”

Samantha Edgington, Period 4

Edgington, a system architect at Lockhead Martin, will be talking about the Geostationary Lightning Mapper.

“[The Geostationary Lightning Mapper] detects lightning in order to provide an early indication of stormy weather,” event coordinator junior Adele Bloch said. “She will discuss the benefits of measuring lightning, as well as how the GLM functions and its main objectives.”

Garret Lees, Period 5

Lees, a junior at Paly, will speak about autism and his personal experiences with it.

“My talk will be about autism, the large spectrum of it and how it should not be regarded as a ‘dis’ ability but an ‘A’ bility,” Lees said. “I will be going into details of some of my personal experiences with the disorder and how it has shaped me into the person I am today, as well as some resources my parents provided for me like the organization of ASC [Autism Social Connection] in order to help me learn how to behave better socially. My speech will be about the cause I am most passionate about, which is helping the world see that having any type of autism is not something to be ashamed of, and with a little effort, anyone with autism can fit in and even be helpful to others in unimaginable ways.”

Angela Zusman, Period 5

Busman is an author, executive director of Story for All and founder of Uniquely Perfect. She will talk about the power of story and how stories can be used both as weapons and as instruments of healing and peace.

“Negative narratives have become instrumental in the continued enslavement of African-American men in this country, and stories – particularly stories of our youth – can be used to set them free,” Zusman said.

Esther Wojcicki, Period 6

Wojcicki, a teacher at Paly and esteemed journalist, will talk about Moonshots in Education, based on her new book “Moonshots in Education: Launching Blended Learning in the Classroom.”

“A Moonshot is something that is hard to achieve but worth the effort, just like the first moonshot under President Kennedy,” Wojcicki said. “In the classroom, it means changing the culture of the classroom so that lecture is not the primary method of instruction and that teachers give students more control of their learning. The instruction is supported by technology and real world projects that students choose. It is a moonshot because changing the culture is just as hard if not harder than going to the moon.”

John Evans, Period 6

Evans is an author as well as lecturer of poetry and creative writing at Stanford University. Evans’ talk is called “The Things We Don’t Mean To Prepare For.”

“Basically, I’m going to talk about the ways in which we prepare for things without meaning to, and also how we become wise against our wills,” Evans said.

Below is the official schedule of the talks:
Period 1 [8:15 – 9:05] – Thomas Tayeri, Rolina Wu, Official TED video [Medicine + The Media] Period 2 [9:10 – 10:00] – Adi Beth, Anna Lu, and Official Ted Video [Palo Alto Judgement, Introversion] Period 4 [11:10 – 12:05] – Karina Chan, Samantha Edgington, Official TED Video [Music, Physics] Period 5 [12:45 – 1:35] – Garrett Lees, Angela Zusman, Official TED Video [Autism, the community] Period 6 [1:40 – 2:30] – Esther Wojcicki, John Evans & Official TED Video [Journalism and Writing]