This week on the Center’s blog, we are featuring a special guest that is VERY close to our staff (both literally and figuratively).
Kandace Keeney is the Professional Development & Special Projects Coordinator in our division at UCA, the Division of Outreach and Community Engagement. On July 24, she attended TEDxMarkhamSt and as a favor to us will be sharing insights and lessons learned with all of our devoted readers. Our team would like to thank Kandace for taking time out of her busy schedule to jot down her thoughts and we hope you thoroughly enjoy what she has to share!
Without further ado, we present Kandace Keeney – TEDxMarkhamSt:
Do you know TED? (If you don’t, please allow me to introduce you.) Almost thirty years ago, Technology, Entertainment, and Design converged at an idea-sharing conference. Now a non-profit, global platform devoted to spreading ideas about almost all subjects, TED spreads big ideas from the world’s most inspired thinkers.
TEDx conferences are independently organized TED-like events dedicated to exercising the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives, and ultimately, the world. TEDxMarkhamSt is proof that little rocks are creating avalanches all over Arkansas. Everyone who participated in this entire day full of mind-blowing, multi-disciplinary talks left feeling inspired.
Here’s what I took home:
- Enhancing our 4G infrastructure is key to the future of agriculture. Diversity matters A LOT if your food is important to you. Eat local. Raise some chickens.
- Understanding doesn’t mean agreement or approval. Set aside agenda. Risk vulnerability. Listen.
- Never say anything that couldn’t stand as the last thing you ever say.
- Chasing meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort.
- Stress can be good for you when you choose to think about it as your body’s way of energizing you and helping you rise the challenge, your body will believe you. People matter most. Business culture can make or break a company.
- My recent and unscientific green room experiment shows that 100% of nervous TEDx presenters I hugged absolutely killed it on stage afterward. Thanks, Kelly!
- Promote social change. Ask yourself, “So what can I do?” Know your options, dismiss excuses, start small, and do, and do more.
- Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. Adversaries are the best teachers of nonviolence. Without being broken-hearted we cannot have compassion.
- Birth situations do not determine destinations.
- Overcoming our fears is key to improving ourselves, our communities, and our world. We were all meant to be great, it’s our choice whether we accept it. Go beyond where you’re supposed to be. Believe. Go to the mountain top. Jump. Focus.
- We are not investing wisely in our future. A Pell grant is $7,000 per year, incarceration is $30,000 per year.
- A mother’s education is directly related to her children’s health and economic well-being, and one in five women in Arkansas do not complete high school. Arkansas ranks first in the number of teen births. Twenty percent of Arkansas women live in poverty, and the poverty rate for female-headed families is forty-eight percent. These statistics are scary, but anything that can be measured can be improved.
- 73 of 75 of Arkansas counties are designated as underserved, but telemedicine has measurable results showing its success in Arkansas. I repeat: Anything that can be measured can be improved.
- Architecture is powerful and changes places. Places shape every decision that we make, and our decisions shape later generations.
- We need to invest ourselves in quality of life and urban. We need to change minds on public transit or make a wrong turn for our future. For Little Rock to grow in the future thinking must change from I to we.
