Twelve Talks, One Night: Tedx At St Andrews

Trudging down Market Street in the pouring rain to the Buchanan Lecture Theatre, hours after the usual lectures had concluded, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The TEDX Student Speaker Competition was scheduled to start at 7pm, and promised a range of talented individuals from St Andrews’ very own student body, competing to gain a place in an official, recorded TEDX event in March. Beyond this information, and a page detailing the names and talk titles of the participants, I was going in blind.

Taking a seat in the lecture theatre, I couldn’t help but notice the transformation it had undergone – what was typically an academic space had been furnished with branded graphics on a big screen, lowered lighting, and the quintessential red letters that have come to be synonymous with curiosity and inspiration. As the event progressed, I found myself forgetting that I was in St Andrews, and the impossibly eloquent speakers on stage were not in fact accomplished celebrities and motivators, but members of the same student body as I was.

The competition opened with Bartosz Rogala and his piece ‘Hope in a ‘Hopeless’ World.’ As the audience settled and a hush fell over the theatre, we were asked to close our eyes and raise a hand if we had ever felt hopeless about the state of the world. Opening my eyes with one hand tentatively raised, and seeing nearly every audience member around me doing the same, the sense of community in the room was undeniable. This was the first moment of many in the roughly two hours of talks which genuinely moved me and changed my perspective.

Despite a significant portion of the speeches being on topics I knew absolutely nothing about, or even initially disagreed with, every single talk was presented with care and real passion. The enthusiasm and commitment of everyone involved was infectious, and I found myself invested in concepts I had never even considered before. Maeve Gaddipati’s speech on the ethics of voluntourism was especially impactful — the way she discussed her previous biases on who volunteering really benefits brought me to recognise similar biases in myself and confront them.

The undeniable highlight for me, however, was the final and eventual winning speech by Logan Elliot: ‘The Bravest Acts Get No Likes.’ In just over ten minutes, he discussed society’s current obsession with attention and validation alongside true stories of his own grandfather’s unimaginable courage during the Second World War, culminating in a message that stuck with me for hours after the event — that true bravery occurs not when everyone is watching, but when nobody is.

As the competition drew to a close and audience and speakers alike filed out of the theatre, whilst the weather may still have been miserable, the mood was anything but. From the countless words of congratulation I overheard to the free flowers being handed out at the door, the atmosphere before, after and during the event was consistently one of curiosity, support and a genuine love of learning. The vast range of topics, backgrounds and stories told on an otherwise dismal Tuesday night served to remind me of the diversity and dedication that make the St Andrews community so special.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons