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http://outlookaub.com/2015/11/16/tedxaub-provides-blueprints-for-change/

TEDxAUB provides blueprints for change

By
Outlook

Nour Massalkhi
Staff Writer

With two years past its disappearance from the round red carpet, TEDxAUB returned with its selection of speakers
and performers, bringing with it a vision of spreading inspiring ideas and creative initiatives through this years
theme: Blueprints.
TEDxAUB Blueprints took place in the Charles Hostler Auditorium on Saturday, November 14, attracting audiences
of different ages and backgrounds. Blueprints 2015 was open for 300 attendees, including school and AUB students,
teachers, businessmen and businesswomen, and supporters of speakers all gathered together for one goal: the
outline required to make a change.
Majd Shidiac, co-curator of the newly founded TEDxAUB club, described the speakers as hidden gems with
visions that deserve to be shared.
What we were looking for in TEDxAUB was people that were doing a lot, but the light wasnt really on them, he
said. Or they didnt have the right exposure, or we really needed to share this speaker with the world.
Eight speakers with different backgrounds and initiatives took to the round red carpet and told of their journeys and
visions for Lebanon and its youth, however different their talks are from one another, they all carry a similar desire:
the blueprints to a gripping idea, and an inspiring story.
Speakers at Blueprints included Stphane Bazan, who spoke about the importance of studying the Web as a whole
and completely understanding it; Elbert Ahmad Giron, a political studies student at AUB, who decided to establish a

relationship between the curtailing of extremism and the tendency to conform to social norms; Diala Ahwash, an
AUB political studies graduate, who spoke in her native Lebanese language about the problems the country faces,
and their possible solutions when the youth, government, and society are given the opportunity to cooperate.
Also among the speakers were: Lynn Zovighian, Managing Director of The Zovighian Partnership, who expressed
the seriousness of the brain drain phenomenon on Lebanons economy; Tarek Shehayeb, who expressed his
approach to his multiple sclerosis sickness in a meticulously carved metaphor of Maria Selina; Tala Amhaz, the
commercial director at a leading publishing house by trade, described her journey of self-exploration and finding
happiness in herself; Mounir Camel-Toueg, a PR practitioner who found destruction and its solution in the hands of
society, i.e. the smartphone; and Georges Sassine, who brought his NGO initiative LOGI (Lebanese Oil and Gas
Initiative), and discussed the corruptions and its solutions that would result from finding gas and oil in our grounds.
Alongside the speakers were two performers: Moukafahet al Geedz, a fusion band of Oud, guitar, and saxophone,
and Hani Al Sawah (Darwish), who brought his lyrical poetry on stage in the form of rap to express his longing and
pain for his country, Syria.
We decided to bring back [TEDxAUB], said Co-Curator Shidiac. But to do it on a bigger scale and in a correct
way.

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