On September 18, 2010, I spoke at the TEDxRedmond conference. It was organized by 12-year-old Adora Svitak, who has many accomplishments, one of them being a published author with her first book, Flying Fingers, at age seven.

Being part of this conference was amazing in many ways. It was run By Kids For Kids with the theme, Power to the Students.  There were fourteen speakers plus Adora and five musical performers. The conference itself would have been incredible enough on it’s own but having it sponsored by Microsoft and BING and take place at Microsoft’s headquarters made it even more amazing.  The main conference room where we presented held several hundred people. That room was restricted to just kid attendees. Another large conference room was full of adults who watched it on live video feed.  There was even another large room with tables and chairs packed full with standing room only. In total, I believe there were close to a thousand people who attended.

Fridge full of drinks

Microsoft has the most amazing conference facility that I have ever been in. In the main hallway in the conference rooms, they had high-tech interactive tables, called Microsoft Surface, that was most comparable to a giant iPad. While those had people’s attention, something that was even more exciting was the triple-sized refrigerators that were stocked full of sodas, juices, milk, sparkling water, etc.—all free for the taking, if you can believe that.

Videos from the conference should be available on the TEDxRedmond website in a week or so. Even Microsoft can have technical difficulties.

Thank you Adora and her mom, Joyce Svitak, and all of the other people who put this conference together. I’m looking forward to more events in the future. If you haven’t checked out a TED Conference before, you just have to visit www.ted.com. There are amazing videos on virtually every subject you could ever want.

My interview with SchoolTube

Adora is in the pink/black striped shirt