I had the opportunity to attend the TEDx Bay Area Women’s Event in Palo Alto at SAP in Palo Alto on Wednesday.
This was held in conjunction with the Global TEDWomen event in Washington, DC, but featured more than 20 local speakers speaking on a broad variety of topics related to women, Silicon Valley and the world.
The speaker list was diverse and ranged from a college freshman to the director of the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford, to an award winning chef to the Secretary of State of CA –and just about everything in between.
What I found impressive about this event was how well in reflected all of the energy and drive that comes out of Silicon Valley–including young entrepreneurs and large established technology companies, consultants, musical performers, physicians, and high school teachers, among others.
TEDx events are held at many locales, each of which highlights local speakers. What’s different about Silicon Valley is that as I looked at the 150+ people in attendance (most, but not all women), I had the sense that if the 20 speakers on Wednesday’s agenda weren’t able to make the event for some reason, there would be no problem finding way more than 20 great presenters in the audience whose presentations would be different but just as compelling.
Kudos to the team who put this together. Looking forward to seeing more TEDx events in the Bay Area on assorted topics and themes, and to the community of innovators and thought leaders developing to engage in innovation for social change.
