This year’s TEDx conference will be hosted in the Carmel Clay Public Library’s community room on March 23, from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Some of the speakers include IU’s Dr. Demetra Andrews, senior Katie Neglia and junior Sophia Fu. 

According to Annabelle Carpenter, president of TEDxCarmelHighSchool and senior, TED is a global organization with conferences on every continent, with the X standing for independently- organized. 

When it came to selecting this year’s theme, Carpenter said, “We start at the beginning of each year, kind of brainstorming a few words of each phrase or a single word. Just something that sparks an idea that you can take to mean in various ways.”

According to the TEDx sponsor Grant Benefiel, this year’s theme is “By the Books.”

“We give the speakers the opportunity to share their interpretation of the theme,” Benefiel said via email. “You won’t hear two of the same talks.” 

Carpenter said, “Some people can take that and say, ‘Okay, “By the Books” to me means reading a lot of books and visualizing it, or it could mean to a different person following a recipe or the rules or breaking away from the rules, or all sorts of stuff like that.”

According to Carpenter, student speakers were selected through an audition process where they presented their talk ideas; talks range from eight to 18 minutes in length.

Neglia said, “[My interpretation] was kind of going against what usually going ‘By the Books’ is. It’s about thinking outside the box and not really going by the status quo. My speech is talking about entropy, which is a chemistry concept that basically talks about how the universe is tending toward disorder and how humans usually like to control things. We like to fight against that [disorder], but it’s important to accept some disorders and accept some disorganization in your life to be more creative.”

Benefiel said, “My hope is that the audience will learn at least one thing and apply it to their own lives. I’m sure they will learn many things during the conference. This is a great event to hear different perspectives that will open minds.”

Carpenter said, “We put a lot of thought and time into all of these events and it’s just so cool and more people should take the chance to see it.”

In addition to the talks, there will be food courtesy of Sprinkle of Joy Club and games.

For more information about TEDxCarmelHighSchool, visit its Instagram or attend a club meeting. The club meets every Monday after school in Room E235.