Five Questions With: Robin Dionne

TEDxProvidence volunteer discusses the upcoming event, scheduled for May 2 at the Columbus Theatre.
Robin Dionne, one of the organizers behind TEDxProvidence, talked about the event coming up on May 2 at Columbus Theatre from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event will feature more than a dozen speakers, including Mary Burke, an economist who joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston research department in 2005; Leo Pollock, a co-founder of The Compost Plant; and Sheri Griffin, co-executive director of Farm Fresh Rhode Island. The event, which is closely aligned with the TED brand, attracts hundreds of people a year.
PBN: Where did the idea for TEDx come from? How closely is it aligned with the TED conference?
DIONNE:
The idea for our local TEDx came from TEDx board member Peter Haas. He has attended and spoken at an actual TED conference and was interested in bringing the brand to Providence. We are extremely closely aligned with the TED brand. In fact, you have to obtain an official license before you can host a TEDx event. The “x” signifies that the event is independently organized, but we do still follow the very extensive rules set forth by TED. The first order of business when we bring someone new onto our local TEDx team is to have them review them. We try to be as compliant as possible.

PBN: How many years has it been held in Providence? How many people usually attend the event – does attendance grow each year?
DIONNE:
This will be the fourth year that Providence has hosted a TEDx event. First we were at RISD at the Metcalf building, and then at a larger RISD auditorium and Canal Park for two years, and this year we have moved the party on over to the newly renovated Columbus Theatre. We all love that building and we are looking forward to our largest event yet. We see about 300-350 people at the event each year. (As of last week, they already sold 400 tickets.)

PBN: This year’s speaker lineup is an interesting one – is it difficult to find speakers for the event? And, what sort of speakers do you look for?
DIONNE:
In terms of looking for speakers, we don’t! We come up with the themes (this year is Finance, Entertainment and Environment) and then we open up the nomination period to the public. Anyone can nominate themselves, their friends, community members they admire, etc. Then once we close the nomination period, we have a big, long meeting where we review every single person who was nominated. We exclude anyone who has already spoken at a previous TEDxProvidence event (though we would welcome back former speakers to join us as an emcee, such as Andy Posner); we exclude people we would not be able to make contact with (very famous people who live outside of R.I., for example), and we narrow the list down to people who really fit into our themes. There were some excellent people nominated this year who don’t fit any theme, so we make a note to remember them for the future. Once we do have people who fit into our themes, we have another meeting and we discuss them, their accomplishments, what they are working on right now, what their relationship to Rhode Island is. It is important to us that these people are not just speakers at a conference that happens to be in Providence – we want people doing incredibly interesting things in their community that the rest of R.I. might not know about. Then, we make the ask. Some people are busy, or are happy to be nominated but are not interested in speaking. A lot has happened before we make the announcements – the person has to fit one of the themes, we have to think they have a compelling story to tell, and they have to want to participate and be able to attend a mandatory speaker training, where they walk us through their talk before the event.

PBN: Is there any one speaker or speakers you are particularly excited about?
DIONNE:
I am super excited about Anisha Sekar, as I have recently become very interested in personal finance, and Len Cabral, because he is such a notable Rhode Island character.(Sekar was the first employee of personal finance website NerdWallet.com; she has written for Forbes, and U.S. News & World Report and served as a media expert in interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek and ABC’s “Real Money.” Cabral is an award-winning storyteller and author, and is one of the founding members of Providence Inner City Arts/Roots Cultural Center.)

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PBN: What do you hope people come away with from attending TEDx?
DIONNE:
We hope that people will leave TEDxProvidence with a sense of responsibility to give back and a desire to participate in their communities. We always quote Jessica David from the [Rhode Island] Foundation (our biggest sponsor this year): “TEDxProvidence is a wide cross section of people you would not usually see in the same room together” – there all types of people from different backgrounds. This is not just a networking event, it is a chance to find out what Rhode Islanders are working on! I hope that people will leave TEDxProvidence wanting to be involved next year and will nominate others.

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