What a (TED) Week; Anderson-TED Partnership Kickoff Culminates With First-Ever "TED Talks" from Faculty/Students

The partnership to share ideas between UCLA Anderson and TED concluded Thursday night with series of TED-inspired talks by Anderson students and faculty. Stuti Goswamy ('13) passionately defended The Dream Act; Guy Holzman ('13) described loopholes and inequity in the corporate tax code and Stephen Lehtonen ('12) extolled the virtues of inspiring passion in high school students. From the faculty, Professor Shlomo Benartzi discussed his efforts to get folks to save for retirement through his Save More Tomorrow program; Bhagwan Chowdhry described his plan to empower the unempowered through Financial Access at Birth; and Rakesh Sarin explained -- as only an engineer could -- his equation for happiness.

The evening culminated with a joint toast between those assembled in the standing-room-only tent on Alumni Plaza, those at TED in Long Beach and the teams gathered in Long Beach at the concurrent TEDActive event.

The event profoundly touched the entire Anderson community, as evidenced by the tweets above from Emily Taylor ('08), an assistant director in the Parker Career Management Center and Chris Loo (12), the ASA president. Throughout the week, students, faculty, staff and alumni gathered in a transformed Il Tramezzino cafe and the converted student lounge to watch a live stream of TED talks from Long Beach. This, by the way, was the first time the esteemed conference partnered with an institution of higher learning.

When the assembled masses weren't watching the live stream, they were participating in a series of TED-inspired panel discussions. These discussions, featuring luminaries like writer/director Andrew Stanton, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, designer David Kelley, entrepreneur and energy theorist T. Boone Pickens, and UCLA Anderson's own Adjunct Professor of Marketing Jim Stengel, whose tear-inducing talk about how his late brother Bob inspired him towards his evangelism for ideal-based companies. The talks, sponsored by Anderson clubs such as the Entertainment Management Association; Net Impact and the Energy Management Group, the Entrepreneurs Association, Design for America; and the Marketing Association. Alumni such as Fleishman Hillard's David Burk ('87 -- and who joined his panel via Skype) joined in along with faculty members including Professors Peter Rossi, Sanjay Sood, and George Geis.

When the assembled masses weren't watching the live stream, they were participating in a series of TED-inspired panel discussions. These discussions, featuring luminaries like writer/director Andrew Stanton, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, designer David Kelley, energy theorist T. Boone Pickens, and UCLA Anderson's own Adjunct Professor of Marketing Jim Stengel, whose tear-inducing talk about how is late brother Bob inspired him towards his evangelism for ideal-based companies. The talks, sponsored by Anderson clubs such as the Entertainment Management Association; Net Impact and the Energy Management Group, the Entrepreneurs Association, Design for America; and the Marketing Association. Alumni such as Fleishman Hillard's David Burk ('87 -- and who joined his panel via Skype) joined in along with faculty members including Professors Peter Rossi, Sanjay Sood, and George Geis, . (Please click here for a complete list of all of the participants, too many to name here.)

(Stuti Goswany delivers her TED talk in front of the "campfire.")