TEDxTexasTechUniversity Speaker Interviews: Austin Tyson

By Teri Piearcy

Sometimes a rose by any other name isn’t quite the same rose.

When Austin Tyson heard that Texas Tech University was hosting a TEDx event, he was excited. He said he has watched the popular TED Talk videos online for about a year after a friend turned him on to the program.

“When I heard there was going to be a TED event at Tech, I immediately started looking for a way to apply,” Tyson said.

And he found his idea close to home.

“It was really kind of a life-long type of thing. I’m adopted … but in my family, we don’t use that word,” Tyson said of his background, adding he knew he was adopted but wasn’t labeled as such.

He said he found later that others who had been adopted had different experiences – some where parents chose not to use that label, but outside family did, for example.

Use of the word “adopted” in those cases had a great impact on the people involved, and helped develop his concept on how the act of “naming” something can actually limit that person, place or thing.

His wish for February’s TED Talk is to teach his audience about careful word choice. His example — choosing to call the boss “a jerk” rather than tell someone “we don’t see eye to eye” has connotations for the speaker as well as the listener. Using the latter, more positive, language can change the overall outlook they may have on where they are in life, he said.

“I want them to know how to use naming in such a way as to not feel as stuck in their job, not feel as hopeless,” Tyson added.

“Certain words can impact more than others, even if they are synonymous,” Tyson said. “A lot of people are improperly using naming and do not even realize it.”

TEDxTexasTechUniversity Speaker Interviews: Charles Sweeney

By Teri Piearcy

Brandon Sweeney has the future on his mind in more ways than one.

The graduate student in Chemical Engineering saw TEDxTexasTechUniversity as a good way to reach a wide audience for a variety of reasons.

“I had seen TED Talks before,” he said of the program, “and it seems the audience they can reach is very wide.”

On one side, Sweeney said he saw the chance to give his first TED Talk as an excellent way to network and advance in his work.

“I’d like to make as many contacts as possible and meet as many people as possible who are interested in what interests me,” he said of the event. “And it could potentially push my research further.”

And it’s his enthusiasm about the research he will talk about that won him a coveted speaker’s slot. Sweeney is part of a project working with 3-D printing and a proprietary new technique that increases the strength of materials used in the process to decrease that limitation in some 3-D-printed products.

“I want to expose them to 3-D printing,” he said of his TED talk, “and explain why it’s so exciting and where it’s going to impact their lives.”

That impact will be huge, according to Sweeney, who called 3-D printing the next Industrial Revolution because of its ability to provide on-demand production of virtually anything.

“We will be able to get what they need when we need it, and it will be fully customizable to our needs,” he said, describing the process someday of downloading a file from the Internet, plugging it into the printer and creating the product.

“It’s going to change consumerism,” he said. “Each household could be a factory. Each business could be a factory.”