Aiming to match the needs and influence the College community, School of Design and Arts (SDA) Student Government president Matti Kawpeng and his team of volunteer students recently arranged TedXBenilde, a gathering dedicated to the spreading of ideas to inspire and inform through powerful talks, videos, demonstrations, and performance last March 27 in the 5th floor, theater SDA.

After being granted license by the nonprofit organization TED, Kawpeng immediately initiated the project as he have been an “advocate of these talks ever since they were brought to the Philippines, and [had] seen the impact and insights they had on people.” “It’s pretty fulfilling because it’s something that I wanted to bring here not for the benefit of achieving something but because as a professional school, I wanted fresh perspectives for the students,” he shared.

A variety of speakers from different professional backgrounds and experiences were invited to conduct the talks. Among them included food security, hunger, poverty and environmentalism advocate Farmer Jon, who is also a top notch member of the Integrated, Diversified, Organic Farming System (IDOFS) in the country. Next was choreographer, performer, and a member of “Tha Project” dance crew Phil Pamintuan, who gave a fun and interactive talk about how “Krump” which is an exaggerated freestyle dance can “positively change the lives of the youth by giving the youth a venue to be true.”

He was followed by architect Jason Buensalido, a winner of multiple nationwide competitions in the field of architecture and founder of Buensalido Architects. He shared his innovation in unconventional ideas and how he started his company while co-founder of multi-awarded non-profit organization One Million Lights Philippines (OML PH) Mark Lozano gave a talk on how they started their company back in 2010. And since then, over 11,000 solar-powered lights have been distributed to over 80 communities all over the country.

Influential business man and artist, and one of the owners of 71 Gramercy Euric Lumanog, also known as “DJ Euric”, then took the stage as he motivated the audience to be authentic and do what they love since he believes that “if you do what you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life”. After him was alumnus Revo Naval, President and CEO of the digital, events and marketing agency “HyPR”–who shared his life story on how in 2009, he designed the P500 bill which has been currently adapted.

Lastly, the session ended with Kathryn Tan giving an inspirational and motivational talk about how she coped with her left armed being lost after a tragic accident in 1996, and how “sweat, determination, and hard work” pulled through for her.

According to Kawpeng and his co-producer and head curator Ellie Reyes, they have been in planning since September. But due to technicalities with the Student Involvement Office (SIO), certain problems with administration as it was said that some were not familiar with TedX, and the cooperation from their team, organizing the whole event was pushed until they only had a few weeks left to work with which was roughly around three weeks to a month.

“All these things got in the way but in the very end, we were able to push through with it,” shared Kawpeng.

In terms of the funding, both mentioned that it came from the list of sponsors provided by TED and from their supportive members who contributed two thousand pesos each, either from personal sponsors or from their own pockets.

Besides Benilde, TedX has also advocated different themes in other big schools such as Ateneo De Manila University (Admu), University of Santo Tomas (UST) and De La Salle University (DLSU).

Article by Beatrice Mendoza and Timothy Santos