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The third annual UCSB TEDx event, featuring live talks from five professors from the university’s chemical engineering, computer science, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education (GGSE), and sociology departments, will be held this Saturday from 3 to 7 p.m. in Embarcadero Hall.

Hosted by the Regents and Chancellor’s Scholars Association and themed “Unveiling the New: In Pursuit of the Next,”  this weekend’s event will feature lectures by chemical engineering Professor Frank Doyle , GGSE lecturer Jason Raley, computer science professor Diana Franklin, sociology professor Victor Rios and sociology Professor Emeritus Thomas Scheff.  Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) is a non-profit organization hosting conferences across the globe. TEDx events are local iterations of TED conferences independently organized by community members.

According to Doyle, he will be speaking on the development of an artificial pancreas to automate insulin delivery for people with Type 1 diabetes.

“I’ve watched many TED and TEDx lectures over the years and it is humbling and exciting to be asked to give one,” Doyle said in an email. “[I hope to] bring attention to some of the exciting frontiers of research that are happening here at UCSB – especially on medical problems despite the fact that we do not have a medical school.”

Franklin said she will be discussing the digital divide in the United States — referring to inequalities in access to information and communication technology in different parts of the world — as well as the importance of integrating computer science in elementary school curriculum.

“The last generation needed to be competent users of computers to succeed professionally, but the innovators of the next generation will need to … understand how to harness the power of computers to create revolutionary products,” Franklin said in an email. “My work has the goal of understanding how to integrate computing into elementary school so that all students, regardless of background, have the opportunity to participate in this revolution.”

Rios said he plans to speak on reassessing how the Millennial generation, referring to individuals born between the 1980s and mid-2000s, are taught in American schools with an emphasis on teacher effectiveness.

“In order for us to be successful in the education system, we have to teach to the heart and not just to the mind,” Rios said. “That’s effective teaching — to teach with affection rather than focus on being effective as a teacher. Since this generation is more emotion-based, shouldn’t we teach through emotions?”

According to Scheff, his talk will focus the fundamental emotion of shame as well as the importance of not hiding emotions.

“There’s no such thing as a negative emotion. They’re like breathing — they cause trouble only when they’re obstructed,” Scheff said. “It’s not a good idea to hide shame, or any emotion for that matter. You need to work through it.”

Raley said his talk will discuss the importance of reshaping future discussions on education.

“It’s not that kids are learning too little — it’s just that they’re learning too much of the wrong thing,” Raley said. “I would love for us to have much more thoughtful conversations about education. I think that the kind of conversations we have … [are] pretty conventional most of the time — the same problems, the same ideas.”

Third-year zoology major and UCSB TEDx event organizer Edward Trout said he hopes the event will expose students to important ideas otherwise less accessible to students.

“I think that the idea is finding what’s new, or what maybe even is old and dispersing it to a wider audience,” Trout said. “Scientists, academics — we study things and we make these papers and circulate them among ourselves and they never get out to the public. What’s the point? If all these ideas never leave the ivory tower, nothing’s going to change.”

A version of this story appeared on page 4 of the Thursday, April 9 print issue of the Daily Nexus.

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