2014

TEDxLSU 2014: Enact

Video production by Digital FX

Courtney Brandbur | Girl Warrior

Courtney Brandabur is a woman on a mission. Her goal: to change the way girls perceive themselves. And she’s doing just that through Girl Warrior, a local organization she founded to foster body positivity and self-empowerment among women. Courtney started Girl Warrior after her own battle with negative body image. She knew other girls were suffering from the same issues and wanted to help them realize and capitalize on their own beauty, inside and out.

In addition to the Girl Warrior organization, website, and blog magazine, Courtney co-runs a community-support group, and facilitates workshops and local events related to body image. This 21 year-old Girl Warrior is a junior majoring in psychology at LSU and working toward certification as a LSU Distinguished Communicator.

Sarah Broome | THRIVE

Within a year, Sarah Broome went from being an inner-city middle school teacher to conceptualizing and opening Baton Rouge’s first boarding school for at-risk youth.

Originally from Ohio, Sarah moved to Baton Rouge in 2008 to teach math at Prescott Middle as part of her Teach for America assignment. In 2010, one of the students at Sarah’s school was killed in a street fight. This loss fueled her determination to make an impact on the lives of Baton Rouge children and in 2012, the East Baton Rouge School Board gave Sarah the green light to establish Louisiana’s first boarding school for at-risk youth: THRIVE.

To open the school, 26-year-old Sarah raised a quarter of a million dollars in less a month. In THRIVE’s first year, the once struggling students had warm beds, nutritious meals, and significantly improved test scores. A true success story, Sarah continues to grow the school’s capacity and its curriculum in hopes of transforming at-risk youth into productive Baton Rouge citizens.

Lauren Collignon | It's bananas (All the way down)

Lauren Collignon is an entrepreneurial artist, free-spirited yogi, and conquer of cancer. A native of Baton Rouge and an LSU art history alumna, Lauren developed a fascination for deconstructing and rebuilding things as a child and often indulged herself in disassembling household items. Today, her experimentation has matured to an expertise, and she has channeled her childhood hobby into a career as a jewelry designer and owner of Flaming Lotus Jewelry.

In her art and in life, she strives to create a more unified, compassionate, and productive local and global community. Lauren has mastered the art of creating her own reality, and encourages others to delve into their own fascinating and extraordinary journeys of self-exploration.

Leone Elliot | Medicine is art

Dr. Leone Elliot’s dream was to be an architect, but his passion is to help people. As a result, Leone has developed The Healthcare Gallery, a new Baton Rouge clinic that serves as an art gallery, yoga studio, and medical innovation hub. He has a patient-centric vision for the future of medical spaces which includes designs that inspire the mind, body, and soul through art, design, and technology.

Leone has served as a physician consultant with various international, public, and private health sector organizations, including the U.S. Military Department of Defense. He has also been on the forefront of national discussions regarding improvement of the current medical and healthcare delivery system. Leone is a practicing physician and manages several urgent care clinics, along with a federally funded community health clinic.

Dima Ghawi | Breaking glass - a leadership story

Dima Ghawi emigrated to the U.S. from her home country of Jordan in 1996 to pursue her passion for education and leadership. Her multi-cultural business experience in assignments throughout the U.S., Asia, Europe and the Middle-East, has positioned her as an expert on the talent development needs of the global workforce. She has a futuristic lens of global and multi-cultural business, and a desire to give back to the communities with which she works.

Dima recently moved to Baton Rouge to manage training programs and foster community outreach activities for a Fortune 100 company. She is an advocate for the great things that result from a well-trained diverse workforce, and the ongoing efforts to evolve Louisiana into a technology gateway state.

Garret Graves | America's coast - the Louisiana precedent

Working for several years as an outdoor educator and wilderness guide, Garret Graves often had to include all he needed for weeks at a time in his backpack. He had to plan for food, water, shelter, emergencies, learning opportunities, and fun while hiking and climbing miles along coasts, down rivers, through forests, and over mountains. Leading adventures with teams from around the globe, the experience taught him to recognize the difference between fundamental needs versus luxuries. His passion for public service and an efficient government led him to spend over a decade working for Louisiana's congressional delegation on Capitol Hill where he promoted policy synergies related to transportation, energy, environmental issues, and foreign affairs.

Garret has been instrumental in reorganizing Louisiana's coastal programs and now serves as chair of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of Louisiana. In this capacity, he spearheads recovery efforts from the last hurricanes while preparing for the next. From rebuilding the state's rapidly deteriorating coastline, to recovering from the nation's worst oil spill, to protecting communities in south Louisiana from flooding, Garret is continuously fighting for the Gulf Coast we so love.

Victoria Ippolito | The oyster is your world

Victoria Ippolito has a passion for the marine world. Throughout her education and career, she has traveled to three different coastlines to study their aquatic habitats. This New Jersey native’s first stop was to Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, where she achieved her B.S. in marine biology and conducted research on the giant clam. From the Atlantic Ocean, Victoria moved to the Gulf Coast to earn a master’s degree in fisheries science and a minor in environmental science at LSU. During her tenure in the Deep South, Victoria worked on several projects at Louisiana Sea Grant’s Grand Isle Oyster Hatchery. Her research focused on alternative production methods to improve Louisiana’s commercial oyster industry.

Upon receiving her master’s degree from LSU, Victoria transitioned to California where she now works for The Bay Foundation helping to educate the public, connect with boaters, manage grants on restoration and pollution projects, and restore the population of abalone, a snail closely related to oysters.

Dustin LaFont | Youth building bikes for the future

It is easy to understand that changing flat tires and tightening loose spokes are things that must be done to make a bicycle work. But what may not be as clear is how fixing a bike can give kids a sense of purpose and pride, yet this is exactly what 27 year-old Westdale Middle School teacher Dustin LaFont is doing…in his front yard.

It began at Dustin’s home, in a neighborhood north of the LSU campus, when a child asked Dustin to fix his bike. Following this first repair, Dustin found himself fixing many of the neighborhood children’s bikes. He began to turn the service into one of interaction, engaging the children in the mechanical repair process. The “afterschool activity” soon outgrew his front yard, so his landlord offered him rental warehouse space. Now located in a wood and tin building on Roosevelt Street, Dustin has transformed his home-grown hobby into the non-profit, Front Yard Bikes (FYB). FYB provides urban youth with bike repair resources and a neighborhood safe haven. The building still needs electricity, running water, and some maintenance of its own, but the Houma native is steadily repairing bikes and empowering children in Old South Baton Rouge.

Marybeth Lima | Finding the soul of the community

As an LSU professor, Marybeth Lima’s career has reached students of all ages, from college to kindergarten. In 1998, Marybeth established the LSU Community Playground Project, a service-learning program which pairs elementary school and college students to design and build “dream playgrounds” at local public schools. These sustained efforts have led to the construction of more than 25 community-designed playgrounds around Baton Rouge.

In 2013, Marybeth authored the book Building Playgrounds, Engaging Communities: Creating Safe and Happy Places for Children. She was named a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education and was the 2009 Louisiana Professor of the Year. In addition to serving within the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Marybeth is also the director of the LSU Center for Community Engagement, Learning, and Leadership.

Bryan McCann | The mark of criminality

Bryan McCann believes the American criminal justice system is an unmitigated public policy and human rights catastrophe. A communication scholar and long-time criminal justice reform activist, Bryan has marched in the streets in protest and published scholarship on the ways Americans talk about crime and try to transform the current system. He is especially interested in the ways race and gender impact public culture surrounding prisons and criminal justice.

Bryan came to LSU in 2013 as an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies. His work has appeared in several academic journals, as well as the recently published book Working for Justice: A Handbook of Prison Education and Activism. His contribution to the volume--A Fate Worse Than Death: Reform, Abolition, and Life without Parole in Anti-Death Penalty Discourse—specifically asks whether individuals who want to abolish the death penalty should embrace life without parole as an alternative sentence. Bryan's current book project examines "gangsta rap" and the "law and order" politics of the 1980s and 1990s.

Stephen Moret | Creating the Louisiana miracle (some assembly required)

A common theme in Stephen Moret’s life is the passion to serve others. As an undergraduate at LSU studying mechanical engineering and a graduate student at Harvard Business School, he served both institutions as student body president. His dedication as a young leader was affirmed when he was honored with the Harvard Business School Dean’s Award for exceptional leadership and service.

Today, Stephen serves as the secretary of Louisiana Economic Development (LED), spurring progressive change across the state. He is a contributing author to the book Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America's Older Industrial Areas. Stephen is solution-oriented, a supporter of small business, and a driver of job creation. One of his most impressive feats is the installation of LED FastStart, a program that was ranked as the best state workforce development program in the United States.

"Silky Slim" Reed | Get up get out and do something!

Silky Slim Reed grew up in Baton Rouge’s “SouthSide”—the depressed neighborhood between Beauregard Town and the North Gates of LSU. His childhood was indicative of his surroundings. By age 12, Silky was immersed in violent crime and drug dealing, and at 14 he was convicted on two counts of attempted second-degree murder.

Once released, Silky’s life of violence escalated as he co-founded two Baton Rouge gangs, sparking the beginning of the gang violence that still stains our depressed city streets today. Believing he could have a better life, Silky’s mother sent him to live with family in California but the change in location did not change Silky’s lifestyle very much. He quickly found his way into California’s Rolling 30’s Cripps gang and spent the next 22 years in and out of prisons from California to Louisiana.

His life’s turning point was merciless. In 2001, he was the lone survivor in a car accident, gaining him a second chance and inspiring him to make a radical life change. Silky co-founded Stop The Killing, Inc., a Baton Rouge-based nonprofit focused on eliminating violence and senseless killing. Today, he is also a youth counselor; author, radio, and TV host; and leader of several anti-violence programs in area public schools. Most recently, Silky launched a start-up documentary film company geared toward exposing violence and senseless killings in communities throughout America.

Dominique Ricks | The push to mediocrity

Dominique Ricks knows how to captivate an audience. As a spoken-word poet, playwright, and orator, Dominique was one of the initial recipients of the First Wave Full-Ride Scholarship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This $100,000 scholarship, sponsored by Grammy Award-winning rapper MC Lyte, is bestowed on students who excel in academics, activism, and artistry, and promotes the ambition of urban artists wanting to excel as scholars.

But getting to UW didn’t come easy for Dominique. Growing up in Baton Rouge, he worked extra jobs throughout high school to add a little money to the family budget, while making sure his younger siblings kept up with their education. His hard work and persistence caught the attention of leaders in the Baton Rouge Youth Coalition (BRYC), a non-profit that inspires and challenges under-resourced teens to design and realize bold futures. Through BRYC’s mentoring and tutoring program, Dominique’s ACT score increased 50%.

Now a senior at UW double-majoring in sociology and political science, Dominique is working on a play that he hopes to bring to the Baton Rouge arts scene this summer. After graduation, Dominique plans to return to Louisiana and continue to promote quality education in the community before continuing his path to law school. Ultimately, Dominque hopes to give back by one day serving as governor of the great state of Louisiana.

Jacqueline Stephens | A cathedral of understanding

Dr. Jackie Stephens has committed her life to investigating the causes of Type 2 diabetes, a disease that is significantly impacting Louisiana and much of the United States. Jackie is a professor of biological sciences at LSU and teaches premedical student. She also serves as Director of Basic Research at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. She has been studying diabetes for more than 25 years and has increased our knowledge regarding the links between obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Jackie’s work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association. She has received several awards for teaching and has won national research awards in the areas of obesity and diabetes. She continues to work to better understand the causes of Type 2 diabetes and to raise awareness about the importance of basic science research in local communities and the diabetes epidemic in Louisiana.

Chris Wadsworth | Triumph Kitchen

As a Louisiana culinary artist and finalist on Bravo TV’s Top Chef, Chris Wadsworth is truly living out his dream while helping others achieve their own potential. In 2013, he opened Triumph Kitchen, a non-profit education program that helps at-risk youth develop culinary, hospitality, and life skills.

Despite their professional successes, Chris and his wife longed for an opportunity to blend their two passions of cooking (his) and teaching (hers). They came to Baton Rouge from Lafayette when Chris was hired as the executive chef of the downtown Baton Rouge tapas eatery, Restaurant IPO. After 14 months in the capital city, the couple took the leap to follow their true passion of helping others and Triumph Kitchen was born in Baton Rouge.