We’re busy gearing up for TEDxBuffalo 2013, set to take place on Tuesday, October 15 at Canisius College’s Montante Cultural Center. Our theme this year is “Renaissance Citizens.” A lot has been going on in the last couple months — so without further ado, here’s everything you need to know!

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We’re Looking For Speakers!

We’re looking for a diverse lineup for this year’s event, so we’re inviting you, your friend, your professor, your mom, your friend-of-a-friend-of-a-brother-in-law — whoever has a great idea or is passionate about something they’d like to share — to submit a video, up to two minutes long, explaining their speech concept. We’ll evaluate pitches on both content and presentation to create our final lineup. Want us to help record you? Choose the right box on the form, and we’ll be in touch.

Two important notes: Videos will only be submitted until May 31, and you MUST be available on Tuesday, October 15, to be considered for a spot at the conference.

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We Need YOU To Help Make This Conference A Success!

We’re always looking for new committee members! Want to help determine who will be on stage at TEDxBuffalo 2013? Join our program committee. If you’re interested in social media and communications, we’d love to have you join our marketing committee. Other committees include sponsorship, production, arrangements and attendance, so no matter what you’re interested in, we’d love to have you join us.

If you’re interested in getting involved with TEDxBuffalo, contact info@tedxbuffalo.com for more details.

(If you can’t take on another long commitment but still want to help, we’ll be looking for day-of volunteers closer to the event, so keep an eye on the website for info!)

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Hey, Local Businesses—Wanna Sponsor Us?

We’re also looking for sponsors for TEDxBuffalo 2013. Interested in getting your firm or group’s name in front of hundreds of connected viewers, or, say, 43,000 YouTube viewers? Get in touch by emailing sponsor@tedxbuffalo.com.

In the meantime, here are our (negotiable) company sponsorship levels, our individual sponsor plans (ask us about VIP benefits!) and our letter explaining how TEDxBuffalo sponsorship works and how it helps.

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So…What Else Has Been Happening?

Well, perhaps most importantly, thanks to a little adventure our founder, Kevin Purdy, took to TEDActive 2013, we are free from our 100-person cap. That means we can invite so many more of you to join us this year at TEDxBuffalo 2013!

TEDActive also gave us quite a few ideas about how to get our audience members together, how to spread and empower ideas beyond one day in October, and what kinds of speakers we might invite for our 2013 event. It was quite a privilege to have so many people help us Grow TEDxBuffalo, and we intend to put that privilege to use. And, as noted, we’ll also be inviting double or triple the number of people to this year’s event.

If you want a peek at what went on at TEDxBuffalo 2012 and 2011, you can check out all the videos on our YouTube channel. (Pssst—You should DEFINITELY be sure to watch Alan Friedman’s “Catching Sunlight” talk. It’s got over 43,000 views—by far the most of any TEDxBuffalo talk—and it’s pretty amazing.)

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For the latest news and info from TEDxBuffalo, make sure you’re following us on Twitter and Facebook!

As noted on the pitch submission form, you can record a video of two minutes or less however you’d like: with your smartphone, with your laptop webcam, whatever you have around. Upload it to YouTube, Vimeo, or any service you’d like, and simply send us the link. Tell us who you are and what you’d like to talk about, and you’ll be one of our speakers considered for 2013.

If video shooting and uploading isn’t your thing, no worries: we’ll be manning the cameras ourselves and letting you record a brief pitch. We’ll be at Canisius College from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, March 21, and Friday, March 22. Check the box on the sign-up form for “Yes, contact me!”, and we’ll be in touch to schedule a more exact time.

Spread the word, too–we want everyone to have a chance to pitch their great ideas and passionate interests for TEDxBuffalo this year.

All the talks are conveniently loaded into one TEDxBuffalo 2012 playlist, embedded below:

Once again, the TEDxBuffalo team is humbled by the sum of the talks, the performances, the conversations, and the community spirit that were generated in one day at the Montante Cultural Center. To those who could join us on Oct. 9, 2012, and particularly to those who spoke, sponsored, and contributed their time, energy, and talent toward a free, not-for-profit event, we thank you.

At the moment, the TEDxBuffalo team‘s time and energy are going into editing the conference’s presentations, gathering and posting the photos and social media reactions, soliciting feedback, and some housekeeping items.

In the meantime, here are some items that offer a glimpse into what happened at TEDxBuffalo 2012:

• The full, uncut live video stream of TEDxBuffalo 2012. The presentations themselves were shot with two additional cameras, and will be available in (much more convenient) individual YouTube offerings. You can also check out all our side postings to the LiveStream page from the event day.
• A Twitter search for “#TEDxBuffalo” shows some of the conversation and reactions that happened Tuesday (at least at the time of this posting). Or just look through what @BlockClub did with their amazing live-tweet stream.
• Media write-ups from The Buffalo News, Buffalo.com, and Alan Bedenko at Artvoice.
• A Buffalo.com photo gallery, along with some photos posted to Twitter.

More to come, just as soon as we’ve had a chance to put it all together and think it all through.

Matthew Walter, speaker at TEDxBuffalo 2012

Chef James Roberts, speaker at TEDxBuffalo 2012

Tom McManus, speaker at TEDxBuffalo 2012

Kevin Gardner, speaker at TEDxBuffalo 2012

Jonathan Lawrence, speaker at TEDxBuffalo 2012

Missed the first five? See them all here!

We’ll actually include the form on this post here, too, but they both go to the same place. Fill it out once, and we’ll get back to you if you’re one of the 100 people selected to attend. Our criteria is to find people from different fields, with a real enthusiasm for the ideas and experience we’re putting together.

Fill out the form all the way to the bottom, click “Submit,” and email us at info@tedxbuffalo.com if you have any questions.

Don’t see the form? Try refreshing this page, or head to this direct link to the application.

TEDxBuffalo’s theme this year is “The World in our Backyard.”

Sometimes the best experiences, ideas, and communities are right here in our beloved city of Buffalo! What do you think?

Got your calendar up? Good, because you should know that TEDxBuffalo 2012 is happening on Oct. 9, 2012 at the Montante Cultural Center.

It’s our second conference, and we’ll have a number of improvements, new ideas, and around a dozen new speakers and performers at this year’s event. There will also be a mostly new audience. While only 100 can attend in-person, we’re planning to once again offer a live stream of the event as it happens, along with select remote viewing locations with dedicated streams and screens.

(Here’s the iCal/GCal/ICS event file, for you Type A folks. It might activate your calendar client—if not, try double-clicking the downloaded file.)

Check out last year’s TEDxBuffalo speakers on YouTube to get an idea of what we’re aiming for. And stay tuned to TEDxBuffalo for announcements on applying to attend, speaker confirmation, and more:

• TEDxBuffalo on Facebook (“Like” us to get updates)
• TEDxBuffalo on Twitter
• TEDxBuffalo on Google+ (Add us to a circle to get updates)
• TEDxBuffalo email newsletter

We can’t wait to bring some great ideas to the stage in Buffalo this fall.

What: Get to Know TEDxBuffalo

When: 6pm Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Where: Room 418, Lyons Hall, Canisius College

Parking: Available at the main Lyons lot at Canisius. (Campus Map)

Details: We would love for you to attend our first public meeting of 2012 where the Organizers of TEDxBuffalo 2011 will give an idea of what kind of event we want TEDxBuffalo 2012 to be, what kind of work that requires, and how new members and volunteers can help. RSVP on our Facebook Page!