UVic Alumni Shawn Slavin is best known for his work with Victoria’s TED Talks, as well as, his organization of UVic’s December 2010 Lipdub. Shawn currently works for the university where he is in charge of everything election related, supervising UVic elections and working on policy. Although he loves his job, Shawn hopes to one day do research in creating new teaching methods for children with learning disabilities.
Can you explain how you got involved with the UVic Lipdub?
In July of 2010 I was with one of my friends in Ottawa and somebody had posted on Facebook the link to a Lipdub [lip-syncing video] by students at UVic. We watched the video and we were a little jealous. A couple of minutes in we realized that this hadn’t been filmed at our UVic, it had been filmed at a UVic in Spain and we (UVic) actually got a lot of recognition for it. Perez Hilton had posted “Oh check out this video. Way to go UVic! There sure are a lot of talented people up in Canada.” Even though it wasn’t us. So a little while later I had said maybe there would be some interest from students on our campus, so I put together a Facebook group and it took off really quickly. In a matter of a week and a half we had already reached about 7,000 students on campus and the next two and a half months the Lipdub ended up being my life.
How much work went into organizing the Lipdub?
It’s a very long process. I had started this not really knowing what I would be doing. The initial plan was that somebody else would want to step up to the plate and take charge, and that didn’t seem to happen. So I ended up doing all of the planning and logistics, all of the fundraising, the organizing and all the legal aspects. All of those little things that we don’t think would be an issue. As soon as you get the university involved, in something like this, and their lending a hand there is a lot more to it than one would first think.
What are TEDtalks and how did you get involved with TEDx Youth?
I’d seen my very first TED talk in a class about four years ago and fell in love right away. TED is a conference that started in California. The intent is to explore three different areas: technology, entertainment and design. They try to get the most brilliant individuals in a variety of fields to give the talk of their life. TED has had everybody speak on their stage. Bill Gates has spoken, Bill Clinton has spoken Steve Jobs spoke before he passed away, everybody and anybody. You get to see the most innovative things that people have come up with and are researching. It’s a fantastic thing.
There have been a couple of TED events in Victoria. In conjunction with TED there was TEDX Victoria youth. The youth was an attempt to showcase what the younger audience in Victoria was doing, under the age of 24 years. It was co-organized by Melana Mar, who works at UVic (event officer in student transition services). I had actually met Melana through organizing the Lipdub and she asked me if I would be interested in doing a talk and hosting the event. One of my dreams was to give a TED talk at some point in my life and it was a fantastic opportunity that I would have never had said no to.
How did a California based conference come to Victoria?
A couple of years ago the thought of trying to make TED accessible came up. I guess once TED started to put their talks online, they started to get a lot of attention. The TED conferences are very expensive to attend, they are $5-10,000, they are not very accessible to most people. The intent was to develop a program that people could have access to on a local level and this is where the idea for TEDx sprang. TEDx are independently organized TED events and what they do is borrow the same premise as TED, they can use the TED name and the TED brand.
What was hosting the TEDtalks like?
I was pretty much introducing everyone and keeping the show on the role, but I was the very last talk of the day to kind of rap everything up.
What did you speak about at TED?
They had initially asked me to about the Lipdub but I chose not to speak directly about the Lipdub. I spoke about what I learned from doing the Lipdub and the aftermath of the effect it had on my life to relate it to something that everybody could take away at the end of TED.