TEDxBeaconStreet Comes To Newton

NEWTON, MA —What do you get when you put together under one roof a former astronaut, the manager of photography for the Boston Red Sox, a NOAA Climate And Global Change expert, a jazz musician, a four time Olympian and Paralympian for Canada's Wheelchair Rugby and a teacher of chess to 3 year olds? That would be a bundle of TEDx talks in Newton.

TEDx is part of TED ( which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design) short talk family, but the event is local and organized independently. TEDxBeaconStreet began in 2012 and stresses its multi-generational emphasis, Ideas in Action theme and experimental nature. It tends to feature speakers for a cross-generational audience as young as the second grade.

The Salon at TripAdvisor will be hosting a series of TEDx talks Thursday, August 16 from 3 p.m. -8 p.m. The event is free and you can RSVP here.

A look at who's slated to show up and talk:

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It began in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize, according to the TED website.

Image via TripAdvisor and TEDxBeaconStreet