Ballard Week Boosts Social Innovation

PROVO, Utah – Apr 11, 2013 – The Ballard Center for Economic Self-Reliance recently hosted the third-annual TEDxBYU event and the Social Innovator of the Year Award banquet as part of its jam-packed Ballard Week.

TEDxBYU is an independently organized event modeled after TED, a global conference where "ideas worth spreading" are explored. Speakers focused on the theme "Creativity Demands Patience" as they spoke to more than 500 people who attended the sold-out event.

“TEDxBYU is a great place to connect with the innovators and thought leaders around us,” says Todd Manwaring, Ballard Center for Economic Self-Reliance managing director. “I’m thrilled about the authentic presenters we have each year and the audience’s relation to them.”

Speakers included Kushal Chakrabarti, co-founder and CEO of Vittana; Sharon Eubank, director of LDS Charities; Joseph Grenny, best-selling author and cofounder of VitalSmarts; Fraser Nelson, executive director of the Community Foundation of Utah; Jeff Sheets, director of the Laycock Center; Aaron Sherinian, vice president of communications and public relations at the UN Foundation; Jo-Ann Tan, business development marketing manager at Acumen Fund; and the Social Innovation Student Fellows: Natalie Dance, Benjamin Gong, Jace McLaws and Kyle Durfee. The event also included a number from an interactive dance ensemble led by Kori Wakamatsu.

Speakers motivated the audience by sharing varied insights such as how to form your own creative outlook and how to have confidence in your work. Justin Oldroyd, an economics senior from Highland, Utah, is a dedicated attendee of TEDxBYU. He says he leaves the event each year armed with life-changing ideas.

“TEDxBYU is a unique way to stimulate cross-disciplinary learning and creativity,” Oldroyd says.  “The talks this year showed me how valuable difficult times in our life can be if we use them to find our purpose and direction.”

Along with speaking at TEDxBYU, Vittana founder Chakrabarti was honored with Brigham Young University’s Social Innovator of the Year award. He started the nonprofit in 2008 to provide microloans to students. The company works in 12 countries and helps more than 1,000 youth a month.

“I am absolutely honored to be accepting this award,” Chakrabarti said at the awards ceremony. “Five years ago this was a crazy idea, but today we know Vittana is one of the most powerful tools we have to fight poverty.”

Ballard Week festivities included two other events where students and social innovators collaborated together. Graduate students worked with the Newman’s Own Foundation in the Innovation in Social Entrepreneurship case competition, and social innovators connected with one another to find inventive solutions to problems within their field at the second-annual S+ Labs conference.

“The entire week was filled with avenues for making a difference,” Manwaring says. “People finished the week empowered to become changemakers in communities and around the world.”

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, public management, information systems, and entrepreneurship. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.