The TEDxAsburyPark Blog

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From exclusive interviews with TEDxAsburyPark speakers and alumni, to details on upcoming events and performers, check out all the news and ideas our blog has to offer.

Home Is Joy – Edafe Okporo

Edafe is getting married in July, finished his Masters Degree from NYU School of Business, and will launch his book, Asylum, published in June 2022 by Simon & Schuster. Edafe, a refugee himself, has been working with LGBTQ displaced people for several years and recent Afghan refugees and is an expert on the world wide refugee crisis and possible solutions.

Leaving It All To Have It All – Atoosa Rubenstein

“Well, I mean, even just hearing you say it, and isn’t that what alpha girl would do, right? That in the midst of lean-in culture, you have to lean out. That’s what I needed to do. Although it felt very surprising to people, I do think that it was really necessary for me to have that. And it’s interesting to talk about rebirth, because I kind of feel like our talk at TED, that is my actual official rebirth. It’s going to be the first time I’m ever really, in a big way, talking about the 16-year hiatus that I took and I just had to.”

Pornified Culture Reframed. Audio Interview Gail Dines

“This is not your father’s Playboy. This is a whole new world that you can see when you go onto PornHub, which is the most traveled website in the world, which gets more users than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined!”

Treat Trans as you Wish to be Treated. Karen Kendra Holmes Audio Interview

“We transition to be happy. It’s got nothing to do with sexuality. It’s who we are in our mind, heart and spirit. And we want to live a normal life doing everything.”

Wildflowers of New York City. Andrew Garn Audio Interview

Five years in the making, Andrew traveled every nook and cranny of NYC photographing 2,100 beautiful wildflower species that live in relative harmony with city dwellers.

100 Things for Future Self Continuity. Seb Terry Audio Interview

“We’re very good at looking retrospectively back at our lives from where we are, but we’re not very good at looking prospectively forward into the future. And it’s a really important thing to do when it comes to goal setting. Future Self Continuity.”

100 Watts by Jim Watt

“As an artist…I think that things like ambiguity, nuance and uncertainty are a wonderful antidote to some of this divisive, polarized, dualistic place that we live in.”

Addiction Pandemic. Esther Dyson Audio Interview

“The fundamental pattern of addiction is that you get focused on this thing that is going to relieve your anxiety or your pain…the opposite of doing drugs or succumbing to any addiction is not not doing it. It’s doing something else with meaning and purpose.”

How Audible is Feeding New Jersey, and Keeping Businesses Open

Interested in being a part of TEDxAsburyPark? 1act.1idea. Open Call for Plays and Performers and more - Apply here The celebrity-endorsed program has made national news for its efficacy and...

How Audible is Helping Revive Newark

Everyone knows Audible, the online audiobook and podcast service that dominates the audio space. But what people don’t know is that this media giant was started in founder Don Katz’s attic 25 years...

COVID-19 Pivot to The Meeting Boosters with Cory Kahaney

Brian Smiga, TEDxAsburyPark Founder and Co-founder of Alpha Partners, interviews comedian and 2019 TED speaker, Cory Kahaney, on her pivot into corporate comedy and teambuilding with The...

Innovation Everywhere – Jay Bhatti

Brian Smiga, TEDxAsburyPark Founder and Co-founder of Alpha Venture Partners, interviews Jay Bhatti, partner at Brand Project VC and TEDx speaker on “Innovation Everywhere” spreading outside Silicon Valley, New York City, Boston as a result of COVID-19.