Ignite Waterloo Community Speaking Event comes to Campus

Monday, November 10, 2014

Man giving presentation with PowerPoint slides
To support DAC329/ SPCOM 329: Digital Presentations, the Department of Drama and Speech Communication is pleased to sponsor the community public speaking event, Ignite Waterloo 15 on November 26, 2014.  All members of the University community are invited to attend.

Ignite Waterloo is a community-driven event that captures the best of Waterloo Region’s ‘geeky-creative-techy-designer-startup’ culture in a series of five minute talks on a wide range of topics, from ‘high altitude medicine’ to ‘How to change a politician’s mind.’  November’s event topics include: KW Hackernest, activism long term and short term, improv comedy, Movember, photography, and food industry.

Man with PowerPoint slide with math equation
With the tagline, ‘Enlighten us, but make it quick,’ Ignite Waterloo belongs to the family of Ignite community speaking events that take place around the world, from Toronto to Tokyo. Ignite Waterloo’s website invitation captures the spirit and the speed of the evening: “Imagine that you’re on stage in front of an audience of hundreds of people, accompanied by a slide deck that auto-forwards every 15 seconds, whether you’re ready or not.  What would you do?  What would you say?  Could you stand the pressure?”

Audience listening to presentation
Volunteer organizer, Tiffany Kohl, says Ignite Waterloo is all about getting the local community to come together to put on an event of local interest.  From the Ignite organizers, volunteer speakers and sponsors, everyone agrees that conversation around what matters to individuals leads to a vibrant community.  “Ideas and passion unite us,” Tiffany says.  She is especially pleased to have Ignite Waterloo 15 on campus to foster an evening of conversation: “Fueled by great education, students are inspired to think and to share ideas, and ultimately become great leaders in their communities.”

Ignite Waterloo members will mentor and support the Ignite-style presentations in the DAC 329/SPCOM 329 course in Winter 2015.