The Tartan

By Nina McCambridge

On Feb. 24, the student-run TEDxCMU organization held its annual speakers event under this year’s theme of “Ignite.” As with all TEDx events, this program was independently organized under the umbrella of TED Conferences, the international education nonprofit. The talks, held on an artfully-lit stage in McConomy Auditorium, focused on expansive ideas and featured a variety of innovative and inspiring speakers.

The first talk was by Josh Valcarcel, a NASA photographer at the Johnson Space Center. He described three of his most challenging assignments, all of which were part of the Artemis program which aims to establish a long-term human presence on the moon. The first was an assignment to take a picture of four jets flying over the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center. This involved him going up in another jet.

“For me in the backseat,” Valcarcel said, “I’m getting tossed left, I’m getting tossed right — at the same time I’m pulling Gs.” With little time to take the photograph, and after months of planning, he had to radically change his approach to the photo at the last second after his plans failed. In the end, however, the project was successful. He also described a similarly difficult project which involved the return of the Artemis I mission, which he had to photograph from a very bumpy helicopter. He also described how he took a photograph of the Artemis astronauts, and the incredible story of the surfing astronaut pin he wears on his jacket.

The second talk was by Dr. Zuly Inirio, an opera singer and founder of the Afro-Latinx Song and Opera Project. She described how as a teenager at the opera for the first time, she fell “in love with the staging, the set, the costumes, the acting, the orchestra, and the unimaginable power of the human voice unamplified. I was like, ‘I don’t know what this is, but I want to do this.’”

However, she had doubts about whether someone of her ethnicity would be accepted in the opera world. She was inspired to continue when she learned about the accomplishments of Afro-Latina opera singer Martina Arroyo. To demonstrate a performance of Arroyo, she broke into an immensely powerful, space-filling song. As a young opera singer, Inirio had difficulties being cast because of how she looked, and many people told her to lose weight. She described how she started the Afro-Latinx Song and Opera Project in order to increase the representation of people of her ethnicity in opera.

Next, there was a performance from CMU Saans, a South Asian a cappella group. They performed a captivating mixture of South Asian and American music.

The third talk was by Professor Angus Fletcher, a professor of story science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative. He presented some arguments for why we will not be replaced by artificial intelligence, saying that “AI will never have common sense” and “AI will never have the imagination that you had when you were four years old.” He described how toddlers love to say “no,” refusing the premises of their parents’ appeals.

Fletcher was present at a Special Operations training session, where the soldiers were also taught to employ this form of self-preserving common sense. He does not think that AI is capable of doing this sort of imaginative thinking, leaving aside “not just iteration, but other computerized approaches to creativity, like brainstorming, divergent thinking and ideation.” He doesn’t think that AI is able to spot exceptions, because it uses “logic,” which he claims requires a large amount of data, whereas humans are capable of reasoning in low-data situations.

The fourth performance and talk was by Chinmayi Mungara, an MBA student and accomplished Indian classical dancer. She began by performing a theatrical dance illustrating the story of young Krishna stealing butter while his mother was sleeping. Then, she argued that dance and leadership ability are “not the most obvious partnership, but I strongly believe [dance] has the power to create effective leaders.” This is because of the importance of empathy and subtle cues in body language within the art form.

Transitioning from professional dance to the professional world, she thought that her main takeaway from dance would be her good posture. Good posture puts her into an optimistic and controlled state of mind, “and just like that, controlling my body language I realized gave me the possibility of controlling the thoughts and the reactions of the people around me.” She soon realized that her dance practice had also given her the ability to pick up subtle cues from others’ body language as well, andthroughthis,shewasableto tailor her interactions so that she could be an effective leader in any situation.

“You become more aware, you become a better listener and you become more empathetic,” Mungara said. “That empathy is the difference between a good leader and a great leader.”

The fifth talk was from Alex Parra, who survived an enduring medical hell. At age 15, he was diagnosed with bone cancer in his knee. “I was given a 60 percent chance I was gonna die when all I wanted to do was live,” he said. Chemo didn’t work. He was forced to choose between a knee replacement and amputation. He said, “I asked my dad [which I should choose], and he sits me down, he says something I’ll never forget. ‘This is your life,’ he said. ‘I can’t make this decision for you.’” He chose the amputation because it would give him a better chance to play sports later on. He lived on, and graduated from high school, something the doctors had said he probably would never be able to do. However, upon graduating, he was immediately diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. At this point, he was given three months to live. He got surgery the next day, and was put on an uncertain waitlist for clinical trials. Miraculously, he recovered, and is now cancer-free. He’s even attempted a marathon on crutches. “Your life can change in an instant,” he said.

Afterwards, there was an innovation expo, where three projects had set up tables. One was CarnegieGPT, an unreleased tool that uses natural language processing and information about Carnegie Mellon-specific things like courses and dining to make a highly interactive search tool for Carnegie Mellon students. Another was Carnegie Mellon Rocket Command, who presented about the Apogee Targeting System that they are developing for the NASA Student Launch competition. There was also Saint Joan Jewelry, a wax-cast silver jewelry business started by a Carnegie Mellon alumnus.