The Story of TEDxPaceAcademy

Brown Bears, Michael Fu '21 and Robert Kaufman, in Portugal. 

In the autumn of 2019, Michael Fu '21 approached his 11th grade Honors English teacher, Robert Kaufman, with a dream: to organize and host a TEDx event at Pace Academy. Neither of them had ever organized a TEDx event before, but both loved the TED organization and the idea of brilliant and brave minds congregating to artfully unleash ideas worth spreading. 

During their ICGL trip in Lisbon in November 2019, Michael and Mr. Kaufman outlined Pace's inaugural TEDx event planned originally for the spring of 2020. COVID-19 delayed TEDxPaceAcademy: Challenging the Status Quo for a year, until March 21, 2021, when Michael and Mr. Kaufman's dream became a reality. 

The dream lives on. Mr. Kaufman cites Theodore Roethke's "The Waking" as the motivational force behind each of Pace's first two TEDx events: "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. / I learn by going where I have to go." The entire TEDx team at Pace are thrilled to continue waking slow with you.