1. Big ideas coming to Jersey Shore for TEDxNavesink
conference
By Christopher Robbins/NJ.com
August 29, 2013 at 7:00 AM
MIDDLETOWN – If tomorrow belongs to those who plan for it today, then the Jersey
Shore’s future looks bright.
While the Jersey Shore’s current leaders manage issues like storm recovery,
transportation and economic development, a group of business executives, academics,
environmentalists, artists and thinkers will gather at Brookdale Community College on
Sept. 20 for the TEDxNavesink conference to imagine the New Jersey the next wave of
leaders will inherit.
“What it is evoking is the next generation of cultural life and of life on the shore, and
the way we think about the next generation on the shore,” said TedXNavesink
organizer Brian Smiga. “What do we have as citizens to say in terms of the ocean and
the shore environment, cultural life, innovation, startups, the economy, attracting
talent.”
This will be TEDxNavesink’s first year, but Smiga said he would like to see it become
an annual event.
“People should expect ideas they’ve never heard of before,” Smiga said. “They should
hear thinkers and artists they’ve never heard of before. It should be a discovery. They
should also expect that they are going to want to talk about what they just saw with
their neighbors at the conference and when they co home. There will be useful,
exciting ideas, and that sums it up pretty well. Really, we want to surprise people with
things they didn’t know. I think every speaker we have curated will bring surprises to
the stage.”
The conference will feature presentations and performances by guitarist Kaki King,
Kerri Martin, founder of Asbury Park’s Second Life Bikes and filmmaker Ben Kalina,
who is currently working on a short film about the ongoing U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers beach replenishment project along the Jersey Shore.
"I will be sharing my experience of creating a bike-centric community in and around
Asbury Park, as told through chalk,” Martin said in publicity comments.
Second Life Bikes is an earn-a-bike program and community bike shop where city
children are taught to repair and maintain bicycles.
The event’s theme, The Next Wave, is intended to stimulate thought on the future of