Adeyemi Ayeku and Afolasade Ola
TEDx (Technology, Entertainment and Design), University of Ibadan, organised TED talk bringing together different speakers from different walks of life telling their stories and other activities as well. The programme was held at the Art Theatres, University of Ibadan on Saturday, 22nd of September, 2018.
The event tagged 1000idedas+1 was met with great icons like Dr. Aderemi Abiodun, Okezi Uwede-Meshack, Bisi Ogunwale and others who all spoke concisely on how to be better in their areas of expertise and affecting the society with impacts.
The event, although started two hours behind the slated time, witnessed the turnout of quite a number of students and people, who were eager to hear people tell their stories. This year’s was the second edition of TED talk in UI with the theme”10,000 Ideas Plus 1”, a belief that when a person gets an inspiration on how to solve a problem, there are probably thousand other scattered around the world that have gotten the same inspiration, making them 10,000 plus 1 persons with the same idea. The maiden edition was in 2017, at the Faculty of the Social Science Large Lecture Theatre, with the theme ‘Dare to be Abnormal’ featuring amazing speakers like …and one of UI’s finest speakers at that time, Adeyemi Idowu.
In this year’s event, there were 12 speakers altogether. 11 were well-experienced speakers, graduates and professionals in their various endeavours, and an undergraduate student of the Institution, Charles Banigo, a final year student of the department of Law, who got a chance to speak after winning the oratory audition that was organised on Thursday, 20th September at the Innovation Hub, in UI.
After the opening remark was given by the Team Lead of TEDx UI, Onothoja Ogheneruona, a final year student of Veterinary Medicine, the main event started. The first speaker, a female, Funmi Cole, acclaimed to be the first qualified Drama Therapist in Nigeria. She spoke on Drama Therapy, which she defined as the intentional use of drama and theatre techniques to achieve therapeutic goals. The interesting part of her talk was the beginning part, her story of the Ghanaian story of how story telling began. According to her “many years ago, when there were no stories, no radio, no television, no civilisation,…consequently, people were subjected to boring lives.” She ended her talk with an encouragement to all present to keep telling stories, because story telling is part of what makes us humans.
The second speaker, Mr Ogunbowale Olugbenga, an international Facebook trainer and also a member of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (Africa) amongst others, told a beautiful story of how his life was saved by banters. The title of his story was “What if Banter could save your life?” He narrated his life experience especially as a young boy when his mates used to throw banter at him that he walked like a lady. At first, he said he used to feel very bad, and statements like that would ruin his day. But as time passed, he got used to the comments and just played the ignore card when such statements were thrown at him. Yes, Mr Ogunbowale actually walks a little bit like a lady, but as he continued his story, he made it known to the audience that his walking style was as a result of a sickness called scoliosis-a condition in which the spine is curved in a way that is not normal. The effect of this amongst others is that the walking style of people suffering from it will be different. Mr Gbenga gave affirmed that Usian Bolt, suffers from the same disease, yet, he’s doing well in his profession.
From his story, he discovered this anomaly accidentally when he went for a medical check-up and the doctor saw his back and told him “Oh wow! You suffer from scoliosis”. That was last year, after suffering unknowingly from the sickness for 27 years. The logic behind the story was that he could have discovered the abnormality earlier if he had listened to the voices speaking things hidden to him all those period especially in primary schools, but he simply played the ignore card, felt it was normal and just let it be. He concluded his story by admonishing the audience not to allow the default reaction of being offensive when banters are thrown at them to overpower the hidden message the banter is passing across to them, for that could be what would save their lives.
Charles Banigo spoke on “shooting your shots”. He told stories of himself, how he constantly shot his shots circumstances notwithstanding. The first of such goals came when he made a successful application to a law firm in Lagos, which he was told people got in based on contact, but he got in because he shot us shot. His message to the audience was clear, persistency in achieving whatever goals they have set for themselves. He concluded his story by shooting another shot of getting the contact of the female compere of the programme.
The climax of the event came when the MC announced the arrival of the person, whom a large 
number of the audience were waiting to see, and not necessarily to hear her speak, the popular Nigerian songwriter and singer, Simisola Bolatito Ogunleye, popularly known as Simi. Amidst her conversation which centred on encouraging your minds to grow and impact lives, she told her story of how she started her musical choir, which like the conventional stories of other popular secular musicians, was in the church as a chorister. She advised young minds to always filter the advice of the elders, as no one is infallible, and the words of the elders could be wrong at times.
Immediately after the conversation of Simi, there was a dance performance by a group and another performance by the renowned comedian in UI, Gee Jokes. The last two speakers were Okezi Uwede-Meshack, a junior Counsel at General Electric and Kizito Okorowu, a seasoned entrepreneur and 2018 TSL Africa Innovation Prize Winner. The former spoke about the importance of knowing the law as a citizen. The central piece of the latter’s story was that we should not be afraid of taking risks and be passionate about impacting lives everywhere we find ourselves.
The event was drawn to a close after a brief appreciation of the heads of various teams that made this year’s edition of TEDx a dream come true. Then, the vote of thanks was given by both the President and the Vice-President, Ogheneruona and Popoola Peace respectively.
ABOUT TEDx UI: is an organisation in the University of Ibadan which was modeled in line with the vision of TED. Founded by Offordum Pascal, a recent graduate of Law, UI and established by Onothoja Ogheneruona, the current president of the organisation. The vision of TEDx is to share the mission of ideas worth spreading; to spark and create innovative ideas in different communities, which was the same mission TEDx UI also seeks to accomplish.
