The TEDx stage with its bright lights, dark background and intimate setting has become revered across the globe as a reference point from which people give and receive compelling, life-altering stories from experts in respective fields.
Styled after TED Talks which are styled for global audiences, TEDx talks are designed for smaller, local audiences and are organised independently by regional groups, with speakers and topics tailored specifically to the community in which the event takes place.
Jamaican events host, TV presenter, public speaker and podcast host Dr Terri-Karelle Reid last September joined the league of local, region and international powerhouses to have graced a TEDx stage, leaving a tsunami of conversation and inspiration in her wake. Since being posted on YouTube three weeks ago, the video of her presentation, has received over 40,000 views.
Reid, 40, who gathers her growing number of over 284,000 followers on Instagram around a proverbial campfire, shares both professional and intimate moments online.
It is those intimate moments, specifically those shared with her nine-year-old daughter Naima-Kourtnae that saw her being invited to share bits of her experience raising a girl in this age of technology, and everything it includes, on the TEDx stage at Aston University – one of the UK's top universities.
It is her practical and seemingly candid way of communicating with her daughter on issues from having a relationship with her body, child abuse and sexuality that has resulted in her contributing to a revolution in how information can be shared with children.
Reid believes these approaches can help spare children much of the challenges and growing pains experienced by previous generations, from whom life-altering information was withheld by parents for fear of overexposing their children to the realities of the world.
[caption id="attachment_938242" align="alignnone" width="828"] The TedX advert for Dr Terri-Karelle Reid. -[/caption]
"Surreal is the word that sums it up. Receiving the invitation was surreal to the point where I thought it was a scam. I looked at every detail of the email from top to bottom because it was shock and awe. I think I felt that way because content from TEDx is consumed by millions of people all over the world, every day. It is said their videos get more hits that Disney World," she told WMN.
Reid, who is also a trained veterinarian, said she never imagined herself on that stage – despite being told by many she would be fit to share some bit of her story with the world.
"When I got the invitation I first asked, Why me? But then I started asking myself, Why not me?"
Even though she's danced since childhood and later went on to represent Jamaica at the Miss World pageant in 2005, Reid said it was intimidating, but she also saw it as a call to take on a new challenge, “because opportunities don’t come along until we are ready, even if we don’t feel ready in the moment.”
"It went from
