TEDxBGSU fulfilled TED’s call for innovation as it was the first event of its kind to be hosted at a university in Ohio.

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, began as a way to bring people together from the three different areas, according to the organization’s website, www.ted.com.

The “x” in TEDx stands for an independently organized TED event, which means the event was only associated with TED in its name and format.

Friday morning, approximately 600 people gathered in Kobacker Hall for the University’s own TEDx event. There were 18 presentations discussing several topics.

“We’ve been really excited with all our speakers and that’s obviously the primary focus of the whole event,” said Curator Skyler Rogers. “To see the passion they have for what they’re talking about … it’s a really diverse range and each of them hit it right on the nail so I’ve been really impressed.”

The event offered the opportunity for attendees and presenters to form a connection and have conversations as well as share ideas. TED is devoted to ideas worth spreading, and TEDxBGSU helped to further that mission, said Lizzie Keller, dining and assisting ability coordinator of the event.

“I want audience members to be inspired to go forward with their own ideas,” Keller said. “It’s all about ideas worth spreading and ideas worth putting your time and your passio into.”

Senior Lauren Szychowski learned about the event from posters hung around campus and became interested in attending a few weeks before.

“I watched a lot of TED videos online,” Szychowski said. “I’ve even used them for citing my papers and stuff, and they’re just awesome.”

Szychowski said she liked Gene Poor’s presentation on the illusion of life.

“Gene Poor, he was awesome, I didn’t even know who he was before,” Szychowski said. “Brittany Gibbons was hilarious, I liked her.”

Gibbons is a writer and CEO at Mouth Media and gave a presentation titled “What I Learned While Standing in the Middle of Times Square in my Bathing Suit.” During her presentation, Gibbons stripped down to her bathing suit and spoke about body image.

“Body image is something I address a lot in my writing and for my company, so it was a really easy topic to pick,” Gibbons said. “My goal for [the audience] is to just sort of see me differently than probably they did the second I walked on the stage, and then see themselves in me a little bit and then see themselves different.”

Gibbons said she has watched several TED videos online, and she thinks the events are inspiring.

“I think that you leave here and want to do something more than what you’re doing, and I think that’s a success,” Gibbons said. “What I love about TED is you can come here and every single speech is like 180 degrees from what the next speech is going to be about so you just come and you don’t know what you’re going to learn, and you learn everything all over the spectrum.”

There were several students who volunteered to help with the TEDx event, approximately 100, said Celeste Bembry, coordinator of volunteers, hosts and in charge of speaker relations.

“We have quite a few students that have gotten involved or students who are attending today so it’s been cool to see the excitement of students,” Rogers said.