TEDxUNCAsheville will be held in the Lipinksy Auditorium at UNC Asheville on Saturday, February 15. This years theme: Rethinking. Topics include the parable of the pan, rethinking community gardening and activism, techniques for living a happy life, student military veteran treatment, and the death of the rockstar (and why that’s good for everyone).

This years event will have 15 speakers, made up of 5 professors, 5 students and 5 locals. The expected attendance is 400, making this the largest TEDx event currently held in this region.

Organizer, Jack Derbyshire, UNCAsheville student, is excited about the upcoming event. “This is our second year holding this event and we have doubled in size. We have 25-30 volunteers who are helping organize the event to make it the best it can be. We have a lot of talent behind us that are all committed to what TEDx stands for.”

Tickets are available for $10 on the events website at www.tedxuncasheville.org.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California almost 30 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The two annual TED Conferences invite the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes on a diverse mix of topics. Many of these talks are then made available, free, at TED.com . TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The TED2014 Conference will take place in Vancouver, British Columbia, along with the TEDActive simulcast in neighboring Whistler. TEDGlobal 2014 will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.