Beedie School of Business News

The following press release was published by TEDxSFU.

TEDxSFU is hosting an exclusive video broadcast of the TEDxChange 2013 conference being held in Seattle, Washington. The event is free and registration is open to the public.

Convened by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and hosted by Melinda Gates, TEDxChange is streamed live around the world in over 40 countries, with a focus on issues surrounding global health and development. TEDxChange events are licensed by TED and centered on the live webcast of speakers hand-picked from the corners of the world, including vaccine advocates Salim Shekh and Sikha Patra, legal scholar Cathleen Kaveny, Harvard Masters in Public Policy candidate Halimatou Hima, and former Wall Street Journal writer Roger Thurow.

TEDxSFUChange is one of over 175 events happening around the globe that will expand on the theme of Positive Disruption and emphasize the power of breaking barriers to change preconceived attitudes. By challenging old assumptions and exposing new possibilities, TEDxSFUChange offers an incredible opportunity to use ideas worth spreading as a path to true progress.

Join the changemakers of the SFU community on April 3rd, 2013 at the Djavad Mowafaghian Theatre, Simon Fraser University from 6:00 – 8:30pm and get ready to listen to and discuss ideas that will change communities on a global scale.

Register for limited spots starting March 18th at tedxsfu.com.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates on this year’s fall conference.

Tags: TED Talk, TEDx, TEDxCHANGE, TEDxCHANGE 2013, TEDxSFU, TEDxSFUCHANGE

Poh Tan is a mentor for the Beedie School’s Mentors in Business program.

The following article was published by Burnaby now on March 15, 2013.

BY JENNIFER MOREAU, BURNABY NOW

The drive to succeed.

City woman’s childhood leads her to excel in the expanding field of stem cell research.

Living at home wasn’t easy for Burnaby resident Poh Tan, but one thing she knew for certain – she would never be like her parents.

Tan came from a broken home, with her mother and father constantly fighting and calling on the kids to watch. She started seeing a counsellor in Grade 10, after the family had moved from Malaysia to Burnaby years before.

“I was told when bad things happen you keep it in the family,” she says.

Close to Tan’s graduation, her parents finally split up, and the young woman focused on her provincial exams and getting into university. Her determination to excel and be better than her parents kept her focused. She was accepted to SFU to study biology and then the University of B.C. to do her PhD on stem cell research. Stem cells can reproduce themselves and make virtually any other cell in the body. She worked in a biotech company till she started her own consulting business in 2011, advising companies around the world how best to apply their technology in the stem cell field. Keep reading…

Tags: Beedie School of Business, Burnaby Now, Poh Tan, regenerative medicine, Research, stem cell research, stem cells, TEDx, TedX Stanley Park

Sam Thiara, Associate Director of Undergraduate Alumni Engagement at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, has been awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, a special commemorative medal honouring the significant contributions and achievements by Canadians. The award is being given to Thiara in recognition of his outstanding engagement and leadership.

Thiara has worked with hundreds of students and alumni since joining SFU’s Beedie School in 2004, and has also volunteered countless hours for various community initiatives in Metro Vancouver and beyond.

An alumnus of SFU as well as the University of Exeter in England, Thiara joined the Beedie School in 2004 as a manager of student recruitment and engagement. To date he has worked as a mentor and coach to hundreds of students, both as individuals and as teams, and recently helped coach a team of students to a silver medal at the International Institute for Business Development Case Competition in Thailand.

Prior to joining SFU, Thiara worked as the Community Consultation Manager for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Bid Corporation, where he was responsible for building relationships with communities and providing the public with information about the bid. Keep reading…

Tags: BBA, case competitions, coaching, engagement, International Institute for Business Development Case Competition, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, mentoring, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Sam Thiara, storytelling, student engagement, student recruitment, TEDx, TEDxSFU, University of Exeter, Vancouver 2010 Olympic Bid Corporation, Vancouver Board of Trade, volunteering

Sam Thiara, Student Engagement Manager at SFU’s Beedie School of Business, is slated to speak at the upcoming TEDxSFU, the first event of its kind hosted at Simon Fraser University. Thiara, who is also an alumnus of the business school, will be joined by fellow BBA alumnus Shawn Smith, who is co-founder of Global Agents for Change and an instructor of social entrepreneurship at the Beedie School.

The TEDxSFU organizing committee is also pleased to announce that John Furlong, CEO, Vancouver 2010 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) and Vancouver Police Department Chief Jim Chu will be speaking at the inaugural event on Saturday November 26, 2011.

Mr. Furlong and Chief Chu will join the extraordinary collection of gifted storytellers to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes or less. TEDxSFU is an independently organized event licensed by TED.

Hosted at Westminster Savings Theatre at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey Campus, speakers will immerse attendees in lively conversations surrounding the main theme of the event, Community Engagement. Throughout the day attendees will have the opportunity to network, connect and collaborate with one another.

“Community engagement can be interpreted in many different ways and we are so thrilled to have two renowned leaders from our own backyard offering their unique perspectives on this theme to the world.” said Michael Cheng, TEDxSFU Founder and Licensee.

The speaker lineup will also feature other leading thinkers in the realm of community engagement, including Colleen Hardwick, Founder and CEO of Placespeak.com and 10-year old Ta’Kaiya Blaney of the Sliammon First Nation.

There will be a limited number of event tickets available and applications are currently being accepted. For those unable to attend in person, TEDxSFU will also be streamed live via LiveStream.

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.

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 26 years ago, TED has grown to support world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. At TED, the world’s leading thinkers and doers are asked to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Benoit Mandelbrot, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Two major TED events are held each year: The TED Conference takes place every spring in Long Beach, California (along with a parallel conference, TEDActive, in Palm Springs), and TEDGlobal is held each summer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

TED’s media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily; the new TED Conversations, enabling broad conversations among TED fans; and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide.

TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world; and the TED Fellows program, helping world- changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Tags: Jim Chu, John Furlong, Sam Thiara, Shawn Smith, Ta’Kaiya Blaney, TEDx, TEDxSFU, Vancouver Police Department