Two students from the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media are among the presenters at TEDxUNC’s first digital event, which will explore the intersections of human identity.
Hanna Wondmagegn and Ruth Etiesit Samuel, both seniors at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, will share their ideas worth spreading at Intersections, TEDxUNC’s first digital event since its founding in 2012.
Wondmagegn and Samuel will be two of five speakers at the event, which will take place on Thursday, Feb. 4 and explore “the struggles, joys and cultural quandaries that arise at the intersections of human identity,” the student organizing team shared. Intersections is the first of three digital salons that TEDxUNC will host in 2021. Salons are smaller conferences that seek to spark more intimate conversations outside of the main TEDx conference.
Read more to learn about the speakers and the team behind the event.
Wondmagegn is studying photojournalism. From Charlotte, North Carolina, she has traveled across the state and to 13 countries, using a camera to document the stories of the people she has met along the way. Her work has appeared in Civil Eats and The Huffington Post, among other publications.
Wondmagegn is no stranger to the TEDx stage. As a junior in high school, she spoke about school food waste at TEDxEastMecklenburgHighSchool, an event started by UNC Hussman senior Sara Holley. In her first year at UNC-Chapel Hill, Wondmagegn spoke at a TEDxUNC salon about a social media campaign that she had launched: #nofoodwaste.
At Intersections, she will examine the power of storytelling in global exploration and the role that her own story has played in shaping her worldview. Wondmagegn will challenge the conventional notion that journalists should separate their personal lives from the stories they tell, as her work is tied to her identity as a Black woman and an Ethiopian-U.S. American.
“We’re expected to be observers and stay out of our work,” she said. “If anything, my identities have made my storytelling stronger, and I want to touch on that.”
Samuel is a Morehead-Cain Scholar majoring in media and journalism with a minor in Hispanic studies. Raised in Macon, Georgia, she is involved on campus as the former editor-in-chief of The Bridge and a member of the North Carolina Fellows Program. She also manages the Carolina Association of Black Journalists’ social media. She has written bylines for Teen Vogue, Glossy.co, and TODAY.com.
Samuel’s talk will confront societal expectations of Black women.
“Black women are not here to save everyone else,” she said, citing the dialogue surrounding Stacey Abrams, the politician, lawyer and voting rights activist in Georgia, as an example of the public responding to a Black woman’s accomplishments with “unnerving adoration.” She will also dissect the notion that Black women need to be grateful for everything they receive, which British media host Kelechi Okafor explored in an Instagram video.
Samuel added that she is “extremely excited” to hear Wondmagegn’s talk and “learn more about who she is behind the camera,” as they have worked together on various initiatives, including The Bridge’s #21Under21 campaign.
Olivia Cohen, a junior studying advertising and public relations at UNC Hussman, has been tackling Intersections from a different angle. As a creative/communications committee member on the TEDxUNC student organizing team, she helps create the newsletter and write social media copy.
“I decided to get involved because I am passionate about uplifting the voices in our community,” Cohen said. “TEDxUNC is a great outlet for exchanging ideas with my peers and learning about new perspectives.”
Prior to the uprooting of campus events caused by COVID-19, the main TEDxUNC conference occurred annually in large venues like Memorial Hall and the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. Still, Cohen is confident that the shift to a digital format will not hinder the group’s success.
“Although meeting on Zoom is not always ideal, I feel like this group has overcome physical barriers and become like a family,” she explained. “We work hard to support each other.”
Junior Alex Chantilas, who serves as the TEDxUNC co-curator alongside junior Kaki McNeel, echoed Cohen. He believes Intersections will provide just as many opportunities for attendees to build connections and learn something new as previous conferences did.
“There have been tons of challenges to running a virtual salon while we’re all in relative isolation,” Chantilas said. “But this format has been creatively freeing in many ways. We have more opportunities to welcome incredibly diverse experts on a sundry of engaging topics. I hope Intersections teaches every single person watching something they didn’t know about some facet of the human experience that doesn’t match their own.”
About TEDxUNC
TEDxUNC is the largest student-led TEDx event in the nation. The group was started in 2012 by Innovate Carolina Student Leadership and has been supported by the Office of Innovate Carolina since its launch. Since 2012, TEDxUNC has brought ideas worth spreading to UNC’s campus and has inspired UNC students to think creatively about addressing some of humanity’s fundamental concerns. TEDxUNC is an independently organized annual conference run entirely by students. To learn more, visit the student organizing team’s website, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and sign up for its newsletter.
| UNC-CH
