Bringing Language to Life: Safiyah Ismail at TEDxUNC

One of our student speakers, Safiyah Ismail, is the founder of the UNC American Sign Language Club. Digging for worms with the only deaf student in her grade led Safiyah to finding her best friend, where at 9 years old, sign language became her life's devotion. Two out of every thousand US citizens are functionally deaf, and she reminded us that UNC has around 60 deaf students among 30,000 students. Because sign language has grown organically in communities around the world, there is constant redefinition of the language. Now, a project to standardize scientific terms in sign language has begun at universities around the world. Safiyah told us that "Alone I can do little, but together we can do so much. Communicating with those different is difficult, but worth it."

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)