Daily Deacon

Wake Forest Professor a huge hit at TEDxWakeForestU

A collective gasp filled Wake Forest’s Wait Chapel at the sight of the image on the big screen. The image of millions of ants crossing a river, forming a bridge as a collective unit, jolted the crowd with a nervous energy as the speaker took the seemingly grotesque image and it applied it to cyber security.

The speaker was Wake Forest’s very own computer science professor Errin Fulp. Professor Fulp made his TEDx debut this past Saturday in front of the sold out Wait Chapel, as hundreds of his students, colleagues and peers witnessed him speak publicly for the first time about applying patterns in nature to cyber security. He emphasized how nature operates in the most efficient manner, taking the shortest paths in accomplishing its goals and continuously evolving. He believes that these principles can be applied to improving our cyber defense systems.

The idea of speaking in front of so many colleagues and students was not lost on Professor Fulp when he was invited to speak at the event in November.

“I was apprehensive at first. TEDx is a pretty big deal in my opinion, I knew a lot of people were going to be there, it’s televised, ” Fulp explained. “There was a lot of pressure to get it right. I’m just glad I had a lot of time to prepare.”

Professor Fulp was the sixth speaker in an eight person lineup, including Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, who headlined the event. The theme of this year’s TEDxWakeForestU was Haven: Fearlessness Reimagined in which each speaker gave an 18 minute speech about security that in some way was relative to their area of expertise. For instance, Fulp and Hurd spoke about cyber security. Bradley Myles, CEO of Polaris, talked about how his company combats human sex trafficking on a global scale.

The TEDxWakeForestU conference was started in 2012 by student activist and leader Lucy Lan, who wanted to to “promote technological entrepreneurship here on Wake Forest Campus,” according to the TEDxWakeForestU website. She contacted many different speakers across different disciplines, and over 1,000 people came to watch the event. The conference has been an annual event ever since.

Following Lucy Lan’s initiative, an all-student staff completely runs and operates TEDxWakeForestU.

“The staff picks the theme, sends out invitations to speakers, does all the budgeting, and gets in touch with other schools’ designers (in this case Forsyth County Technical College) in order to help build the set and design the stage,” explained TEDxWakeForestU emcee and senior Daniel Sechtin. “I was just the emcee, introducing the speakers and asking them a question or two afterwards. I just wanted to make sure I was prepared to do justice to our staff and the great speakers we had.”

The global organization TED started in 1984 in California as a non-profit dedicated to spreading ideas about Technology, Education and Design (hence the acronym TED) according to the TEDxWakeForestU website. TEDx “offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world,” the site explained. TEDx is what enables Wake Forest and other institutions to host TED conferences.

The conference was headlined by Mark Hurd, CEO of the global computer technology corporation, Oracle. Being the CEO of such well known company, as well as being a father of a current Wake Forest student, he definitely generated buzz among some of the students who attended the event.

“One of the main reasons I went this year was to see Mark Hurd,” said sophomore Austin Rubino. “Being the CEO of such a large technological corporation that is prevalent in our everyday lives, it was great to be able see what he had to say about cyber security, which is an extremely relevant issue in our society today.”

One of Mark Hurd’s principle messages was that it is within our own power to protect our data and internet information.

“Data is getting more secure, not less…. But there is no technological trick we have to protect you, like personal decision making, personal responsibility,” Hurd said.

He emphasized how important is is to make sure that we’re not revealing too much data on the open internet, and to make sure that whomever we trust our data with will do everything in their power to protect it.

To many, it was Errin Fulp who stole the show, however.

“All of the speakers were great, but Errin Fulp was my favorite,” Austin Rubino reflected. “It was great to see one of our own being able to share his ideas with such a big audience.”

Daniel Sechtin echoed this sentiment, reveling at the impact that Professor Fulp has made on him as a student at Wake Forest.

“Every speaker was amazing, but it was especially great to have Wake Forest’s own Errin Fulp in the mix. To see one of our professors mentioned in these great group of speakers doing great things, it makes me proud to be a student here.”