TEDxDirigo
Power of X
Director of Photography & Editor: Dean Merrill
Event Founder 2009
TEDxDirigo was an independently organized TEDx event that has been dedicated to spreading ideas and sparking conversations since its inception. As the License Holder and Founder of TEDxDirigo in 2009, I was responsible for the overall strategic direction, leadership, and organisation of the TEDx event. The role encompassed various facets, including event planning, team management, speaker selection, graphic and web design, video production to post production, and community engagement. This position was an amazing opportunity to shape the intellectual and creative discourse within the community.
WHY DIRIGO?
Dirigo is the Maine State motto, which means “I Lead”, and in the early 2000’s this word was used to name a state health initiative which was hugely popular and unsuccessful. Because of this initiative, the word had a massive negative context by those living there. While looking to create a meaningful name for the event, I chose Dirigo so that the word could be reclaimed as it’s meaning was at the core of the type of speakers we were looking for. Since the branding of our TEDx event, Dirigo has since come hugely embraced by local business brands.
After an amazing 2 years of producing this wonderful event, team member Adam Burk took the reigns. Under their guidance the event built on it’s successes and reputation for leading discourse. Each year the event grew more and more inclusive, including brining youth, and under represented communities to the stage.
Many of the speakers directly benefited from the guidance and exposure that the TEDxDirigo team brought to their ideas. One major success story is that of Phuc Tran, who went on to be featured on NPR’s TED Radio Hour, and secured a book deal after his TEDxDirigo Talk in 2012.
TEDxDirigo (as of March, ‘25) has had over 5.6M views… Making it a leading contributor to content making in the State of Maine. According to Adam Burk:
“Each event took over 2000 volunteer hours to create - just on the production side - another 500 hours at minimum that our speakers collectively put into their talks for each event.”
Thanks to all who helped bring “Maine Ideas Worth Spreading” to the world.
