This April 4th, TEDxAUBG held its 14th annual conference, named “Contours of Clarity”. Nine incredible speakers came from different countries around the world with one shared goal – to inspire the audience with their ideas worth spreading.
Needless to say, the AUBG community was very hyped for the event: “I’m excited every year to come and see what they have built.” shares Lora, a student at AUBG. Another student, Maria, says that she is glad that such a conference is organized in our university setting and that she believes the students here are the right audience for it.
I can personally say that the people behind the event’s organization were incredibly excided as well. After all, we had been waiting for this day since the beginning of the academic year, and it was finally time to see our efforts come to fruition.
Mariam, who is a third-time member of TEDxAUBG, stresses the importance of our event remaining affordable for everyone on campus.
“We also try to create greater value for our audience, because we believe that such events are important to take place,” Mariam shared.
Besides the event being affordable, our strongest desire and what we wish to ultimately achieve on this day is to leave people inspired, even changed in a way. According to Maria, “it’s a good idea to reflect on the things that you have just heard, because during the week, you’re always learning, learning, learning, and you need some time to process the things that you’ve heard.”
This year, our audience went home with the ideas of nine incredible speakers, starting with Revaz Topuria, lecturer and researcher in the field of politics. At TEDxAUBG 2026 he shared with us his insights on how to take care of democracy.
Next, we welcomed on stage Chudomir Dragnev, artist and creator of independent art spaces, who proved with his talk the importance of collaboration between artists.
We then had the opportunity to hear from a fellow AUBG student – Maria Hristova. Maria is currently a senior, graduating with a double major in Business Administration and Journalism and Mass Communication. Her speech was truly inspiring, as it focused on holistic education, something that all students, and not only, can benefit from learning about.
The second panel of the event started with Olha Zota’s speech. Olha is an Ukranian innovator, who explores how engineering can exist on stage, in space, and in movement. She is deeply motivated by education as a tool for access and equality, and actively collaborates with schools, educators, and international organizations.
Our fifth speaker of the day was no other than the psychologist Deya Shopova. Deya’s speech hit another incredibly important topic – mental health. She left the audience with valuable knowledge on how they can reshape their lives through language.
Polina Nedkova was the speaker who stepped on the red carpet next. Her talk was all about embracing the cringe, and we are sure that it resonated with everyone, who has ever feared being misjudged. However, Polina’s message was clear: “To be cringe is to be free!” and honestly, we should all remember this one.
After Polina, we had the pleasure of hearing from one of AUBG’s incredible professors – Daniel Adsett, who is mainly known for teaching business ethics classes. At “Contours of Clarity”, however, he enlightened us on the intriguing theory of irrationality, featured also in his newest book.
Second to last was the social innovator Ivan Blažević. During his fascinating talk, he took the audience on a journey through solidarity, community, and compassion.
Finally, we ended this year’s conference with Angela Rodel, winner of the International Booker Prize 2023 for her translation of Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter, Angela Rodel is a literary translator, actor, and musician, as well as a former AUBG Board of Trustees member. In under 18 minutes, Angela achieved highlighting the power of voice and sharing how she found where hers resonated most. Not only that, but she actually proved her words, through singing to our audience, and can we just say, wow.
I, and all of TEDxAUBG’s members, truly hope that people left the theater hall feeling inspired and having learnt something rare and valuable that day. Because after all, that is what our club is all about – celebrating ideas worth spreading.
