The Speakers of TEDxSiouxFalls 2026
From Extra to Essential
Pulling back the curtain on how communication works on a television set, from one-way directives to collaborative meaning-making, and how one actor’s simple decision to shake hands with the “extras” transformed the entire energy of a production. Drawing on symbolic interactionism and servant leadership theory, she reveals a powerful truth: people don’t rise because of status. They rise because someone chose to see them. This is a talk for anyone who has ever felt blurry in someone else’s story and for anyone who has the power to bring someone else into focus. Being essential isn’t about how many scenes you’re in. It’s about how fully you show up for the ones you have.
The Swinging Door: From Survival to Significance
In 1993, Vince Danh's parents moved to Sioux Falls and opened the first Vietnamese restaurant in town. They spent their lives in the Back of House — the kitchen — trading 14-hour days for their family's future. Vince stepped through the swinging door into the Front of House. He has the degrees, the safety, and the meaningful work they sacrificed for. And yet, success feels like a betrayal. Drawing on research and his own lived experience, Vince explores the "Immigrant Paradox" — why second-generation immigrants, who should be thriving, often struggle more than their parents did. The guilt runs deep. But this talk offers a reframe: culture, community, and belonging are not luxuries the Bridge Generation stumbled into. They are exactly what their parents' labor was meant to purchase. This talk is a call to stop apologizing for stepping through the door — and to start honoring the sacrifice by holding it open for everyone else.
The Power of Conversation
In a culture defined by "high-definition exhaustion," we often prioritize the speed of a transaction over the depth of a connection. Drawing on her Ethiopian heritage, Afomiya Dejene explores the "slow brew"—a cultural framework of intentionality—as a vital tool for navigating modern human interaction. Dejene argues that the most effective way to dismantle bias and bridge societal divides is through the restorative power of genuine presence. By moving beyond surface-level exchanges and embracing the patience required for real dialogue, we can transform potentially divisive moments into opportunities for mutual understanding. This talk is a call to reclaim conversation not just as a means of communication, but as a deliberate act of seeing and being seen.
Love is More than a Feeling
What if dignity isn’t something we have—but something we give?
In a South Bronx classroom, Sarah learned how loving the children in her classes unconditionally transformed the way the classroom community functioned and allowed students to reach for excellence. The key was love. For the Ancient Greeks, the highest form of love is agape - a verb - which means the deliberate choice to will the good of others. This talk explores how love expression can further our relationships, workplace, and larger community with impacts that can be measured in outcomes rather than intention.
The Clean Water Filters No One Knows About
The solution we need to clean up our rivers might not be new technology but a restoration of a native freshwater species we overharvested during the business boom for shirt button production. This talk is a story of freshwater mussels of the Great Plains, a keystone to our ecosystems and their impact on our water health that most of us don’t know exist.
The Gift You Give Best Is the One You Needed Most
This talk centers on a simple but powerful insight: the gift you give best is often the one you needed most. Drawing from psychology, leadership, and personal experience, he explores how many of our greatest strengths began as solutions to something we once lacked. Over time we become highly skilled at giving that gift to others yet rarely learn how to receive it ourselves. But when we finally do, the gift that we once gave automatically becomes something we can offer intentionally, changing the way we lead, relate, and show up in the moments that matter.
Not Just the Recipe: What We Learn in the Kitchen Together
What if the most important part of a family recipe isn’t written down? Midwest food storyteller Staci Perry Mergenthal discovered this while learning her grandma’s cherished white cookie recipe side-by-side in her kitchen. The experience revealed that the true heart of a recipe lives in the things we learn together—the techniques, textures, stories, and shared experience. In this talk, Staci shows how baking alongside someone we love passes down more than recipes; it preserves stories, tradition, and belonging.
The Illusion of Learning: The Cost of Effortless Answers
AI has fundamentally changed education. Students can now produce excellent work without understanding it. This creates a dangerous "illusion of learning," where students produce high-quality work without active cognitive engagement. To thrive in an AI-driven world, schools must urgently redesign how they measure understanding. Moving away from written submissions alone, educators must champion new methods of measuring learning such as verbal assessments, debate, and the real-time defense of ideas. Ultimately, while AI can generate answers effortlessly, it is our responsibility to generate thinkers who can explain, adapt, and reason under uncertainty.
Customer Culture
We've built a culture that treats leaders like products — rated, blamed, and discarded when they disappoint. But what does that cost the person inside the role? Drawing on a decade of confidential conversations with leaders across industries, Customer Culture exposes the hidden psychological toll of a world that demands everything from its leaders and gives almost nothing back — and issues an urgent call to replace a culture of consumption with one of community, before the wrong people are the only ones still willing to lead.
Photography by: Wes Eisenhauer Photography
