Time flies! It’s been two and a half months since I moved to Detroit. For my second blog post, I decided to do a highlight review of October in Detroit.

As a big fan of TED talks, I had a fantabulous kickoff for my October at the TEDxDetroit conference on October 2 in Cobo Center. TEDx events are independent TED conferences organized by people who are passionate to inspire and get inspired by other people.

Every day I spend about 50 minutes driving to and from work in Farmington Hills, which makes it less likely for me to run into crowds of people than spending the same amount of time roaming in Downtown Detroit. Therefore, when I saw the entire hall filled with creative and energetic professionals, entrepreneurs, artists, technologists, thinkers and doers, I was thrilled.

Human TED “X” Sign

The TED “X” signs are 3-D printed and given out for free by Detroit Public Library at the conference. I did a rough calculation, the cost is around 20 cents plus 10 minutes.

My favorite talk was from this 10-year old Super Business Girl, Asia Newson.

Left: Asia’s Interview with Charlie Wollborg. Right: Asia selling candles in between different sessions at TEDxDetroit.

She is running a candle business by herself with Bamboo Detroit–a co-working space for entrepreneurs in Downtown Detroit–offering business advice and free office space to her. When Charlie Wollborg, the Executive Producer and Curator of TEDxDetroit, asked Newson what’s the right way to say her brand, Asia stood up straight, crossed her feet, raised her arm up and high, and called out “SUPER BUSINESS GIRL!” I am amazed that every single word that comes out of her mouth is filled with passion and energy. Which reminds me of another great TED talk  “How Great Leaders Inspire Action“by Simon Sinek and its message “People don’t buy what you sell, they buy WHY you sell.”

I am looking forward to see Asia achieving her goal–to open up a storefront in Dan Gilbert’s Compuware building(1:15 in the video). Go Super Business Girl! This is what we need in Detroit!

Let’s fast forward. On October 23, Challenge Detroit hosted the Year Two Fellowship Celebration at DTE Energy. I was honored to be given the opportunity to do a three-minute speech sharing about my life back home and how it parallels with Detroit today. Thank you Challenge Detroit for the opportunity. Although I have a fear for public speaking, I immediately said yes when Deirdre asked if I would like to speak. What’s the point of life if I don’t do something that scares me every day? (Yeah if you’ve heard this song before, you know what I’m talking about)

President and Co-Founder of Challenge Detroit, Doyle Mosher’s speech moved some of the audiences to tears.

Newly renovated auditorium at DTE Energy

I love working for my host company for two reasons. First, I love mango the fruit, second, I love languages, and I’m working for Mango Languages.

Left: me; Middle: An amazing Challenge Detroit fellow, Brandi Keeler. Right: Kirby Gwen from Power 96.5.

It was a great experience to challenge myself, to make connections, to learn about other Detroiters’ lives, and to simply see so many people showing up for Detroit.

October 25, the final presentation day of our first challenge! The first challenge was to help launch Bleeding.Heart.Design‘s community art projects into the Lindale Garden neighborhood. For this project, we had nine teams taking on different tasks, including community outreach, storytelling project, media relations, and so on. I worked on the mural team and created a list of local artists and other useful contacts for Bucky (Rebecca’s well-known nickname) to launch the mural project.

Founder of Bleeding.Heart.Design Rebecca Willis giving introduction on this project. (Photo Credit: Challenge Detroit’s Facebook Post by fellow Fares Ksebati)

Fellows working! (Photo Credit: Challenge Detroit’s Facebook Post by fellow Fares Ksebati)

Lindale Garden now (Photo Credit: Challenge Detroit’s tweet picture by fellow Fares Ksebati)

Lindale Garden Community Party

I’m not gonna lie to you, this is the first time in my life I tried a S’more.

Last but not the least, Halloween!

This is exactly why I love Mango. Yes we worked in our costumes the whole day.

An eventful October 🙂