Taka writes about his experience with TEDx:

TED is an organisation that holds TED conferences under the theme that ideas are worth spreading. The conference takes place in the US once in a year, and there are some varieties of TED-related events including TEDGlobal and TEDx. Japan has been very interested in TED and is very keen to develop it in Japan, which bears a fruit as a form of 'TEDx.'
Nagoya University has hosted one of the TEDx events since last October, and there will be the 2nd TEDxNagoyaU in July, 2014. I, as a 5th year, applied to it to put across what I have studied in university, what I have found in Britain and other European countries, and what I have experienced in ATP (Australian Teaching Practice) in 2013. At first, I wrote a resume to summarise my idea and the board would select 10 candidates out of 17 to go onto the 2nd stage, the audition. Fortunately, I passed it to get to the next stage.
The audition took place on 1st June. There were 10 distinguished speakers representing the ideas worth spreading. It was marvelous for me to talk to the people that I would not have been able to meet if I had just kept staying in my university. Some were representatives of organisations, some already worked using state-of-the-art technology,others had wonderful experiences overseas. I was totally knocked out at first by their brilliant ideas, their confidence and the beautiful slides used in their presentations, as I did not use any slides.
Interestingly, 2 of us spoke English in their speeches. What's more, a female speaker took exactly the same topic as I had!
In the end, I happened to be picked as one of the finalists and I was lucky enough to go on to TEDxNagoyaU. The other one was a high school boy! A high school boy fascinated  people with his presentation! I could not even make a speech in front of a class when I was in high school... Anyway, I am very happy to be amongst such brilliant speakers and to have a chance to have a chat with them in person.
TEDx lets me realise that a university does not have 'universe.' If we get out of our limited space, there will be the world. The world keeps going on without informing us, and we must catch them up!