Inspiring through entrepreneurial spirit

As part of an ongoing workshop series put on by Wilfrid Laurier University campus club ACCESS U, Ramy Nassar, executive director and co-host of TEDxWaterloo, spoke at WLU Tuesday night in the Student Leadership Centre. Nassar entertained attendees with candid memories of TED events, inspirational entrepreneurial spirit and career advice.

With an introduction from Frances Humphreys, manager of career development from the Laurier Career Development Centre, Nassar explained how TED talks effectively inspire and lead through critical engagement and discussion. He recounted the history of TED and TEDxWaterloo, urging his audience to broaden their dreams instead of restricting oneself to a job description.

ACCESS U president Jon Pryce was not only impressed by the turnout, but motivated to bring the lessons from the workshop to the community and abroad. “The workshops are all about educating, so that you can help educate people in the developing world through donations and coming to these workshops,” he said.

“This is the major purpose of these workshops, the theme is to educate by helping others and helping you at the same time,” he added.

It was more than just about humble beginnings for TEDxWaterloo and Nassar’s other projects, it was about creating something and sharing it with others.

“Ideas worth spreading. It’s such a powerful sentence of three words, who knew in 2005 they were going to start something like this.” Nassar said, reminding his audience that while there’s value in planning, life lies in the actions we take.

“It’s that entrepreneurial spirit within [Nassar] that keeps this going. I want to show people who are interested in this, especially people in ACCESS U, that these are the things that help you become a world leader. That’s what ACCESS U is all about,” Pryce explained.

ACCESS U, while still relatively new as a club at Laurier, has sent students abroad to Haiti to help children gain access to education by funding a library and resource centre.

Nassar is also an outreach director for Shad Valley International, has worked as senior manager for RIM and also an embedded software engineer for LSI Logic located in Waterloo.