Perhaps you’ve heard about TED, the annual conferences that “bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less).” It’s a nonprofit with the mission to spread ideas—and to that end they give the best of TED away free as videos on the site. I’ve watched a few here and there and it’s pretty good stuff, impressive.

And now Bend is getting its own: TEDxBend, that’s taking place on Saturday, April 28th.

Sparked by the celebrated TED conferences worldwide, TEDxBend is our very own locally organized, half-day event, featuring a dozen talks, demonstrations and performances under 18 minutes each, on the theme, Bending Rules. TED is nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.

It’s taking place at the Summit High School auditorium, starting at 1pm, with a party afterward (details on that are still pending).

The speakers they have lined up so far include:

• Blake Canterbury
• Raj Dhingra
• Myrlie Evers-Williams
• David Hume Kennerly
• Wren LaFeet
• Malerie Pratt
• Sidney Rittenberg

It’s not a particularly cheap event—tickets are $55 for the main TEDxBend event, and $25 for the afterparty—but if you can swing it, it will be well worth it. And, they are extremely limited as well: as of this writing there are only four tickets each still available.

Oh, and one other thing too: the TEDxBend folks have also been hosting a series of “TEDtalk Video Nights” once a month leading up to the main event, where they show curated TED videos on a common theme—and these events are free to attend. In fact this month’s event takes place tonight and the theme is “Creativity Unleashed”; it’s taking place at The Blacksmith from 6 to 7:30pm. If you’re curious about TED, you should check it out (and get to talk with similarly-curious folks).