Mark Paz

Artist, Care taker, Connector, Designer, Educator/Teacher, Explorer, Idea generator, Producer, Project manager

I absolutely love being involved in TEDxTexasStateUniversity. When TED Headquarters finally releases the speaker videos, I get a rush seeing how well my speakers do, and I am excited at the possibility that my coaching helped them, even if just a little bit. I truly love working with people. I also enjoy helping students design logos, promotional materials, name badges, and programs. Not only do I get the chance to be creative with another person and share ideas, but I also get to work with and mentor students. I truly love working with students. Finally, I really get a kick out of thinking up ideas for set design and using my hands to build them. Having something in your mind and being able to make it tangible is super awesome. I love building things. I love figuring out way to make things work on limited budgets and materials. I love the challenge of building something that will fit in with the theme of our event. I have served Tedx Texas State University in some capacity since it’s inception in 2016. I began as speaker coach and continued to get more involved, later serving as the creative director and stage design lead.

People! The interactions we have help to create who we are. It important that we learn from the people around us because they shape us and how we see the world. The more we can learn about people who are different than us, the more knowledge we have at our disposal to tackle the world's problems...and there are a lot of them, but none of them are insurmountable!

I think an idea worth spreading is all about the 3 Bs. Be cool. Be teachable. Beyonce.

Being a Good Human, Creative Design, Interpersonal Communication and Relationship Management, Mentorship of Student Interns and Volunteers, Public Speaking Teaching and Coaching

TEDxTexasStateUniversity has given me the opportunity to meet and coach many brilliant and creative minds. Over the past eight years of our event, I have coached 17 speakers. I have coached fellow faculty members, community leaders, and even kids, including a former winner of Master Chef Junior. I love public speaking and hope to give a TED Talk one day, and the speakers I have worked with have helped to motivate me to work toward those goals. Yes, I began as speaker coach, but insisted on becoming more involved. This led to serving as the creative director and stage design lead. I get to be creative in designing and producing logos, programs, activations, and stage design. Having something in your mind and being able to make it tangible is super awesome. I love building things. I love figuring out ways to make things work on limited budgets and materials. I love the challenge of building something that will fit in with the theme of our event. I love working with my hands, and TEDx has allowed me to do that as part of my job. Are you kidding me!?! In my role as the Creative director for the event, I have the privilege to work with graduate and undergraduate student interns. We are responsible for creating the look and feel of the event each year. We design logos and the program for the event. We also work together to come up activations for the event that will get the attendees discussing the ideas from the talks. I also work with the students to design and build the set that you will see at the event, which is completely new and different each year as we attempt to coincide with each event’s different theme. This helps to teach these interns creativity, problem-solving, and physical skills they might not learn in the classroom. This makes them more well-rounded individuals. I really enjoy my time in this role.

a little bit of everything. Really, I think I have been blessed with an ability to learn. Because I am curious and inquisitive, learning is a passion that never ends for me. I am luck to pick things up quickly. I'm not the best at everything, but I really believe I can do anything...except for dunk a basketball!