The first cross-border TEDx event took place Friday at the border between San Diego and Tijuana with the theme “Ideas Without Borders.”
Eleven speakers took the stage on either side of the border, giving speeches in Spanish and English about shared art, ecology, education, business and other topics.
Audiences glimpsed each other through small holes in the steel border fence.
“You can put up walls and fences, you can have rules and regulations, but you’re never going to stop cultures from exchanging ideas and learning how to live with each other,” said Mark Lovett, chief architect of the event.
The event was dubbed TEDxMonumento258 for the historic obelisk on site. The monument was the first point of demarcation between the U.S. and Mexico, erected after the 1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican-American War.
“What we show here today can be an example for other people in the rest of the world, to demonstrate that when two very different cultures make the decision to work together, they can accomplish great things,” he said.
San Diego City Council President Sherry Lightner helped introduce the event by discussing the progress of the region in terms of collaboration.
"We are entering a period of unprecedented cooperation at all levels of government (between Tijuana and San Diego)," she said. "Our chambers of commerce, our economic development corporations, and our elected officials are contributing efforts."
She described San Diego and Tijuana as a "mega-region, poised to become the leader in multiple industries, especially technology. What is good for our cities is good for our region, and what is good for our region is good for our cities."
Among the speakers at the event was Roxana Velasquez, executive director of the San Diego Museum of Art. In her speech, she discussed works of art that embody this idea of cultural exchange.
“Art is one of those things that knows nothing about borders,” she said in an interview. “Art goes beyond borders. The best civilizations have been the result of mosaics, a combination of ideas.”
Paola Avila, vice president of international business affairs for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, was among the audience members on the U.S. side of the event. She said she was interested in the TEDx event because of how appropriate she felt it was for the region.
“This is the perfect place to do it,” she said. “Where else but in a bi-national region that really has shown a collaborative spirit, where two sides come together and demonstrate that the fence is not seen as a boundary but as a crossing that’s meant to exchange ideas, people and goods?”
Unknown pilots flying motorized paragliders back and forth across the border prior to the event caused a few minutes of concern for the U.S. Border Patrol, which gave permission for the TEDx event to take place. But the paragliders eventually disappeared into Mexico.
“Once they return to Mexico, there’s nothing we can do to follow up, unfortunately,” said U.S. Border Patrol agent Craig Caeser.
