Arthur Zards is stepping down from his role as founder, executive director and curator for TEDxNaperville, ending Naperville’s version of the popular speaker series to shift to a new venture focused on artificial intelligence.
“The event has been quiet for some time now, and it feels right to mark this moment as a sunset rather than let it drift without acknowledgment,” Zards wrote in a newsletter sent out Tuesday.
In a conversation with the Naperville Sun on Wednesday, Zards said the primary reason behind his decision was financial.
“The hard part is that nobody ever gets paid for it. A lot of people don’t know that nobody gets paid for TEDxNaperville. Speakers don’t get paid. I don’t get paid. Nobody on the leadership team where the volunteers get paid,” Zards said. “That also led to me having to exit because I need to focus on revenue for myself or for my family and the volunteers.”
Funding the TEDxNaperville events has become more difficult in recent years. Zards’ storytelling company Lab Z would subsidize part of the speaker events, but sponsors and partnerships would also play a big role in financially supporting the events.
“The goal was to make enough money that we don’t lose money and we just eat that out, because we put on a pretty big production,” he said. “And our heyday before COVID, you know, it’s an 850-person event with high level, top quality food, entertainment … the video production costs were huge.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Zards said he had up to 20 sponsors he was working with, but those sponsorships started to drop off drastically after the pandemic.
“It’s a labor of love. But you know, as people in nonprofits and volunteers know, energy and passion and love will link it just so far. You need to be financially viable,” Zards said.
Launched in 2010, TEDxNaperville for years had attracted hundreds of people to town to hear from and interact with local figures of note ranging from astronauts and artists to doctors and musicians.
Zards started TEDxNaperville because he would always see articles about Naperville being one of the top cities to live in and one of the best places to raise a family, but did not see any information about the projects or ideas people in Naperville were pursuing.
“I was ticked off at all these stupid corporate events and trade shows I’d go to where everybody’s trying to sell you something, everybody’s got an agenda,” Zards said. “And I’m like, ‘What if I create an event where … you do everything you can to get people to be human.’”
TEDxNaperville is a local version of events like it held across the globe. Independently run and organized, TEDx events — as had been the case for Zards’ installation — feature live speakers and recorded talks. They operate under a free license granted by the nonprofit TED, which has a long list of programs and initiatives all focused on a central mission to discover and spread ideas. TED talks receive billions of views on YouTube.
TEDxNaperville has faced challenges in recent years. Typically, TEDxNaperville hosts a major speaker conference in the fall. In 2020, the pandemic forced the annual conference to go virtual.
“I would argue that even during COVID, we were at our peak, because what happened in the industry in 2020 and 2021 is a lot of people just shut their events down or they put them on pause, and we actually doubled down. We said, ‘No, our community needs to have an event,’” Zards said.
For the next two years, the event returned to in-person but in a smaller, more conversational format. In 2023, the annual fall conference was canceled, but the TEDxNaperville team at the time said they would bring back the event the following year, promising a bigger and better event.
But once 2024 rolled around, the event was canceled once again. At the time, Zards said he was the only one working on the TEDxNaperville team, a significant drop from the 12-person leadership team and 75 volunteers that would help out. Despite the cancellations, TEDxNaperville would occasionally host smaller speaker salons, but a fresh start for the program was needed.
Now, Zards has decided that he wants to shift his focus elsewhere. He is launching a new endeavor similar to TEDxNaperville called Vibe with AI.
“I have a heavy tech background and I’ve done a lot of speaking on AI and communication, and there’s a lot of fear and anxiety across the board around artificial intelligence,” Zards said. “The best cure for that is to get people together, to talk about it, to network together, to learn together. And I’m doing a similar, inspired format from the TED world.”
Hosted in partnership with Benedictine University in Lisle, the first event will be on Jan. 27. It will include a mix of short talks, interactive workshops and guided conversations.
“I really think Naperville can be a focal point for, ultimately, an AI conference similar to TEDxNaperville, where we have the best and brightest, young and old, that come here and share their ideas on what’s happening with artificial intelligence,” Zards said.
As for the future of TEDxNaperville, Zards said he tried to work with other entities to try to take it over, but none of them panned it out. He is still open to the idea of someone else taking over TEDxNaperville.
“If there’s some benefactor who wants to come in with some money to fund it, it could definitely come back pretty quickly,” he said.
cstein@chicagotribune.com
