About TEDxAkron

Originally founded and organized in 2011, TEDxAkron was created to reflect our community’s rich diversity and curiosity. After a successful return to the stage in 2024 – with new leadership, a new attitude, but the same inclusive passion for showcasing Akron’s diverse voices, views, and spirit – we are excited to return on Saturday, September 13th, 2025 at The Knight Stage at The Akron Civic Theater with 10 new speakers and a riveting new theme to explore.

2025’s“Shaking The Rules” is an opportunity to bring members of the Akron community together to be bold and discuss big ideas and philosophies that will inspire and impact the greater Akron community – and even the wider world! And we’d love to have you join us as an esteemed partner.

This year’s theme of “Shaking The Rules”

Some rules are made to be followed. Others are meant to be challenged, reimagined, or reshaped. Thankfully, Akron is a city of rule-makers, breakers, benders, and—most importantly—shakers. This year’s TEDxAkron event invites speakers who have questioned the status quo, redefined boundaries, or seen the world through a different lens. 2025’s “Shaking the Rules” isn’t just about rebellion—it’s about vision, exploration, and the courage to ask, What if? From bold innovations to quiet revolutions, from rethinking history to redesigning the future, our speakers will explore the gray spaces where transformation happens. Because sometimes, progress isn’t about breaking the rules—it’s about shaking them.

This year’s TEDxAkron event will feature 10 amazing, diverse greater Akron community members who will bring their whole self to the TEDxAkron stage to share big ideas and personal philosophies to excite and shake the community with their world-changing visions and viewpoints.

Why partner with TEDxAkron?

Partnering with TEDxAkron allows you to locally align yourself, business, or organization with one of the world’s most respected brands and reach a large, highly educated, community-minded audience on the day of the event and beyond. Your partnership allows you to engage in an authentic dialogue with an inclusive, inventive, and passionate community of leaders, speakers, presenters, and engaged participants. Becoming a TEDxAkron Partner means you share in our vision of spreading ideas that inspire and impact the greater Akron community and the world for the better.

YOUR SPONSORSHIP OF TEDXAKRON ALSO HELPS MAKE GREATER AKRON A BIGGER, SMARTER, MORE WONDERFUL PLACE TO LIVE

2025 PARTNERSHIP LEVELS

TEDxAkron events reflect our community’s rich diversity and curiosity, and are independently organized by local leaders whom The TED Foundation licenses. These events benefit partners and the greater community alike in several ways:

• Showcasing Inspired Local Talent: TEDxAkron events feature a diverse range of local speakers who share their ideas, experiences, and expertise on various subjects. This helps shine a spotlight on the talent and expertise present within the greater Akron community, boosting the recognition and appreciation of local achievements, inspiring and educating the community, and fostering a culture of lifelong learning and personal growth.

• Ideas, Innovation & Catalysts for Change: TEDxAkron events often showcase cutting-edge ideas, innovations, and unconventional perspectives. TEDxAkron Speakers often address societal challenges, presenting potential solutions and thought-provoking perspectives. These talks can catalyze positive change within the community by raising awareness, stimulating creative thinking within our community,  encouraging collective action, leading to the exciting development of new projects, businesses, or solutions to local challenges.

• Community Engagement & Networking: Attending a TEDxAkron event strengthens the sense of community among Speakers and event participants, providing a platform for residents, local leaders, and organizations to come together, fostering a stronger bond and shared sense of purpose. While at the same time, TEDxAkron brings together people from all fields, backgrounds, and experiences, enabling networking opportunities with like-minded individuals, experts, and potential collaborators.

• Promotion of Critical Thinking & Educational Enhancement: TEDx talks encourage critical thinking and open dialogue. By exposing the community to a variety of viewpoints and ideas, these events can help community members become more discerning and open-minded. Additionally, TEDxAkron Speaker videos can be integrated into professional and educational experiences, offering viewers a chance to engage with real-world ideas and experiences within and beyond their workplaces or textbooks from members of our own community.

• Long-lasting Brand and Reputation Building: Partners and supporters of TEDxAkron are actively enhancing their reputation within the community and beyond. It demonstrates a commitment to knowledge sharing, innovation, and community engagement. All TEDxAkron Speakers videos can be accessed online in perpetuity, providing a lasting resource for our community—and often the world—to revisit and share with others. This extends our event's impact well beyond its physical presence and into the public consciousness.

TEDxAkron is a small stage with a big reach.

As a partner, you’ll be reaching an engaged audience on the day of the event and beyond. Partners are recognized throughout the year in the press, on our website, and across our social media. But the biggest recognition comes after the event, and for years to come, through online views of TEDxAkron Speaker videos that become formally shared by the TEDx Global Team to a worldwide audience of 36 million subscribers.

This is what makes partnership with TEDxAkron so special and highly unusual: for a local Akron event and its local speakers—and many of its partners—to be seen by the world in perpetuity. Speaker videos at our 2024 event have generated more than 25,000 views to date in just a few months. And since our inception in 2011, TEDxAkron Speaker videos have collectively been viewed more than 1.5 million times.

No matter if you’re interested in securing a Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Ruby Partnership – or simply considering a general admission or VIP event ticket – TEDxAkron is excited about your participation. The success of TEDxAkron is due not only to inspired speakers, enthusiastic stakeholders and dedicated, hardworking volunteers, but to the generous financial partners who make this event possible.

Thank you for considering becoming a partner or returning as a partner in 2025

Visit our Partnership Page to see who you’ll be proudly joining as a sponsor of this year’s event!

To secure your partnership, Click here or reach out directly to Ben Bisbee, Co-Organizer at benbisbee@txakron.org or 330-388-3181