Meet Kush Rama and Richa Patel

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Kush Rama–

I took on the role of Co-President at TEDxWestoverHills because I wanted to raise awareness about the latest ideas around collaboration. The inspiration for this theme originated from an experience I had in high school –

To adequately prepare for my Speech & Debate competitions, I had to be up to date with the news. I read several news articles from the New York Times, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Economist, BBC, Wall Street Journal, and many more. At the time, I felt like I knew almost every political event that occurred and that my political views were the “most informed.”

I didn’t realize the effect this preparation had on my way of speaking when I had casual conversations during my after-school practices or just with friends or family. I remember one particular interaction with a friend very clearly. I had said, “I can’t believe anybody would support this candidate; they must not know anything.” My friend looked agitated, and I could not understand why. He stopped talking to me for a couple of days until I asked him what happened. It turned out that his dad supported the candidate I mentioned earlier, and he thought I was calling his dad incompetent. This experience highlights how easy it is to turn a political conversation sour, it only took 5 seconds. After this incident, I became more aware of what I was saying and rephrased my views to respect those who I spoke with.

Just like how I had initially struggled with communicating about politics to my friends and family, I saw many others share the same experience as me. Misunderstandings are quite common during conversations regarding politics, and it can be a hard topic to talk about.

I often found people avoiding political conversations because it had made them uncomfortable in the past. I believe avoiding these conversations further fuels division in our community since we do not take the time to understand the opposing view, and it leaves room for assumptions to be made as to why someone may hold a certain belief. So how can we bring people together with differing views? How could we all benefit from that? Those questions are exactly what I wanted to answer with our theme “Better Together”. I recruited 6 speakers from across the nation to talk about different dimensions and applications of collaboration in your social life and work. I hope the event inspired others to create stronger bonds between people with differing views.

Working in event management is something I have unconsciously fallen into since my undergraduate studies. I have been organized in many different ways, and when putting together this event, it was more exciting than it was stressful. I love seeing progress from the beginning to the end of an event like this. Working with the TEDxWestoverHills license was really exciting because it was my first professional event. The experience I had in college was on a much different scale, but now I can say that it was worth everything.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Kush Rama –

It has been far from a smooth road on our journey to put on this event. I remember 7-8 months ago we had considered postponing the event by a year because nothing was going our way. Initially, we struggled with recruiting team members and gathering sponsorships, and those parts made up the foundations for a successful TEDx event.

Despite all the things going wrong, I persisted. I knew it was possible, but I needed to adapt my strategy until we were successful. Although a couple of our newer approaches did not work out, we eventually found something that did work. We recruited three members, who brought on four more members each. With more helping hands, we were able to quickly expand our reach and the size of our team in a matter of weeks. Our email and social media inboxes started to flood with several speaker applications around the same time, and we also figured out our sponsorship situation. It seemed like a complete 180 happened, and the idea of postponing the event was no longer considered.

There were more bumps along the road, but I was determined to make this event happen. I was deeply connected with the theme of our event and the impact it could have on our local community and, eventually, across the globe once the videos were uploaded to YouTube. Whenever there was a barrier, I thought of my end goal of helping people to be better collaborators, and that helped me push through the problems we encountered while planning this event. The simple thought of achieving my end goal motivated me to work hard, even if it meant sacrificing some of my free time. I am glad we persisted on having this event occur this year; otherwise, we would have missed out on this amazing journey.

Richa Patel –

I think there were definitely some struggles when we were building this out. Our steering committee were mostly all composed of students either in medical school or their master’s program. Having a timetable that fits everyone’s schedule was difficult, as well as finding individuals who would be willing to commit their time to be a part of this event. I think finding a balance between school and figuring out the priorities was a challenge as well, but it wasn’t anything that didn’t sort out in the end.

 As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
Kush Rama –

I am a third-year medical student pursuing a dual degree at UNTHSC to practice both medicine and public health. I aspire to create systematic changes to improve the delivery of healthcare for the local communities I practice in. I am particularly interested in improving healthcare delivery in hospital settings and improving medical student/physician wellness.

I am invested in the wellness area because burnout (emotional exhaustion) is very prevalent in the medical community, and it can also affect the quality of patient care. I have created a program to help my medical school improve wellness with a pre-matriculation course. Learn more about the course with the link below –

https://www.unthsc.edu/newsroom/story/a-passion-for-preventative-medicine-leads-tcom-student-to-help-incoming-medical-students/

In terms of next steps, I plan to build a wellness committee for our school to monitor long-term health outcomes, innovate and establish the best practices for maintaining student wellness, and to unify the existing wellness organizations at my school toward common goals of improvement. I want to use the lessons I have learned from our TEDx event to work toward a collaborative solution between students, professors/faculty, and administrators.

Richa Patel –

I am an alumni of the University of North Texas Health Science Center. I graduated from the School of Public Health with a Master in Health Administration. I wanted to pursue a career in healthcare consulting, and I am currently working at Willis Towers Watson in their Health and Benefits line of business. I am very proud of how I got here due to my support system. I have been in various leadership positions throughout my education, and at times when I get overwhelmed, I have a very strong family and friend foundation that reminds me of how I got there in the first place. My friends know me as the girl who has the “go-getter” personality. I will always strive towards staying active and have my hands full at all times.

 Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Kush Rama –

When you are feeling stuck, remember why you started what you are doing. Keep working toward your goals and adapt to the situation you are in. Take time to innovate solutions that could help you move forward, think outside of the box, and explore new horizons. I know this can be hard to do alone, so consult the AI tools, the internet, mentors, friends/family, etc, when you have exhausted all the ideas you could think of alone. Your determination will unlock new doors!

Check out our TEDx website to see when our event videos will be posted to YouTube.

Richa Patel –

I just want to say that at the moment putting together any type of event seems to be scary, but for those who are truly interested in getting involved in this, then they should take the risk. I did not think I would have the opportunity to get involved in event management outside of college, but when this opportunity came across me, I jumped for it. I had a great time working through this and would highly encourage others as well.