With TEDxDetroit a few days away, we checked in with upcoming speaker Jeff Jorge, who is the vice president of business development for Billhighway.com. Billhighway is a fast-growing startup in southeast Michigan that links an organization’s bank account with its payments and accounting systems. Check out what Jeff had to say about the opportunity to speak at TEDx, the city of Detroit, and more:       

Please describe your previous experience with any TED conference

“Longstanding wish to attend and participate” is how I would describe my previous experience with TED. I have wanted to attend in previous years, but travel commitments kept me from going. I’ve done a lot of YouTube watching and soaking in the energy via the Web.

Can you give us a sneak peek at your positive idea you will share at the event?

Life shows us the way to extraordinary achievement in everyday events, and the triathlon – one of the world’s fastest-growing sports – is a great source of this type of insight. I will be sharing how lessons gleaned from the disciplines of swimming, biking and running – and the happiness/horror paradox in between – can help improve goal-setting, reach breakthrough results, rise above challenges and make a significant impact in the world around us. If we can apply these principles to our own lives to achieve the extraordinary, imagine if all of us channeled – and leveraged – such concepts for the betterment of our community and the world we touch.

What do you love most about the city of Detroit?

I love the urban waterfront setting, historical relevance and international border. Couple these traits with our remarkable, hard-working people, I find that there are few places where opportunity for transformational change is so palpable. It is rare to be in a time and place so filled with capable people who are re-defining the course of an entire region.

In your opinion, what do you think is in store for the city of Detroit?

What is in store will be defined by the decisions we make, individually and collectively, to shape the future of the city. There is a decision on whether to leverage all of the individual efforts happening throughout the city/region to make a transformative impact. There is a decision to continually push to revitalize and regain dominance in areas of macro-economic value. What’s in store can be awe-inspiring, but the outcome will be defined by our ability to cut through the resistance, leverage the collective power of multiple initiatives, talents, skills and people in the city, and be unapologetic in our effort to drive positive change.

How do you think TEDxDetroit will impact the city of Detroit and contibute to the overall goals of TED?

TEDxDetroit enables us to harness the power of so many great minds and hard-working hands to inspire thought, drive action and effect change, and what we do here can be replicated nearly anywhere in the world. Isn’t that a great idea worth spreading?

To hear Jeff share more about his positive ideas for the city of Detroit, as well as dozens of other fascinating speakers and artists, don’t miss this year’s TEDxDetroit conference at the Max M. Fisher Music Center on September 28.

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