Meg Arnold has had two careers so far, each about ten years long. In the most recent decade, she has worked to support and foster the growth and success of entrepreneur and emerging growth technology companies in the Sacramento area, first at UC Davis and currently at the Sacramento Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA). In the course of that work, she has come to be a strong believer in a few key ingredients: the need for true, trust-based collaboration; the value of lessons learned through failure; and the critical role that a real sense of community among like-minded enterprises plays in creating and underscoring successes. In the first decade of her career, Meg worked in corporate strategy and business development in the telecommunications industry, with AT&T in Canada and with British Telecom in the UK, as well as with the Royal Bank of Canada as a lender to telecom companies, and with The Monitor Company as a management consultant to the industry. Meg has an undergraduate degree in English, which enables her to speak and write in complete sentences, and a master's in business, which enables her to add up numbers using complex spreadsheet models.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)