In its perpetual quest for advancement, TED and its progeny reach further.

TED has come a long way. The Technology, Entertainment and Design events have evolved from secretive brain trust conferences that began in Monterey in 1990 (co-founded by Pebble Beach resident Harry Marks) to today’s global multimedia movement tasked with disseminating “ideas worth spreading.” The main conference has spawned franchises: TEDGlobal, TEDx, TEDWomen, TEDYouth, TEDRadio. TED Talks, about 18 minutes apiece, are online staples of intelligent and inspiring content, viewed now 1 billion times. They’ve been the platform for a deluge of ideas and inventions: Julian Assange explaining Wikileaks in 2010 (before it went world famous); brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor’s surreal description of her massive stroke; Jeff Han’s multi-touch display monitor a full year before the iPhone.

But of the 1,500 viewable TED Talks, the one that seems to have given the most momentum to this Friday’s TEDxMontereyWomen at the Monterey Institute of International Studies is Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on “why we have too few women leaders.”

Her 2010 talk ties together anecdote, data, feminism and smarts in examining perverse inequities, like women accounting for only nine of 190 heads of state, 13 percent of the world’s parliamentary bodies, and 15 percent of CEOs. She extracts from her own career some solutions. One of them is “sit at the table.”

MIIS has hosted TEDxMonterey – all-day multimedia presentations by local idea makers – each April since 2010, assembled by volunteers who got a license from TED to stage an independently organized TEDx (there are 150 of them worldwide). Last year’s event, themed “Sea Change,” was curated by Eva Gudbergsdottir, the school’s associate director of communications. She’s one of the three volunteers putting on TEDxMontereyWomen.

The other organizers are Michele Swanston, who Gudbergsdottir calls “a force of nature,” and Bob Cole, the director of the vibrant Digital Learning Commons at MIIS.

The first part will consist of a pre-recorded stream of the second session of TEDWomen hosted by Pat Mitchell, president and CEO or the Paley Center for Media, at the SFJazz Center. Among the speakers there (and streamed here) are speech scientist Rupal Patel, singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero, and tech entrepreneur and TED senior fellow Juliana Rotich. Then, three local women presenters appear on stage: Andrea Stachnik, the founder of the nonprofit Unmarked Streets; Arts Council for Monterey County executive director Paulette Lynch (a 1985 MIIS graduate); and former produce executive and current philanthropist Tonya Antle. It will wrap with a networking reception hosted by the Women’s Empowerment Project. The presenters get 10 minutes, no Q&A.

“The idea,” Gudbergsdottir says, “is everyone spills out into the networking. Who knows where that will lead.”

It’s not an all-women affair: The San Francisco TEDWomen conference features two men, and TEDxMontereyWomen is hosted by poet and educator Garland Thompson. But it is an event that lifts the visibility of women and augments their influence. Antle, recently retired as Vice President of Organic Sales for Earthbound Farms, is familiar with the theme.

“When you look at TEDx, it’s an idea worth spreading,” Antle says, “and mine is the intersection of the world of poverty – and women are the face of poverty in Monterey County – and the power of philanthropy.”

After 30 years in the produce industry, Antle decided it was time to give back. She went to a breakfast sponsored by the Community Foundation for Monterey County and discovered its Women’s Fund initiative called Girls’ Health in Girls’ Hands, a leadership program created by 18 young women in South County.

“They shared their story of overcoming their own obstacle through training, mentoring and education,” Antle says. “I asked what their goals were: To stay out of gangs, to not get pregnant, and to graduate high school. But they went further. Many of them went to college. I asked what was the catalyst. Once they realized they had conquered those three goals, they asked, ‘Why stop here?’”

That’s the theme of Antle’s presentation: “Why Stop Here?” She’ll present statistics and facts about poverty in Monterey County, and deliver a call to action. Her response was to serve on the board of the Foundation and chair its 1.5 million dollar endowment campaign for the Women’s Fund. Others’ response will come in varying scale or timing, like that of presenter Andrea Stachnik, whose Unmarked Streets nonprofit helps women in Guatemala be more self-sufficient. Or in some as-yet undreamed or undiscovered invention that marries creativity and need. That’s the part of the event that might be the most potent – that x factor that can spark when the right elements are brought together in the same room.

TEDxMontereyWomen takes place 3:45-7pm Friday at Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Irvine Auditorium, 499 Pierce St., Monterey. $20/adult; $10/student with ID. Register at TEDxMonterey.org