TedX Berlin Personal Review | 16.11.2010
Yesterday, I was at TedXBerlin. It was my second TedX Conference after the TedXHamburg this year. And again it was a great experience, there were great talks (and only few mediocre ones). After the conference I feel so much positive energy to do the right things – just the right mood to start the planning of the next year :-) In Germany many people are moaning and lamenting at a very high level. And speaking about social issues, they keep waiting and pointing at governments and banks. I found it fascinating that at TedX, no one called for regulations or governmental actions. Instead, they called for fair markets and entrepreneurship, for private initiative.
So, all talks will be online as videos, but for now, what were the highlights for me? In sum, the talks that really got me were all about structure and communication. Very interesting: These are the things I could also provide – from my safe place here in Germany, with my company and network.
Simon Berry: Colalife
The organizers of TedXBerlin always try to find projects and people that are surprising to the audience and this was one of the talks my feeling was: I should have heard about it. Colalife is the idea to use the distribution chain of Coca Cola to bring medicine to the most inaccessible areas. Because at the moment, at this places you’ll find no medicine, but Coca Cola. What was most interesting for me was the fact that to make this model work, needs have to be transformed into demand, and the supply chain has to have a benefit for all distributors. Read more on http://www.colalife.org
Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education (video)
At tedxhamburg I was sceptic about the video presentations. But they were great, and this one was also. I knew about the “hole in the wall”-concept where computers with internet but without instruction were left in areas which no teacher can reach (India). It appears that the kids will teach themselves to use the computer and the internet to learn. But this talk showed that even more difficult tasks could be solved by kids with a computer, without knowing English at all. See for yourself.
Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution (video)
This was just a great speaker, but also with important points: He claims for de-industrialization of education. Instead of the linear model of “producing” educated people, we should move to a model based more on principles of agriculture, creating condition under which people will flourish. This is just great because it’s the opposite of what many countries (including Germany) try to do. Sir Robinson ends with a poem, concluding: “[...] every day, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet. And we should tread softly”. The video.
Maha Alusi: Moments of happiness
Someone on twitter (@chartmann) said: “Maha Alusi made my day”. And that’s it, she’s a great storyteller. I’m not. So please wait for the video.
Maritta v. B. Koch-Weser: Wake up call for rainforest markets
This was one call for a market structure for rainforest products. Also very interesting that this really is the way to prevent further rainforest deforestation.
Jessica Jackley: Poverty, Money and Love (video)
Very emotional talk about the relationship of “the poor” and “the rich” and the great platform kiva.org. The video.
Other great talks
With my email inbox filling up, I have to close this short review. The scientific talks were also great:
- Achim Peters: Examining the reasons for obesity, hardware and software failures in the amygdala (hey, something biological in my language)
- Philipp Selenko: About molecular architecture
But also the short talks about specific applications are worth mentioning:
- Raul Krauthausen: Wheelmap.org – an online service to mark restaurants and other facilities as handicapped accessible. In Ahrensburg everything is grey…
- Sebastian Dittmann: Soundprism – with this tool even I could understood harmonics, it visually shows the coherences. Not enough reasons to buy an iPad, though. Android please!
And a choir!
As a former (or to say occasional?) choir singer, I was sceptic about the last talk, “Broadening the Scope of Choral Music”. But Simon Halsey, principal conductor of the Rundfunkchor Berlin, managed a 450 people audience to sing Carmina Burana. In 18 minutes. He really showed some important aspects of choir singing in that time. What was really great to see was that this man just has the right job.