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13 June 2007
TEDGlobal: TED staff look back
TED’s Content Producer, Kelly Stoetzel, helps choose the speakers for every TED conference. She shares her thoughts after TEDGlobal 2007 — on the conference buzz, the connections and the small moments between the sessions:
I observed so many connections and conversations at the conference that felt like they were changing lives. Like William Kamkwamba, the kid who built his family a windmill. Tom Rielly showed him the Internet for the first time. He’d never seen it. Tom typed his name and “windmill” and said, “Look, this is all the information that’s on the web about *you*.” (As Ethan Zuckerman reports, the TEDGlobal community is getting together to help Kamkwamba get further education.)
It felt like the speakers were more remarkable as individuals, because of what they’ve had to overcome to achieve what they’ve achieved. Corneille Ewango is a perfect example. He has an accent, and he is a little shy, but people really connected with his story. It reminded me that we should take risks with speakers — if the story is great and hasn’t been heard, people will connect. I had to go on stage after William Kamkwamba, wearing a blindfold, to throw hats into the audience, but by the end of his talk, his story is so amazing, so inspiring, I was moved to tears — with a blindfold on!
Especially among the Fellows, there was a huge sense of connection, the optimism and the connections. All the people, all of them wanting to make a difference in the same area — it’ll be really interesting to watch.
Discuss this Blog Post
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Harris Pohl
Jun 15 2007Refugees of blue planet:
http://www.sundancechannel.com/films/500203156
http://www.sundancechannel.com/photos/bring_em_home/
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/103.html
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060807C.shtml
The mepire is dying, crumbling before our eyes. Lord help us!
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Harris Pohl
Jun 15 2007How about the TED community helping the families of the Blackwater workers fighting the war so as capitalism can make a profit and have oil to waste and pollute?
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Harris Pohl
Jun 15 2007Here are some heros that you could invite to speak in your TED events.
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Harris Pohl
” He’d never seen it. Tom typed his name and “windmill” and said, “Look, this is all the information that’s on the web about *you*.” (As Ethan Zuckerman reports, the TEDGlobal community is getting together to help Kamkwamba get further education.) ”
Great, however helping him alone and not addressing the fact that YOU contributed to the situation he lives in is just another form of exploitation and oppression.
The black kid now becomes a resource for your “need to feel good”.
It is like all the celebrities using Africa’s problems to further their agenda of being on the media.”
Remember “the right hand doesn’t need to know what the left hand is doing?”
A little bit too late to save globalization. Globalization of poverty, destruction of cultures and environment is far too gone to have “you” now come and singing the praises of the global citizen. The elite (YOU), movers and shakers of a defunct capitalism system, will not be able to stop the falling empire.
Look at this:
Look were western countries end.