Initial sketch above: Click to pop this image to FULL SIZE!

And see the final image below or here.

Nat Al-Tahhan is a graphic designer and illustrator based in the UK, with a wide background in creative endeavors, including the design of video games, podcast illustration, and live drawing, among other things. We were lucky enough to have Nat join us in Long Beach this year to do some live-drawing of the TED2012 sessions. And really, what a masterpiece it has become.

For the past four days, Nat has barely moved from the same chair in the Creativity Lab simulcast space as she sketches out clever doodles and quotes from our mainstage speakers. She’s drawn quite a bit of attention, and many TEDsters have found it just as interesting to watch her draw the talks as it is to listen to speakers themselves.

Read Nat’s blog about her week at TED2012 >>

We encourage you to take a close look at the Full Spectrum sketch above and the amazing full-color finished version below. See more of Nat’s work here and follow her on Twitter @NatAltDesign for other artistic insights.

What about this particular art form inspires you?

We’re all familiar with methods of capturing and documenting experiences; photography, film, written notes. I really enjoy embedding my experiences through diagrams and illustrations, there and then, and it turns out other people enjoy it too: both to look over my shoulder and to refer to it afterwards. 

What has your process been for live drawing at TED this year?

The idea is to end up with one long piece, with indistinct divisions so you’ve got this epic, almost overwhelming mass of information in front of you and you can dive in wherever you want to relive that memory.

What has your favorite TED moment been so far?

I have a new favourite moment every five minutes! The 12-year-old boy in me squealed in delight at the musical cockroach amputation. I’ve also really enjoyed the Design Studio session today, as it’s always great when great designers invite us into their minds.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Ken Mogi, a Ph.D and researcher from the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Tokyo, bears a flag nearly twice his height, bright blue, covered with images of koi fish and Japanese letters. He begins by reminding us about a tragically transformative day in his country on March 11, 2011 that would change tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives, forever.

The 9.0 earthquake struck about 40 miles east of Oshika, Japan, killing nearly 16,000 people and injuring and displacing thousands more. To make matters even worse, the tsunami’s disastrous tendrils reached the Fukishima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, creating an international nuclear disaster that would have enormous economic and social consequences, beyond the enormous death toll, for Japan and the rest of the world.

Scientists, Mogi shares, said it was a once-in-a-thousand-years event. The tsunami washed away colorful houses and communities. Children cried, while their parents could do nothing but comfort them. Tens of thousands lost their loved ones, their homes, and their way of life.

In memory of those who lost their lives in the earthquake and tsunami, Ken asks us to take a moment of silence. Quiet falls over the theater like a wave, as we remember the terrible day almost one year ago.

Returning to his talk, Mogi shares a slide with a saying used by Japanese fisherman. “Under the board, there is hell.”  These fisherman have a deep respect and healthy cautiousness of the ocean; for, beneath the safety of the boat itself lies a sea of turmoil, which could rear its ugly head at any moment, despite being a source of beauty and calm during moments of light. Once Mother Nature gets angry, says Mogi, there is nothing you can do about it.

Yet, every day, fisherman venture off into the ocean to make their living.

As the world becomes smaller, we are feeling the newly emerging oceans arise, yet, like the fisherman, we never give up. We proceed with a new understanding of how to live longer and better. Risk and uncertainties are the mothers of hope and wisdom.

Mogi alludes to the flag in his hand as being a gift from a fisherman, a reminder that while there is indeed hell under the board, this is the very reason why we should build happiness and prosperity throughout the world.

Despite the incredible difficulties encountered, the Japanese people never lost a smile on their face.

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Photo: James Duncan Davidson

The last time we heard from Terry Moore, executive director at the Radius Foundation, he challenged us to reexamine a process that most of us have known how to do nearly as long as we could read: tie our shoes. He returns to the TED stage today to share another valuable tidbit on a character we really have known as long as we could read: the letter “x”.

In mathematics, the letter “x” represents the unknown variable. It is also, arguably, one of the most popular letters in the pack. We see it everywhere: Generation X, the X-Files, and our favorite, TEDx.

So why does “x” represent the unknown?

A few years ago, Terry tells us, he decided to begin learning Arabic. He found it to be a language that was extremely precise and chock-full of information. Learning the language, and even speaking it, is similar to crafting a mathematical equation. Perhaps this is why everything we know as science, engineering, and mathematics has its derivations in the Arabic language system, most notably, algebra.

When Arabic texts made their way to Spain in the 11th century, Europe wanted to translate this mathematical wisdom of the East into a written, Western language. Attempts to do so, however, proved to be problematic. As it turned out, Arabic sounds do not translate well into European patterns of speech, nor are there ample characters to represent these sounds.

An Arabic word meaning “the unknown thing,” a word used throughout early mathematical proofs, contained the Arabic letter “sheen.” The problem was, Moore explains, there was no “sh” sound in the Spanish language. So, the language crafters borrowed the “ka” sound from the Greek letter χ or “chi.” Later, chi was replaced with the Latin X. And once the material was translated into Latin, it formed material for math textbooks that we continue to read today.

So why is the letter “x” the unknown?

Because you can’t say “sh” in Spanish!

Less than 24 hours before TED and just a few miles away in sunny Beverly Hills, the TED2012 house band gathers for its third day of rehearsal. It’s a very cool group of dudes, jamming away in the hidden, but fascinating Gibson Showcase Theater, where guitars of the one-of-a-kind variety dangle from the walls, threatening to fill the room with the sound of music legends of the past. Tonight, though, they’d have have quite a bit of competition.

TED’s music director, Thomas Dolby, organized this year’s house band from fellow TEDsters. The final seven are, for the most part, amateur musicians, but that hasn’t stopped them from performing with the likes of David Bowie, Phil Collins, and Les Paul. In fact, nearly all of them are entrepreneurs and innovators; some have even been on the TED stage!

In the last three days these guys have met (yes, for the first time), arranged a set list, practiced, and rehearsed for hours on end. Yet, they’ve already formed great friendships through their love of music. “One of the most amazing things about music is how quickly you get into am intimate relationship with people you play with,” says guitarist Fred Goldring. “It’s a pretty amazing way to connect with people.” Thanks to the great talent of these musicians, paired with the musical genius that is Thomas Dolby, they are about to put on a great show.

Let’s meet our TED2012 House Band:

Instrument: Guitar

Day Job: Entrepreneur, Investor, Music & Entertainment Lawyer, Advisor to the White House

Favorite musical moment: Playing with George Clinton at the House of Blues

TED is: a bunch of the best college courses you never knew you needed taught by the best professors you never knew existed. It’s also where a friend and I came up with the Safe Shake.

Recently played on my iPod: Gary Clarke Jr. (His album’s not released yet, but look out for him playing for the White House tonight at 9PM on PBS).

Currently working on: An intiative to focus the country on the importance of art education and integrating that into basic systems. As an advisor on President Obama’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, we’re trying to get the United States to move away from STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and into STEAM (add art!).

Instrument: Drums

Day Job: Founder of Thuuz, an app that will curate your own personalized sports network

Favorite musical moment: When my band (we’re called UnderCover) played at the Great American Music Hall last year and I got to sing lead vocals for “Love Shack” by the B52s.

TED is: eye-opening. And such a departure from what I do on a daily basis. It’s really nice to take a week out and completely shift context to think about how we can make social impact.

If I could perform for the world, I would play: “Time of Your Life (Good Riddance)” by Greenday

Instrument: Saxophone

Day Job: President and CEO of lynda.com

Favorite musical moment: Playing in the house band for the Queen’s Jubilee ten years ago backing Phil Collins, Paul McCartney, Joe Cocker, Annie Lennox, and Tony Bennett.

TED is: inspiration, being introduced to subject matter I know very little about, and meeting amazing people.

I geek out when: I am talking to other geeks.

If I could perform for the world, I would play: the jazz classic Night and Day

Before I die, I want to: live

Instrument: Guitar

Day Job: Entrepreneur, and the principal of Zygote Ventures

Favorite musical moment: Conducting the Oakland symphony for a benefit concert

TED is: something that has altered my life. I heard a couple of talks by Juan Enriquez and James Watson, which made me realize that I really needed to learn more about biology. That led me to the next company I got engaged in, called Solazyme.

Recently played on my iPod: Albinoni oboe concertos

Before I die I want to: reach immortality (just kidding)

Instrument: Keyboard

Day Job: Electronic and communications engineer; Co-Founder of Polycom, a video conferencing and telepresence system (we’ll be using it this week to talk to TEDActive)

Favorite musical moment: I gave a concert in San Francisco about nine years ago, mostly my own compositions. When I went up on stage and sat down on the bench, I misjudged distances, slid off the end, fell down, cracked my knee, and spent the whole performance in considerable pain. But, you’d be surprised what a cure that is for any residual stagefright.

If I could perform for the world, I would play: A musical that I have been writing over the past five years called “Railroad.” It’s still lingering in pre-production, but I see it on the horizon.

I geek out when: Because I am a nerd professionally, I have enough of that during the day. When I have time, I spend the time in music.

Before I die, I want to: have helped create a world in which people communicate more clearly and more completely than they do today.

Instrument: Guitar

Day Job: CEO of Millennia Media, designer and manufacturer or audio gear

Favorite musical moment: Staying up all night in a hotel room jamming with Les Paul until five in the morning.

Recently played on my iPod: Philosophy lectures

I geek out when: I think about inventing software and hardware. I invented an intelligent outlet and talked about it at TED.

Before I die, I want to: achieve as many life goals as I can. And I’ve got a lot left.

Matthew Seligman (Not Pictured)

Instrument: Bass guitar

Day Job: Human rights lawyer specializing in mental health

Favorite onstage moment: Playing at Live Aid with David Bowie. “We flew in on a helicopter and performed. That was my 15 minutes of fame and it lasted exactly 15 minutes.

Recently played on my iPod: Oceanea by Thomas Dolby

Before I die, I want to: be a good father to my daughter and a good partner for my wife.

Photos: Benny Haddad

In the shade of the open-air bamboo warung (the Balinese equivalent of a small cafe), I listened to the buzz of the cicadas rather than the buzz of fluorescent bulbs, and sipped on a frozen strawberry lemonade drink made with fresh fruit and raw cane sugar grown just across the path. I watched as children rushed in to order a morning treat, which came atop a small basket of banana leaves (instead of paper napkins), swallowing down fresh fruit juice out of glass cups (instead of plastic). The morning went by slowly and gracefully; parents sat in the warung for hours, talking with each other and with me, eager and anxious to find human connections anywhere and everywhere.

The Green School, the soul-child of John and Cynthia Hardy, sits on 23 acres of lush, tropical landscape. The bamboo classrooms (which house pre-K through 11th grade) seem to nearly sprout right out of the ground. The Heart of School is the most stunning; currently the largest bamboo structure in the world, it comprises two swirling vortexes that collide to create a third, double vortex in the middle. The Heart of School houses the library, the administrative offices, and a few classrooms. As we take our tour, we walk by skilled Balinese men sitting cross-legged on the floor building lockers out of, you guessed it: bamboo. In fact everything is made of bamboo, from the shoe cubbies to the dry-erase boards to the beautiful beams engraved with names of the school’s supporters.

Delicious smells waft throughout the open-air building as the cooks throw delectable pieces of local meat onto the BBQ and prepare salads and potatoes from produce grown right there on the school’s land. Surrounding the Heart of School are gardens bursting with ripe, red tomatoes, shaggy heads of lettuce, fruits of all shapes and colors. In fact, every classroom is responsible for its own garden.

“The idea is that the gardens roll right up to the edge of everything,” explains John. “The Earth is here for one reason: that’s to produce food for people and for animals. If kids figure out that the Earth is for food, maybe then they’ll think twice about bulldozing it.” As we walk, John points out each tree as we walk by: banana, jackfruit, cacao, clove, tapioca, papaya. Suddenly we are surrounded by a soft cloud of dragonflies. “Proof that there aren’t any pesticides,” remarks Cynthia with a smile, for they’re eating the bugs that would otherwise be wiped out by farming chemicals.

But it’s not just food that excites John and Cynthia about this place. It’s the bamboo. “Bamboo is really magical,” John says lovingly. He references a Vietnamese proverb: When the bamboo is old, bamboo sprouts appear. And indeed, bamboo can grow forever.

We stop and speak to a woman who is splitting bamboo seedlings, and John and Cynthia explain their program to spread the growth of bamboo. This woman processes more than 400 seedlings a day, which can then be split again in a few months, reaping hundreds and thousands of tiny future shoots of bamboo. They take these seedlings to surrounding villages and give them to the farmers to plant, which allows the plant to suck up more CO2 and deliver more oxygen. “After 5 years when the bamboo is fully grown,” Cynthia points to a piece of bamboo wider than my thigh, “we’ll go back and buy the bamboo from them.”

Bamboo is also being used to help teach the students about their own effect on the environment. John and Cynthia seek to create a carbon-positive community. The students will look at their travel, the amount of gas they burn, and the amount of electricity they use to calculate their own carbon footprint. They can then understand how much bamboo they will need to plant to not just offset their carbon footprint, but to send their effect into the positive.

The real magic of the Green School, though, happens inside (and outside of) the classrooms. It is obvious to me, as Carina Hardy, their middle daughter, trots past us donning an enormous Monty Python costume, chanting silly words which explode into giggles, that these children are excited to be at school: they are alive, empowered and challenged by the idea that they can influence the world around them in a very profound way.

The school’s mission statement reads “Empowering global citizens and green innovators who are inspired to take responsibility for the sustainability of the world.” The administration is constantly finding new ways to incorporate new ways of thinking and seeing into the students’ curriculum. Not far on the horizon, Cynthia hopes to be able to incorporate more physical interaction with the land: “Kids will take responsibility over pieces of land,” Cynthia says. “They will work the land, cultivate seedlings, plant the seedlings, weed the rice fields. When the rice is fully grown, they will cut it, thresh it, take it to the mill. They will see brown rice and compare it to white rice. They will look at the weight, the cost, the world price versus the subsidized price, how many hours it took to make, how nutritious it is.” Students also learn how to make soap from coconuts, chairs and charcoal from other natural resources. This is the vision: a complete, sustainable and experiential learning experience that takes advantage of what’s been provided here on Earth, and using that to both create and conserve.

John and Cynthia’s daughters have embraced the greater responsibility and entrepreneurial spirit that comes with being a student at The Green School. Their youngest daughter, Chiara, recognized a need for new computers at the school and kickstarted an “Ice Cream for iPads” program in which she sells cups of gelato during breaks and lunchtime for 20,000 rupiah (a little less than $2.50). So far, Chiara’s initiative has put 4 iPads in the library! 15-year-old Carina Hardy takes on leadership positions of all kinds as well; as a sophomore she is now co-directing the school’s spring play, The Wizard of Oz. John’s eldest daughter, Elora, was never a student at the Green School, but she shares her father’s passion for change and runs Ibuku, a design firm responsible for the sustainable design and construction of both the Green School and their newest pursuit, Green Village, a community of staggering open-air homes made entirely from bamboo.

As we finish our tour, we walk by the initial model for the Heart of School. “This is how it started,” says Cynthia. “It started as a sketch, and then it became little sticks glued together, and then it became this.” She gestures around her. “It is the product of our collective imagination.” Indeed, as my eyes wandered from the tiny model building to the giant swirling weave of bamboo above my head, I could feel the reality of the place. There’s no theory or proposal here: this is the real deal. Things are happening quickly, thoughtfully and profoundly.

John expresses his gratitude for TED as we leave. “When they published my talk, everything at this school took off like a rocket ship.” John referenced a student body of 120 in his TEDTalk last summer; since then that number has doubled, as has the number of countries represented by the students. Their new challenge: finding teachers who are committed to teaching the most basic of concepts in the most exciting of ways.

Photos by Benny Haddad and Rachel Tobias.

To get the shot of JR’s “eye” from above in Session 7, photographer James Duncan Davidson and photo editor Mike Femia spent a good deal of time climbing and crawling through the labyrinth of what I refer to as “the uppards” (as opposed to the innards) of the TED stage in Long Beach. Here are a few bird’s-eye views.

This is the view of the theater through a tiny hole above the stage.

Duncan negotiates precarious ladders and crickety steps to get the perfect shot.

Spying on a TED speaker from above.

Photos: Rachel Tobias / Mike Femia / Hani Hong

At the Fellows pre-conference and then again at TED University, Camille Seaman introduced us to the icebergs of the great oceans; as she described them: one snowflake on top of another snowflake, year after year. Her “portraits” of these great towering sea beings document the life of the iceberg, from its youth through its melting and the continuation of its path through the cycle of life. Click the video above to watch a slideshow of Camille’s work.

You spend countless hours with icebergs, around them, photographing them. How much have you studied the actual science behind them and their behavior?

First of all, I am an artist. I have absolutely no science background. But being in these regions, the ship always has an ornithologist, a geologist, who usually knows something about glaciers and rocks, a marine biologist, and sometimes even a climatologist. So I’m surrounded by these people who really know. And over ten years, I’ve learned a lot. I know about the systems and the processes. I know what I’m looking at when I’m looking at ice and I know how to tell where it came from and what stage of life it’s in.

What do you think the Arctic and Antarctic will look 100 years from now?

Just over the past 10 years I have seen dramatic change. However, I don’t think that mongering fear about change is going to garner any support or behavior that will be positive. I think it needs to come from a place of love, affection and attention. We have to care for these things, care for these places. Things are always changing; just over the past 10 years I have seen dramatic change. Whether we are influencing these changes or not is for others to debate. What I would really like to focus on and point out is that our culture needs to change before our climate can.

You noted in your Fellows presentation that photographing icebergs is like taking portraits of your ancestors. What did you mean by that exactly?

I was taught from a very young age that we are connected to everything, that everything has a life force. My grandfather used to make us do this exercise where he’d have us sit outside in the sun on a warm summer day and tell us, “Just wait.” And then we’d start to sweat. As we were sweating, these small white puffs of clouds would start to appear in the sky and he’d say, “That’s part of you in that cloud.” He walked us through the process of how this cloud becomes a bigger cloud; then it rains and feeds plants and the plants feed animals, we eat them, and it becomes part of a larger cycle. The icebergs are potentially and literally our very ancestors. They’re sweat turned into a cloud that fell as snow to finally become ice.

During TED2011, we listened to Sebastian Thrun from Google share his self-driving car. His motivation? “Most automotive deaths are due to human error, not machine error. A driverless car can save lives.” The car uses AI technology that enables the car to detect objects nearby and in its path, as well as control its speed, direction, and destination.

Google was letting people test-ride the cars right outside the theatre, and we knew we couldn’t pass up the chance. Walking up the stairs of the parking lot we heard the screeching of tires on concrete — and as we reached the top, watched a seafoam green Prius whip around the corner. Nobody was driving.

After some nervous questioning of the daring Googlers (lots of “I wonders…”), and watching a line of passengers safely exit the car post-ride,  we climbed into the vehicle, and away we went, watching the wheel turn itself as the car barreled around cones and corners. I would like to report that I was bumbling with excitement, smiling gleefully during the whole ride, but the reality was slightly different. My attempt at bravery gave way to unbridled, white-knuckle fear, and I won’t hide the fact that yes, there was some screaming. My two fellow passengers seemed oddly calm, though I’d like to believe their nervous smiles simply masked their fright. The Google rep in the driver’s seat had his hands folded neatly in his lap, his face calm and nearly without expression, though I’m quite positive I heard him giggling at my childish whimpers as we whipped around each corner. Next to the steering wheel, a screen flickered with an animation of the car’s path, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this car had a mind of its own.

After the roller-coaster ride, I excitedly jumped out of the car and asked when I would find one of these at my friendly neighborhood car dealer (can then sell themselves too?). Surprisingly, the self-driving cars are still about 10  years away from mass production, despite the technology being pretty spot on. I will look forward to the day when these cars are the norm; especially as an LA driver, the potential for more efficient roads as a result of minimizing lane width on freeways (because of the elimination of human error) is fabulous. Not to mention the implications these cars have for road safety.

Since my ride, I have had many conversations with friends and family about the experience. The majority of people respond with a Terminator-fueled skepticism: “Well, I just wouldn’t trust a machine with my life.” It’s an understandable concern, but to be honest, I don’t necessarily trust myself with my life! I am so much more likely to make a mistake behind the wheel than a machine programmed exactly not to. But for those of you concerned about armies of intelligent Priuses taking over mankind, not to worry. It’ll be a few years.

Here’s some great footage from SlashGear — now you too can know what it is like to brave a driver-less car! Keep your eyes peeled for them exploring the streets of Northern California.

Kathryn Schulz, author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error: “We need to be able to look at the vastness and complexity of the universe and say, ‘Wow, I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong.’”

John Hunter, creator of World Peace Games says,  ”I allow them to learn, in a bloodless way, how to do what’s right.”

Legendary film critic Roger Ebert recruited some of his friends to speak for him: Dr. Dean Ornish, John Hunter, and his wife Chaz. ”Computer voices are not very sophisticated, but with my computer I can communicate more widely than ever before.”

Photos: TED / James Duncan Davidson

Bill Gates talks about state budgets, corrupt processes, and what this means for our schools. Watch his talk here.

TreeHugger founder Graham Hill reflects on the joys of less and letting go of the extraneous: http://lifeedited.treehugger.com/

Google engineer Matt Cutts challenges us to do something new for 30 days, like biking to work or giving up sugar.

AnnMarie Thomas transforms science class by building kid-friendly circuit boards out of – yep, that’s right – play dough. Learn more about this project at http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/apthomas/.

Photos: TED / James Duncan Davidson