Entries from TED Blog tagged with 'TEDGlobal'
24 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Brother Paulus Terwitte asks, "Where are you?"
A Capuchin friar and a household name in Germany, Brother Paulus Terwitte looks at the possibility of a simple, contemplative spiritual life -- in a world laden with distractions and complications. Is posting a Twitter Snapshot slightly ... ironic? Twitter users meditated on this, and other questions:
Google is the new forbidden apple.. Brother Terwitte.. -- Gabelapagos
Terwitte on why we engage in "organized doing nothing" (pray, meditate, etc.). "We want to find the inner voice of things." -- brainpicker
Brother Paulus Terwitte: "We have again become primitive hunter gatherers - we are gathering information" #TED -- WiredUK
now Monk dude is listing how many friends and followers he has on facebook and twitter etc haha AWESOME -- grumblemouse
Paulus Terwitte providing an interesting perspective on social media and contemplating the world - what really matters? #TED -- bwdumars
Paulus Terwitte: gives the audience 15 seconds in silence to think (and conducts this by holding up his hand). Felt like a century. -- kokoe2
If you're on Twitter, share your own ruminations under the tag #TED.
24 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Itay Talgam conducts better leadership
Conductor-turned-business motivator Itay Talgam showed a collection of enlightening and amusing clips of famous conductors doing what it really is that they do best: lead. The process of drawing out beauty from a brigade of musicians is a powerful metaphor with real applications for anyone who manages people. Our prolific #TEDsters captured the best moments:
Rule #4 of conducting: Conductor Itay Talgam at #TED: Don't look at the trombones; it only encourages them. -- griley
Conductor culture is fascinating. Silly sense of humour. -- Alli7on
conductor Itay Talgam is using classical music and conducting as a metaphor for leadership. Funny guy. Muti, Strauss and Karajan. -- emilkang
Talgam: Trying unsuccessfully to conduct the TED audience again but making a pt of how diff condctor's behaviors produce diff responses -- pragzter
Talgam.. doing without doing.. orchestra directing.. with a smile.. and a nod.. -- Gabelapagos
24 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Dan Pink contests carrots and sticks
Dan Pink, former speechwriter for Al Gore, is now hoping to spark a right-brain revolution in business and management. The spark clearly caught on with several of Twitter's most familiar #TEDsters.
Pink on psychology research: "There's a mismatch between what science knows and business does." -- brainpicker
Pink: "Rewards by their very nature narrow our focus, concentrate the mind." Work only for concrete problems, not abstract -- brainpicker
Daniel Pink: monetary incentives don't work or often do harm. The most solidly verified theory in social sciences -- lucadebiase
Dan Pink says rewards work well w narrow work and narrow goals...at Acumen, rules and envs are complex so if-then rewards don't work... -- jnovogratz
Pink: Dan Ariely experimnts w/ MIT students; then with villagers in India (WOOT MIT and India). higher incentives lead 2 worse prfrmnce -- pragzterv
24 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Magnus Larsson has a wall to build
Magnus Larsson is an architect with a blueprint to build a wall across Africa. A wall made with bacillus pasteurii (microorganisms that create sandstone) to help provide shelter for individuals and curb the destruction of sandstorms. Support for this project was widespread from TEDsters on Twitter:
Magnus Larsson wants to build a sand wall across Africa - extraordinary practical imagination -- sfbassociates
Architect Larson takes our childhood fantasies (and expertise) of building sand castles -- into reality at the Sahara Desert! -- Idit
Today's speakers are hammering home the theme that humanity has created massive problems that require creative solutions & CHANGE. -- ruthannharnisch
Larsson - hope you get a TED Wish for your efforts in building the sand structure using bacteria. -- rom
I'm developing an even greater respect for architects. They are id'ing the massive problems AND creative solutions. -- Alli7on
Photo: Magnus Larsson at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 11: "Cities past and future," July 24, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
24 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Bjarke Ingels thinks big
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, principal of BIG charmed the crowd at TED Global 2009 with his talk on his optimistic and innovative projects. He also showed his "Yes Is More" manifesto, a 130 meter long cartoon strip designed to encourage big thinking. Those on Twitter were super complementary of Ingels' talk:
Ingels: Denish architect with a GREAT sense of humor - rare phenomenon! -- Idit
... Some of his talk is untweetably funny, kinda a "you had to be there" moment. -- ruthannharnisch
... Ingels features building designs that will WOW you! Thinking why can't architects in UPD do something similar? --rom
Ingels is the FIRST architect who creates sustainable green architecture fun and desireable to live in.. the next Gehry !!! -- Idit
I want to be an architect. Bjarke Ingels is a rock star. No wait better: he's an architect. -- nauiokaspark
24 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Carolyn Steel asks how to feed a city
Carolyn Steel is a food urbanist, meaning she can explain what we all take for granted- our food and how it gets to us. In her talk today at TED Global 2009, she presented frightening stats about where food demand is headed in addition to gripping historical context about how the food chain has evolved. Here's how TEDsters on Twitter grappled with this question:
... How do you feed a city? One of the great questions of our time, yet rarely asked. We assume food will be there, magic. -- ruthannharnisch
Steel disagrees with Romer from yesterday – we have to stop building, we can't feed megacities. -- brainpicker
... The world is desperate to embrace the Western Diet. SO True. I see this all the time; it makes me sad. So unsustainable -- pragzter
OH - Carolyn Steel could have given this talk every ten years for the last 400 years. -- ruthannharnisch
... Half the food currently made in the US is thrown away. Anyone know if the figures for the UK are similar? -- id
Carolyn Steel: "Sitopia" = "food place" (from Greek sitos, food + topos, place) or simply a better word for utopia :-) -- TEDIndia
24 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Constanza Ceruti explores above and beyond
TED Fellow Constanza Ceruti provided a captivating look at her work as a high-altitude archaeologist. Her talk included breathtaking pictures of the Andean mountains and details of what she's learned from mummies. The Twitter feedback proved fascinated:
Ceruti lived inside the crater of an open volcano for over 3 weeks. WOW. -- brainpicker
Constanza Cerruti, dedicating her talk to mentor who died suddenly while she was enroute 2 TEDGlobal. God Bless him. what a protege! -- pragzter
... for peace she just climbs to remote high elevation mountains! -- Gabelapagos
Constanza Cerruti is AMAZING. Found 3 incan children mummies on the world's highest archeological site. Research showed Incan diets. -- pragzter
Ceruti - Peruvian archaeological adventures at 19,000 feet . Hard to believe this unassuming, sweet person is Superwoman. -- ruthannharnisch
You can find out more about the TED Fellows program here.
24 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Eric Sanderson rediscovers "Mannahatta"
The last day of TEDGlobal 2009 kicked off with landscape biologist Eric Sanderson, who gave a thrilling look at the Mannahatta Project- a re-envisioning of Manhattan in its original, 17th-century glory. This Google Earth of ancient New York definitely wowed the TEDsters on Twitter:
Eric Sanderson: Amazing how many water sources have disappeared from NYC since Revolutionary Days. He looks for lost features of NYC. -- ruthannharnisch
Eric Sanderson doing a marvelous job of historical mapping. Great use of GIS, anthropology, history and ecology. A world that once was -- pragzter
Sanderson should get funding to map the world before we destroy it! We owe it to our kids! Cmon TED give him support! -- rom
Eric Sanderson opens Session 11, "Cities Past and Present," with fascinating maps on optimal citibility -- brainpicker
Amazing talk by Eric Sanderson: Manhattan as you've never seen it. Beautiful. -- nauiokaspark
If you've got something to say about one of the speakers and you have a Twitter account, please make sure you're using the #TED hashtag or replying to @TEDGlobal.
23 July 2009
The future beckons. Meet it at TEDIndia.
Photo: Lakshmi Pratury speaks about the upcoming TEDIndia conference at TEDGlobal in 2009. Oxford, UK, July 21-24, 2009. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
TEDIndia director Lakshmi Pratury took the TEDGlobal 2009 stage to give a glimpse of what is on offer for the TEDIndia conference, which is only months away.
The conference, whose theme is "The Future Beckons," comes at a time when, increasingly, India, China and the rest of Asia are making their presence felt globally in new technologies, design brilliance and countless instances of cultural and economic innovation.
As an attendee, you'll enjoy a delicious cultural experience as the context of four days of jaw-dropping TED magic.
Registration for the one-of-a-kind TEDIndia Conference this November 4-7 in Mysore, India is now open.
23 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Karen Armstrong and the charter for compassion
Minutes ago, religious scholar Karen Armstrong, winner of a 2008 TED Prize, spoke about her wish, The Charter for Compassion, to the audience at TEDGlobal 2009. The Charter aims to bring the golden rule back into a global focus. Currently, religious leaders of many faiths are working together in crafting this document for peace, which launches in September here on TED. The crowd documenting the conference over on Twitter appeared very supportive of Armstrong and her wish.
About to hear Karen Armstrong's talk. She is why I came today. Love her work. -- Olasofia
Armstrong is great - she's speaking about how the media affect peoples perceptions of others, especially the youth. Too darn right! -- v_voicebox
Armstrong wants to do 2 things: Educate and stimulate compassionate thinking. An idea worth spreading! -- brainpicker
Karen Armstrong is my hero, a model of truth and love. Can you help her TED Prize wish come true? armstrong@ted.com -- ruthannharnisch
Karen Armstrong: People want to be "right" rather than "compassionate". Sadly I couldn't agree more... -- pragzter
Karen Armstrong's Charter of Compassion - I'm thinking that I might prefer it to a Pledge of Allegiance. -- ruthannharnisch
For more on Karen Armstrong, here's her previous TEDTalk. Also, remember to keep sending your responses to @TEDGlobal.
23 July 2009
Parag Khanna at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes on Session 10
Parag Khanna asks: Do we live in a borderless world? Our world has over 200 countries. He suggests that those of us watching TED live in "TEDistan" -- a world we feel is defined by cities -- a world that looks like the image of the world at night from space. But for 90% of the population, that's not true, not real. They live within borders. And often they deal with violence.
Border conflicts justify so much of the world's military-industrial complex. This is why we need a deeper understanding of how people, money, power, religion and culture interact to change the map of the world. We need to be able to anticipate the changes that will affect where the world goes.
He starts with the world of 1945. At that time, there were about 100 nations. In the following decades, waves of de-colonization took place, adding more states. The end of the Cold War added yet more nations. The entire planet is now covered in sovereign states. But does someone's gain have to be someone's loss?
He shows a map featuring Russia and China. Russia is the largest country; China is the most populous. What you don't see on a map is that most of Russia's population is concentrated in its eastern provinces, and its population is declining by millions and millions. That population has begun to move to the west. Then there is Mongolia, what some call "Mine-golia," sandwiched between. (China, he says, isn't going to conquer Mongolia -- it's going to buy it, mostly in the form of mines.)
Global warming will thaw out Siberia, making it useful for farming. And in record numbers Chinese people have been "voting with their feet" by moving north, and selling the resources there back to China. But ... surprise! Khanna isn't showing a contemporary map -- he's showing a map of 700 years ago. "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
How should we look at this region in Asia? No matter what the borders tell you, what you have is hubs of commerce that form a more "fluid" sociopolitical zone. What lines on the map should we then focus on? It's our choice, but clearly the commercial lines are really what is shaping the eventual political lines.
Khanna turns to the problem of state building. He asks us to consider Iraq. In the north, the Kurds have been waging a struggle for independence for 3,000 years. The oil pipelines in the region, since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, may finally redeem them. They are now using their control of oil pipelines as a political bargaining chip. If they control the pipelines, they can control their destiny.
What about Palestine? 30 years of rose-garden diplomacy hasn't delivered peace. So what can supply peace? Khanna suggests infrastructure: roads, commuter rails, ports. That would allow for a viable economy, and thereby peace. Infrastructure, the curvy lines on Khanna's map, cross the "straight lines" of the national borders.
The question in the United States is no longer "How will we use their oil?" It's "How will they use their oil?"
Europe, to shift focus, has now become a single currency bloc, rather than disjointed individual nations. This is also shaping the future of world policy. But what is the EU's future? Europe is divided by countries that are dependent on the rest of Europe, and those that have other connections for support.
What is the lesson? Khanna says geopolitics is an "unsentimental discipline." It's shaping the world -- like climate change. We're searching for equilibrium, but we also fear changes -- death tolls, wars. But infrastructure is slowly bringing us toward a truly borderless world.
Photo: Parag Khanna at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 10: "Worldview rethink," July 23, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
23 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Bertrand Piccard wants to fly sans fossil fuel
Balloonist Bertrand Piccard flew around the world in 1999. He stated today in his talk that the next time he goes he will make sure he completes the journey without consuming any fossil fuels. This determination is the reason he promotes Solar Impulse, which intends to design a one-seat, long-range solar plane. And here's the Twitter reaction to this intrepid goal:
Bertrand Piccard - Building a plane to fly around the world on solar power. Fantastic goal to motivate people to reduce energy use. -- bwdumars
Tim brown of IDEO explains that great design begins with the human not the technological. Bertand Piccard is going where no one has gone... -- erwinmcmanus
Latter-day Lindbergh, Bertrand Piccard, plans to fly around the world in a solar-powered aircraft with 64 m wingspan. -- DesignObserver
Bertrand Piccard - Wonder if his childhood ambition was "Professional Balloonist?" (He's called a "solar adventurer") -- ruthannharnisch
wooooow, another great highlight: Bertrand Piccard, fan-tas-tic talk -- vangeest
You can see the feedback as it roles in by searching for the #TED hashtag.
Photo: Bertrand Piccard at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 9: "Revealing energy," July 23, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
23 July 2009
TED's volunteer translators weigh in on Session 9 and 10: Now in Greek!
Here are unedited running notes for Sessions 9 and 10 from our crack team of Open Translation Project translators, taken as they watch the live webcast of TEDGlobal 2009!
Click through to view the running notes for Session 9 and 10 in ...
23 July 2009
Eric Giler at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes on Session 9
Running notes from TEDGlobal 2009, Session 9.
Eric Giler is working on bringing wireless transmission of electric power to a commercial scale.
Early visions of wireless power were first conceived by Nikola Tesla about 100 years ago. He, in fact, didn't know why anyone would want to transfer power using wires. But we love electricity so much that we've dragged hundreds of millions of miles of copper wiring all over the earth. It's a huge drain on resources to create the infrastructure. In fact, in contemporary parlance, Eric Giler says "wires suck." (So do batteries, he says.)
Enter wireless electricity: MIT physicists recently invented technology that can light a 60-watt light bulb at several meters. The concept of "resonant energy transfer" -- where the same principles used in electrical transformers are used to send electricity over a long distance -- was created when a professor was awoken three nights in the row by a cell phone whose battery was dying. He wondered "Why can't all this electricity in the walls just come out and power my phone?"
"WiTricity" works using the principle of inductance, where an electric charge is stored in the form of a magnetic field in a coil of a conductor. Two such coils, resonating at the same frequency, can exchange charge across space. This is not radiative power transfer -- since it uses only magnetic fields. The technology also limits power transfer to other objects. It's completely safe and, Giler assures us, won't to the sort of thing we heard about Rebecca Saxe's talk (where a magnetic burst interferes with the brain's processing).
Giler sees unlimited applications for WiTricity -- powering electric cars (who, he asks, really wants to have to plug in a car?), appliances of all sorts, industrial manufacturing equipment ... even an electrically heated dog bowl. (A business person recently approached Giler to ask him if wireless electricity could do such a thing.)
Giler then does a live, on-stage demo of his system. With a a rectangular conducting frame less than a meter wide mounted on a person-sized stand, and a base transmission unit plugged into a normal power strip, he powers on a regular, commercially available TV screen.
People often ask Giler, "But how small can you make this system?" Taking the example of a cell phone battery running out of charge, he takes a G1 phone and holds it near the transmitting coil -- and the phone turns on automatically. He then does the same with an iPhone -- and, sure enough, the green "battery charging" symbol appears on the screen.
Photo: Eric Giler at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 9: "Revealing energy," July 23, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
23 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Eric Giler shows off wireless energy
"Wires suck" was how electrician and innovator Eric Giler validated the motivation behind his startup WiTricity, which he demonstrated today in his talk at TEDGlobal 2009. Naturally, the main response was from people very eager to give it a try:
Eric Giler on the fantastic prospect of wirelessly charging our devices! (Would come in handy in simulcast lounge where outlets =gold) -- ruthannharnisch
Eric Giler's "Wireless Electricity" gives me hope for a greener future. Can't wait for him to demonstrate the technology. -- techramblers
I am indeed. In heaven. And Eric Giler is full of win. -- kn0thing
Eric Giler: live demo of tv powered completely wirelessy. Also electric cars won't need to be plugged in. Witricity - fantastic -- brenthoberman
Wireless connectivity to charge your electronics! Awesome! ... -- sangco
23 July 2009
Steve Cowley at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes on Session 9
Running notes from Session 9 at TEDGlobal 2009
When will we get fusion energy? We've known about fusion for a long time, but harnessing it as an energy source has been elusive. Steve Cowley is concerned about the rate at which we're using up resources on Earth. And the realm of energy today is dominated by finite resources. "I'm the only one who enjoys it when Mr. Putin turns off the gas, because my budget goes up."
But in the future, we won't make energy from resources. We'll make it from knowledge. In the future, the base load energy drivers will be fission, solar energy ... and fusion. Solar is difficult, but being worked on. Many new nuclear reactors are being built right now in the UK and in China.
But fusion is clean, safe ... and virtually inexhaustable. But there's a catch: It's extremely hard to do. We've been trying to do it for 50 years. (Note: Cowley researches "hot" fusion, not its discredited room-temperature counterpart.)
How nuclear energy works: Small elements want to join together to make bigger elements. In stars, for example, hydrogen joins to create helium, and then helium atoms fuse, and so on. But it has to happen under high heat and pressure. We are looking for an easier way to create fusion energy by colliding lithium and tritium in the right configuration. Lithium, which is in sea water, would last for 30 million years as fusion fuel -- unlike the other energy sources which may run out shortly. The price of fusion would be the same price as current energy creation sources.
To create fusion energy, you must hold gas at 150 million degrees. People say "fusion is always 30 years away." But it's already been done. The JET fusion experiment got 16 megawatts of power in 1997, and the same device will break records when it's fired up in the next years. But that's not in the form of usable electricity yet. His estimate says that we'll have real electric power from fusion in 2030.
His final statement: We need to push that date forward as quickly as possible.
Photo: Steve Cowley at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 9: "Revealing energy," July 23, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
23 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Steve Cowley says we'll have fusion soon
Theoretical physicist Steve Cowley acknowledged today that while fusion is really hard to do it's also the planet's best shot of having a clean and safe renewable energy source. Twitter seemed to be shaken by this desirable concept:
Okay that woke me up (Steve Cowley) -- RichMulholland
Steve Cowley's fusion talk is making me as excited about fusion as when I first unlocked it in SimCity -- kn0thing
Fusion. Want it now. 150 million degrees makes it happen. So what's preventing it? Not " cold fusion" nonsense. EU Power awaits in 2030 -- joeltalks
the best form of energy isn't the SUN, it is the one that you save... -- leeander
Can't tweet the nuclear physics talk from Steve Cowley. Requires my full attention. -- ruthannharnisch
Remember that those of you watching the live feed can share your reactions directly to @TEDGlobal.
23 July 2009
Nick Veasey at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 9
Running notes from TEDGlobal 2009, Session 9.
Nick Veasey uses X-rays to create photographs that reveal the inner workings and structure of objects such as shoes, a city bus, a tractor, a bat ... and men's briefs. (He calls the men's briefs "exquisite.") Instead of focusing on solely biological entities, he also looks into (looks through) technology. But nature is Veasey's greatest inspiration. Design and architecture, he notes, are both related deeply to nature.
He takes his X-ray photographs in a shed with a door of lead and steel and thick concrete walls. He uses a high-powered X-ray machine. But instead of looking for disease, he looks for beauty. Since he wants to display his pictures in large format, and since today's typical X-ray technology only takes lower-resolution photographs, he uses a drum X-ray from the 1980s, often photographing one component at a time in order to execute his larger photographs.
He spent three months X-raying an entire 747 in an aircraft hangar.
He also adds coloring to his X-ray photographs now. The coloring is not accurate to the actual information gotten from the original X-ray image, but it adds a beautiful quality to the photographs. (Coloring also helps his 2D images look 3D.) He then shows a short video of him at work in his lab, as he X-rays objects such as toy dolls, boots, and a multi-story home complete with inhabitants.
As radiation is highly dangerous, Veasey X-rays cadavers to produce the human elements of his photographs. Veasey himself has already been exposed to a dangerous amount of radiation. He wears a device that measures the amount of radiation he's been exposed to.
It's work that encourages us to consider the unseen inner workings of our world.
Nick Veasey at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 9: "Revealing energy," July 23, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
23 July 2009
Ross Lovegrove at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 9: Revealing Energy
Running notes from TEDGlobal 2009, Session 9.
As a young boy, Lovegrove says, he lived near a cliff shore, where the outgoing tide would reveal fossils that had washed against it. Since that age, he was driven by speculation, by thinking, and the deep inspiration of the forms of nature. Although we call him an industrial designer, his current job, he says, isn't making things, but "walking, thinking, dreaming."
Lovegrove unveils his new project, Lovegrove Genesis, which imagines combining ancient biological designs with the modern production of objects. He imagines a spherical "membrane" out of which might be born any form we want to create.
He presents a slide filled with images of ancient biological forms such as diatoms, intermixed with contemporary designs such as a briefcase or a table. By conceptually combining different forms along this grid using what he calls "neural paths," he finds new types of products that he might be able to generate. For example, a designed object might, over its lifetime (or span of ownership) change its own properties the way a living creature would.
Lovegrove seeks to create a "textural beauty" to his objects, the same kind of beauty natural objects have. There is no "unused side" to any of his designs -- you can't look at the bottom of one of his tables, for example, and find it unvarnished. He shows a video of "single-surface deformation," which shows how a simple, flat form can evolve to fold and contort into three dimensions to suit a particular need -- such as a table. Lovegrove uses computer models to test various designs.
Lovegrove shows the world's lightest suitcase. Last year, 3.2 billion seats were sold on aircraft, and so lightness of luggage is a very important factor. The suitcase has no lining, but was created as a single mold by a large Japanese company that, he found later, took interest in his project because they were interested in learning new molding techniques.
A humorous moment: "If you keep a straight face, you can get exactly what you want in Japan." When he designed JAL, he proposed putting a bonsai tree on every seat. Instead of saying no, the firms there did two months of serious research and concluded that they "could not keep bonsai trees alive in a cabin environment."
Lovegrove points out: "Our ancestors made everything." They had to make tools and objects that were light enough that they could carry them around everywhere with them. "Lightness is a human objective."
50% of Lovegrove's studio's time is spent on pure research on projects that attempt to achieve these human objectives.
Photo: Ross Lovegrove at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 9: "Revealing energy," July 23, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
23 July 2009
TED's volunteer translators chime in on Session 8: Now in Greek and Hungarian!
Here's Session 8's unedited running notes from our crack team of Open Translation Project translators, taken as they watch the live webcast of TEDGlobal 2009!
Click through to view the running notes for Session 8 in ...
23 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Emmanuel Jal sings for peace
Hip-hop artist Emmanuel Jal started his talk today on a poignant note by recounting his life as a war child in Sudan. Jal's outlet for his inspirational life and desire for peace has been channeled into his music (he performed after talking). Everyone tweeting on the #TED hashtag seemed genuinely touched:
moving and very authentic talk by Emmanuel Jal. great! --vangeest
TED made me cry again -- samfromwgtn
Not sure why Emmanuel Jal insists on being called a hip-hop artist – he's an inspired, profound poet -- brainpicker
TED is a purportedly a place for inspiration, not for a danceparty - Emmanuel Jal showed it can be both. He's absolutely inspiring -- kn0thing
not one to be emotional. In fact my wife thinks i'm half Vulcan. But Emmanuel Jal has managed to bring a lump to my throat -- jonfildes
Great seeing Tedsters united through dance and music -- SlickTweets
Jal is the voice of others. He speaks for the dead, for the living without voices. -- ruthannharnisch
Don't miss these reactions as they happen. Be sure to follow @TEDGlobal on Twitter for the latest updates from the conference.
23 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Loretta Napoleoni on rogue economics
Today at TEDGlobal 2009, macroeconomist Loretta Napoleoni explained her fascination with the underworld of crime and terrorism in a large, global context. On Twitter, people had a lot to say (and ask) about this dark subject.
... Heavy... 'The international budget of terror is 1.5 trillion dollars' #TED - Bloody 'eck! Is it money well spent? -- TarikF
Loretta Napoleoni - step into the dark side for enlightenment. Almost kabbalistic -- citizenrobert
we are deep "in the shadows" tough stuff this morning at TED; organized crime, terrorism, oil, and other bad things. Painful. -- Idit
Napoleoni - "Question everything you are told, question everything I have told you today." Great Quote. -- bwdumars
... Napoleoni: "Terrorism is actually a very expensive business." does it mean we shld hv deep pockets to fight it? -- vacantparkbench
23 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Misha Glenny digs into the mystery of organized crime
Journalist Misha Glenny expounded upon the ideas presented in his book McMafia, on how organized crime has run rampant in Western society. TEDsters reporting via Twitter were abuzz with this talk, especially Glenny's stat that states organized crime accounts for "15% of the world's GDP."
Apparently it is the western world that fuels global organised crime. I can believe that! -- TarikF
... Underworld Investigator Misha Glenny "organized crime accounts for 15% of the world's GDP." This is remarkable -- meetforeal
Misha Glenny on organised crime - Fascinating - although i knew about the reach of organised crime had never put it all together - Wow -- mojonojo3
... Misha Glenny: Organised crime equals 15% of global GDP #TED (yet crackdowns reserved for young, mentally ill, addicts...) -- neilsonandrew
Misha Glenny was an engaging, entertaining, informative speaker - a standout for me (even tho we read "McMafia" already). -- ruthannharnisch
23 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Taryn Simon shows the hidden and unfamiliar
Photographer Taryn Simon goes to places few people ever get to see. She's photographed everything from a white tiger breeding facility to abortion clinics. Her shocking talk astounded the crowd on Twitter:
Taryn Simon's talk is dense with details on the background of her photos. The context is the story. Eclectic. -- bwdumars
Incestuous white tigers? This is just getting more and more interesting... -- TarikF
Simon: Her photographs reveal truth that might be uncomfortable for some ... -- ruthannharnisch
Taryn Simon just rocked my world -- kn0thing
I deeply thank Taryn Simon for her courage and information through her thoughtful photography -- Idit
If you're watching the live stream, make sure you're tweeting on the #TED hashtag and joining the discussion.
23 July 2009
TED's volunteer translators weigh in on Session 7: Now in Hungarian and Greek!
Here's Session 7's unedited running notes from our crack team of Open Translation Project translators, taken as they watch the live webcast of TEDGlobal 2009!
Click through to view the running notes for Session 7 in ...
23 July 2009
Paul Romer at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 7
Paul Romer is a Stanford economist with radical ideas for new global growth. The first to the stage this morning, he has a little difficulty with his slides and jokes, "My work is about how wonderful technology is."
When the first slide does appear he urges us look at the picture of African students doing their homework under streetlights because they have no electricity in their homes. He zeroes in on one of the students and christens him Nelson. "I’ll bet Nelson has a cell phone," Romer remarks. He then asks the audience why Nelson would have a cutting edge technology like a cell phone but no access to electricity. His answer -- rules. Romer explains that in this country the electric company has to provide electricity at a subsidized price, and so cannot make profit. They have no incentive or ability to reach more customers. The president has tried to change pricing but protests broke out from businesses and the public.
"How can we change rules? " Romer asks. He answers his question by saying that we can do so by giving more choices to people and leaders (who he notes in many countries are also people). If you give to only one side you have tension, but giving choices to both will produce a set of rules for changing the rules.
He shows a picture from NASA of the Earth at night, clearly showing the electric lights of cities and town. He points out that North Korea looks like a black hole compared to neighbors, and reminds us that North Korea and South Korea began identically but made choices that led to very divergent paths. He points to the Caribbean. He shows how dark Haiti is compared to the Dominican Republic and that they're both dark compared to Puerto Rico. Haiti warns us that rules can also be bad when governments are weak, as opposed to the strong government of North Korea.
He moves our attention to China. China, he says, demonstrates both the strengths and weaknesses of working with rules. They developed steel and gunpowder, but never developed rules for spreading those. Then, they developed rules that cut them off while other countries were zooming ahead. However, in the late 1970s, growth took off in China. Something changed. Romer shows that the brightest spot in China is Hong Kong. Hong Kong was a small bit of China that for most of the 20th century operated under a different set of rules, that were copied from working market and under the care of Great Britain. Hong Kong, he says, became a model people could copy when the rest of mainland moved to the market model. The demonstrated successes there led to a consensus on a market model move throughout the economy.
Romer asserts that we must preserve choices for people and operate on the right scale. A village is too small and a nation too big. Cities give you the right balance. The proposal is he conceives of is a charter city with investors to build infrastructure, firms to hire people and families who will raise children there. All he wants is some good rules, uninhabited land and choices for leaders, which he thinks should translate to partnerships between nations
He notes that some of the audience might be starting to think is this bringing back colonialism. Romer urges everyone not to let the emotions that come up get in the way and shut down new ideas. He says that colonialism involved coercion and condescension -- this model is about choice, which is the antidote to those two.
He proposes charter cities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (calling Canada to take a partnership there) and throughout Africa. He says that most leaders he's talked to get the idea. They understand that they can make more credible promises to long-term investors if they do it with a partner nation. Romer claims that only a failure of imagination will keep us from delivering a global win-win solution. The power of ideas will do it, he says. We can share ideas and we all get more. We must keep moving progress forward so Nelson and his friends don't have to study under street lamps.
At the end of the talk, Chris Anderson does a quick audience poll by a show of hands. "What do you think? Mad or exciting?" Anderson asks. Overwhelmingly, the hands say exciting.
22 July 2009
Elaine Morgan at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes on Session 6
Why is the human phenotype so different from the chimpanzee, even though experts constantly point out how similar the genotypes are? Why are we bipedal while they walk on four legs? Why are we hairless while they are hairy? Elaine Morgan seeks to look beyond what she thinks are the utterly incorrect answers proposed by evolutionary biologists. If we're so different than the other higher primates, something must have happened to make us so. So: what happened?
Morgan is intrigued by evidence that shows that savannah habitats -- long thought to be a driving force behind the way humans evolved -- didn't exist at the time when the adaptations happened. This indicated that a paradigm was about to radically change. She says, What do scientists do when paradigms fail? They continue working on the paradigm as though nothing happened!
But finally a new paradigm was about to emerge. In the '60s, a scientist wondered whether human evolution was shaped by a more "aquatic" lifestyle. But the idea was ridiculed by scientists for years -- although now the theory is beginning to enjoy some favor. There is a set of questions that, in particular, throw doubt on the conventional story of human evolution:
Why are we hairless? The other mammals that are hairless are mostly aquatic -- dolphins, whales. But what about elephants?, we might ask. Morgan says it's been discovered that elephant ancestors were aquatic. While not all aquatic mammals are naked, like seals, all animals that are naked have so far been discovered to have had aquatic ancestors.
Why are we bipedal? There is only one situation in the mammalian world where mammals walk around on two legs: when they are in water.
Why do we have the layer of fat under our skins, unlike other primates? Aquatic mammals include a layer of fat, and a layer of skin. Humans can become obese in a way that is physically impossible for other primates.
Why can we control our breath? The only animals with conscious control of the breath are animals that spend time in water.
Why do we have streamlined bodies? Perhaps, Morgan suggests, to optimize us for mobility in water.
Morgan has struggled her whole life to show that perhaps the prevailing theory of human origins is wrong. After all, she says, history is riddled with instances where theories proved to be wrong. She says Dan Dennett, David Attenborough and other prominent scientists and thinkers have come to agree that the aquatic ape theory is important. To laughter and applause, she encourages TED to "come on in, the water's fine."
Morgan looks forward to a new point in science where conventional ideas about human evolution can be synthesized with the aquatic ape theory -- but, for now, the "rival" theories live apart.
Photo: Elaine Morgan at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 6: "Curious and curiouser," July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Elaine Morgan believes in aquatic apes
Octogenarian scientist Elaine Morgan became the oldest speaker in TED's history (at the sprightly age of 90) at TEDGlobal 2009 when she presented her addition to evolutionary science: the theory of aquatic apes. Here's how the excited crowd on Twitter responded to her vibrant talk:
Elaine Morgan talking pure sense at #TED about paradigm shift and aquatic ape theory - and in a Welsh accent too. -- rorysutherland
Of all the big ideas at TEDGlobal, Elaine Morgan's radical theories on the aquatic ape evolutionary theory are most challenging yet. -- shanehegarty
Elaine Morgan aquatic ape theory has been miscategorised as lunatic fringe! It's not lunatic fringe! -- izahoor
Someone get this woman a #TED prize. 'soon' Elaine Morgan rocks. -- casinclair
LOVE IT! Elaine Morgan ended her TED talk with, "Never be afraid to rock the boat." She got a LOT of cheers over that! Loved her talk! -- beckyblanton
Wow, Elaine Morgan's talk was exactly what #TED is all about. Brave, intelligent, and f***ing hard to ignore. Brilliant! -- RichMulholland
On Elaine Morgan, I'm impressed by people who follow their passion and refuse to give up, even if everyone else calls you foolhardy -- jenbrea
Elaine Morgan has just convinced me that we are fishpeople -- ladysatin
22 July 2009
Garik Israelian at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 6
Israelian explores distant objects in the universe using spectroscopy. By looking at the spectral signature of distant object, he can infer the qualities and behaviors of the objects. He thinks spectroscopy will be how we finally discover whether there is life elsewhere outside of our solar system.
Israelian discovered that stars sometimes swallow their planets -- not by direct observation of the event, but by looking at the spectral signature of a star, which indicated that lithium was present in the star. (Lithium, we know from physics, is not normally present in stars without them having devoured another type of object.) "The power of spectroscopy was actually discovered by Pink Floyd," he joked.
We do not yet understand the spectrum of the Sun. 15% of the spectral lines we see from the Sun are not understood.
Supernovae, the largest disasters in space, are the only places where the elements required for planets -- and for life itself -- are created. We owe our existence to the existence of supernovas.
A colleague showed Israelian an interesting spectrum that included a huge amount of oxygen. This amount of oxygen had never been seen before. And the conclusion was that a supernova had occurred in a star system, and that explosion had created a black hole.
Our galaxy also includes some "alien" stars -- they are stars that have come from other galaxies. When galaxies collide, some stars are left behind, and spectroscopy allows us to detect which ones are "foreign."
He also looks at a binary star with a phenomenon called a "super flare." What causes extremely large super flares? No one knows -- but he hopes that the mystery of super flares will be finally explained by spectroscopy.
But first, we need to understand the whole evolution of the universe, and how the objects have been producing and recycling various chemical elements. It's an extraordinarily complex study, and occasionally some anomalies appear. Those anomalies, Israelian thinks, may help us discover other life elsewhere in the universe. Biomarkers such as oxygen and ozone may indicate whether a planet is hospitable to life. In fact, water and methane have already been detected on distant planets outside of our solar system.
Photo: Garik Israelian at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 6: "Curious and curiouser," July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
22 July 2009
Marcus du Sautoy at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 6
Mathematician and science communicator Marcus du Sautoy began his talk with the story of Evariste Galois, a Paris revolutionary who died in his brother's arms. The night before, Galois had stayed up all night trying to explain his mathematical ideas before his duel the next day. He was trying to explain symmetry.
Symmetry helps us understand the world: crystals, microbiology. Swine flu virus is a symmetrical object, and uses symmetry to its advantage as it attacks. Symmetry communicates genetic information. We perceive symmetry in human faces as beautiful. Symmetry is helping in uncovering the nature of fundamental particles. Scientists and artists both are interested in symmetry, although artists' relationship with it may be more "ambiguous," quips Sautoy. Artists set up expectations of symmetry, and then break them. 14th-century Japanese essays say "Uniformity is undesireable."
But ... what is symmetry? Galois asked whether by knowing one symmetry, we know all of them. One characteristic of symmetry is that by fixing an object at a point and rotating it in some way, that rotation can happen without it seeming that the object has rotated.
A "twisted, six-pointed starfish," for example, can be rotated by thirds or fifths of a turn, and still look the same. But after the rotations you can do something besides rotation. You can "pick it up and put it down again." Galois called this the "zero" symmetry. A triangle has the same property. It can be rotated -- and also "reflected."
Math is not a spectator sport, says du Sautoy. You have to actually do it to understand it, to enjoy it.
The interaction of the symmetries is different from the symmetry itself. In other words: "Are the symmetries themselves symmetrical?" He uses a grid of rows and columns representing the points of a symmetrical figure to illustrate whether it matters what order of rotations you can perform on a given figure. This allows us to explore how the symmetries between different objects are fundamentally different. This allows us to determine whether two different symmetrical objects have the same underlying abstract symmetry.
For example, there are only two objects with six symmetries: the twisted six-pointed starfish and the equilateral triangle from the original example.
But Galois' language for symmetry allows us to understand the symmetry of objects that we cannot actually see. Du Sautoy works on symmetrical objects in high-dimensional spaces.
Du Sautoy presented TED with a new symmetrical object he was working on the previous night, and offered any TEDster a chance to have their name as the name of the symmetrical object. To win, they had to say how many digits are in the number of symmetries a Rubik's cube has. Speaker Andrea Ghez won the contest.
Photo: Marcus du Sautoy at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 6: "Curious and curiouser," July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Marcus du Sautoy on symmetry
Marcus du Sautoy used his math and science skills to open Session 6 with a thorough talk about symmetry. Reactions to this talk on Twitter seemed to range from amusing to challenging, but to be fair, Marcus du Sautoy did challenge the audience first.
You know you're at #TED when mathematicians get cheers on stage. :) -- christinelu
Marcus du Sautoy talks about symmetry and likes the Alhambra (which happens to be my view right now :-) -- TEDxCambridge
Thinking about symmetries giving me a slight headache :-) -- liaonet
Sorry, has to be for me --> "mathematics is not a spectator sport" says Marcus du Sautoy -- Thandelike
"Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting" quotes Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy. Next article from me will be half written. -- WiredUK
@TEDGlobal has the insider perspective on the conference, make sure you're following!
22 July 2009
TED's volunteer translators weigh in on Session 5: Now in Hungarian and Traditional Chinese!
Here's Session 5's unedited running notes from our crack team of Open Translation Project translators, taken as they watch the live webcast of TEDGlobal 2009!
Click through to view the running notes for Session 5 in ...
22 July 2009
David Deutsch at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 5
Unedited running notes from TEDGlobal 2009.
Our ancestors wondered what stars are. Humans have always yearned to know more -- it is a survival instinct. "How can I be warmer, cooler, safer, in less pain?" Prehistoric cave artists may have wished to draw better. But although they wished for more knowledge, for progress, they failed. The world did not improve for a long, long, long time.
What makes stars shine? We only really knew why as recently as 1899. We made many important discoveries and advancements in the 40 years that followed, so why did we not discover this in the 100,000 years before? Our ancestors had brains of the same design as we have. But somehow they stagnated, while we have driven our knowledge and technology forward at a staggering pace. Deutsch asks, Why? What event revolutionized the human condition?
The scientific revolution is where we should start to look for answers. Ever since then, our knowledge of the physical world and how to adapt it to our wishes has grown. The revolution was based on the fact that "It is possible to know." But what is that notion itself based on?
It was thought, in more primitive times, that "all that is important to know is already known." People believed that ancient scrolls and dogma were all the truth we needed. But starting to actually make progress away from that is not as simple as just "rejecting authority." Authorities have been rejected many times before, with no scientific progress resulting.
Promoting observation is important, but, as we learned today, perception does not offer a direct channel into "absolute reality." It's not like equations are carved into mountains. And if they are, it's because we carved them there. (He says: "By the way, why don't we DO that? What's WRONG with us?")
How do we know things? Empiricists would say: induction. How do we know spacetime is curved? "Looking at an eclipse, and seeing a dot here rather than there." How do we know evolution is true? "Looking at rocks." A creationist would say, "Ah! Gotcha! You're using guesswork." But they fail to see that their understanding of their ancient religious texts is also based on guesswork.
So is testability, as Karl Popper would say, the key to advancement? No. Even cranks can make theories that are "testable."
What is the one thing that allows for scientific advancement, for progress, rather than stagnation? Deutsch's answer comes from a Simpson's clip. In the clip, Lucy Lawless, actress who played Xena in Xena: The Warrior Princess answers geeky fans' questions about plotholes and inconsistencies with one answer: "If you see any plothole, remember that a wizard did it." Deutsch says, interestingly, this type of explanation is not problematic because it contradicts a different explanation -- it's just about it being a bad explanation. In the clip, character Professor Frink asks for an explanation. Lucy Lawless offers a poor explanation. (Does it make sense to argue about what happened off stage in fiction?) The reason Lucy Lawless' explanation doesn't work, according to Deutsch, is because the "Wizard" entity that provided the explanation could easily be substituted for any other entity.
Easy variability is a sign of a bad explanation.
Look for explanations that can't be easily varied, which still explain the phenomenon. In the case of our explanation of seasons, the tilt of the Earth's rotation has many specific characteristics, any given one of which when challenged would affect everything about the theory. That's why it is powerful. But if the activities of fickle gods were what the changing seasons where attributed to, any given detail could be changed about the gods -- they created spring as a revenge! vs. spring returned as a sort of godly marriage blessing! -- without actually affecting the end result.
Deutsch's final conclusion: The truth consists of hard-to-vary assertions about reality.
Photo: David Deutsch at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 5: "Hidden algorithm" July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: David Deutsch boggles minds
Quantum physicist David Deutsch is at TEDGlobal talking about how the stars shine, reality as conjecture and parallel universes. It's fascinating, but some of us are a little mentally intimidated and Twitter reflected that.
Day 2 @ TED. Settling in for a talk by quantum theorist David Deutsch. Is my mind ready fir this one? -- afar_diaz
will virtually hug the first tweeter to tweet the 'what makes stars shine' formula ;-) in David Deutsch's talk -- iamhelenharrop
David Deutsch "The Nature of Scientific Explanation" is beyond my twit-ability, sorry. Must. Focus. Brain. Hurts. -- ruthannharnisch
Chris Anderson asks physicist David Deutsch how the whole parallel universe thing is going. -- shanehegarty
David Deutsch talking about how we should look for the explanation that is the hardest to vary in order to progress in knowledge. -- tweodor
Well then, there's a reason for all the headache.
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: James Geary and the patterns of metaphor
Aphorist James Geary took the stage at TEDGlobal 2009 this morning. Recognize a pattern? It was his second appearance on the TED stage for the conference and he took the opportunity to discuss metaphors and pattern. Twitter lit up, creating yet another pattern.
Watching James Geary talking about metaphors. My favorite way of explaining things. -- hecatomber
James Geary talking about Elvis Presley the King of Metaphor -- grumblemouse
Metaphor is a creation of patterns as well as the detection of patterns, James Geary -- izahoor
James Geary on metaphors and its' mathematics (hint X=Y) -- casinclair
Geary: Metaphors matter because they create expectations, influence decisions, + open the door to discovery. Yes! -- DesignObserver
Remember to follow Geary on Twitter for more metaphor!
Photo: James Geary at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 5: " Hidden algorithm," July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
22 July 2009
Manuel Lima at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 5
Unedited running notes from TEDGlobal 2009.
An interaction designer at Nokia, Lima looks at how complex interconnectedness can be understood. He is compelled by the divide between information and knowledge. So he looks at information visualization. He built a visualization tool called Blogviz that helps display how word-of-mouth information travels from person A to person B.
To understand how to visualize info, Lima started collecting hundreds and hundreds of examples of visualizations of complexity, which he compiled onto VisualComplexity.com. Subjects the visualizations deal with include social networks, computer systems, biology, transportation networks, food webs ... Now he tracks close to 700 projects.
Networks are omnipresent. They're in brains, in cells, power grids, ecosystems. This is why it is important to try to map networks. He studied Warren Weaver, who wrote on complexity, and "problems of simplicity." There are problems of simplicity, problems of disorganized complexity, and problems of organized complexity.
How do we connect interconnected and interdependent components of systems? In collecting visualizations, he's found some very interesting trends. How do we map the blogosphere? Nodes are not placed abstractly, but in an organized way, for example, according to geography. He shows a snapshot of the entire blogosphere, called "Hyperbolic Blogosphere."
Lima also tracks photo-sharing sites, i.e. Flickr, semantic structures of tags used in Flickr. He even tracks the most popular paths that people take through a particular city.
Using a network of GPS receivers which each collect paths, we can create "GPS drawings" that show traffic lines. Children using GPS have created drawings. He has also anchored GPS information to emotions, so you can find out what types of places in a certain city are associated with which emotions.
Later in the day he will show some video of visual complexity.
Photo: Manuel Lima at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 5: " Hidden algorithm," July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Manuel Lima's new way to see networks and data
Interaction designer Manuel Lima was a last minute addition to the TEDGlobal program, but he made an impact by showcasing his new method for displaying data and networks. Needless to say, the crowd and the Twitterverse was engaged and enthralled:
listening to manuel lima and hearing about data vis that is actually useful and not just something marketing people like -- clemo
People are using Flickr to plot the most popular tourist pathways in cities. Derivative and hidden data is amazing and a bit scary. -- liaonet
noticing that my favourite #ted talk seems to be 'whatever talk I'm watching right now' - Manuel Lima's *definitely* my fave tho -- iamhelenharrop
Check out visualcomplexity.com amazing way to see networks -- liaonet
"[Data visualization] is becoming the syntax of a new language." <-- Right on. [yep!] -- brainpicker
Manuel Lima is one of the many TEDGlobal speakers you can follow on Twitter.
22 July 2009
Henry Markram at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 5
Unedited running notes from TEDGlobal 2009.
Henry Markram is leading the Blue Brain Project, which hopes to create a realistic digital 3D model of the whole human brain within the next 10 years. (The simulation promises to do all the things that real human brains can do, including consciousness.) He's done a proof of concept by modeling half of a rodent brain. Now he's scaling up the project to reach a human brain.
But why? It's essential to understand the brain for us to get along in society. We can't keep doing animal experimentation forever. We have to embody our data in a working digital model. We need better medicines that are more specific, more concrete, more precise. (Also, it's just fascinating.)
Markram, for the first time, shares how he is addressing one theory of how the brain works. The theory is that the brain "builds" a version of the universe and projects this version, like a bubble, all around us. But Markram says we can directly address this philosophical question with science. Anesthetics don't work by blocking receptors. They introduce a noise into the brain to confuse the neurons to prevent you from making "decisions." You must make decisions to perceive anything. 99% of what you see in a room is not what comes in through the eyes -- it's what you infer about that room.
Instead of speculating or philosophizing, we can actually build something to test the theories.
It took the universe 11 billion years to build a brain. The big step was the neocortex. It allowed animals to cope with parenthood, social functions. So the neocortex is the ultimate solution, the pinnacle of complex design that the universe has produced. The neocortex continues to evolve rapidly. The neocortex uses the same basic unit for computation, over and over again, and built up so fast evolutionarily that the brain had to fold itself up to fit more of the stuff into the skull.
The holy grail for neuroscience is to understand the design of the neocortical column. It will help us understand not just the brain, but perhaps physical reality. Understanding the structures that make it up is extremely difficult, because beyond just cataloging the parts, you have to figure out how they actually work -- and then build realistic digital models.
The branches of neurons intersect in millions of locations, and in each location, each synapse, communication happens. The circuit, or the fabric of the brain, the way it is patterned is a challenge to any theory of the brain. Every neuron is different. How is it possible, then, that we create a reality that we all share? Although the circuitry may change, the pattern of design does not change.
Mathematics underlies the models of the brain. Each neuron has a mathematical representation. Even though this simplifies things, you still need a huge computer to do the kinds of simulations Markram is talking about. You'd need one laptop for every single neuron in order to accurately model it. So what do you do? You go to IBM!
"Where is the rose?" is a popular formulation of what the study of cognition is all about. Amid the tangle of neurons, amid the raw, chaotic electrical activity, where is reality -- metaphorically thought of as a "rose" one is perceiving or thinking about -- actually physically represented? Markram looks at "electrical objects" that neural activity forms, in order to nail down how thoughts are represented.
The universe has evolved a structure for it to become aware of itself. We're about to create another such structure in the digital universe we ourselves have created.
Photo: Henry Markram at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 5: " Hidden algorithm," July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Henry Markram builds and explains brains
Henry Markram is a cortex visionary. This means he is trying to build the equivalent of a human brain through software as the director of Blue Brain. While this occupied a significant portion of his talk, he also literally delved into the center of a brain (in an astonishing 3D model). The folks on Twitter seemed quite impressed with his presentation:
... Q4 Henry Markram (TEDG-S5): How long before we can upload our brains & thus live forever? And will we be Mac, PC or Open source? -- bizlike
2 billion people are affected by mental health disorders - understanding the brain opens up the possibility of offering concrete help -- iamhelenharrop
Unbelievable. Watching an awesome clip of the movements of electrical current within the brain when it's stimulated -- vikkichowney
Markram 99% of what you "see" comes to you through inference of the brain. (Yikes. The Matrix plot in real life, eh?) -- ruthannharnisch
Henry Markram (cortex visionary) THE most brilliant talk today at TedGlobal brain able to create copy of itself! -- Idit
22 July 2009
Rebecca Saxe at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 5
Unedited running notes from TEDGlobal 2009.
Rebecca Saxe talked about "the problem of other minds." One of the most complicated things the mind does is try to comprehend what other people are thinking. But the problem she researches is not what you might think -- not "why is it so hard to know other minds?" but: How is it so easy to know other minds?
One snapshot of a stranger diving into the ocean or holding a baby allows you to guess what other people are thinking or feeling -- joy, or thrill. The brain, the machine we use to think, is made of the same pieces as other animals' brains are made of, and even sea slugs have them. But how is it that the particular network of pieces we humans in particular have allows us to think about other peoples' thoughts so easily?
We have a special reasoning module called the right tempero-parietal junction that is what we use to think about other peoples' thoughts.
How do we learn to predict actions? It takes time for human children to learn this ability. 5-year-olds can understand that other people have false beliefs. 3-year-olds don't understand this. The same goes for the ability to make moral judgment based on what is (or is not) known about peoples' intentions.
But even in adulthood, people differ on this ability. Saxe tries to explain how these differences come about with fascinating experiments. Adults are given a version of the experiment given to the kids, involving a jar of sugar that is labeled "poison." People disagree about how much blame people should get when they do something intentionally wrong -- givng a co-worker sugar, but believing that the sugar is poison -- and doing something by accident -- giving people poison that they think is sugar -- that is wrong.
Saxe wanted to know if we can change this function, and it turns out that we can. We can do so using a magnetic pulse to disorganize the function of the neurons in the region responsible for this type of thinking. The magnetic pulse, which is powerful enough to shoot a quarter into the air, causes an involuntary twitch in the hand when applied through the skull. When this pulse is applied to people who are making a moral judgment, people come to believe that accidents are less OK, and actions done with actual intent to harm is more OK.
In a brief Q&A, Chris Anderson asked about the dangers of such technology. Is Saxe talking to the Pentagon about this technology? Saxe said, "They're calling, but I'm not talking to them." It's not any danger (yet), because there's no way for this technology to work without the person knowing that the brain interference is happening.
Will this research make any impacts on education? Saxe says that is the hope. By exploring this field, we'll understand how human brains do distinctly human things.
Photo: Rebecca Saxe at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 5: " Hidden algorithm," July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Rebecca Saxe on how the brain invents the mind
In her talk at TEDGlobal, cognitive neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe presented her breakthrough discovery of a particular section of the brain that becomes active when we contemplate the workings of other minds. Here's what people had to say about this remarkable and "brainy" talk:
Crap. Another #TED talk by someone who is half my age and 10x my brain power. When I hear 'brain', I think zombies. -- casinclair
Saxe uses magnetic pulses to temporarily disorganize specific regions of the brain. Perfectly safe, I am sure, but a little freaky. -- TEDxCambridge
Rebecca is fascinating. She works at MIT & uses FMRI to identify what happens in our brains when we think about the beliefs of others -- vikkichowney
TED is like drinking from five fire hoses. And it's only Wednesday. Rebecca Saxe, neuroscientist, had a fascinating talk on the mind. -- beckyblanton
Rebecca Saxe talks about using pulses to alter moral judgments, and how she gets calls from the military. She doesn't pick up. -- shanehegarty
Be sure to follow @TEDGlobal and the #TED hashtag while the conference is going on!
22 July 2009
Beau Lotto at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 5
Unedited running notes from TEDGlobal 2009.
Beau Lotto began with a simple game for the audience, based on an illusion. He showed two panels covered with large dots of a variety of colors. The backgrounds of the two panels were white and black, respectively. He then surveyed the audience to find which dots across the two boards were the same colors. The audience split three ways in their guesses, and most were wrong. Lotto said that this tendency to see color "incorrectly" based on context uncovers a crucial fact about the way we're wired:
We have no direct access to our physical world other than through our senses, and the light that falls on our eyes depends on the color of objects and the color of the space between us and those objects. For this reason, the same image with any single parameter changed would have a completely different appearance.
The patterns of light that fall on our eyes is meaningless -- it could mean literally anything. And that's true of sensory information generally. So, how do we see? The brain evolved to find patterns and associate those patterns with behavioral meaning.
Our brain is good at quickly re-defining reality. He showed two identical desert scenes, one below a red panel and another under a green panel. As you stare at the images, the brain learns that the green and red are important for context. When the context is removes the scenes' appearance dramatically changes. (The crowd oohed when Lotto removed the colored panels.)
These various illusions illustrate how the brain modifies meaning based on sensory information. But we are not the only creatures to see illusions. Bumble bees see illusions in much the same way as we do. Lotto shows this with a science-art project called the Bee Matrix. Using colored lights, he shows that bees' behavior can be manipulated with color information that interferes with their ability to recognize patterns in order to find nectar.
Illusions are often used to demonstrate "the fragility of our senses." Lotto says this idea is rubbish. If our senses were fragile, we would not be here. We evolved to see the world in the way it was useful, and how we see is continually re-defining normality.
How can we exploit this tendency for the better? He shows an amazing wearable interface that interprets visual information as sound, and this allows a blind person to successfully navigate the room based only on the sound information.
No one is an outside observer of nature. We are not defined by the bits that make us up -- but our environment, our ecology. Only through uncertainty is there potential for understanding.
Photo: Beau Lotto at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 5: " Hidden algorithm," July 22, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Beau Lotto's optical insights
Session 5 started in a very pronounced way with neuroscientist and artist Beau Lotto's colorful talk which featured interactive optical illusions and software that can turn drawings into music. Here's what people on Twitter took away from his talk:
There is no inherent meaning in information, it's what we do w/ info that matters (Beau Lotto) -- ruthannharnisch
Beau Lotto: "the brain evolved a way to see because it proved useful in the past" -- kevglobal
Lotto: We see by finding patterns and associating these patterns with behavioral relationships in the world. -- brainpicker
Beau Lotto's talk will be super-popular as an opener at TEDx events, I predict, for showing ppl how perceptions are shaped, amusingly. -- ruthannharnisch
Beau Lotto: "No one is an outside observer of nature." -- frogdesign
22 July 2009
TED's volunteer translators on Session 4: Now in Hungarian, with more to come!
Here's Session 4's batch so far of unedited running notes from our crack team of Open Translation Project translators, taken as they watch the live webcast of TEDGlobal 2009!
Click through to view the running notes for Session 4 in ...
22 July 2009
Volunteer translators ring in on Session 3 -- Now in Turkish and Hungarian, with more to come!
Here's Session 3's batch so far of unedited running notes from our crack team of Open Translation Project translators, taken as they watch the live webcast of TEDGlobal 2009!
Click through to view the running notes for Session 3 in ...
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Lewis Pugh's Polar Plunge
Lewis Pugh, long-distance and cold-water swimmer, recounted his extraordinary feat of swimming across the North Pole in an effort to raise awareness for climate change. Melted ice in the Arctic afforded him the opportunity to swim 1 mile in the -1.7C water. TED Tweeters were awestruck by Pugh’s conviction and the footage of his swim alike:
Lewis Pugh: Climate change is real. We need to do something about it, right now. -- tedtochina
Lewis Pugh: because of global warming, there is water at (or near) the North Pole, at least thanks to the ice breaker ship -- kokoe2
Pugh wanted to swim across the North Pole to "shake the lapels of world leaders" on climate change. Have YOU ever heard of him? -- ruthannharnisch
"It's f**king freezing" - Lewis Pugh, Arctic swimmer -- andrewgerrard
Lewis Pugh who swam one mile across the North Pole in freezing waters is on the stage. Female Tedsters are swooning -- WiredUK
We must all walk to the end of our lives, turn around and ask the question 'what world do we want to live in?' (LP) -- iamhelenharrop
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Mathieu Lehanneur blends fantasy and functionality
Designer Mathieu Lehanneur presented several of his imaginative creations, inspired by the interplay of nature and technology. Among his designs: a petaliferous antibiotic, an interactive lung for asthmatic children, a sound-neutralizing fiber-optic ball, and Andrea- an air filtration unit that harnesses the natural processes of living plant systems (to name a few). The audience was quite impressed on Twitter:
Mathieu Lehanneur: Peel-and-eat antibiotic that encourages patients to complete treatment. Cool. -- joeltalks
Mathieu Lehanneur: Therapeuitic Objects: The 3rd Lung: Asthmatic kids learn to trust/need the object which in turn needs him -- kokoe2
Lehanneur follows the theme of invisible design, as if an object's function exists implicitly and invisibly around it – brainpicker
Mathieu Lehanneur: LOCAL RIVER, an indoor mini-system, to filter water. (permaculture in the livng room!) -- kokoe2
Fantastic ball from mathieu lehanneur: it positions itself in the center of noise and annihilates it by emitting the opposite soundwave -- ostinelli
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Janine Benyus observes how nature influences design
In her talk today, biomimicrist Janine Benyus made the case that we can learn a lot from nature. In keeping with this idea, here's what TEDsters on Twitter learned from her:
Janine benyus: Nature is a selfcoordinating genius with no top down commander.. -- lucadebiase
"Imagine designing spring" biomimicry expert Janine Banyus. "Whenever you want to invent something, start with nature." -- Idit
Janine Benyus: To solve a design problem, ask "What would nature do?" -- DanielPink
Benyus shows us images of wind turbines that mimic whale flippers to reduce drag by 30% and can turn in very slow winds. -- frogdesign
Benyus: Look to nature for engineering inspiration. "We´re not the first ones to build houses for our young" -- TEDxCambridge
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Cary Fowler keeps seeds safe
Session 4 of TEDGlobal started with biodiversity archivist Cary Fowler giving a talk about his project at Svalbard -- a global seed bank focused on making sure food crops don't become extinct. Here are the excited and concerned responses from Twitter:
Fowler says no way to determine the "best" of species - we should save ALL bcz each has traits that might be savior-like in future. -- ruthannharnisch
Cary fowler biodiversity archivist: apple species are disappearing. There's not such a thing as the best apple. Diversity => adaptation -- lucadebiase
Fascinating yet scary talk about agricultural diversity at #TED. Will never look at an apple the same way again. -- globaltolerance
Cary Fowler by 2070, crops will need to grow in a climate never cooler than the hottest days we see now -- kokoe2
Cary Fowler: "We can't solve any of the world's problems without crop diversity." Don't endow a museum in NY, endow wheat in Svalbard. -- bupbin
Fowler: if agriculture doesn't adapt to climate change, neither will we. -- Thandelike
Remember that you can get the latest conference updates by following TEDGlobal and searching for #TED on Twitter.
22 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Evgeny Morozov
Evgeny Moroz steps onstage and says: "As an Eastern European, I was brought in to play the pessimist this morning. Bear with me." His short early-morning talk laid out some uncomfortable truths about the way repressive governments are using the Internet -- challenging the assumption that the web is bringing more openness and democracy:
@TEDGlobal We thought the internet could do what missiles could do: promote democracy in difficult places
@TEDGlobal We assume that every single Iranian or Chinese who loves his iPod will also love liberal democracy.
@Casablanca "If you give people enough connectivity, and enough devices that can connect, then democracy will inevitably follow" - Evgeny Morozov
Instead, he points out ways that repressive regimes are harnessing local networks to track local activitists, such as:
@kokoe2 "Authoritarian Deliberation" -- Governments encourage bloggers to discuss their world.
@frogdesign: How can we empower political dissidents with social media and the Internet without endangering them?
@ruthannharnisch: Morozov says Spin + Internet = Spinternet. Excellent coinage, yes?
@kevglobal Morozov: #TED Censorship is less effective than spin. Only way to control message is to try to spin it.
21 July 2009
Volunteer translators' notes on Session 2 -- now in Hungarian, Albanian, Greek, Turkish, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and German!
Here's Session 2's batch of unedited running notes from our crack team of Open Translation Project translators, taken as they watch the live webcast of TEDGlobal 2009!
Click through to view the running notes for Session 2 in ...
Hungarian - Shqip - Ελληνικά - Türkçe - 中文 - Español - Deutsch
Enjoy!
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Mark Johnson on one world and one song
Mark Johnson delivered a poignant conclusion to the first day of TEDGlobal, as he screened two videos from Playing for Change, his project to record different artists around the world playing the same song, to be combined in one composite film. A palpable sense of hope and unity pervades the reaction on Twitter:
Mark Johnson asked the street musicians why they played on the street. "I'm in the joy business" -- kevglobal
"What brings us together between birth and death is up to us." Precioso. -M. Johnson. -- eRomanMe
Mark Johnson is creating a global force of music and song! It is just uplifting music to reach enlightenment! -- liaonet
The #TED crowd seems to love Mark Johnson and his vision of uniting the world in music. His org is "Playing for Change," peace thru music. -- ruthannharnisch
Mark Johnson said something interesting about us gaining world peace by speaking the common language of music [inspiring] -- iamhelenharrop
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Steve Truglia wants to jump from space
Stuntman Steve Truglia plans to jump to earth from the edge of space. His talk at TEDGlobal 2009 included the facts that he'll be falling at the speed of sound while clad in a customized spacesuit. Be sure to follow Steve on Twitter and check out what viewers of the online feed had to say about this ambitious stunt:
Steve Truglia shows how technology is reshaping stunt. -- tedtochina
We're listening to Steve Truglia now, who's planning a parachute jump from the edge of SPACE...that's120,000 feet!! -- vikkichowney
Truglia: Jumping from the edge of space, "The greatest stunt on earth." -- TEDxCambridge
Truglia demos prototype space jump suit - only weighs 15 pounds. Looking for his major sponsor. Any takers for the biggest stunt ever? -- ruthannharnisch
Stuntman Steve Truglia at TEDGlobal: "Being run over is never easy. But now we have padding and fantastic shock-absorbing things." -- DesignObserver
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: James Geary and his amazing aphorisms
Aphorist James Geary took to the TED Global stage in vibrant fashion, reciting a large portion of his talk while juggling. In his talk, he laid down the laws all aphorisms must heed, and the Twitterverse responded delightedly to his musings.
James Geary Mirrors will do better to reflect a little bit more before sending information back -- Idit
Geary will juggle while giving laws of aphorisms. Aphorisms must be brief. (His juggling is not world-class, but his speech is.) -- ruthannharnisch
Aphorism: Short, definitive, not necessarily true, refuge of skepticism -Geary -- eRomanMe
James Geary on aphorisms, e.g., Love is that brief moment of time when someone holds the same opinion of us as we do of ourselves. jenbrea
A weekend wasted is not a wasted weekend. James Geary Fifth law. It must have a twist. Sixth law, it must have a tweet. -- aviatorone
Remember, you can follow James Geary on Twitter.
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Willard Wigan tours the magical world of his microscopic sculpture
Twitters were entranced and inspired by the story of how TEDGlobal 2009 speaker Willard Wigan (follow him on Twitter) came to create sculptures small enough to fit within the eye of a needle. His heartbreaking early life, which saw him rejected by other children his age and unable to fit in or succeed at school, followed by the astonishing refinement of his one-of-a-kind skill, shows that beauty is in really the microscope of the beholder!
Willard Wiggin creates sculptures in the eyes of needles. Yes, u read that right. He says each of us was once that small or smaller. -- ruthannharnisch
Wiggin says he slows down his nervous system to create his microsculpture, takes care not to inhale his work (which he has done). -- ruthannharnisch
Willard Wigan http://bit.ly/16FLWc Discovered the world in miniature because didn't fit in at school "My world was seen as less." -- TEDxCambridge
Wigan builds houses on the heads of pins. What's that saying about angels? -- jenbrea
Willard Wigan's story in itself defies any notion of impossibility. -- tedtochina
Use the #TED tag if you'd like to join the conversation on Twitter!
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Josh Silver’s global vision for vision
Josh Silver shared his ambition to supply the billion people worldwide in need of glasses with his innovative, low-cost adjustable lenses by 2020. On stage, Silver demonstrated the effectiveness of his glasses and also provided insight into the economic and educational repercussions on impoverished populations that result from the dearth of vision correction options. The gravity of Silver’s talk certainly resonated with the audience on Twitter:
Josh Silver asks: if u had no access 2 eyewear, would u b at TED today? Half the world's people need corrective eyewear. -- uthannharnisch
Josh Silver: "Over one billion people would see their world change if they had glasses." -- brainpicker
Poor eyesight = an education problem and an economic problem, not just a health problem (Joshua Silver) -- iamhelenharrop
Josh Silver, 60% of people need corrective eyewear = 1 billion people in need of glasses and don't have them! -- liaonet
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Andrea Ghez: Spying on supermassive black holes
Astronomer and astrophysicist Andrea Ghez captivated the TEDGlobal 2009 crowd with an up-close look at the style and substance of the peculiar space phenomenon known as a black hole. At UCLA, she's working on imaging techniques that will bring these mysterious objects into better focus than ever before. Here's what Twitter had to say:
you've to check out Andrea Ghez - a stargazing detective. Smart, witty and a famous astronomer. She rocks! PS: am to shy to take a pic -- danielahinrichs
Andrea Ghez: "Your job today is to be skeptical." -- brainpicker
Andrea Ghez: All galaxies might harbor super, massive blackhole at their center. -- tedtochina
Atmosphere makes it tough for large telescopes to see astronomical detail, the way a moving stream obscures a clear view of pebble. -- ruthannharnisch
Astronomer Andrea Ghez actually has a favorite star in solar system, based on the speed of its travels, increasing her chances to see. -- ruthannharnisch
21 July 2009
TED volunteer translators' notes on Session 1 -- Now in Greek, Turkish, Albanian, Hebrew, German, Hungarian, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish!
A team of volunteer translators who are participating in TED's Open Translation Project have stepped up to help bring TEDGlobal 2009 TED Blog running notes outside of the English-speaking world.
Click through to view the unedited running notes in ...
Ελληνικά - Türkçe - Shqip - עברית
- Deutsch - Hungarian - 中文 - Español
Enjoy!
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown takes the TED stage by surprise
The much-buzzed-about surprise speaker at the first session of TEDGlobal 2009 was finally revealed to be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. A Twitterer himself, the Prime Minster's appearance on the TED stage quickly drove the #TED tag into Twitter's top trending topics today. Here's a slice of what people were tweeting:
our Prime Minister was good - a really powerful, articulate and poignant talk -- doug_graeme
Gordon Brown @TED gives shout out to citizen media's role in Burma protests http://bit.ly/rXx6d -- TEDxCambridge
Mr Gordon Brown: Amy Winehouse thinks she has in common with Mr Mandela - her husband spent time in prison as well LOLOLOLOLOL -- j_mf
Special-guest Gordon Brown at TED, talking about the modern speed of communication as a unifying force for social good -- doug_graeme
#TED and PM Gordon Brown: what we see unlocks what we cannot see: the invisible ties and bonds that bring us together as a human community -- kokoe2
Inspiring talk by PM Gordon Brown @ #TED Global on global citizenship. "We must build a proper relationship between rich and poor countries" -- kyraocity
"Whatever you may think of him, that was a fantastic speech by Gordon Brown... Looked a leader." -- jamesmcnicholas
And TED's own Chris Anderson also chimed in:
talking to Gordon Brown about Global Citizenship! Africa is really in his agenda! -- TEDChris
Gordon Brown! Excellent talk! Great questions by Chris!! Back him in a corner and watch him come out ! -- abelapagos
Stay tuned to the TED Blog for more TEDGlobal 2009 coverage!
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Stephen Fry shares what he knows
Actor and author Stephen Fry boldly took to the stage at TEDGlobal (sporting a multi-colored tie in defiance of TED’s no-tie policy) to touch on a pastiche of topics, including philosophy, culture, experience and intellect. The following comments from Twitter embody viewers' reactions to Fry’s talk:
Stephen Fry on stage with a tie - which is illegal at TED :) -- Idit
"The real mistery of life is in the visible not in the invisible." Fry. -- eRomanMe
"Cambridge produces martyrs, Oxford burns them" an old saying from @stephenfry #ted (via @iamhelenharrop) Never heard before! :)) -- inckognito
Fry good talk on physicality, art, essence. emotion, intellect and third culture incl. Adams & Snow -- vangeest
A beautiful person or thing has substance but "Beauty" itself doesn't exist. Nothing abstract does. - Stephen Fry -- AmyLeaman
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Stefan Sagmeister on how sabbaticals can keep you busy
In a focused and nuanced talk, Stefan Sagmeister talked today at TED Global about his unique way of keeping a fresh perspective in his work and in his life. He also shared some of his innovative designs. Here was the feedback from Twitter:
Stefan Sagmeister: closes is studio every 8th year, essentially taking 5 of his retirement years interspersed into his lifestream -- kokoe2
Three mechanical dogs running a lamp across the room! :D One of many design examples from Stefan Sagmeister -- leeander
5% of the tedsters in Oxford have taken a sabbatical - Sagmeister's advice is for the others to talk to them about it -- iamhelenharrop
Stefan Sagmeister invented a logo generator of AWESOMENESS! <- GOLD -- grumblemouse
beautiful insight on branding from Stefan Sagmeister "Sameness is overrated" -- SethDaggett
TED Global 2009 Stefan Sagmeister "Obsessions make my life worse but my work better" -- bwdumars
The conference is only just getting started, and you'll find plenty of reaction coverage right here, so make sure to come back often.
21 July 2009
Twitter Snapshot: Alain de Botton on snobs and visualizing your own success
TEDGlobal 2009 is under way! Writer Alain de Botton (you can follow him on Twitter) kickstarted the conference with an insightful talk on why people are snobs and how we define our own success. Here were the reactions from TEDsters watching the live feed.
A snob: "Someone who uses a small part of you to come to a global conclusion about who you are." Opposite of a snob: Mom -- TEDxCambridge
Snobbery is a global phenomena! -- rom
Alain de Botton: we are drawn to nature as an escape from the human ant hill. A way to feel connection with the non-human -- kokoe2
Most unlikely tweet today, from the #TED conference. 'Alain de Botton is off and rocking them'. Like he's Status Quo at Live Aid. -- Mr_Considerate
"Never before the expectations of what human beings should achieve with little have been so high" -- javiermalagon
Keep checking this page for more updates from Twitter on TEDGlobal 2009.
26 September 2008
Announcing TEDGlobal 2009
TEDGlobal 2009, to be held in Oxford, UK, is titled "The Substance of Things Not Seen," and will feature more than 40 remarkable speakers presenting over the course of four days, from July 21-24, 2009.
"TEDGlobal is TED's twin conference, with the same focus on identifying novel voices and bringing to the stage inspired ideas, experiences, technologies, and performances -- with an even stronger international perspective," says Bruno Giussani, European Director for TED Conferences.
The TEDGlobal 2009 program is designed to explore and make visible the substance of things that run unseen through our lives. These hidden forces -- social conventions, biological links, cultural frameworks, coded meanings, complex processes, creative impulses, scientific speculations, software, networks -- are the connective tissue that binds societies together and the engines that propel organizations forward. When illuminated, they offer vital insights into our relationship with each other and our world. Some of the questions the conference will address:
-- What makes big cities function?
-- What is an accomplished life?
-- Which universe do we live in?
-- Is life a mathematical equation?
-- Where does motivation come from?
Confirmed speakers include two of the world's most celebrated writers; a scholar with a radically new idea about development; a mathematician and a neuroscientist who are redefining the way we see the world; a visionary aviator; a Capuchin monk; a former child soldier; a groundbreaking choreographer; a designer who creates out of thin air; a leading global business thinker; one of the biggest names in contemporary art; a photographer of the invisible; plus many other leaders in business, science, technology, entertainment and the arts. The full program, with some jaw-dropping names, will be unveiled about two months before the event. The registration fee for the conference is US$4,500.
Learn more about TEDGlobal 2009 >>
Register for TEDGlobal 2009 >>
Registration for TEDIndia, held in November 2009, will open in a few weeks. Watch this space for the announcement.
28 February 2008
Upcoming TEDs: Africa, Europe, India
Three upcoming TED conferences have been just announced from the TED stage:
TEDAfrica: Cape Town, South Africa, 29 September - 1 October 2008. Theme: "What If?". Information and registration here.
TEDEurope: Oxford, UK, 21-24 July 2009. Theme: "The Substance of Things Not Seen". Registrations will open soon. The first TEDGlobal was held in Oxford in 2005.
TEDGlobal: Mumbai, India, November 2009. Details will follow.
26 November 2007
Announcing TEDAfrica 2008!
Chris Anderson and Emeka Okafor write:
We're delighted to tell you that there will be another TED conference in Africa next year, and that we hope to make it an annual event on the continent!
TEDAfrica will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, September 29-October 1, 2008 (save the date!), and will follow the format of this year's TEDGlobal conference in Arusha, Tanzania.
The conference will be organized by a wonderful local team, including TED Fellow Kelo Kubu, and the conference will be operated out of a new South Africa-based nonprofit organization devoted to promoting a better future for the continent, the TEDAfrica Foundation. TED will be supporting the foundation both financially and logistically, to help ensure that the event maintains and builds on the quality and success of the Arusha event.
We hope to see you in Cape Town!
And team member Kelo Kubu writes:
It has been an honor and a privilege to be part of the TEDAfrica process . The team is naturally excited to be hosting TEDAfrica 2008, and we look forward to the challenge of generating the usual TED cocktail of inspiration and magic. The task is undoubtedly a daunting one, but Africa provides the perfect platform and Cape Town the ideal location for yet another memorable event.
We look forward to welcoming the world to the southernmost tip of Africa to share, spread and nurture groundbreaking ideas that could open new possibilities to growth and prosperity on the continent.
Photo of Chris Anderson and Emeka Okafor onstage at TEDGlobal 2007 courtesy Soyapi Mumba/flickr
01 August 2007
TEDGlobal Premiere: Four talks from "Africa: The Next Chapter"
Today we premiere the first online talks from this summer's extraordinary TEDGlobal: "Africa: The Next Chapter." The talks from the conference have been buzzed about around the blogosphere, and we're thrilled now to offer them as they happened. Whether or not you were with us in Arusha, you will want to check these out ... and then join the exhilarating conversation taking place about Africa's brighter future.
Four talks to kick things off.
Euvin Nadoo set the scene on day one, describing a continent poised to light up.
George Ayittey roused the audience alternating from lacerating criticism of Africa's "hippo generation" to inspiring appeal for the "cheetah generation" to arise.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the final speaker of the four days, provided a tour-de-force, telling powerful personal stories and showing how the different pieces of the aid vs trade argument, which had animated the conference all week, could be reconciled.
And 19-year-old William Kamkwamba won a standing ovation for his shy 3-minute interview, revealing how as a 14-year-old he solved his parents' energy needs in a village which had no electricity.
Over the coming months we'll continue to release ever more of these talks. These just represent the tip of the iceberg.
Chris Anderson, TED Curator
Emeka Okafor, Conference Director, TEDGlobal
10 July 2007
TEDGlobal, one month on
It's been a month since TEDGlobal 2007 rocked Arusha, Tanzania -- bringing together Africans from all over the continent and the world, philanthropists and businesspeople, global citizens and key bloggers. The four days of the conference were up-all-night intense -- and many bloggers signed off on the last day with promises to write more when they caught up on their sleep.
Well, now they have.
Blogger Jen Brea turned in a sharp article for American.com that sums up the discussions around Africa sparked, in June, by TEDGlobal, the G8 summit and Vanity Fair:
Three weeks ago, TED held its first-ever conference in Africa, bringing together trademark optimism with an even more humbling sort of A-list.
Eleni Gabre-Madhin, a World Bank economist, returned to her native Ethiopia to start a commodities exchange to prevent future famines. Daniel Annerose invented software in Senegal that allows farmers to track market prices via SMS text messaging. Alieu Conteh built the first cellular network in the Congo, Florence Seriki, Nigeria's first computer manufacturing company.
Then there's William Kamkwamba, the undisputed showstopper, a teenager from rural Malawi who, at age fourteen, built a windmill from plastic scrap and an old bicycle frame that generates enough electricity to light his family's house.
These speakers were selected to support a thesis, painfully obvious but somehow radical in this age: Africa won't be "saved" by aid, but by the ingenuity and determination of its own people. ...
Conference speaker Nii Simmonds, at Nubian Cheetah, reports on a conversation with revered economist George Ayittey two weeks ago:
George asked, "so Nii, how do we get you TED Cheetahs to contribute to African development"?
I thought about it for a second and said, "I would be nice if TED sponsored fellows to their respective countries to use their professional work experience to help a business for a month or so."
I heard a pause, and George said, "well that is nice, but what about a fund, called a Cheetah Fund that is sustainable was set-up to help TED fellows or other African Cheetahs with funding for their respective businesses".
Wow, I said to myself, how come I didn't think about this before. African chiefs have been using this system for centuries before colonialism, we just have to go back to some of our indigenous roots ...
Speaker Ory Okolloh, who blogs at Kenyan Pundit and runs the public-affairs site mzalendo:Eye On Kenyan Parliament, is working her way through the sessions, using Ethan Zuckerman's liveblogging for her notes. During Euvin Naidoo's talk, she mused:
... wouldn’t it be great to have a one-stop shop website or something where you can access stats and info about investing in individual African countries. I thought the Investment Climate Facility was supposed to be doing that, but it appears that they are focused on other things. Niche blog opportunity anyone?
Lova Rakotomalala, from blogging family Global Voices, offers a quote-packed roundup from the Malagasy blogosphere (with translations from French to English):
Harinjaka got to visualize his dream of helping his homeland by attending the TED conference ...
He explains that he drew inspiration from the discussion in Arusha and he plans on leaving France and going back home to contribute to the turnaround ...
This is just a sample from the TEDGlobal blogging community; visit our list of TEDGlobal bloggers to find more updates and news.
And watch this space: Video from TEDGlobal 2007 will start appearing on TED.com this month.
04 July 2007
Incremental infrastructure for Africa
Extending the discussions at TEDGLOBAL2007 in Tanzania and the conversation that's currently taking place online, Ethan Zuckerman has a must-read post on the economic growth of Africa as exemplified by the very fast growth of mobile telephony across the continent -- there are currently nearly 120 million subscribers to cell phones. That growth has been breathtaking, and is central to many discussions about the future of Africa. However, Ethan wonders, it’s hard to know whether it is replicable in other sectors:
There’s a couple of circumstances that I think are critical to understand in the rise of mobile networks on the continent:
- You can build a mobile phone network one piece at a time. With a GSM license and a single tower, a company can begin earning revenue and start using this revenue to finance future expansion. An investment in the single-digit millions can turn into a multi-billion dollar business through reinvestment of revenues. That just isn’t true for creating container ports, major roads or large power generating facilities (...)
- Users financed a great deal of the infrastructure behind the mobile phone boom - specifically, they purchased the handsets (...)
- Sheer government incompetence helped the mobile industry by ensuring that most phone buyers weren’t replacing land lines with mobiles, but purchasing their first phones. It’s easier to sell someone a new, useful service rather than an improvement on an existing service (...)
I’m trying to figure out whether these criteria lead to an infrastructure investment strategy for Africa based on incremental infrastructure development. (...) African mobile phone companies are being forced to become power companies. In urban areas, phone companies have to equip every tower with diesel generators because of frequent power cuts. In more rural areas, where companies can’t rely on grid power, providers need to put in two generators - one to power the station, the second as backup. The cost of delivering diesel fuel to these locations is substantial - Russell Southwood calculates that a grid and road-connected base station costs $2,500 a month to maintain, while a very rural station might cost $20,000. (...) If mobile phone companies - or a similarly entrepreneurial entity - could begin building larger, more efficient power generating facilities, they could service local communities with power as well as with telephony. If there were sufficient success for this model, it might start to resemble the “electranet” that some have suggested might alleviate African power problems.
25 June 2007
Blogging the young windmill builder who rocked TEDGlobal
William Kamkwamba, the 19-year-old self-taught engineer who built a windmill power system for his family's home in Malawi, was a star of TEDGlobal 2007. As reported by Ethan Zuckerman, several TEDsters have pledged to help him further his education.
Now you can follow William's journey on his blog. Read about the windmill he built, his latest upgrades to his power system, and the people he is meeting who -- like so many people at TEDGlobal and in the blog community -- are impressed and inspired by what he's achieved.
18 June 2007
A TED-bagful of inspiration from Sierra Leone
TED Curator Chris Anderson writes: If there had been no other outcome of TEDGlobal than the story below, I think the whole thing would have been worthwhile. This hit my inbox today... It's from Yene Assegid, the founder of a development organization in Sierra Leone called Integral Africa. She was part of the Fellows program at the conference.
On my way back from Arusha, I had taken the speedboat back to town ... and I tell you it was adventure. The sea was rough, the boat was swinging right & left to the point that I thought we were about to be thrown in the water. We ran out of fuel and it took a while to be rescued. Upon arrival on the beach, we were all wet, most people were sick (what a mess) and in all this, my TED bag was snatched by the beach boys. I only realized after I reached home. The bag contained all my passports, credits cards, notes, phone, ipod, etc.. And I had to travel back again in 3 days. Madness.
So, on Saturday, I went back to the beach to talk to possibly 5-6 dozen boys. These boys are feared by all, some are ex-combatants, some are just hoodlums, most are on drugs ... Anyway, I told them I need my bag back (like right now). I explained about the TED, about how we will not progress our countries forward if we behave this way, about how the rest of the world is moving forward and that unless we sort ourselves out -- we will not create a better future for our children and coming generations. Do you know that we had such great conversations. It was a magical encounter and before long, they brought my bag back with everything in it (except for the phone and the ipod). They even apologized. Well, this has never ever happened. No one ever saw their stolen items returned.
So, I cooked for them. In huge pots -- Rice & Stew. It was one of the best gatherings ever. The women came, the grandma's came, the children came, the old men came and the boys came. We had such a wonderful time talking, eating, and sharing about how we must go back to our own the essence of African traditions (full of ethics, hospitality and compassion).
This is the adventure of my return from Arusha. Often times Sierra Leone is only thought of as a war torn country with "not much hope" for the war affected communities. But through this story, it was obvious that heart was still there. And that if we level with people, without judgement & prejudice, well people listen and in listen we can effectively communicate to bring change.
Yene is hoping now to make a short film about this experience, with any proceeds going back to the beach. Fantastic.
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.
11 June 2007
Catching Up with AfriGadget/White African
After a security breach crashed his two crucial blogs, AfriGadget and White African, on Thursday morning, blogger Erik Hersman lost his voice for the conclusion of TEDGlobal. But now he's back up, and we're catching up with him:
From "Finally! A Mobile Payment System for Africa!":
Yesterday’s talk by Herman Chinery-Hesse was one of the highlights of TEDGlobal for me. He is the owner of SoftTribe, the leading computer technology company in West Africa, and a dynamic speaker and visionary. He’s been a trailblazer in what he called, “tropically tolerant software.” ...
... Herman stated one thing that I think will rub some in the diaspora the wrong way, but he uses his own life as an example:
"It is not dignified for an African to live their whole lives overseas."
Hersman blogged his own talk too -- he gave a 3-minute presentation on AfriGadget, saying:
Africans are bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges.
The examples on AfriGadget showcase African ingenuity, the type of ingenuity born of necessity.
TEDBlog comments are still down -- and you're invited to join the conversation on TED.com, perhaps in the Theme called "Africa: The Next Chapter," where we've collected some Talks from past TEDs that touch on the themes from TEDGlobal 2007.
10 June 2007
The whole world is watching TEDGlobal bloggers
TEDGlobal 2007 has been largely reported and disseminated via blog. Which is not surprising, when you consider the sheer number of African and world bloggers who attended -- and how powerful their blogs have been in sharing ideas of the new Africa.
For those following the conference from home, it's clear that the blog coverage of TEDGlobal has the power to provoke emotion, passion and the desire to make change.
Ethan Zuckerman -- in a post-TED post that is a must-read for anyone thinking about Africa -- reports:
I got an IM from a friend in the States today who told me she’d found the ideas expressed at TED - which she followed through the blogs - inspiring, filling her with hope. I hope that reaction is widespread. ...
Home viewer beninmwangi makes the point on his MySpace blog:
... if you have not already guessed it, I am truly inspired, but as a blogger what inspires me the most is how the bloggers in attendance have taken the stage from the usual suspects -- the conventional media.
The African Uptimist writes:
Jennifer Brea ... made my day with her post "Writing a new story about Africa," in which she invites the reader to "imagine four days where you only use the good words to talk about Africa: words of forward motion, words of change...[four days of hearing] from the mouths of people who are out there living it, building it, succeeding (and quite possibly getting very rich) in Africa." I think it is safe to say that TED Global Conference 2007 was special in that it marked a turning point towards the 're-branding' of Africa.
Other blogs, including smallSHIFT, nobaddays and Magaidi, also shared their excitement over the ideas coming out of the conference via bloggers such as Ethan Zuckerman, Erik Hersman of AfriGadget and White African, and David McQueen (who notes "Well my blog has never been so popular. I must go away some more and write like nuts"). You can see the full list of bloggers here.
Thank you to BijanBlog for a nice compliment on our coverage here at the TEDBlog -- and for pointing out the connection between TEDGlobal's blog coverage and the Bob Thurman talk we posted this week on TED.com:
A few days ago, TEDBlog posted an earlier video of Bob Thurman's talk (taken on 12/06) about ... an all-connected world:
"When we can know everything, we can see how everything is interconnected -- and we can begin to feel compassion for every living being."
Wow.
09 June 2007
TEDGlobal 2007: bloggers' first thoughts from home
Afromusing sums it up:
TED Global felt like a seminal moment in Africa. I may have said this already but i will say it again. It was unlike any conference i have ever attended. Stupendous, challenging, interesting, eye-opening, heart-opening literally with Dr. Seyi Olesola and figuratively with Binyavanga Wainaina, Chris Abani and the music of Vusi Mahlasela. It was not uncommon to see people quietly wiping away tears during some of the talks. ...
Bankalele brought TED's perspective to stories from the G8 summit:
After listening to a week of stories on aid, development, and entrepreneurship, we emerged from Ted Global in Arusha to find one of the proponents of a new vision for development in Africa -- outgoing British prime minister Tony Blair endorsing shady dealings that involve Saudi Arabia in the name of strategic relationships. ...
In a post titled "Panic Mode," Mentalacrobatics shares a searing story (with photos) that must be read start to finish. It begins:
Well, well, well. I get back from TEDGlobal in Arusha to find the world has gone mad back at home. ...
After blogging every single session, Ethan Zuckerman is still processing:
Conferences like TED Global are only a couple of days long, but I find I can get surprisingly used to them -- wake up, absorb a mass of new and provocative ideas, have a few dozen conversations, stagger back to the hotel, rinse and repeat. And then, all of a sudden, they’re over. ...
... And now I’m enroute to Cape Town, wondering what we’ve learned, what might come out of this gathering.
Mweshi says:
I believe the people of TED provided us with a great platform with which to communicate with one another and if we can harness the power of those present at TED, Africa’s future is looking very bright! ...
And from a previous post: What happens after this conference now is entirely up to all of us who love our continent. To all TEDsters out there, let’s make this event the genesis of the cheetah renaissance!
Afrigadget/White African's Erik Hersman was offline from Thursday on --but he's back, and it's worth catching up. Also check out his photos from the conference here.
And our apologies to those readers who've tried to leave comments in the past week. While we're making repairs, please join the conversation on TED.com, perhaps in the Theme called "Africa: The Next Chapter," where we've collected some Talks from past TEDs that touch on the themes from TEDGlobal 2007!
08 June 2007
Initiatives and gifts announced at TEDGlobal: the bloggers report
TEDGlobal 2007 was studded with announcements of new initiatives and major gifts to the cause of Africa's next chapter. Here's a sampling, as reported by the blogs:
As Ethan Zuckerman reports from the final session:
Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete took the stage with Dr. Larry Brilliant of Google.org and Bruce McNeighbor of Technoserve. Dr. Brilliant announces his support for Believe, Begin, Become, a national business plan competition, modeled on the successful experiment Google and Technoserve operated this past year in Ghana. He emphasizes the importance of job creation and business development as critical parts of economic development. Brilliant describes the program as “tried and tested” in Africa and Latin America, where it accompanies investment with intensive entrepreneurship training ...
Afromusing has more on the press conference that followed:
President Jakaya Kikwete’s comments during the press conference and also during the TED global address showed that he is a leader with an open mind, engaging and committed to market liberalization. He struck me as a new breed of African leader, who engenders progressive ideals.
Reuters reported June 7 that Ethiopia's first commodities exchange -- modeled on the Chicago Board of Trade -- has set a target date to be in beta by the end of this year, quoting TED speaker Eleni Gabre-Madhin:
"What we hope to do first is to have a first launch of some kind of a pilot by the end of 2007. We hope to have a starting bell by December 2007," Eleni Gabre-Madhin, programme director with Washington DC- based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told Reuters.
Some 100 of the conference's attendees were TEDFellows, sponsored to attend because of their contributions to Africa's next chapter. TED's Director of Partnerships, Tom Rielly, helped arrange to send the TEDFellows home with some lovely parting gifts, courtesy of GE, Google and AMD, and Noah Samara from Worldspace, as Ethan reports -- and TEDFellow Soyapi Mumba Twitters:
Mac vs PC live in Africa! TEDGlobal2007 fellows to choose either Mac or PC as their gift laptop sponsored by Google and AMD. I'm a Mac!
As Erik Hersman at White African reported earlier in the week: Google also annouced its first sub-Saharan Africa hire:
Joseph Mucheru has been named the new site lead for Google Kenya. This was whispered to be happening, but at today’s Google lunch at TEDGlobal the position was made official by Francoise Brougher, Director of Google Business Opportunities.
And a grassroots effort is being formed to support one extraordinary young speaker; Ethan shares the details:
This isn’t the only generous effort coming out of the TED Global conference. William Kamkwamba, the amazing young Malawian engineer who built his first windmill at age 14, has captured the imagination of many of the people in the crowd. A number of TED attendees have banded together to support him fiscally to complete his high school education and go onto university. A TED staffer is travelling to Malawi next week to start working on finding tutors for William to help prepare him to attend a top high school in Malawi.
07 June 2007
TEDGlobal 2007 bloggers look back at world-changing days
People are packing up to leave TEDGlobal now, and the bloggers who came to the conference are thinking over the past four days.
David McQueen found new connections and strengthened virtual ones, and he sums it up in words and pictures:
I honestly don’t think Chris and Emeka (the organisers) REALLY understand how powerful this event has been. There have been connectors here, but most people have just dived into connecting with each other, creating partnerships and new friendships. A lot of dialogue about sustainable environments on the continent of Africa have begun and we are not just talking the sub Saharan countries but it would appear all fifty three in some way or the other have been affected by this. Congrats guys. Its been magnificent. TED Global is in the blood!!
Mweshi looks back to George Ayittey -- who divides African leaders into two camps, the fast-moving "cheetahs" and the wallowing "hippos" -- and then looks forward:
What happens after this conference now is entirely up to all of us who love our continent. To all TEDsters out there, let’s make this event the genesis of the cheetah renaissance!
An enormous thank-you to those in the TEDGlobal blog community who live-blogged or wrapped up or posted to flickr or in any way shared the experience of being in Arusha during this extraordinary week. And thanks in advance to all the bloggers who will get off the plane tomorrow and head straight to the keyboard to continue the conversation.
07 June 2007
Day 4: reports from the bloggers
Two final sessions, "Leadership and Truth" and "Ideas Worth Spreading," brought together economists, activists and the president of Tanzania. And the big ideas keep coming.
Mweshi reports:
Salim Amin is asking every African and those interested in the continent to help his for-Africa by-Africa 24-hour news channel, A24, come to fruition. With 900 million people on the continent, we continue to look to international news channels to provide information about our continent. ...
... It’s time Africa got its own 24-hour news channel.
After Salim Amin comes Ory Okolloh, a lawyer, activist and blogger from Kenya (and yet another TEDGlobal blogger to take the stage). NETucation digests her remarks, which begin:
Africa is a continent full of contradictions. You’re Harvard educated and you’re coming here to tell us what to do?
James Shikwati is described onstage as "a one-man think tank libertarian economist" by TED curator Chris Anderson. NETucation quotes Shikwati:
We need to understand how the world works, how the world thinks. The Aid debate operates under the constrained position i.e. the African person is in a box, somebody else must free him. We need to focus on releasing the African mind.
Tanzanian president Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete closed the early-morning session with a talk on African governance as it works on the ground. Ethan Zuckerman reports on what he said:
In the past, leaders would march in, declare themselves President, dismiss the parliament. They’d declare a ‘revolutionary council’, but there’s no revolution there. This used to be the way the continent worked. We’re moving beyond this, and beyond the leaders who led us out of colonialism.
Starting the final session of TEDGlobal 2007, President Shikwati got back on stage for a wonderful announcement, as reported by Ethan:
Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete took the stage with Dr. Larry Brilliant of Google.org and Bruce McNeighbor of Technoserve. Dr. Brilliant announces his support for “Believe, Begin, Become,” a national business plan competition, modeled on the successful experiment Google and Technoserve operated this past year in Ghana.
Noah Samara got up to talk about how he built WorldSpace, the first satellite radio network -- in a case where, as NETucation reports:
... for the first time technology was launched in Africa before it was handed down to America.
Journalist Dele Olojede talked about a decision he had to make in 1994: cover the birth of the new South Africa, or cover the Rwandan genocide? Ethan reports:
He decided that he’d give anything to see Mandela see his dream through, and he missed the Rwanda story.
“It became clear this was not an ordinary Central African horror story,” Olejede tells us, “and perhaps my decision was not correct.” Out of a sense of penance, he became “obsessed with the idea of Rwanda, with understanding it,” and has been travelling there ever since.
Patrick Awuah left Microsoft (pointing out that "While he worked at Microsoft the revenue of the company group grew larger than the GDP of Ghana") to found a university at home in Ghana. NETucation reports on his talk:
A month after launching he received and email from a student, “I am thinking now.” Another student asked “Can we create a perfect society?” after they were issued a challenge to come up with their own honour codes. This has lead to a vigorous debate among the students on campus. For the first in the history of Ghana, a woman was elected to be president of student body. This is real hope.
The amazing Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Finance Minister of Nigeria, closed the session. In a week of refocusing the aid story, she made a brilliant point, says Ethan:
African entrepeneur Mo Ibrahim dreams of the moment when Africa is giving aid. “But we’re already doing it - the UK and the US could not have been built without African aid. The resources - including human resources - have made those countries what they are today.” So when those countries are willing to give something back, we need to take it, but we need to use it effectively.
NETucation quotes her further:
Aid has to be a facilitator, it can be catalytic. China says Nigeria needs infrastructure and discipline to succeed. Within the private sector maybe aid can be used as a money guarantee. Her punchline is to help women get more access to resources - the research and statistics of this speaks for itself.The final question is what you will do with aid, the government, the private sector and the African as an individual.
Soyapi reports via Twitter on the party that folllowed:
Vusi on stage at tedglobal2007. Will be joined by the other 2 lady musicians. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala just did the last talk.
06 June 2007
[TEDGlobal 2007] Session 10: The Campfire
The campfire. It's one of the world's most enduring metaphors, evoking simultaneously the safety of light, warmth, family, story; also the danger of darkness, exile, what lies beyond. The metaphor is all the more poignant here in Africa, where humankind evolved, along with language and storytelling and music and myth. And well-timed for our last evening together as a newly formed community, before we return to our individual lives.
So... for our final evening together in Arusha, we gathered around our stage-as-campfire, to take in four remarkable storytellers with 400+ new friends.
It began with Zambian-born, Italian filmmaker Franco Sacchi, whose upcoming film, "This is Nollywood," spotlights Nigeria's homegrown $250M/year industry, which turns out 2000+ movies per year, each shot straight to video on shoestring budgets. The stories? A little rough around the edges. The significance? Profound. "This started as a grassroots movement," Sacchi said. "It happened without foreign investment, without government aid. It happened against the odds."
Then Nigerian author/poet Chris Abani (best known for his novels Virgin of Flames and GraceLand) took us on a soulful and moving journey with words, weaving reflections on the power of language ("It's said that language describes the world we live in. But language makes the world we live in. Language is everything. Story is everything.") with powerful pieces of his own history (At 16, he published his first novel; at 18 he was sent to prison for the first time, and was "totally broken by it.") and reflections on the big questions in life ("The question for me is how do I balance narratives that are wonderful with narratives of wounds and self loathing. ... Transformation is a difficult and slow process. Sometimes I can say, 'I'm Chris Abani. I've been human for 6 days.'")
Binyavanga Wainaina -- author of the unforgettable satirical essay "How to Write About Africa," and publisher of literary journal Kwani? -- continued the evening's magical journey, with a series of stories, and reflections on the power of storytelling itself. A small sample:
Excerpt from Discovering HomeIf there is a miracle in the idea of life it is this: that we are able to exist for a time, in defiance of chaos. Later you often forget how dicey everything was; how the tickets almost didnt materialize; how the event almot got postponed; how a hangover nearly made you miss the flight....
Phrases swell, becoming bigger than their context and speak to us with TRUTH. We wield this series of events as our due, the standard for gifts of the future. We live the rest of our lives with the utter knowledge that there is something deliberate, a vein in us that transports everything into place -- if we follow the stepping stones of certainity.
Finally, South African singer-songwriter Vusi Mahlasela, who was a crucial artistic voice during the fight against apartheid, treated us to an utterly beautiful performance. His music moved me beyond words.
For more extensive descriptions of each talk, see Ethan Zuckerman's real-time posts on Franco Sacchi and Chris Abani, Binyavanga Wainaina and Vusi Mahlasela.
Watch for these talks on TED.com beginning midsummer 2007.
06 June 2007
Day 3 in the afternoon: reports from the bloggers
The after-lunch and evening sessions, "Connecting the Continent" and "The Campfire," were about communication and forming bonds.
Mweshi rounds up the early afternoon session, starting with Héctor Ruiz, the chair of AMD, speaking on AMD's 50x15 initiative:
AMD’s 50×15 initiative is a business venture and not a charity, it’s focused on simple, accessible, and human-centric solutions; it’s based on a “geo-sensitive” approach and is about fostering local, integrated, end-to-end ecosystems. ...
And Soyapi Mumba reports on Ruiz' personal message, via Twitter:
At TEDGlobal2007 AMD CEO: 'my father told me each generation shld be better than the previous'
More on Day 3 after the jump >>
06 June 2007
TEDGlobal 2007 Session 8: Health and Heroism
In a session punctuated by spontaneous applause and quiet tears, three heroes told their stories. If ever you doubt the ability of one person to move the world, any one of these talks would make you a believer.
Ernest Chijioke Madu is determined to bring world-class cardiovascular care to Africa, and stem the tide of elites leaving the continent to seek health care. Relying on foreign hospitals -- as most Africa elites do -- is neither sustainable nor sensible, in the case of cardiovascular disease, as most deaths occur in the 24 hours following a heart attack or stroke. "If you have a heart attack tonight, what will you do?" he asked. "Will you fly back to the US? To Germany? To France? No. You will die."
The hospital he'll build in Nigeria will be modeled after the Heart Institute of the Caribbean, the pioneering clinic he founded, which has a telemedicine platform, so other doctors around hte world can log in and lend advice. It's helped stem the tide of elites going overseas for medical care, while also offering care for all. "We have a policy of not turning away anyone regardless of ability to pay." (Can you hear the audience cheering?)
Environmental defender Corneille E.N. Ewango is a tropical botanist and conservation ecologist who risked his own life to protect the okapi reserve in the Congo forest ... In 1995, he started work at the reserve, home to elephant, giraffe, okapi, forest giraffe and more than 1,300 plant species, many of them unknown outside the park. There was a coup soon after, and Ewango found himself caught between pillaging rebel soldiers and government forces. Rather than flee, he focused on preserving what he could. He hung important equipment from trees, buried their 4x4 cars in the ground, and packed samples from 4,500 plants on the back of his bicycle, which he pedaled four days to Uganda and back.
A second war soon followed, and Ewango became a one-man reporting bureau, of sorts. Using an Iridium satellite phone, a laptop and a solar panel, he fed information -- on troop movements and war crimes -- to western NGOs. He won the 2005 Goldman Environmental Prize for his courageous effort. Now, in a more peaceful time, he’s managing a research project on global warming.
Our final hero, Leon Kintaudi focuses not on the typical African focal points of AIDS, malaria or TB, but on maternal health. The situation in his native Congo was dire when Kintaudi returned to try to improve it: The maternal and child death rates higher than most of the world (1 in 5 children die before age 5). So he founded the SANRU (Santé Rurale) Rural Health Program, a comprehensive program including preventative care, free malaria bednets, vaccinations, drug distribution, while also calling for society wide changes in educating children and promoting laws that protect women.
For more extensive descriptions of each talk, see Ethan Zuckerman's real-time posts on Ernest Madu, Corneille Ewango and Leon Kintaudi
Watch for these talks on TED.com beginning midsummer 2007.
06 June 2007
Twittering TEDGlobal
Beat the crowds in the bloggers' lounge: blogger Soyapi Mumba is Twittering the conference.
Is anyone else? Send a Comment.
06 June 2007
From blogger Jennifer Brea: "Writing A New Story About Africa"
Beijing-based blogger Jennifer Brea is one of 100 Fellows attending TEDGlobal. She's the Francophonia editor for Global Voices, and a prolific and powerful blogger about Africa. I love what she wrote about rethinking media coverage of Africa. Just an excerpt below. Read the full post here.
The first day's speakers--Euvin Naidoo, Andrew Mwenda, Carol Pineau, Andrew Dosunmu, Zeray Alemseged, and Newton Aduaka--took the story of Africa, the tired story of dependence, desperation, and despair, and tore it to shreds. They took the West's gaze, and killed it, stomped on it, mocked it, burned its effigy (Joseph Conrad to be precise) so that we could start an entirely new conversation using an entirely different vocabulary. We killed famine, death, hopelessness, hunger, tragedy, poverty and started using words like potential, opportunity, wealth, entrepreneurship, ingenuity, art, imagination, creativity, success, investment, growth, choice.
These are words the media use liberally when writing about emerging nations like India, China or Brazil, but not to describe some of the fastest-growing economies in the world when they happen to be in Africa.
Now imagine spending four days where you only use the good words to talk about Africa: words of forward motion, words of change. I'm not talking about bringing Tony Robbins on stage and dreaming of a better future. I'm talking about hearing from the mouths of people who are out there living it, building it, succeeding (and quite possibly getting very rich) in Africa.
It's been thrilling.
Technorati tags: tedglobal2007, Africa
06 June 2007
Day 3: Morning reports from the blogs
TEDGlobal's attending bloggers offer great roundups of the two morning sessions, called "Tales of Invention" and "Health and Heroism." Africa abounds in creative energy and innovation, a point made yesterday by Kwabena Boahen and elaborated today by two panels of inventors and health workers.
As always, Ethan Zuckerman has the speaker-by-speaker accounts.
Mweshi writes about finding innovation in new places -- and in places where, simply, no one has bothered to look. As he says: "We have so many great inventors on the continent, and yet we do not have any manufacturing plants":
What stood most about [Bola Olabisi's] talk was her showcasing of lo-tech inventions by some of Africa’s up and coming women inventors and innovators. Definitely an inspiration for a lot young girls and women on the continent and the world over...
... William Kamkwamba created a windmill in Malawi using locally available materials after reading a book called “Using Energy” by Atwater, M. et. Al. His main materials consisted of:
* old bicycle parts
* wooden poles
* plastic pipes
* an old car battery for energy storage, etc. ...
... Ernest Madu put his mouth where his mouth was by starting the Heart Institute of the Caribbean, a facility that has brought world-class medical services to the West Indies at 10% of what it costs to run and provide similar services in the continental United States. His argument is that through tele-medicine technology and education, we can improve the livelihoods of millions of people in the developing world.
Afromusing's detailed roundup of "Tales of Invention" captured a short talk by another TEDGlobal blogger, Erik Hersman of White African and Afrigadget:
Next, there was an excellent 3 minute presentation by Erik Hersman of Afrigadget -- the slides showcased some of the stories covered by afrigadget team, demonstrating how Africans solve problems every day by making tools and using local materials. The main idea he shared is that -- Ingenuity born of necessity. The quotable from him is that **Where others see trash, africa recycles**
Hersman writes about his encounters with two inventors: William Kamkwamba, a young man who built his family a windmill out of scrap parts, and Moussa Keita of Geekcorps:
There are two individuals here at TEDGlobal that it has been a great honor to meet. They are inventors, on the ground in Africa, creating solutions that will work in their area. These are great success stories that need to be celebrated, encouraged and supported. ...
Don at fifthculture says:
Today was about practical solutions and something else, something more ephemeral, transcendent. Under the heading practical solutions Seyi Oyesola pointed out that there is no system in place in most African countries for events such as accidents or chronic illness. His talk was titled "Beyond HIV and Malaria" and in it he stressed the need to get healthy, not just focus on HIV and AIDS.
David McQueen took this great pic of inventor and chemist Moses Makayoto, who is working to focus African innovation on local materials, local solutions, and modernized production.
And then there's Corneille E.N. Ewango -- for whom we need to invent a new term that combines "scientist," "hero," and frankly, "hearththrob." A sort of Indiana Jones of botany, Ewango literally put his life on the line to protect the Congo forest. Ethan has the details.
06 June 2007
Images fom Arusha: Opening the show
At the conference midway point, a few images from the TEDGlobal stage ...
Mali-born, Paris-based chanteuse Rokia Traore opens the conference with a traditional Griot song of welcome.
TED Curator Chris Anderson and TEDGlobal Program Director Emeka Okafor co-host the show from the TED stage.
Technorati tags: tedglobal2007
06 June 2007
Who is blogging from TEDGlobal 2007 in Tanzania?
Two dozen bloggers from around Africa and elsewhere are covering the sessions and the between-session action at TEDGlobal this week. We'll be sharing excerpts of the blogs' coverage on this site, and we encourage you to dive into the blogs below, both during and after the conference -- many bloggers say they are waiting until they get home to form their thoughts.
If you're a TEDGlobal blogger and you'd like to be added to this list, please send a comment.
Click here for images of the conference >>
Live-blogging every session:
My Heart's in Accra, by Ethan Zuckerman
Bloggers at TEDGlobal:
Erik Hersman, of White African and AfriGadget
David McQueen
Mweshi
Bankalele
Mental Acrobatics
AfroMusing
Soyapi Mumba, who is also Twittering
Andrew Heavens, at Meskel Square
Africa Beat, by Jennifer Brea
Rafiq Phillips at WebAddiCT
DNA
Harinjaka, in French
Fran Osseo-Asare, of Betumi: The African Food Network
Ramon Thomas, of NETucation
Ndesanjo Macha, who writes Digital Africa, in English, and Jikomboe, in Swahili
Mwenye Macho... in Swahili
Fifthculture
Ellen Horne at Radio Lab in Tanzania
ClassV
Sam Ritchie
Heresy
Reuben Abraham at Zoo Station
Bloggers who might be too busy to blog this week, but whose sites are always worth checking out:
Kenyan Pundit, by TED Conference speaker and blogger Ory Okolloh
Africa Unchained and Timbuktu Chronicles, by TEDGlobal conference director Emeka Okafor
06 June 2007
TEDGlobal 2007 Session 7: Tales of Invention
Day Three of TEDGlobal began with a series of pointed questions ...
"Where are the women inventors?" Bola Olabisi asked, as she walked around an international inventors fair, where she'd come on a slow afternoon in London, while pregnant with her fourth child and in need of distraction. She walked the hall all day, and failed to find a single woman inventor. Distressed, she approached the organizer to ask why no women were represented. "If you can find them, let me know," he said. And this sent Olabisi on what became her new life's mission, to encourage innovation and invention among women, and African women in particular.
"There was a lack of acknowledgement, recognition or even awareness of any African inventor or innovator." So along with founding the Global Women Inventors & Innovators Network she developed a Pan-African network for women inventors as well. And while there were many doubters ("Women inventors in AFRICA? have you thought about this carefully?"), every seat in her first symposium was full, often with designers of low-tech inventions -- floor tiles, wigs, household appliances, children's toys -- who may not have otherwise considered themselves "inventors."
The question, "Where are the African inventors?" echoed through the next talk as well, as Moses Makayoto called on young African scientists and engineers to stand up and be counted. An inventor and chemist himself, Makayoto invented the popular Mama Safi detergent, produced cheaply using local resources, and is now doing R&D into naturally developed malaria treatments and bio-pesticides, which can, for example, prevent malaria by attacking mosquitoes at the larval stage, and which can be created from raw materials found anywhere.
From Dr. Seyi Oyesola, a different question: Where are the well-trained African doctors? Answer: Overseas. Where they're better paid, better treated and enjoy modern hospital settings. In contrast, most hospitals on the continent lack vital equipment, and woefully fail to uphold sanitary standards. So "where do generally healthy Africans go if they need to be treated for things besides malaria, TB or HIV?" Oyeseola asks.
Distressed by the conditions in a Nigeria hospital where he came to perform a dozen open-heart surgeries (equipment was held together by duct tape; floors were dirty; X-rays were taped to windows for lack of a light table), Oyesola resolved to find a portable solution for bringing modern medicine with him. He co-developed the "Hospital in a Box" -- a pop-up, portable, plug-and-play system for off-grid medicine. Its environment-tolerant anesthesia makes surgery possible even in deeply inhospitable regions (or deeply ill-equipped regional hospitals).
His portable invention aside, the charismatic Oyesola stressed the importance of developing a strong non-emergency health care system throughout Africa. Emphasizing its economic significance, he quoted TEDster Hans Rosling: "You get wealthy faster if you're healthy first." (Watch Rosling's TEDTalk on TED.com)
The session's final question was asked by the entire audience, silently, to ourselves: "How on EARTH did he do that?" Chris and Emeka asked one of the TED Fellows -- 17-year-old William Kamkwamba from Malawi -- to the stage. A natural inventor, he built a fully-functional electricity-producing windmill from spare parts, working only from a photo in a magazine. After reading about Kamkwamba in a local African newspaper, TEDGlobal Conference Director Emeka Okafor spent several weeks tracking him down and invited him to join us here in Arusha, as part of our sponsored Fellowship program (There are 100 Fellows here). From the stage, William explained to TED Curator Chris Anderson that the windmill now powers 4 lights and two radios in his parents home. His dream? To build a larger version to help with irrigation, and go back to school. I have a feeling the next question for is: "How can we help?"
For more extensive descriptions of each talk, see Ethan Zuckerman's real-time posts on Bola Olabisi, Moses Makayoto and Dr. Seyi Oyesola.
Watch for these talks on TED.com beginning midsummer 2007.
Technorati tags: tedglobal2007
06 June 2007
Day Two on the blogs
Tuesday, June 5, from around the blogs:
Erik Hertsman at White African reports: Google has hired its first sub-Saharan Africa employee!
Joseph Mucheru has been named the new site lead for Google Kenya. This was whispered to be happening, but at today’s Google lunch at TEDGlobal the position was made official by Francoise Brougher, Director of Google Business Opportunities.
Mentalacrobatics posted a fascinating blow-by-blow of his Day Two, ending with this wonderful image:
Back at the hotel is when TED came home. I sat down to write my thoughts on the day when Harinjaka shared with us the crazy deforestation that is taking place in his country of Madagascar. That was the beginning of all night thinking, sharing, debating session. Two Kenyans, one Madagascan, one Nigerian, one Italian, one American. We had never met before TED, all but one of us are at our first TED conference and we had our own TED session then and there. We talked about HIV/AIDS, about social disempowerment, about colonial legacy, about Nollywood, Bollywood and the Chinese film industry, about music, about deforestation in Madagascar ...
Afromusing was captivated by Ron Eglash's work on African fractals, including a web tool that integrates fractal design and hair braiding:
!! Indeed !!
Design cornrows using transformational geometry. Click here.
Ron Eglash spoke on looking at fractals in African architecture and design. For non comp sci people, fractals make for some of the most beautiful designs. For African geeks, egm and mathematicians, get the book.
David McQueen blogged his highlights from the second day:
Idris Mohammed - The suggestion of a “Fund of Funds” from G8 as a means of smarter aid. Encourage Africans or Europeans who can invest in Private Equite Fundraising. Remove the focus from “Poverty Reduction” and place more emphasis on “Wealth Creation”.
Don at fifthculture shared a ride with investor and TED Day 2 speaker Idris Mohammed:
Idris Mohammed, a private equity pioneer, said that energy is the next big job in Africa. ... I had the opportunity to ride to the hotel from the airport with Idris. I asked him what form of power (fossil fuels, wind, hydro), he said that most likely it would be fossil fuels. It seems we can't avoid creating problems even when we are solving them. Both options are grave.
Mweshi's roundup captured the buzz around entrepreneur Ted Kidane:
... a wonderful talk by Ted Kidane of Feedelix which is a mobile phone piece of software that enable text messaging in non-Latin scripts. But the thing that stood out the most about Ted’s talk was his challenge to everyone in the room to change the manner in which they look at the word POVERTY; which in his words defined as Prosperity, Opportunity, Validation, Enthusiasm, Resilience, Trust and Yes!
Big, brave ideas are flying around. Ellen Horne reports on a lunchtime conversation:
Today, I sat down at lunch with three African men. One was a grad student from Cape Town, S.A., and the other two were ex-pats from Ghana - living abroad but very much engaged in a conversation about the reasons that Africans leave. The conversation turned to the topic of corruption. How to address the massive short-term incentives for supporting the 'big man' power system fueled by corruption. One quickly brainstormed talked about a public humiliation website where people could anonymously post photos of bribes being given. I asked innocently 'Why would someone exchange bribery cash in public?" He agreed -- sure you aren't going to get many -- but maybe the few would set a powerful example -- and hopefully not a unique one.
And as always, for minute-to-minute coverage of the conference sessions, turn to Ethan Zuckerman at My Heart's in Accra.
06 June 2007
Day Two in Quotes [TEDGlobal 2007]
“Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth” — Acumen Fund CEO/Founder Jacqueline Novogratz
"What we call governments are vampire states, which suck the economic vitality out of the people." — Economist George Ayittey
"I want to make Africans rich. If you make Africans rich, they'll be less poor. That's my development strategy." — Private equity pioneer Idris Mohammed
"What we're trying to do is create a family tree for everyone alive today." — Anthropologist and geneticist Spencer Wells, who's leading the Genographic Project, a landmark study tracing human origins to their roots in Africa
"There is no region of the world and no period in history that farmers have had to bear the burden of risk that African farmers bear today. But I'm not here to lament or wring my hands. I'm here to tell you that change is in the air." — Economist Eleni Gabre-Madhin, who is founding the first commodities market for farmers in Ethiopia
"World progress needs a good dose of spontaneous human intelligence to realize that the answers to many of the questions we ask ourselves are just around the corner." — Architect Issa Diabete, who draws inspiration from innovative, makeshift urban solutions found in Africa's sprawling squatter cities
"I'm hopeful because nature is amazing resilient. Seemingly dead tree stumps -- if you stop hacking them for firewood, in 10 years you can have a 30 ft tree.” — Primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall
“I am a mathematician and I would like to stand on your roof.” — Mathematician Ron Eglash's standard greeting to African families, when he was researching the intriguing fractal patterns observed in many villages across the continent
Technorati tags: tedglobal2007
06 June 2007
TEDGlobal 2007 Session 6: Listening to Nature
The day's journey continued with anthropologist and geneticist Spencer Wells, who had us riveted with details of the Genographic Project, a landmark study he's leading for National Geographic, tracing human origins to their roots in Africa. By collecting DNA samples from people around the world (especially groups of indigenous people), he's determined the genetic origins of humanity going back over 50,000 years. "What we're trying to do is create a family tree for everyone alive today."
Simon Mwacharo followed, with the story behind the wind-powered turbine he invented. He's determined to bring power to the poorest rural areas in Africa, and that means turning toward alternative, renewable energy sources and inexpensive, readily available materials.
Next up: A living legend. Bi Kidude, the 90-something singer from Zanzibar, sang her heart out with the equally legendary Culture Musical Club of Zimbabwe, while young women shook and shimmied around her. All I can say is: Wow. 90+ and still rocking out. If that's not inspiring ...
Well, if that's not inspiring, well Jane Goodall always is. The legendary cast a spell on the room, with her gentle voice and steadfast mission: To save the chimpanzees — and the jungle — she loves, against the steady progression of habitat loss and climate change. "When I look at my granchildren and think about how we've harmed this planet since I was their age, I feel a kind of desperation." Still, she finds reason for optimism. "You can't come to a conference like TED and not have hope, can you? I'm hopeful, because nature is amazing resilient ... Seemingly dead tree stumps -- if you stop hacking them for firewood, in 10 years you can have a 30 ft tree.” A standing ovation, of course. (If you're following along from home, you can catch her 2003 TEDTalk here.)
For more extensive descriptions of each talk, see Ethan Zuckerman's real-time posts on Spencer Wells, Simon Mwacharo, and Jane Goodall and Bi Kidude.
Watch for these talks on TED.com beginning midsummer 2007.
Technorati tags: tedglobal2007
06 June 2007
TEDGlobal 2007 Session 5: The Risk Takers
It's a theme that's emerged throughout the conference: Identifying unmet needs in under-served markets can pay back in spades. And for those willing to take a calculated risk, a perceived danger becomes an unprecedented opportunity. In this session, three case studies of extraordinary individuals pathfinding in emerging markets:
For starters, there's Florence Seriki, who founded Omatek, a leading computer maker in Nigeria, West Africa's largest market. Like so many other African entrepreneurs, she was motivated by the idea, "Why can't Africans do this?" Alieuh Conteh took on a riskier proposition, founding a mobile phone service in war-ravaged Congo, just after the civil war. He envisioned, established, funded and protected what's become Vodafone Congo, now one of the fastest-growing mobile services in central Africa, with a subscriber base of 3 million and a valuation of $1.6B. Thanking Conteh for his talk, TED Curator Chris Anderson noted, “There’s money to be made in Africa.”
And Ted Kidane, co-founder of Feedelix, forged his way in new technologies and markets, creating mobile-phone software that enables text messaging in non-Latin scripts. (A challenge on several fronts, including display, text entry and transmission.) Initially developed for use in his native Ethiopic, the software can work in many languages and world markets (Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, etc.)
For more extensive descriptions of each talk, see Ethan Zuckerman's real-time posts on Florence Seriki, Alieu Conteh and Ted Kidane.
Watch for these talks on TED.com beginning midsummer 2007.
Technorati tags: tedglobal2007
06 June 2007
[TEDGlobal 2007] Session 4: Emergent Design
To understand Africa's technological future, TEDGlobal Program Director Emeka Okafor calls Russell Southwood to the stage. Publisher of Balancing Act and respected tech commentator, Southwood envisions a future in which Africa leapfrogs the entire industrial phase of development, and skips straight to a high-tech competitiveness. To achieve this, he identifies several "door-openers" to fundamental change, including ever-cheaper cell phones and plentiful, cheap bandwidth. Once those two commodities come in financial reach of more Africans, the continent could reach a technological tipping point, with much broader implications. "This revolution isn't just about tehnology, it's also a social and cultural revolution."
And now we step sideways to exercise other parts of the brain: Stanford-based bioengineer Kwabena Boahen gave a brain-twisting overview of his research, which aims to first understand how brains work, and then build a computer that works more like the brain. His beautiful simulation of neurons at work, and cogent explanation of the brain's networked approach to data transmission had all synapses firing.
From neural networks to urban grids... Architect Issa Diabaté took us next on a tour of African cityscapes that inspire his work. Clean lines and well-executed plans hold less interest for him than the messy, makeshift solutions so common in growing cities. "World progress needs a good dose of spontaneous human intelligence to realize that the answer to many of the questions we ask ourselves are just around the corner"
And from urban grids to fractal-shaped villages... "Ethno-mathematician" Ron Eglash set my mind on fire with his talk, explaining the research that led to his book, African Fractals. By looking at aerial-view photos — and then following up with detailed research on the ground — Eglash discovered that many African villages are purposely laid out to form perfect fractals, with self-similar shapes repeated in the rooms of the house, and the house itself, and the clusters of houses in the village. The shapes and algorithms vary from village to village (and not all villages are laid out this way), but always correspond perfectly to mathematically predictable patterns — the same sort of patterns we see in nature (in Acacia trees and fern leaves and snowflakes). Isn't that fascinating? And bizarre? And: What does it mean? I don't know, actually. But I can feel some theories coming on ...
For more extensive descriptions of each talk, see Ethan Zuckerman's real-time posts on Kwabena Boahen, Issa Diabaté, Ron Eglash and Russell Southwood.
Watch for these talks on TED.com beginning midsummer 2007.
Technorati tags: tedglobal2007
05 June 2007
TEDGlobal 2007 Session 3: The Marketplace
So much of the new Africa centers around the marketplace, broadly defined: the connection points that enable commerce, community, communication and more generally: Growth. Today's first session approached these questions of infrastructure from different angles, offering distinct and distinctly optimistic visions for a revitalized Africa.
Economist Eleni Gabre-Madhin began the session on an inspiring note, outlining her ambitious vision to found the first commodities market in Ethiopia, bringing rates and standards (not to mention trading systems, warehousing and data centers) to the trade of crops. Her scheme would create wealth, minimize risk for farmers and turn the world's largest recipient of food aid into a regional food basket. "There is no place in the world and no time in history that small farmers have had to bear the burden of risk that African farmers bear today," Gabre-Madhin said. "But I'm not here to lament or wring my hands. I'm here to tell you that change is in the air." Despite the early hour, she brought the audience to its feet in a rare 9AM standing O.
Throughout each conference, we integrate 3-minute talks from audience members (who often have as much to say as the speakers). Here, Priceline founder and veteran TEDster Jay Walker, re-issued a challenge that he first put to us at TEDGlobal in 2005. His goal: Creating 10 million jobs in the developing world. His assumptions: (1) If you have capital tool (a bicycle, a sewing machine), you have a job. (2) The cell phone is today's most valuable capital tool. His conclusion: The proliferation of cell phones in Africa could mean a proliferation of jobs. His question: What is the job? If you have a cell phone, and can speak English, what job could you do? Walker threw out a few ideas — singing lullabies, telling a story, translating or simply chatting -- that have ultimately proved flawed. If you have a better idea, he wants to hear it...
Now, one strong TED tradition is intermingling serious conversation with serious fun. And so, an interlude of: Zip Zap! This circus school's mirth belies a serious agenda: teaching the children of South Africa to work together and trust one another, as they'll need to do to build the new South Africa.
Back on point: Private equity pioneer Idris Mohammed made the case for private investment on the continent, outlining not only its financial rationale (explored earlier by Euvin Naidoo, Carol Pineau) but its social significance. He points to the enormous gap between aid money (lots) and private capital (little) flowing to Africa as a roadblock to sustainable development. "I want to make Africans rich," he said. "If you make Africans rich, they'll be less poor. That's my development strategy." (Big laughs)
And Jacqueline Novogratz, charismatic founder of the Acumen Fund, provided, as always, one of the most balanced approaches to development. She offered, with wit and warmth, the key learnings of her years working in Africa:
- Dignity is more important than wealth
- Traditional aid is never going to solve the problems of poverty
- The market alone also will not solve the problems of poverty
Her approach is realized through Acumen, which she described as a "non-profit venture capital fund for the world." It takes a business-like approach to improving the lives of the poor, providing investment and grants (what she calls "patient capital") for grassroots, entrepreneurial projects, and demanding accountability to insure success. Her balanced approach seemed to strike a chord with the crowd, which gave her a standing ovation. (Watch Novogratz's TEDTalk from the last TEDGlobal, held in Oxford, UK in 2005. )
As in yesterday's first session, the program closed on a fiery note, with a grab-you-by the throat speech by Ghanaian economist George Ayittey. A natural orator, Ayittey unleashed an almost breath-taking torrent of controlled anger toward Africa's corrupt leaders and the complacent populace that allows them to thrive. "We call our governments vampire states, which suck the economic vitality out of the people," he said. (I could be wrong, but I believe at one point, he also used the phrase, "military fufuheads.")
But even Ayittey voiced a guarded optimism, in what he calls the "Cheetah Generation," a "new breed of Africans" taking their futures into their own hands, instead of waiting for politicians to empower them. (He compares them to the previous "Hippo Generation" who are lazily stuck complaining about colonialism, yet doing nothing to change the status quo.) "With cheetahs we can take Africa back, one village at a time." And the audience says: One more standing O.
For more extensive descriptions of each talk, see Ethan Zuckerman's real-time posts on Eleni Gabre-Madhin, Idris Mohammed and Jacqueline Novogratz.
Watch for these talks on TED.com beginning midsummer 2007.
Technorati tags: tedglobal2007
05 June 2007
Bono vs. Mwenda: Around the blogs
On the first day of the conference, the discussion between Andrew Mwenda and Bono electrified the audience and those following the conference via blogs. Here's what bloggers both inside and outside the conference had to say:
Felix Salmon's Market Movers blog for Portfolio.com gives an overview:
... the conference kicked off with [William] Easterly-by-proxy Andrew Mwenda. Ethan Zuckerman was there to hear Mwenda run down the standard Easterly talking points –- but at TED conferences, the points have a way of talking back. And when Mwenda challenged the audience to name a country where aid had led to development, Bono, of all people, stood up and named Ireland, in the days of the potato famine.
Bono was scheduled to speak [in Session] Two, and he devoted his time not to his own ideas but to rebutting Mwenda's. ...
And a report on the confrontation as it went down comes from fifthculture:
Andrew Mwenda [is] a journalist and social critic (read troublemaker – my kind of guy), and passionate speaker. ... [A]ccording to Andrew, all of us bleeding hearts from rich countries are doing the absolute wrong thing by giving aid to African countries. Andrew asked "has anyone in this room benefited or had a relative who benefited from aid?" A surprise answer came from Bono (all I could make out of the comment was "bullocks," but Bono would elaborate a little later).
Liz Dolan from the Huffington Post reports in detail:
Addressing the growing feeling that debt relief will not get African nations nearly as far as western direct investment, Bono said "You'd think somebody farted in here when the words 'debt relief' came up -- ooh, that's so uncool. Well, I will tell you that 20 million children in Africa are going to school today as a direct result of debt relief, 3 million right here in Tanzania alone.
David McQueen reports on the talks and the reaction:
... Talking to a number of people afterwards there were many mixed messages. Most believed that trade should be the primary focus but with incumbent governments still very dependent on aid that the focus should change. Personally I lean more to the position of Mwenda. Here is a man looking at the situation from the ground, and with possible prison sentences hanging over him from his native Uganda. OK he may not have all the solutions but his disdain for people looking down at Africa trying to solve issues from the outside in definitely resonated with me and many others.
Ecorica-Blog offers some more background on Andrew Mwenda's analysis:
One important remark: He admits that aid can bring humanitarian relief and can save lives, but he does not believe in the idea that aid can support long-term development of a society.
Live-blogging hero Ethan Zuckerman writes at length about both Mwenda's and Bono's talks. (The title of this blog post is borrowed from his indispensable blog.) White African also offers a good look at the talks, as does Ramon Thomas.
05 June 2007
Preconference tours show TEDGlobal bloggers the new Africa
Before the official start of TEDGlobal 2007, some attendees joined us for preconference tours, to get a visceral experience of the new Africa. Hosted by businesses and NGOs working on the ground in Tanzania, TEDsters visited schools, farms, businesses and other projects. A few reports:
ClassV took a tour led by DATA and shot some breathtaking photos:
The days ... in Tanzania have been inspiring, breathtaking, potentially life changing. Spent time engaging directly with the community through DATA and its founder, Bono. The term hero should be reserved for the kind of people I met during these visits, offering their love to the most unfortunate among all of us connected on this planet.
AfroMusing posted a long entry on the DATA trip, plus photos:
Early monday morning I was among a group of TEDsters for the DATA morning field trip before the conference. DATA is the organization founded by Bono of U2 to raise awareness about the issues facing Africa, namely Debt, Aids, Trade and Africa. DATA is mostly associated with the lobbying for debt forgiveness for the developing countries such as Tanzania. It was an incredible day, started out at the Artemisia farm of Mr. and Mrs. Loshie of Sambasha in Arumeru district. ...
Mweshi posts more stories and photos from the DATA tour:
The farm was only the first part of our half-a-day long trip. Following the farm visit, we saw how debt relief has helped to bring about improved health care and education in a clinic that provides ante-natal and post-natal services to mothers and would-be mothers as well as two schools located on the outskirts of Arusha. ...
Hugo Schotman helped hand out Lapdesks before the conference, and took pictures.
Technorati tags: TED, TEDGlobal, TEDGlobal2007, DATA
05 June 2007
TEDGlobal bloggers on the scene in Arusha
Aside from posting great coverage of the sessions and speakers at TEDGlobal 2007, the conference's many bloggers offer a glimpse of conference life -- the spark of meeting so many people with so much to share.
DNA captures the thrill:
"... today is my first day at the TED Global Conference being held here in Arusha, Tanzania. ‘Tis the first time TED has come to Africa and I am straight up meeting the most AMAZING people every few minutes. It’s almost like a brain overload kid. I already have a bunch of folks to followup w/ and some potential collaborators and I haven’t been here 24hrs yet."
Rafiq Philips, our Web AddiCT says:
"Haven’t picked my jaw up from the floor yet, All these passionate people. Wow."
Mental Acrobatics writes about the blogger convergence:
"It is wonderful that there is a healthy mix of bloggers amongst the TED Fellows. I’ll highlight the KBW members who are here apart from myself; Afromusing, Bankelele, Kenyan Pundit and White African. Ndesanjo is here as well running things on his home ground. Outside KBW Jen Brea and Andrew Heavens are here too."
And if you need visuals, check out the ever expanding flickr pool ...
05 June 2007
Walk-in Music, African style
Those of you who've attended TED in Monterey know that when you hear the Elephant March from Aïda, it means the doors for the Main Hall have opened, and it's time to scramble for a seat. (Over the years, this becomes a Pavlovian response; a single bar of that striding score touches off the rush of anticipation, inspiration, excitement (and let's face it, a bit of seat-finding stress) I associate with TED.
But for TEDGlobal, we thought we'd choose something more site-specific. (Yes, yes ... I know Aïda was an African princess. But still.) And so, welcoming us into the Main Hall each day in Arusha: A reinterpretation of the Tanzanian classic "Kuna Kunguni" (listen to it here) by the late master musician Hukwe Zawose, funked up in a version produced by Michael Brooks. The gyst of the song, for those who don't speak Swahili, is an upbeat invocation for people to come together, and work toward a better world. (Thanks to Bill Bragin for sourcing it!)
Technorati tags: TED, TEDGlobal, TEDGlobal2007
05 June 2007
The Day in Quotes (TEDGlobal 2007, Day One)
"We are all Africans. Welcome home."
— Paleontologist Zeray Alemseged, who discovered in Ethiopia the 3.3 million-year-old Salam, a 3-year-old hominid child, whose remains shed light on a key period in human evolution
"We need to reframe the challenges facing Africa, from the challenge of soliciting charity to the challenge of creating wealth."
— Journalist/Social critic Andrew Mwenda
"Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. I was going to talk about the Marshall Plan. But instead I'll talk about the Mwenda Plan, inaugurated today."
— Rock star/activist Bono, beginning a rebuttal to Andrew Mwenda, who argued forcefully against foreign aid in Africa
"Saying 'invest in Africa' is meaningless. Africa is not a country. There are 54 countries, each with its own value proposition."
— Financier Euvin Naidoo
"[Looking at media images of Africa], I thought, 'This is not the Africa I grew up with. The Africa I grew up with is full of life, full of optimism."
— Photographer Andrew Dosunmu
"Aid has never developed a nation. That comes from investment."
— Journalist/Filmmaker Carol Pineau
Technorati tags: TED, TEDGlobal2007 TEDGlobal07
05 June 2007
TEDGlobal 2007: What the blogs say (Day one)
"There’s nothing like a little controversy to get the party started. TEDGlobal hasn’t disappointed thus far." --White African
"I'm fascinated to see how the crowd - both regular attendees of the conference and first-timers - react to the program that Emeka Okafor has put together. (...) I suspect that the overall message of the event will challenge the preconceptions of all participants, African and non-African." — Ethan Zuckerman
"Meanwhile, down toward the southern end of the Great African Rift Valley in Arusha, Tanzania a kinder, gentler type of world event is taking place — Africa: The Next Chapter..." — Jewels in the Jungle
More blog coverage of TEDGlobal 2007
04 June 2007
[TEDGlobal 2007] Session 2: Looking Back to Look Forward
We began session two looking back to ... session one. Bono offered an unscheduled talk, taking on the anti-aid stance of journalist Andrew Mwenda, articulated earlier that day. (A bit of background: Bono's moving 2005 TED Prize acceptance speech helped ignite within the TED Community a heightened interest in Africa, and led quite directly to the planning of this conference.)
Bono led off with a video greeting from German chancellor Angela Merkel; a reminder that, in a parallel universe, the G-8 Summit also convenes this week, focusing in part on what some have called an African Marshall Plan. "Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan," Bono began. "I was going to talk about the Marshall Plan. But instead I'll talk about the Mwenda Plan, inaugurated today." He challenged Mwenda on multiple fronts, emphasizing the still-relevant role of aid in saving and improving lives, and the imperative of debt relief for nations who suffered corrupt regimes. I have a strong sense that the aid vs. investment debate is only just getting started ...
We then returned to our regularly scheduled program, looking to Africa's past to inform the future. Paleontologist Zeresenay "Zeray" Alemseged took us deep into our history, shedding light on human evolution through the fossil of Salam, a 3-million-year-old toddler he discovered in Ethiopia. (Fascinating fact: The shape of the skull indicated a brain closer to humans than chimps. But the vocal box was distinctly monkey-like, meaning this 3-year-old hominid may well have used language, but would have sounded more like a chimp than a child.) Historian Kenneth Vickery brought us into the recent past, offering snapshots of key moments in African history, which have resonance today.
Then the program leapt unexpectedly from our heads to our hearts (as so many memorably TED sessions do). Nigerian-born, Paris-based filmmaker Newton Aduaka shared an extraordinarily moving clip from Ezra, the Sundance-nominated film about child soldiers in the Sierra Leone. Then the magnificent Rokia Traore took the stage again (visibly moved by Aduaka's film), and enchanted us with her voice, which alternately floated and soared. Mali-born and Paris-based, Traore brings traditional music (and instruments) into a modern context, creating a sound all her own. Audience reaction: Not one, but two standing ovations.
For more extensive descriptions of each speaker, see Ethan Zuckerman's real-time posts on Bono, Zeresenay "Zeray" Alemseged, Kenneth Vickery and Newton Aduaka.
Watch for these talks on TED.com beginning midsummer 2007.
04 June 2007
[TEDGlobal 2007] Session 1: The Africa You Don't Know
After an extraordinary welcoming fanfare by Malian chanteuse Rokia Traore, TEDGlobal 2007 (Africa: The Next Chapter) kicked off this afternoon with a session intended to shift your thinking about the continent. We hear so much about Africa's problems — disease and poverty, conflict and corruption; here are the counterpoints that open our 4-day conversation here in Arusha, Tanzania...
"What's the worst thing you've heard about Africa?" asked Euvin Naidoo, president of the South African Chamber of Commerce, America. After fielding audience call-outs of "famine," "war," "corruption," he offered persuasive reasons why investing in Africa makes great business sense, and why the continent's challenges should be reframed as opportunities. American journalist/filmmaker Carol Pineau echoed this theme, drawing on her excellent documentary Africa Open for Business for case studies of successful entrepreneurs. She also critiqued her profession for the kind of one-sided coverage that has distorted the world's view of the continent...
Now, this question of media representation is one close to my heart, and I expect to hear — and think — a lot about it in the days to come. It's central to the work of Nigerian photographer Andrew Dosunmu, whose career has focused on countering the dominant images of Africans in non-African media (Invariably, they are starving, warring, or dying of AIDS). After emigrating to London, he was shocked by media images of his homeland. "I thought, 'This is not the Africa I grew up with. The Africa I grew up with is full of life, full of optimism.'" Seeing his work -- which centers around youth culture -- I couldn't help but imagine a Time cover story of his photos, replacing famine-wracked refugees with smiling, stylish girls in sunglasses; young couples in love; fathers bringing daughters to football games. Headline: "This is What Africa Looks Like."
The session culminated with a healthy dose of controversy. Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda gave a fiery talk, articulating his well-honed arguments against foreign aid, which he views in no uncertain terms as Africa's problem, not its solution. Eloquent, funny and forceful, Mwemba sent a jolt through the divided audience. Many stood and cheered; others mutteried audibly in disagreement. "Do any of you know someone who grew wealthy from receiving aid?" he asked, midway through his talk. The silence was broken by ... Bono. Who argued that yes, actually, government aid helped Ireland through the potato famine, for starters. (Bono would take the stage himself in Session 2).
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Shanna Carpenter | Writer and Community Organizer, TED.com
Diego Rodriguez | Guestblogger
Jane Wulf | TED Scribe
Blogs we watch
+ TEDPrize.org
+ TED Fellows blog
+ Thomas Dolby | TED Musical Director, blogging at ThomasDolby.com
+ Emeka Okafor | TEDAfrica Director, blogging at Timbuktu Chronicles and Africa Unchained
+ The indispensable Global Voices
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