TEDX Sydney: a crash course in ideas
Heather Jacobs, former deputy editor of Campaign Brief and now editorial specialist at Ogilvy PR, highlights her top 10 from last week’s TEDX Sydney.
As part of Alan Jones’ social media team, my tweets formed part of a live Twitter feed on screens in the foyer of Redfern’s CarriageWorks where a crowd had gathered on LoveSacs. As word spread via social media that you could watch the event ‘live’ at the venue along with the 800 ‘chosen ones’ granted a seat in the auditorium, more people turned up and the tweet feed exploded.
Hundreds more watched the live stream on YouTube or listened to it on Radio National and Jones re-tweeted the best comments.
My top 10 moments of the day were:
1. When Mango, the blue and yellow macaw flew on-stage as bird whisperer Josh Cook called him.
2. Biomedical animator Drew Berry – who has won an award for being a ‘Genius’ – showing computer graphics of DNA moving through the body and malaria infiltrating a baby’s vital organs after a bite from a malaria-infected mosquito.
3. The radical idea that taking time out and being bored helps the brain re-set itself. We don’t need to be connected 24/7. That’s what Genevieve Bell said and Intel is a client.
4. Geneticist Richard Cotton’s idea that sometime in the next two decades we’ll start carrying our gene sequence around in our phones. When a couple want to start a family they can compare genomes and a database will tell them if they have mutations that can cause diseases.
5. Richard Gill’s infectious enthusiasm for song that had us clapping along and the idea that every child deserves a great music teacher.
6. Astronomer Bryan Gaensler’s revelation that Australia has developed a telescope that can take pictures of the sky wider and deeper than we have ever seen, taking us back to the Big Bang.
7. Inventor Saul Griffith’s idea of wind turbines that soar like kites and harness strong winds to generate electricity. And his suggestion we ditch the monorail for ziplines and rollercoasters.
8. Shaun Tan’s Oscar-winning ‘The Lost Thing’, which was particularly magical accompanied by the original score performed by Michael Yezerski.
9. The discovery that Daniel Johns is rather attractive. Especially when he sings.
10. And just as I was exhausTED* and couldn’t take another genius Paul Kelly was on hand to sing a song and tell a yarn.
*Pun stolen from the Chaser’s Craig Reucassel wrap-up.
By the way, TEDX Sydney is an offshoot of TED (Technology Entertainment and Design), the annual conference in Long Beach California featuring 50 speakers who give an 18-minute talk on ‘Ideas worth spreading’.
Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
To be one of the 1000 people in the US audience you need to be “a leader in your field and can make a strong contribution to the TED community through your energy, influence and connections to change the world”. And have a spare $6000. Applications for TED 2012 in California have already closed.
Call it elitist, but a whole community has built up around the conference globally with 500 local events similar to TEDX Sydney held around the world each year and the online TED talks attracting more than 290 million views.
The Sydney license is held by Remo Giuffre, who runs REMO, and thanks to his merry team of volunteers it’s free to attend, but you still have to apply for a seat in the main theatre. I’d highly recommend giving it a shot next year.