TEDxBishkek
The TED website
One of the podcasts I download is a series of lectures, (or talks, as they are know) from TED conferences around the world.
I came across the podcast almost by accident – a link to one of the talks. I can’t remember what it was about some but it was esoteric theme and I found it fascinating, intriguing and thought provoking. I explored their website and found lots of talks on a huge variety of topics that I felt sufficiently inspired to go onto i-tunes and subscribed to the feed.
I can thoroughly recommend it if you haven’t already come across it.
Well, tomorrow sees the first TED conference here in Bishkek: TEDxBISKEK.
TED stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design“, which the organizers consider to be three subject areas that help to shape our future. Although in the early days the subjects covered showed a distinctly technological bias, as time has passed the topics have become increasing more diverse and cover a wide range of aspects of research and practice in science and culture.
The first conference was a four day event held in California in 1984. It’s now an annual event which is run by a non-profit organization which is dedicated to the dissemination of, (as the subtitle on their website puts it), “Ideas worth spreading“. Talks given at the conference are also broadcast on a live feed and over 900 of them can be found for free viewing on the website. Statistics suggest that there have been been over 500 million hits to the site, a number that grew 10-fold in just two years.
Past speakers have included politicians, scientists, businessmen, Nobel Prize winners, authors, educators, policemen, … the list seems impressive … from all over the world. They are not paid and they are required to give TED the right to edit and distribute their presentation which will be made available under the Creative Commons License arrangement.
They are usually people with a unique story or an unusual point of view and the ability to dynamically present it and are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most innovative and engaging ways they can. That’s considered enough time to say something important, but at the same time not lose the audience’s attention and can easily be viewed on-line.
The talks shouldn’t be commercial presentations, (even though some that I have seen are reporting or demonstrating some particular breakthrough which might have commercial applications), or present aspects of a religious or political agenda, (but that doesn’t mean that these topics are totally ruled out … I have seen some talks on the website which address some issues with religious and political aspects).
There are no keynote speakers – all are considered equal. There are no panel discussion and no question and answer sessions.
In addition, they license the distinctive TED format under the TEDx brand, and this is how the Bishkek event has come about, as one of over 700 events in more than 60 different countries . It’s a “one-off” license, for a particular event which should be free-of-charge. Those granted permission to hold such an event have to be approved by TED headquarters, (which are in New York and Vancouver), and they have to agree to adhere to a strict set of rules which govern the format.
One of the conditions for the event is that the audience is limited to just 100 invited guests. Even knowing this, I put in an application for a place but, to be honest, I didn’t really expect to be successful. However, I heard on Wednesday that my application had been successful, so having collected my ticket, at eleven o’clock tomorrow I will be sitting in the Conference Hall in the Vefa Centre and listening to the talks.
Incidentally, I liked the bit on the notice announcing the list of participants in the event, “Request: Don’t be late”. Perhaps the organizers have forgotten that we are in Central Asia and here in Kyrgyzstan, practically everyone is late and nothing seems to start on time. Then again, maybe they are hoping that TEDxBishkek will signal a change in attitudes …
After all, the Bishkek event will have the overall theme: “Ideas that change us“. The list of speakers looks quite impressive including:
- a brash entrepreneur who built up the fastest growing company in the territory of Eurasia over three years with turnover of USD55 million from a small company, with a budget of just USD20 000;
- a film director and composer, will talk about his life experiences, about how he made his first film, as well as “how to get the Grand Prix at the festival, when you do not even have money to send the film to the film in the competition”;
- a young entrepreneur and “popular blogger” will tell about the “touch screen generation” and how the development of new technologies brought together several conflicting generations;
- the Director of a Marketing Group, who takes the theme of the philosophy and ideology of the “warrior-conqueror”, and how to make a warrior-Goth become a warrior-hero in the modern world.
- the director of design studio who will describe how the love of his work has allowed a small studio to become the most successful producer of documentaries, animation production and special effects in the Ukraine;
- the clothing designer, who invented the technology of images with specular reflections “Alaayna”, (one of “the top 100 best designs in the world”), talking about the “Theory of mental culture”;
the design trainer who will talk about the education of taste, self-development, the search for new sources of inspiration, the ability to quickly and graphically sketch and present their ideas, the ability to organize team work. - a freelance programmer who will tell the audience about how to get rid of the yoke of the office;
- an expert on Public Administration talking about his view of the rather complex problems in various areas of the state;
- a singer who will tell how she began experimenting with a new direction in music, which had never been heard before on the stage of Kyrgyzstan.
The event is being organized by the Bishkek Business Club, in partnership with the Soros Foundation, the American Embassy in Bishkek, and some local companies including Intelligent Media, Shoro, Tazabek, Ndex Solutions, Info Systems and Hoster KG.
I am looking forward to seeing the talks on-line.
The event is being organized by the Bishkek Business Club, in partnership with the Soros Foundation, the American Embassy in Bishkek, and some local companies including Intelligent Media, Shoro, Tazabek, Ndex Solutions, Info Systems and Hoster KG.
I had been expecting to see the talks on-line, but it will be interesting to attend and I am really looking forward to it – even if it does mean having to miss out on England v France in the Rugby World Cup Quarter Finals … .
There is more information, (in Russian), on the TEDxBishkek website: http://tedxbishkek.kg/
Bishkek