Tedx Brussels

Dreams can come true. Or better, they can form the roots of empowerment. I’m a genetics and immunology researcher, that’s why I went to the Sundance London Movie Festival. Controversial? Perhaps.

Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute has always tried to bring alternative voices and stories to a wider audience, and the film festival is known as a platform for independent films, both fiction and documentary.

The event is a powerful argument for the potential of communication media to enhance cross-cultural understanding, collaboration and dialogue. Films have tremendous power to help us understand and shape the way we think about nature and ourselves.

I was simply blown away by watching Chasing Ice, www.chasingice.com a film by Jeff Orlowski that shows climate change in action using time lapse footage of ice loss in receding polar glaciers. Robots of Brixton, a short by Kibwe Tavares, is an exercise in architectural and visual imagination. Architectural reconstructions and historical images merge virtual stories with past events to enable comparisons and flip lessons from human history on their heads.

First shown at Sundance in 1999, The Kindness of Strangers is a film by James Redford, Robert’s son. He is Founder and President of The James Redford Institute for Transplant Awareness (JRI), a nonprofit organisation dedicated to educating the public about the need for organ and tissue donation. The JRI works through film, educational outreach and the web. The organisation was founded in 1995, two years after James received a liver transplant.  The Kindness of Strangers is the result of his gratitude to the donor.

As genetic science progresses in rapid technological leaps, and promises a new age of say, gene therapy cancer drugs, it is easy to forget the very real problems faced by people with genetic illness or those facing tissue matching treatment. The combination of computer intelligence to sequence the genome, and molecular science to understand body processes, continues to advance medical knowledge. Without basic human empathy and an evolved and caring society it could all be for nothing.

For me, Sundance is a demonstration of how expertise shapes and frames science communication – an important tool for engagement through the power of storytelling.

TEDx Brussels will take place on November 12th. Our theme is Bits/Atoms/Neurons/Genes (BANG). Book your ticket now.

Nadia Ceratto

Share conference is an event focused on digital and political activism which took place in Belgrade from 26-28 April 2012. The event consisted of three full days featuring speakers from all over the world and evening events with DJs to entertain participants until the early hours.

Share presented a packed schedule with parallel talks and overlapping Q&A sessions which made it impossible for a participant to follow everything. The rich mix of people and side events created the feeling of ‘positive restlessness’ typical of a (music) festival. Yes, music was the key component of the entire Share experience. “Share by night” was brilliantly designed to include numerous DJs and rich nightlife in three different venues around Belgrade.

It would be impossible to mention all the speakers who presented at Share so I will mention three main ideas which dominated the discussion.

First was the need to decentralise the web. Even though the Internet is more widespread than ever, it is also getting more and more centralised with private data ending up in the hands of a few companies with questionable attitudes to personal privacy and ownership.

The second idea was more of an appeal to the wider public to be more active online and offline in fighting against dangers imposed by the public authorities in the form of SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, IPRED. Speakers agreed that these legal texts threaten the existence of the web itself and that people should be educated and informed in order to take action and defend the Net.

And finally, the third idea was all about copying. “Copying is holy” said one of the postulates of the Church of Kopimism. We attended the first Kopimistic wedding ever in which the couple had to promise they would always “share their love, their knowledge and their feelings as long as the information exists.”

Among the participants there were also three TEDx Brussels volunteers, one of whom was actively involved in the organization of the event.

I personally loved the ‘feedback session’ where attendees could give their opinions about the conference and its future development. Tickets for Share couldn’t be bought and the only way to get one of 2000 entry wristbands was through different creative competitions.

More photos from the conference.

Igor Čeliković

Calling out to TEDx Brussels suporters and audience members. Ever thought you could be a TED speaker? Well now you can give it a try.

Yes, it’s true: you could share your idea with a worldwide public from the stage of TED 2013. Until 2 May, you can register to take part in auditions organised in Amsterdam to find the best in global speaking talent and great ideas worth sharing.

‘The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered.’ is the theme. TED has started a worldwide talent search from Doha to Sao Paolo and from New York to Sydney, auditions will be organised in fourteen different cities to spot new talent. We think it would be great if members of the TEDxBrussels audience could be some of the chosen few.

Our friends at TEDxAmsterdam are organising one of the European auditions on 20 June. The thirty most talented speakers amongst the applicants will be invited to give a TED talk with a maximum duration of six minutes to be judged by global TED curator Chris Anderson. Registration to apply for an audition place is possible between 12 April and 2 May 2012.

From TED to TEDx

Over the years, many, many speakers have contributed to spreading the TED virus, from Bill Gates to Malcolm Gladwell. With the launch of independent TEDx licenses to local groups, over 3,000 TEDx events have been held over the past five years.

The TEDxBrussels editions of 2009, 2010 and 2011, and the ‘world premiere’ of TEDx KIDS@Brussels are part of a large community. One of the main aims of all TEDx events is for their speakers to be invited onto the big stages of main TED events or uploaded to the main TED.com site. TEDx Brussels has been especially successful in this. To give just a couple of names from TEDxBrussels: John Bohannon, Charles Hazlewood, Gabe Zichermann, Paddy Ashdown and Mikko Hypponen have either appeared in person or had their TEDx Brussels videos featured prominently on the TED homepage.

TED auditions

So, how does it work? Well, very simple: on the TED website you fill out an application form, where you explain what kind of performance you’d like to do and what the topic of your talk will be. Then you have to upload a one-minute video to show your talent. After the deadline of 2 May, TED will pick the best thirty applicants and will then invite them to do their talk in the presence of Chris Anderson. The best speakers from all fourteen audition rounds will make it to the stage in California. But what they are looking for? The website explains it all: exciting inventors, teachers, change agents and storytellers who are passionate about their ideas… what are you waiting for?

The TED audition in Amsterdam takes place on 20 June. Registration to compete for a place at the audition closes at 2 May, so don’t wait any longer and fill out the form on on.ted.com/auditionsamsterdam. Don’t forget to upload your video. For more information on the ‘admission criteria’, please see: http://conferences.ted.com/TED2013/auditions/.

Dancing your Ph.D involves choosing aspects of your research to communicate, devising a storyline and throwing down the hottest dance moves you can muster. There may be any number of reasons to enter – to share your research with the world, to entertain, or just for the joy of being creative – but I entered the Dance Your Ph.D Contest to get friends and family together working on something fun. Patricia Wood (a contemporary dancer) and Kaylin Miller (a circus arts practitioner) lent physicality to the competing forms of titanium, while Sara Fontaine (a salsa instructor) offered grace as Bone Woman. Bela Inkster (from Perth indi-electropop act The Transients) was happy to supply music for the cause.

If my entry in Dance Your Ph.D had resulted in just a video and some laughs, it would have been worthwhile.  However, in many ways, winning the Dance Your Ph.D Contest was a life-altering event. My research has since featured in newspapers, blogs and radio worldwide. It also allowed me to go to TEDxBrussels and take part in a day of brilliant talks and inspiring ideas. A highlight – John Bohannon, Carl Flink and the Black Label Movement’s stunning live performance explored communication, politics and powerpoint slides with an eloquence through and punctuated by dance. Linking science to dance, this performance introduced the audience to Dance Your PhD.

Receiving the award for Dance Your PhD on stage was a huge honour.  With a late change to the program (and following John’s performance), the video was shown on the main screen to more than 2000 attendees.  In the following break, numerous people were keen to discuss my research and video, and I was fortunate to gain a number of valuable contacts. Drawing upon this experience, I am now organising a large-scale TEDx event in my home city of Perth.

Personally though, the most satisfying result was how people responded to the video – simple comments on blog sites from people who enjoyed the video and said that they’d laughed or learned something new.

Fun and sharing is, after all, the very essence of Dance Your PhD.  If you have (or are doing) a science-based PhD, all you really need is the ability to imagine your research as dance.  And when it’s done… it is pretty sweet to have a video explaining the answer to that timeless question: “So, what’s your PhD about?”

Joel Miller

Winner Dance Your PhD 2011

www.tedxperth.com