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 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

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

I have been a dancer in Minneapolis, MN in the US for over ten years now. I was one of the first movers in the dance company Black Label Movement (BLM) in 2004 and am currently an Artistic Associate for the company. Through our collaborations with John Bohannon we got a chance to perform at the 2011 TEDxBrussels convention in a dance called “SpaceWalk” and a movement presentation called “A Modest Proposal,” or, as it’s titled on the TED website, “Dance vs. Powerpoint“. The latter going viral on the Internet and ultimately led to the request of our collaborating team to perform at the TED convention in Long Beach, CA. Mothership TED!

However, the largest personal effect that resulted from the TEDxBrussels convention was that while in Brussels a friend who lived there told me about an audition for a dance company that was happening while I was there. The company is Ultima Vez led by Wim Vandekeybus.

After we performed at the convention (which was a tremendous success!) I focused on the audition. Midday, the last day I could be there, the administrative people took me aside and told me that Ultima Vez would like to hire me to dance in their reset of their hit work “What Our Bodies Don’t Remember.” Wim also said he very well might like to use me in future projects as well. Had I not had a commitment to Black Label Movement in February 2012 I would have also been involved with his recent work, “Oedipus.” As it is, I will be moving to Brussels in November of this year (2012) to start working on “What Our Bodies Don’t Remember!” I am excited about where this opportunity will lead! This chance couldn’t have happened at a better time as I have been aching as an artist to find new, challenging work to dive into.

All that said, if TEDxBrussels hadn’t brought BLM to Brussels, I would never had been to that audition and that door would have stayed closed to me. Not only this, but our opportunity at TEDxBrussels has led to several more venues around the world, not the least of which is the 2012 TED at Long Beach, CA. We are working on creating a workshop for a convention in Osaka, Japan as well as a business grand opening on 42nd street in New York City to name a few. Gigs are opening up left and right and I am so thankful for the platform TEDxBrussels gave us that set all this in motion. Thanks, Sam and Walter!!!

Eddie Oroyan | Artistic Associate
-BLACK LABEL MOVEMENT-

The DNS protocol is one of the hidden gems of the Internet.  Amongst other things, it allows us to write emails or visit websites using easy to remember names that hide the complex technical addressing mechanisms used to make the Internet work for the daily user. It introduces a beautiful flexibility into the system:  when moving your website or email box to another physical environment or provider, the DNS system gracefully makes sure the outside world doesn’t even notice.

The way people represent themselves online has become a crucial issue with debates about anonymity for example creating concern for parents and issues for how media outlets trust their sources. Privacy issues are going to become more and more important. Devices and websites use our (voluntarily provided) private identity data to tailor services to minute detail. On the other side of the coin, for activists in Iran or Libya, being able to disguise personal digital identity has been an important method of avoiding harassment and arrest.

In the worlds of business and politics, names and marketing have long been recognised as important – the branding industry is based on this realisation. If you are still using an email address with the domain name of your provider, you should seriously consider getting your own domain name because one day you will want or have to change your ISP and, if you are not using your own domain name for your email, that means losing your address. The choice of a domain name and its extension has become crucial in communicating the values you stand for.

Innovation and progress are synonymous. At EURid, we are sure that innovation drives business. That’s why we are an enthusiastic sponsor of TEDx Brussels

EURid is the organisation that manages the .eu extension.

Marc Van Wesemael
General Manager EURid
www.eurid.eu

One Laptop Per Child has been supplying XO laptops to primary-age kids in the developing world since 2006 and there are over 3 million XOs in active use today. The technology has been thoroughly tested in a wide range of classrooms, from schools with no walls, (let alone electricity or books), to those better equipped with tools for learning. Today the project takes a giant leap forward with the unveiling of a low-cost touchscreen tablet called the XO-3. Quite apart from its impressive technical specs (more about them later), the XO-3 represents the next phase of the OLPC project.

Kids in the developed world have made the leap from playing games on their Mum and Dad’s iPads to using them in school, whilst their brothers and sisters in less privileged classrooms are saddled with ancient Windows-based machines; power hungry, difficult to repair and built on a closed operating system. Sugar Labs revolutionised this model while still being tied to the laptop form factor. All over Africa, people went straight from no phones to cellphones, leapfrogging the fixed-line era completely, and in the same way the XO-3 shows that access to intuitive touch screens and gestural interfaces doesn’t have to be the exclusive preserve of the rich world.

One of the challenges in providing access to learning via computers is that technology moves so fast. Acquire the behavioural attitudes and mental models of laptop computers, and before you know it the rest of the world has moved on. You’re trapped in a dying technological paradigm.

The XO-3 addresses this squarely with a a 1024×768 Pixel Qi screen, half a gig of RAM, and a Marvell Armada PXA618 chip. There’s an amazing solar-panel protective cover, all the usual ports, and some new software. All these new features help OLPC pursue its original mission via a solid, low cost, connected tablet. The XO-3 is planned to enter production at the end of this year.

The team behind the annual organization of TEDxBrussels and TEDxKids@Brussels is also the One Laptop Per Child Europe team.

One Laptop Per Child has equipped almost 3 million children worldwide in more than 45 countries.

Want to support? contact monica@laptop.org

John Fass

Meet Ritik, an 11 year old young man with a creative heart and dreams of a 3D printed world. Our first encounter with Ritik was at TEDxKids in Brussels a year ago. It was on that day that Ritik made his first contact with 3D printing and it became quite clear that it was like love at first sight. After receiving an introduction, Ritik’s creative mind began to work overtime. “Could I print an iPod? Or what about a car?” he thought to himself. The answer to his question was eventually found in creating a pair of 3D printable glasses. With a fixed idea in mind, Ritik now started the design process in an easy to use software application called 3DTin.

Little did he know that his design would eventually make its way to the Antwerp based M HKA Museum where it would be exhibited to demonstrate what an 11 year old kid could do with this innovative technology.

But Ritik’s story doesn’t end there. After his first contact with his new passion, Ritik received the great news that a desktop 3D printer was on its way to their home. Ritik got introduced to his first Makerbot, the 3D printer that made him just that extra bit more popular amongst his friends at school. It didn’t take long before Ritik started 3D printing fun little things for his classmates. For Halloween, Ritik asked his father to help him get some fun props 3D printed to take to school. His father Deepak knew that it would take a long time to design something for Halloween so he showed his son how he could download some existing models from the website Thingiverse to 3D print them on their Makerbot.

As time passed, Ritik realized that he wanted to improve his designing skills some more and leave the simple building blocks of 3DTin behind. He slowly started using the more technical software package of TinkerCADthat he is currently still mastering to create his future dream house with.

Ritik is one of the many children of the new 3D printing generation. He has grown up in a world where it is possible to 3D Print your dream designs at home with the help of easy to use 3D software applications. As Ritik sits in his bedroom daydreaming of his future dream house, he no longer has to wait for many hard working years to see it come to life. He now sits behind his computer screen, drawing up the plans to the house that he wants catered to his own needs and taste. It’s a personalized house that he can call his own unique dream come true. Like the other kids of this 3D printing generation he’s taking the first step of many more to come towards a world of 3D printed goodness.

This post was written by I-materialise.

TEDx Kids@Brussels will take place again in June 2012.

All the elements were there: an excitable audience, enthusiastic presenter and talented orators but this was no music competition, it was “A Day in the Deep Future” by TEDx Brussels

This year, TEDx Brussels’ speakers teleported the audience into the future and gave TEDsters a glimpse of what’s to come. We saw robots that could pass off for your twin, cars that could drive themselves, augmented human eyes and printable DNA code. This may sound like science-fiction however, many of the technologies seen on stage are tangible. As you can imagine, the sedentary humanoid robot suddenly coming to life caused quiet a stir.

In addition to captivating science and technology presentations, TEDx Brussels also included fascinating talks about the future of politics and economics. One such talk was by Julie Meyer, founder and CEO of Ariadne Capital, who talked about the entrepreneurs of 2061, the rise of individual capitalism and gave her insights on how to become a successful entrepreneur.

Leila Janah, founder of Samasource, also gave a heartening talk about the benefits of micro-work and the skills as well as the dignity it brings to people living in developing countries.

Now for something a little different, here is a talk by John Bohannon that really got TEDsters talking, it is called Dance your PhD, enjoy.

In all, TEDx Brussels once more delivered a successful conference filled with riveting talks. You too can watch all these great talks on TEDx Brussels.

The conclusion of TEDx Brussels was a tribute to where we were and featured a “Made in Belgium” theme with really great talks by Sebastien de Halleux, Luc Steels and Peter Hinssen. These entrepreneurs along with their accomplishments clearly demonstrated that Belgium is on the map when it comes to innovation.

The most illustrious example was Sebastien de Halleux, co-founder of the internet game company PlayFish. You may have seen the company’s online games on Facebook connecting players with friends and capitalising on their desire to succeed in the game. In 2009, the company made the news as the founders sold PlayFish to Electronic Arts (EA) for USD$ 400 million. In addition to last year’s talk by Dries Buytaert, creator and project lead for Drupal, it is safe to say Belgium’s got talent.

Speaking of Belgian entrepreneurs, Xavier Damman is co-founder of Storify which is where our ZN social media team has been reporting for TEDxBrussels.

As we have done from the birth of TEDxBrussels, the ZN team will continue to actively engage with TEDxBrussels, TEDxKids and soon TEDxEU… watch this space to find out more!

Nicholas Brooke

Nicholas Brooke is CEO at ZN