Tuesday, March 1, 2011

TED - Day 1

Day 1 TED

Here are my highlights of Day 1 (I’m not commenting on each talk, just the ones I really loved)

Session 1 was a mind blowing start to the conference.

Astronaut Cady Coleman kicked off TED talking from the International Space Station – I’ve been a HUGE fan of hers for ages, so it was sooo exciting to hear her speak “live”.

Astrophysicist Janna Levin talked about the sound that black holes make (and that the univerise makes), and described multi-verses, which was a bit wild.

Eric Whitacre is a composer & conductor who has set up an AWESOME online choir – it was amazing to hear all those voices from around the world – it gave me goose bumps (and not just because it was early in the morning and cold).

Wadah Khanfar is the director general of the Al Jazeera Network – he spoke of his recent experience of the democracy movement in Egypt – it was really interesting hearing what he had to say. (note my Dad who is an Ethics Lecturer got me to look at the Al Jazeera code of ethics, it’s really interesting – check it out here http://english.aljazeera.net/aboutus/2006/11/2008525185733692771.html

Handspring Puppeteers – I’ve never seen a puppet so lifelike – I actually started thinking of the horse puppet as an animal, rather than just a prop.

Paul Nicklen – this one of my favourite talks of the day. It made me so inspired. I especially loved the image of him with the leopard seals, & his story of them trying to feed him a penguin. It reminds us all that we need to do something about climate change. Now.

Homaro Cantu – the food that they were showing and serving was wild. It makes the food that they served to the Apollo astronauts positively normal!

Ted.ed – I was sooo excited about the announcement of Ted Education – they are going to get a bunch of really inspiring people together to make short clips for an educational database that will be used by students of all ages – a great idea. For more info, or to check it out, go here http://education.ted.com

Tomorrow looks like it will be interesting, although it will be starting at 3am Canberra time :-(

4 comments:

  1. Fantastic recap, Nikki!

    Very much looking forward to reading your recaps from here in sunny San Diego, California. :)

    Cheers,
    Kara
    TEDxSan Diego Director
    www.casadefrias.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hannah - thanks for posting your favorite talks from today's TED sessions.

    I quite liked the ones you mentioned and also really enjoyed the special talents / gifts that some people possess that David Brooks talked about. He mentioned, amongst others, the importance of what awareness, street smarts and sympathy. I completely agree that these are skills that are absolutely critical for success, but are a lot harder to measure than someone's SAT (our standardized test for getting into University here in the US) scores.

    I was also very impressed with the work that Thomas Heatherwick's team is doing. The UK pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo (http://bit.ly/cFAWd9) was astounding. Gorgeous.

    Anyway, enjoy tomorrow's talks. Hopefully you won't be too sleepy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the comments, I'm really loving the talks as well. Mike, I agree, it is difficult to measure skills that are critical for success - scores at school just show that you remember the information from the week before.

    Kara - umm, I'm actually Hannah, my mum is Nikki & she set the blog up for me, which is why she is down as the author in the profile (we tried to change it but couldn't work it out).

    Have a great day tomorrow - let me know what your favourite talks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, sorry! I was a little confused when I saw the Nikki name...thought maybe you went by two names. But now it makes sense. :)

    It's so hard to pick one favorite talk when they were all so good!

    ReplyDelete