Friday 27 April 2012

TEDxSussex University

I've espoused my love for TED in a few posts now, and I was lucky enough to be given the chance to attend a TEDx event that was held at my university today. TEDx events are independently organised events where the 'x' can be anywhere from (and I'm just picking random places here; no idea if TEDx events have actually been held here) Sydney to Stockholm to San Francisco to Sussex.

I heard about this TEDx event through the Enterprise Office at the University, and boy am I glad I attended. A full list of speakers can be found here and their talks will be uploaded to TED.com in the coming months. The theme was 'The Hidden Wonders' and we saw a variety of speakers from across the country (and the globe) in three separate areas: Science and Technology, Global Issues and Business and People and Culture.


They were all brilliant, but a couple really resonated with me, so a special mention to David Birch whose talk about identity and Dr Who's psychic paper links closely to the Sherry Turkle talk I blogged about last week; James Woudhuysen who spoke about the need to invest in basic R&D in order to invest in the future; Peter Barden who gave a truly inspiring speech about start-ups in the high graduate unemployment market we have today and his own start-up, Graduates Unleashed which he hopes to be launching soon; Lynne Murphy for her insightful comparison of politeness (and rudeness) between British and American cultures and lastly; Glitch Lich for their awe-inspiring 'network music' performance. And as always, a huge thanks to Ali of Barefoot Wine for the fantastic wine.

Just to end with a video they showed us at the beginning of the last session. Truly amazing and just goes to show what can be achieved when you have an idea worth doing.

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