Ideas Worth Spreading

If you haven't heard of TED Talks, you really should check them out (http://www.ted.com/talks).  Search any area of interest to you on the site, and you'll see experts in their fields giving the 'talk of their life' in 18 minutes or less.  The slogan is 'ideas worth spreading'.  These TED events happen all around the world, all of the time.

About 2 months ago, I received an email from a friend, telling me about this opportunity to get involved and volunteer with TED.  With a marketing background, and as a business studies teacher, I have been a TED fan for quite some time... this seemed like a perfect way to meet people and get involved in my new city.  I showed up to the volunteer meeting thinking they would need a minion to serve food or drinks at the event or something... I walked out of that meeting as the Program Director for TEDx Wanchai 2012.  Gulp.

Me and Kyle, the intern.

As Program Director I have spent many, many hours over the last two months doing run-throughs with our 7 speakers, meeting with the curator (the boss man) to plan details of the event, and when they were ready, taking the presentations by each of our speakers and plugging them into the program Prezi, editing them and putting everything together.  The job intensified (sometimes a bit too much) as the day got closer, but it was wonderful content, and it was nice to use my brain again.

backstage!

TEDx events generally have a theme.  The theme of TEDx Wanchai (Wanchai is a neighbourhood in HK) was Charitable Impact, so each of our speakers were involved with or ran some kind of charity in Asia.   These are amazing but ordinary people who have done incredible things with their lives.

backstage, managing live feed online

One man started a Village Rights Handbook, the first of it's kind, to help protect the rights of the Villagers in Laos (did you know Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world?!).  A guy who started an online forum to match volunteers availability with organizations who need support.  There was a young HK girl started a volunteering program for the youth of HK as well as a magazine to encourage youth to 'dream and share their dreams'.  Another HK woman spoke about the ingrained tradition of shark fin soup in Chinese culture, and her struggles with her family and friends as she decided to become a shark conservationist.

Robin Huang

Some really incredible stats came from Robin Huang, whose family started an organization called Foodlink. They take the leftover food from hotels and restaurants and redistribute it in less than an hour to homeless shelters and places with people in need.  Everyday in Hong Kong, there is 1.3 kg / person of waste.  A total weight of more than 200 double decker buses worth of food waste goes into landfills every single day (landfills are expected to be full by 2015).  This is also a city where 1 in 5 live below the poverty line and 1 in 4 children don't get 3 meals a day.  Foodlink helps get the leftover food to people who need it.

Rob Lilwall

Rob Lilwall spoke about his insane adventures of biking from Russia, down through China, Japan, around Australia, up through Nepal, Afghanistan, and eventually back up through Europe to his home in the UK... a 3 year bike ride.  He was raising money for Viva, a children's charity, which he now works for.  Earlier this year, he also walked from Mongolia back to his new home in Hong Kong (5,000 km!).  This guy was amazing.

Scott Neeson

Finally, one of the most shocking stories came from Scott Neeson, former president of 20th Century Fox (released blockbusters Titanic and Braveheart)  He sold everything after an eye-opening trip Cambodia, and he moved from the ultimate Hollywood life to run a children's charity in a very impoverished region.  He has established an organization that focuses on getting kids out of a garbage dump (where they live), to get them into schools.

All the speakers and curator, Paul Angwin

As you can imagine, talking with these incredible people, most of them weekly, over the past two months has been pretty amazing and inspiring.  I can only hope that the audience of 300 (+ online viewers) on Wednesday night agreed that these speakers truly had 'ideas worth spreading'...