Posts tagged poland

TEDxKrakowLive: Nerds around the world

Last night, over 100 people crowded into some 15th century cellars in the centre of Krakow (now housing a very modern bar!) to watch the livestream from TED. For most of us, this was the first time we’d had the chance to watch a TED conference happening live and it was a massive success - a completely different experience to watching the talks individually.

The nerds from our team had had a few scary moments when it looked as though there was a problem with our internet connection and when the first image to appear was Scooter, so we weren’t sure that we had the right channel. But it soon became clear that all was well and we settled down ready to be amazed. And we were.

The first session blew everyone away. Regina Dugan’s talk got our minds into gear and the nerds in the audience (of whom we have many thanks to the amazing technical universities here) glowed when she told us to be nice to them. And Vijay Kumar’s flying robots earned a round of applause from pretty much everyone present. The ad for breast examination was also much appreciated by the female (and some male) members of the audience.

After a break, there was only enough time to grab a beer and it was back for Session 5: The Earth.

Here we were taken down a different path; beautiful images of birds nests, extraordinary film of bears inching down a sheer ice cliff, incredible never-seen-before footage of the bat with ‘that’ tounge and the breathtaking Canadian wilderness were much appreciated by these nature-loving Poles. As it was already after 10pm here in Kraków, the “official” part of the evening finished at this point and most people called it a night.

A small group of hardcore TED fans went off for some food and came back for Session 6: The Crowd. It was worth it. We loved Lior Zoref and were stunned that our guess for the weight of the ox (814kg) came so close to the reality (815kg). We saluted Jennifer Pahlka. As a former communist country we know all about bureaucracy and the idea of being bureaucratically, rather than politically, active intrigued us. We welcomed the opening up of the TED API (and some of our lovely home grown nerds will definitely be in touch about that). Frank Warren and the Postsecret Project made us laugh and brought tears to our eyes. And finally, we’d like to invite Reggie Watts to TEDxKraków in September because it’s clear that he is a genius.

Unfortunately by now it really was time to call it a night, but that doesn’t mean that’s the end. Our next challenge is to figure out how we can get this buzzing, small but perfectly formed central European city involved in the TED Prize for the City 2.0. Wish us luck!

Andrew Shapiro, a renowned pianist and TEDxKraków performer, has been featured in a documentary from New York station WQXR.

Here is his performance from TEDxKraków 2010.

Behind the scenes of TEDxWarsaw

Photo Credits: Janusz Kobyliński/TEDxWarsaw, Aleks Grynis

TEDster Vlad Fiscutean — Organizer of TEDx Timisoara in Romania met with Ralph Talmont — the Organizer of TEDx Warsaw in Poland to talk about his experience organizing his TEDx event:

Media entrepreneur, publishing consultant and photographer Ralph Talmont — the Organizer of TEDxWarsaw in Poland, is in love with jazz, books, conversations and TED.

He’s been a TED fan for decades, and jumped at the opportunity to organize a TEDx event as soon as TED released the initiative. Along with six friends who now constitute the core organizing team, and some 30 volunteers and collaborators, he has organized two editions of TEDxWarsaw, and helped over 60 speakers spread their ideas.

Things are starting to go in the right direction for the beautiful and dynamic capital city of Warsaw, due to the creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit of the younger generation and TED is “a big catalyst“ of this.

A number of people have already created projects as a result of meeting at TEDxWarsaw, and business initiatives have taken off. Ralph jokes that the onlything that hasn’t happened yet is “attendees getting married“. But, as more then 1000 people have already attended TEDxWarsaw events, who knows what the future holds.

Ralph believes the ideas of TEDx fall onto fertile ground in Poland because — according to the European Commission — “the country has the highest entrepreneurial index, a young generation full of open minds in search for ideas and has a great history“.

Organizing a TEDx event, says Ralph, is “detail driven”, but it helps if you have “a wicked ability to telescope — zoom in and out from broad brush overview, and into minute detail”.

Ralph’s himself has an idea worth spreading — that everyone over forty has the duty to invest time in fostering young talent in their profession or business.

Find out more about this TEDx event in the capital city of Poland by visiting the TEDxWarsaw website,

Written by Vlad Fiscutean, TEDxTimiosara Organizer