Posts tagged south korea

The global TEDxWomen community

From the TEDxWomen blog:

It’s awe inspiring to think about all the women  and men joining us all across the world for today’s TEDxWomen. There are over 100 events on every continent, in every time zone, enabling thousands of people to gather in community and experience the TED talks taking place in New York and Los Angeles, as well as their own local talks. We are amazed by the energy of all of our TEDx organizers and their dynamic, diverse communities.

Picture the women of TEDxNASAJSCWomen, gathered at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. They’ll be highlighting women speakers in the realms of  engineering innovation, new scientific discoveries, and perspectives from space, including Julie Robinson, chief scientist for the ISS Program who will talk about experiments that can’t be done on earth including Dr. Keiko Nakamura-Messenger, the first Japanese female to the South Pole and discoverer of two new minerals!

Picture the women of TEDxBuslimWomen in Tripoli, Libya, which will actually take place tomorrow. They’ll hear from six local speakers on the theme of “be inspired.”

Picture the women of TEDxDirahWomen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, many of them students at King Saud University. Local speakers will include a library director, a researcher of biotechnology, and a writer on special education.

Picture the women of TEDxVasatanWomen in Stockholm, gathering in an old church that has been reshaped into a working office for Swedish entrepreneurs, and those of TEDxAmsterdamWomen, gathering at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Picture the women of TEDxDaLuz in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the women of TEDxEwhaWomen in Seoul, South Korea.

Picture all of us, joining together to explore “ideas worth spreading” from some of the world’s most innovative, engaged, and charismatic leaders. It’s a genuinely global community and a groundbreaking moment. We’re so honored to be the catalyst for all of these conversations.

Reposted with permission. Originally posted to the TEDxWomen blog, written by Courtney Martin. »

TEDx South Korea Organizers Workshop

In South Korea, the passion for TEDx is breathtaking. As of this writing, there are almost 100 different event teams and more than one event every week in a country with less than 50 million citizens.

The first and second TEDx organizers workshops in South Korea were held in the capital, Seoul. Since the previous one, in February 2011, we’ve planned to hold workshops in alternative locations, because our community has also grown rapidly in other parts of the nation. This third workshop was held in Yangsan in Gyeongsangnam-do province, about 2 hours south of Seoul by high speed train. About 40 organizers attended the workshop.

The goal of our gathering was to strengthen the community of TEDx’ers in South Korea, to share  experiences from hosting events, and to plan the collective future of the Korean TEDx community. Sponsorship from the Busan Human Resource Development Institute (a group who also sponsors TEDxHaeundae) gave organizers momentum to hold this workshop. Salome, the TEDx Strategic Relationships manager from TED Conferences attended as well, which drove more participation and excitement at the workshop.

In the first session, 6 TEDx Organizers introduced their events and shared their know-how. For example, Jooyong Moon (TEDxSinchon) presented about repeating the same theme “Successful Failure”, to slowly shift the Korean perspective and build a new consensus on the value of failure in this society. David Choo (TEDxItaewon) shared a story about hosting a TEDxLive event for TEDGlobal 2011 and discussed related translation issues. Victor Choi (TEDxMyeongdong & TEDx Ambassador) introduced Mailchimp, a tool for running email marketing campaigns, available to organizers on the TEDx Sponsor Marketplace.

In the second session, Mani Kim (TEDxBusan) and Yunhee Shin (TEDxDongsungro) shared their adventures at TEDGlobal 2011 as representatives of the South Korean TEDx community. They discussed what they learnt about the importance of passionate attendees and the impact that a good social gathering after the event can motivate – adding cohesion and passion to the community. This helped us, as a community, better understand what an official TED event is like and made us able to set goals to make TEDx events in Korea more ‘TED-like’ experiences.

Next, workshop participants ate dinner and had an excitement filled ice-breaking session. Then it was Q & A time with Salome. TEDx Organizers got a chance to ask questions directly to the TED team and get complete answers. There were practical as well as ideological questions. The whole session was full of passion and enthusiasm.

The last session of the first day was open brainstorming about TEDx-related issues. Participants chose to join tables according to predetermined themes, they then discussed and gathered ideas about the theme as a group. People could move to another table when they wanted to discuss different issues. Organizers talked about how to effectively get sponsorship, how to facilitate TEDx attendees and how to motivate and organize TEDx teams. We also discussed the big-picture of TEDx in Korea, touching on the fundamental reasons why we make TEDx events, the future of our community and the nature of the passion which brings us together.

After that, participants had a party, and in their spare time, some of them visited Tongdosa, a famous temple in the area, with Salome.

On the second day of the workshop, TEDx initiatives introduced. Victor Choi explained TEDxYouth and TEDxChange through his own story from TEDxYouthSeoul and a collaboration event with TEDxChange and David Choo shared his know-how on holding TEDx Live events. These discussions inspired organizers to try their own TEDx initiative events and become more closely connected to our community.

When people from TEDx communities gather together, their passion is amplified and they create significant positive energy. Their eyes shine when they’re talking about TEDx events and they share the real reasons they volunteer time in this way. The reason there are so many TEDx events in South Korea — a very small country — might be the closeness of the TEDx community, who sympathize with the spirit of TED and are eager to spread this amazing and meaningful experience that they create. The third TEDx Organizers in Korea workshop was a chance to feel this passion once again!

Written by Jihye Kang (TEDxEwha), Mani Kim (TEDxBusan) & Mark Whiting (TEDxKAIST).