Being involved in several TED and TEDx initiatives, getting invited for the annual, TED Global gathering in Scotland, is a cherry on the already very sweet cake. Two weeks ago, this mindblown took place in Edinburg.

While most people think, the talks are the main reason for people to come, for me this turned out to be just side business. The meetups with friends from the TEDx community, side events like the Fellow program, TED University, discussions with TED’s partners like Unilever and Bain, but also private dinners with Shell, cocktail parties, parties at the museum, the castle and in caves, hikes and bike tours, cage matches and all other kinds of meetups made the week and unforgettable experience. Every day, we could almost walk straight from the pub to the. Conference center.

Off course I attended also most of the 12 sessions, in which the Ted talks were given, 12 sub themes under the main theme ‘radical openness‘ (check this amazing video). To give a quick overview of the variety of subjects of the (number) talks; a journalist who went for two years to the sweatshops in china, speaking with people working There. Her findings about the well being and mind set of the workers were strongly contradicting the standard assumptions. Neil Harbisson who  is only able to see black and white colors, showed on stage his camera, which is connected with his brain and makes it possible for him to listen to colors! Showing examples of how this works with paintings, but also a speech from Hitler, blew the audience, including myself, away. but also a professor from Stanford, showing the increase in education costs of 600% over the last 20 years and her/stanfords response to that, a biological research paper co-written by a bunch of 10 year olds, a singer arranging free google handouts concerts, attracting hundreds of thousands of listeners, Ruby wax explaining why pets are happier then humans and NATO’s chief talking about open source security were breathtaking. Ted’s T was covered by Experts, demonstrating camera’s, which can look around corners, magnets, which can Freeze a object on a specific location and a crowd sourcing project of finding the best way to find gold in a certain mine, costing 500k, making 3 billion caused a deep silence in the audience. The host, Edinburg, made the week complete with its ancient elements, green environment and friendly people.

A week which can’t be described in a single blog and not even in 10. With charged batteries, I’m returning back to the Netherlands, still silent of everything that happened and with a suitcase full of new ideas! See you n Long Beach!

Jan July 2012

Some interesting facts I’ve heard from attendees or during talks:

– Every hour, new York is producing enough waste to build Nother statue of liberty
– TEDx events are even being held at china’s great wall, in a prison, on the amazon and more amazing places.
– over 17000 TEDx talks are already online!
– CERN is working together with roxio on an own version of angry birds, strongly linking to cern’s work.
– the director of DeWar whiskey told me that 10% of whiskey gets lost when ripping on a vat
– at the extremely large event SXSW, placing chips in the badges of attendees, is giving the organization the possibility to see in which area more security or bar employees are needed.
– only 60% of the vergaarde wind energy is being used for its intended purpose – credit card fraud amounts to 2 billion dollar last year

“Why build 40 mosques for 1000 persons each, if you can also build 1 big one for 40.000? Look around, space enough!” I’m in the 6th largest mosque of the world in Abu Dhabi, where the guide answers my question why it was necessary to build such a huge building like this and not divide it up into smaller, more spread version. His answer was characteristic for everything I’ve experienced in the two weeks I’ve visited Dubai and Qatar. While Dubai itself has no money, but is heavily sponsored by the United Emirates capital Abu Dabi, it’s skyline, projects and infrastructure is, just like Doha’s, breathtaking. The growth which both the United Emirates and Qatar are experiencing, seems unstoppable. While a few years ago, Dubai was faced with a heavy burst in their property bubble, it looks like it was quickly repaired and is already forgotten. Everything needs to be bigger and fancier, from the fastest roller coaster and largest shopping mall to the largest tower in the world. Inhabitants are paying no taxes and several things are even subsidized. Besides the guarantee of a minimum salary, the whole education system is free until PhD level. “A play garden for the richest people in the surroundings”, as a friend told me.

When entering the Burj Khalifa, the highest tower of the world, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s openings words became visible on the wall; “The word impossible is not in leaders’ dictionaries. No matter how bit the challenges, strong faith, determination and resolve will overcome them“. Driving through Dubai / Doha, it seems that the inhabitants are taking this quote very serious in their construction plans. But all the growth and welfare also has it’s negative counter side. While 25% of the worlds building cranes is situated in Dubai alone, approximately 50% of the office spaces in all these prestigious towers is empty. This not only resulted in halve completed towers, but even complete craters in the middle of the city, waiting for money… Proud or grandiloquence?
The first Palm island was world news and also quickly sold-out, the second is one big disaster, just like the project ‘The World’, where no single island is sold yet. not even talking about all the other ‘island projects’ for which ll the building materials are already waiting in the storages. When having dinner with some friends from the Sandbox Network, I got the remark “we don’t value our resources here”, when throwing away two third of the food. This was confirmed during the opening night of the TED Summit, where it became also clear that Qatar is the country which has not only the highest water consumption in the world per capita, but also the largest spillage. So many signs that something is going wrong and has the potential to get worse in the near future, but there is hope.

Barring all the side effects, it was an eye opener to listen to the local speakers on the TED stage during the summit, talking about all the projects which are running right now, fighting against all these negative side-effects of the extreme growth. Ranging from the prevention of the huge water spillage (for which friends of mine also developed a very interesting product) to the construction and running of the stadiums for the World Cup of soccer in 2022, which is completely environmentally friendly.
The kindness, hospitality and openness of the people was a welcoming addition to this, already fabulous trip. It was complemented by all the richness of the Islamatic culture and history, from which I got a totally different and especially, more positive impression.

With all the huge investments made in education and tourism, I’m wondering how the region will look like in a couple years, when the oil is gone. Thinking back about all the experiences I’ve had during the two weeks in this impressive upcoming economy, I’m definitely returning back soon! 🙂

All information on the TEDxSummit >>
My Pictures of Qatar >>
My Pictures of Dubai >>