Is it possible to consistently run ‘cool corporate conferences with massive impact?’ We think so. By drawing from our vast experience in organizing and speaking at numerous TED conferences, we believe it is now possible to seriously improve any corporate conference.

The TED phenomena

A majority of conferences and events is still focused on trying to sell its tickets to participants, or cajole luke-warm potential participants to simply join. TED Conferences, on the other hand, have a luxury problem by maintaining long waiting lists for its events. What started as a small gathering in 1984, has grown into a multi-media organization with an annual budget of 50$ million.

While the TED organization itself is a non-profit, we notice that many corporate executives are currently trying to copy the almost magical factors, which drive the acceleration of the TED phenomena. TED is currently changing its focus from solely being a platform of inspiration towards one of activation as well. Today, we’re sharing 8 bright ideas to help activating the TED magic within your next corporate conference.

1) Learning 3.0

Within the field of adult education, social learning has grown into one of the most successful ways of teaching employees new ways of thinking and learning. By enriching learning materials with stories and (video-) content, instead of solely focusing on lists, rules and even more lists, the degree of adaptation increases significantly. As the founder of TED, Chris Anderson, already nicely said that “a spreadable package is of utmost importance when spreading ideas.”

2) Extraordinary things are often achieved by ordinary people

Many books and blogs have been written about particular factors, making executives and top entrepreneurs as successful as they are; fresh juice and a run in the early morning, meditation during lunch and goal setting for the next day before dinner. The majority of the TED speakers are ordinary speakers, focusing on the ‘reason why’ they are executing their work, not ‘how.’ Forget titles and shiny stories, major breakthroughs are caused by unexpected individuals.

3) Disruptiveness & Collaborating

Sitting still, waiting for luck to pass by hasn’t made a lot of people successful and rich. The typical TED speaker is disruptive, embracing constraints, collaborative, looking for new ways of working and innovative channels of creativity and triying to simplify key issues.
According to TED Global director Bruno Guissani, “Radical openness is the organizing principle of everything that we do at TED.” The 1+1=3 idea has already caused several interesting collaborations to flourish and new initiatives to be executed.

4) The velvet rope policy

People love to have what they cannot get. TED and a handful TEDx conferences work with a ‘by invitation only policy’, only allowing a selected few into the conference hall. This policy has caused a huge flush of applications and free publicity on loads of off- and online channels. The exclusive approach has clearly contributed to this success and has also already been successfully used by commercial parties, like Pinterest, Groupon and Vault74.

5) Fall in love with your audience, not with your company/product

As a speaker, show how the audience will be better off once you have left the stage. The highlight of any TED conference is neither the speaker, nor the idea, but how the condition of the audience will be improved afterwards.

6) Interaction is overrated

TED Talks are a monologue, not followed by a discussion immediately afterwards. Only after the event, once the different TED talks have been posted on the internet for all to see, the discussion about the content of the talk is started. It allows both speakers and attendees to fully concentrate on the message and doesn’t distract with potential interruptions.

7) People are attracted to knowledge

Within the communication industry, ‘storytelling’ is a very hot topic as part of content strategies. Storytelling avoids showcasing the corporate logo or commercial message, but feeds the receivers with interesting and useful knowledge about a particular topic. The impact on receivers of these content messages have been widely acknowledged on both retention and attention levels.

8) Brevity is the soul of wit

Academic research has proven that “cognitive backlog,” the maximum span of attention to listen to a story continuously, is 20 minutes. TED talks have a maximum length of 18 minutes and a majority of the talks is even shorter; 12 6 or even 3 minutes are most common. By applying laser-like focus and simplicity (the ‘KISS’ principle), TED speakers minimize the risk of losing the audience attention.

Your opportunity to make waves

Corporate meetings can move from endless hours of boredom to peak inspiration, motivation and performance by simply implementing a couple of the ideas which are mentioned before. When starting to implement these TED strategies within your own corporate boundaries, keep in mind to always “Start with Why” (Simon Sinek) and “Dare to Disagree” (Margaret Heffernan) with your fellow board members. It involves a lot of pieces, but the ‘Puzzle of Motivation’ (Dan Pink) can be the missing piece of the success puzzle, when rethinking how to run your next business meeting. After all, why settle for sticking your toe in the water, when you can make waves instead?

About the authors

Paul Rulkens is an expert in achieving business and personal success in the easiest, fastest and most elegant way possible. He is an award-winning speaker, international author and trusted advisor in the field of high performance. Watch his latest TED talk here, or visit his website at www.agrippaci.com.

Jan Scheele started his first company at the age of 13 and has helped over 150 multinationals, governments, hospitals, political parties and SME’s, accelerating online with their communication strategies. He has organized 20+ large TEDx events in Amsterdam, Baghdad, Eutropolis, Maastricht and for organizations like CERN, United Nations, the Dutch Police Force and the Ministry of Defence. 

Picture: TEDxMaastricht

The Mount Everest, prisons and a boat on the Amazon. All have been amazing hosts for one of the 14000 TEDx events that have happened since the establishment of the brand in 2009. Locations and speakers usually impress our partners, but a frequently asked question is always concerning the impact of the events. What is happening the day after with the giant pill of inspiration we gave to our visitors?

 

Several TEDxMaastricht speakers have used the red dot perfectly as a jumping board for further growth in their personal and corporate live, resulting in amazing outcomes. Mosquito-hunter Bart Knols not only got international acknowledgements in the press, but also a funding from the Gates Foundation to start implementing his ideas in Africa. Maastricht University Professor Mark Post made his world-famous lab-grown hamburger already 30000 times cheaper and change-maker Sheila Oroschin keeps on rocking with her project ‘The Masters’, pulling handicapped children out of mental institutions and giving them jobs and a bright future. Hasmik Matevosyan caused a paradigm shift in fashion with her talk and developed a new design system and business model for fashion brands, helping them to produce clothing much more sustainable. Anna Verhulst has inspired thousands with her impressive, personal talk about obesity, her struggle and ways how to deal with it. Finally, Rutger Bregman’s talk about a ‘base income’ has been watched over 120.000 times and inspired dozens of policy makers and politicians to start several experiments on local and national level.

 

Not just a day of inspiration, but facilitating activation and causing mind shifts at all attendees. TEDx is not just a ‘day out’ for the hungry intellectuals, but has developed into a movement of energized, engaged individuals who are seeking a deeper understanding of the world and wanting to turn that understanding into a better future for us all. This starts with the invitation procedure, where a broad mix of enthusiasts from all levels and parts of society are hand picked from the applications. Speakers are selected not on their function or past performances, but the expected mind shift caused by and uniqueness of their story. This careful approach has not just delivered great speakers, but also unforeseen outcomes. Companies have been found by visitors who’ve randomly met each other at TEDxMaastricht and several other projects and communities have been grown with a bulk of inspiration from the events.

 

Where the ‘E’ of TED usually implicated ‘Entertainment’, it seems anno 2015 it’s going more into the direction of ‘Education’, focusing more on (young) students and their hunger for new, unconditional ways of simplified, authentic storytelling. The TED Ed program has developed into an impressive online classroom platform with loads of great talks, created by knowledge institutions. Furthermore, the amount of TEDxYouth events has grown significantly. These TEDx events, organized by and for young children have always been one of my favorite parts of the TEDx concept. In Maastricht we’ve collaborated with the highly energetic students of the United World College to setup a TEDx especially for students ranging from 8-18yo. Malaria is being explained with ‘swinging cucumbers’, Indian and African dances are performed by young children and an Afghani student is giving a workshop about what Star Wars can learn us about peace. It are these events, always giving me the idea that a young generation is rocking the boat.

 

The most memorable moment in my TEDx ‘career’ has been the first TEDxBaghdad. At the start of the event, the Prime Minister of Iraq came on stage and told the audience that this was the most amazing concept he had seen in the past years, connecting the people of his nation with each other. As cherry on the cake, dozens of projects, companies and NGO’s have been found after team members, partners and visitors met each other during the events, ranging from construction to peace.
The rollercoaster keeps on moving; it are not only cities and schools who are hosting TEDx events nowadays. In the past years I was very excited, helping out with the organization of TEDx events at the Dutch Ministry of Defence, CERN in Geneva and the United Nations in New York. All institutions who’ve hosted these events and turned them into an excellent way of facilitating internal discussions about the future of leadership, communities and CSR.
It seems like there is simply no end to all this fun. Everyday I’m amazed again by all the beautiful outcomes of TEDx events, organized worldwide. TEDx events held in Cuba, soccer stadia, with an astronaut speaking live from space, in ‘Holy Land’ with a team from both Palestina and Israel … looking to the numbers and ideas for new events, this ‘startup’ which started as an experiment has developed into a global tribe with an open end.

As I’m frequently asked to give corporate events the ‘X-Factor’, my next blog will be about the lessons learnt for event organizers.

Picture: TEDxAmsterdam

You have been invited to give a TED talk or want to give a TED-like presentation to surprise your audience. Now what?

A single pebble thrown in the ocean will change the shoreline: TED talks can catalyze ideas, accelerate learning and move large amounts of people.

ExciTED as you are, you may soon realize that what has made you successful at regular talks, will simply fall falt at TED. Much has been written about common sense ideas to design and deliver an excellent TED talk. So what else is there to say?

Our experience includes organizing dozens of TEDx events, coaching hundreds of TEDx speakers and delivering several TEDx talks ourselves. What we have found is that there are 5 heroic rules, which can make the difference between sticking your ‘TED’ toe in the water and really making waves. Each of these 5 rules can move your talk from merely being good to absolutely heroic.

Rule 1: Fall in love with with your audience.
You are passionate about your idea. That’s why you are on stage. Passion, however, can act like a magnet: it can attract or repel. Therefore, always make sure to align with the needs of your audience. Make clear how the audience will be better off after you have left the stage. Shift your focus from ‘Here I am’ to ‘There you are.’ Don’t fall in love with your idea. Fall in love with your audience instead.

Rule 2: Open with a power snack.
We know that a powerful opening is essential to the success of the speech. Too many people use the suger donut approach to try to reach the heart of the audience. A sugar donut gives you a short energy burst. After that, sluggishness kicks in and the speech limps to the finish line. We we have found is that a superb nutritious opening covers four elements:
• Inform what your talk is all about (I’m here to talk about…)
• Excite about how they will be better off after the talk (After my talk, you will be able to…)
• Set the expectations about what they can do with the information (You can apply this to achieve…)
• Involve the audience to participate (for example with a rhetorical question.)

Rule 3: Only show what your audience needs to know.
If your dentist tells you she can remove your wisdom tooth in 18 minutes, or in 30 seconds: which option would you prefer? The lesson here is that you can either plan a good TED talk using the 18 minutes allocated time, or you can give an heroic TED talk in the shortest time possible. Therefore, while designing you TED talk, start with your 30 seconds elevator pitch, containing the magic of know-feel-do.
• This is what I want people to know
• This is what I want people to feel
• This is what I want people to do
From here, create a powerful opening, paint stories and pictures which stick in the mind of the audience and close on a high note. Keep in mind that shorter talks tend to attrack more viewers on the web and a more energized audience. In our hyper connected world ‘more’ is no longer the answer to ‘too much.’ Don’t try to impress your audience with your elaborate brilliance, dazzle them with brevity instead.

Rule 4: Unleash your inner Picasso
Yes, yes: we know: Many people see a presentation as a vehicle to cram in as many words and data as possible. This is not for you. Your job is not to give people the opportunity to have a break and go to the the bathroom, your job is to stretch the attention span of a room full of raving fans.
The US Navy gives the best advice on this; Keep It Simple Stupid!
Go naked: the best talks are often the ones without slides. Alternatively use single picture slides. The ‘D’ in TED stands for Design. Surprise your audience with a beautiful set of custom designed slides.
When people remember your talk when walking out the venue, they tend to spread the message amongst their followers. In the end, it is not what matters on stage, its the conversation afterwards which counts.

Rule 5: Live the entire experience
Planning the content makes up 50% of a good talk. The other 50% is the delivery. It always saddens us to see an amazing story clouded by a hapless stage performance.
Being nervous on stage is normal. Even for a TED talk hero. However, you will do vastly better with a couple of easy steps:
• Glue your feet to the ground. Most speakers tend to walk back and forth, like a caged polar bear. This is not only distracting, it also shows nervousness.
• Focus on your audience. Constantly try to make eye contact. Move your eyes across the audience with a ‘W’ or ‘M’ pattern.
• Breathe! We have seen speakers give the first quarter of their talk with only one deep inhalation. Play with silence. Take regular short breaks to inhale and exhale. When creating silence, you can a hear a pin drop and funnily enough, this increases the attention span of the audience.
• Be vulnerable. It’s ok, even heroes are human. Humans love humanity and they appreciate you showing it.
• Carefully plan how you will enter and exit the stage. Make sure you enter giving the audience high expectations. Make you sure you exit presenting the audience an opportunity to give their appreciation back to you.

Speaking at TED is an opportunity to become a hero to advance your ideas. These 5 TED talk rules will help you to set yourself up for TED success. And that is all that matters: in the end, a TED Talk hero’s life is about success, not perfection.

Paul Rulkens is an expert in achieving business and personal success in the easiest, fastest and most elegant way possible. He is a two times TEDx speaker. Currently, he is responsible for building a High Performance organization at DSM, a global material and life science company. Watch his latest TED talk here.

 

 Jan Scheele started his first company at the age of 13 and has helped over 150 multinationals, governments, hospitals, political parties and SME’s, accelerating online with their communication strategies. He has organized 20+ large TEDx events in Amsterdam, Baghdad, Eutropolis, Maastricht and for organizations like CERN, United Nations and the Ministry of Defence.

While hiking a hill with a windchill of 40 degrees, we’re walking under a three with a rattlesnake, eating termites and play around with a machete. The first day in the jungle, I figured out why I haven’t been to such a place before. But on the same day, laying in a hammock after showering in the wild river, digesting the local grown food I directly felt in love with the very special place in the Panamanian jungle where I would stay for the upcoming days.

I’ve been to a broad range of special places via/for TEDx, varying from Baghdad to the UN HQ and CERN. The location of TEDx: The Jungle, wasn’t just breathtaking. The limitations on the ground and the deeper thought behind the construction and surroundings, made this one of the most remarkable experiences I’ve had the last couple of years.

Just like other TED(x) events, the attendees are always adding the most value to the event. Besides a lot of friends from the TEDx / Sandbox Network and Summit Series, an additional extraordinary variety of people, ranging from investors to developers and CEO’s to property developers joined this marvelous gathering.
Sitting around the firepit, talking about personal hurdles, participating in survival and sustainable farming workshops and just sit back and enjoy the beauty of the pure environment.

The village, Kalu Yala, is an initiative of Jimmy Stice, who setup the entire project together with a couple staff members and a bunch of interns, all with local and sustainable building materials. The TEDx just happened before the start of the construction of a huge jungle community, Jimmy is planning to grow up to 10.000 inhabitants. There website is beautifully showcasing the sketches of and thoughts behind the project.

After a couple days in the jungle, we celebrated NYE on the rooftop of Panama’s most famous club. After that, everybody went either home or to one of the tropical islands. I spend a couple days in paradise, called Bocas del Toro, before flying back to The Netherlands. Completely chilled out, ready for all the great challenges in 2014!

More on this summit:

– Article on The Next Web

– Report on CNN

This movie was made during the adventure and is perfectly showing in 2 minutes, why you should come next year 🙂

Kalu Yala – Exploring Lifestyle Innovation In The Heart of The Panamanian Jungle from Fundación Gunn Hill Panamá on Vimeo.

(Posted also on TEDxMaastricht)

At TEDxMaastricht, we believe that the crowd of our event is almost as important as the speaker line-up. Spreading all those amazing ideas, spawned out on the stage of a TEDx event and taking action out of it, will not happen if the hall is only filled with CEO’s or people from, for example, the consultancy industry. The most interesting and unexpected cross-overs and connectinos are usally the ones made between the most different unexpected people from the most different sectors and layers of society.

Invitations for TEDxMaastricht are therefore not for sale. We love to curate our audience as much as our speaker list. Team members only get 1 ticket to give away to a friend, in order to prevent making the event one big family dinner and the amount of tickets for partners is limited. Motivation is the key and the most important aspect for us, when inviting our guests. Think about Charly and his trip to the chocolate factory! How boring would it be if he was just able to buy a ticket? A little challenge, thinking about why you should actually be invited, won’t hurt anybody.

At all TEDx events I’ve been at and organized, seeing and feeling the joy of people, being invited to it, is one of the biggest appreciations, an organizer can get. The twinkling in people’s eyes, just like Charly, when entering the chocolate factory, is why we as team, are organizing TEDxMaastricht. When applying online, please keep in mind, that we have to read all motivations and “A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men”(Willy Wonka)

After the huge success of last year, this year’s TEDxBaghdad ‘The Beginning Begins’ was meant to build further on this perfect way of showcasing the world that Baghdad is so much more than a war zone. Since last year, I’ve had a lot of interaction with my Iraqi Facebook friends and with the extreme joy of last year, last month I decided to bring a visit again to this wonderful spot in Arabia.

The country itself is recovering very fast from the war. Everywhere where you look, building cranes and construction cars are part of the landscape. Compared with last year, the visible security has decreased significantly. Fair enough; the green zone still exists and there are almost as many road blocks and security checks as lampposts. Out of curiosity, I’ve had loads of conversations with local Iraqi’s about the Green Zone itself and what it would mean if whole Baghdad would be one zone, without security checks. It turns out, 5 types of security forces exist, all distrusting each other and operating standalone. Since there is almost no communication between these forces, uniting Baghdad again will take some time.
While most people would think, the democracy has brought confidence by the civilization, most people distrust the government, saying they take money from the people not owning anything and spending it on their own ‘toys’ and prestige projects.

Even in the most secured zones, I still felt the incense security measures. When secretly entering the roof of the one and only hotel in Baghdad (Sadam’s former hotel), snipers discovered us and security quickly removed us. I wasn’t allowed to run in the garden of the hotel, because last year, a scattered bomb was thrown in it, killing 4 people. Together with one of National Geography’s photographers, I took the risk of life and left the Green Zone twice, only with a few body guards. The places we’ve visited were breathtaking, from the ruined statue of Saddam (by American soldiers) to the real inner-city markets and the most important mosque, which was bombed the day after our visit. We were calmed down with the promise that this attach was not because of our visit.

While you won’t hear any complain from the Iraqi’s itself, the intense pressure by militants is extreme. The people, fighting earlier against the American soldiers, went underground and are now fighting against the Iraqi upperclass. High officials, doctors and professors are threatened by dead every day and obligated to leave the country. This already happened at families of several team members, some of them were kidnapped for money and even killed . Because the militans are using silent guns and don’t wear any identifiable badge, it is  very tough to catch them. How does that look like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QneFpct0cJE

The impact of Sadam’s regime has not been completely negative. If people were attending school or university, they were expelled from military service. The huge amount of PhD students, doctors and other professionals is the result and just incredible. While the level of healthcare is the highest in the whole region, the numerous amount of doctors are thwarted in several ways. Not only by the death threats of militants, but also by the people cutting of limbs to prevent new technologies to cure this being developed and the citizens itself. Since healthcare and medicines are free, subsidize by the oil money, citizens require medicines and treatments they often don’t even need, putting unnecessary pressure on the system.

When observing Iraqi people, some people get scared by face impressions and the way of talking. But it’s a long time ago, I’ve met a population which is so extremely friendly, hospitable and helpful. Iraqi’s would slaughter their last sheep, if they would find you starving. While the country itself still needs a lot of time to recover from the war and the old regime, it is so extremely energizing to see these lovely people being so motivated to show the world how beautiful their country and how rich their culture is. As they say, all in gods will, insha’allah!

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 >>