Talking Ted

Spent the day today at TEDxDubai - a younger sibling of the global TED conferences that regularly blow my mind. The basic premise of the conference is "ideas worth spreading", and they seek to bring together all sorts of people to talk on topics across technology, entertainment and design (umm... T.E.D...) without a commercial aspect. You have to apply for a ticket to attend, and then it is free, meaning that the only people there are there because they want to attend, rather than seeing it as a tick in a box on an HR form.

Too much to tell about TEDxDubai... once there are videos on their site I'll post links. Suffice to say, I enjoyed it - I hung out with friends that I hadn't seen for a while, and met their friends. I listened to inspiring people. I lost at buzzword bingo - being a bit cynical, I'd bet on "vision" as the word of the day. "Inspiration" was a run away winner - and rightly so. After a while it was wrong to keep score, and slightly embarrassing that we'd been so impolite as to cast aspersions on these peoples thoughts and ideas.

Highlights -

Jiochi Ito - a venture captialist from Silicon Valley who is part of the group setting up Creative Commons - a way to standardize legal agreements that will open up sharing of information, photos, articles and music across the internet. Mind blowing.

Dr Naif al Mutawa - hilarious. Seriously funny man. Describes himself as over educated as he couldn't figure out what to do after he got banned from Kuwait for his writing in the 90s. So he set up "The 99" - super heroes who each have a stone powered with one of the 99 traits of Allah. He's done an animated film, which will be shown at Cannes. DC Comics contacted him, and they're going to do a joint series where Superman/SpiderMan etc join up with the 99 to fight evil powers. How to influence the youth. Love, love, love it. And he was funny. Result.

Mohammed Saeed Harib - is it a coincidence that he's also in animation? Mohammed created Freej, which I love, and he was in equal parts an adorable young scruffy artist (in a dishdash and ghutra - in the style of our dear crown prince Fazza, naturally), as well as an entrepreneur and Chairman of his own empire. Freej came out of a project he was asked to do when he was at Northwestern, in the US. Base something on one of your cultural heroes, he was told. So he drew his grandmother and her three friends. Nuff said.

Paul Bennett - of Ideo. Sorry, did you hear that - he's from IDEO. They're really cool and alternative, and nothing like McKinsey. Did you notice my trendy scarf? It was featured in AN ARTICLE I was in, cos like, I'M IN THE MEDIA. But the most important thing we teach our employees is sublimation of the ego... maaan... we need to disappear.
Knob. We called him The Gnome.

Dubai Abdulla Abulhoul. Age 13. Youngest filmmaker in the region, and has decided already that she's going to win an Oscar. Wouldn't put it past her, and certainly wouldn't stand in her way. Mini dynamo - slightly precocious but to be honest... don't you have to be, to make it in that world?

Jamil Abu-Wardeh. I was introduced to him when he came over to set up MTV Arabia, probably 4 years ago. He then decided that the Arab world needed stand up comedy, so put together the Axis of Evil tour. Hilarious. He stood up and talked about the terms comedians use - "he bombed" = bad. "He killed" = good... and managed to spin out an 8min talk on the need for home grown entertainment, in to a commentary on language, and a proper laugh fest. That, is skill.

Ian Gilbert. Asked us if a crashed car was parked. Talked about developing education to inspire children. Asked why we need teachers when we have the internet. Managed to take a talk that could have been cliched and a bit predictable, and twist it to make our brains hurt. If only he'd been cloned and put in schools everywhere.

There were more. Ernst van der Poll spoke passionately about conserving our seas. Maserat Daud talked about inspiring teachers in 8 days. Khulood al Atiyat on her project "Unleash" about passing out journals in to the community for people to draw in and send back.

And finally - they showed us a video, from a previous TED winner, who came up with the Charter for Compassion. This to me, embodies everything that I was taught about religion. Sharing, understanding, compassion, conversation, community. These people are honestly building bridges, and I really hope they can make something out of this fledgling initiative. It is a pretty simple and non-religious message - do unto others as you would have done to you.

What a fantastic day.