A few TEDGlobal 2013 talks

This week was absolutely phenomenal.

To give you an idea, the three talks that are up right now are:

from an Amazing Activist

an argument to stop the use of military drones

a pitch to reform European democracy

and, of course, some quadcopters.

oh, and, the Sandra Boynton when Pigs Fly TEDxYale Video that was played during one of the session.

TEDGlobal 3!

I'm having such fun. We just watched an amazing talk by Kelly McGonigal on stress. In essence: rethink your stress. If you are social and work with other people through your stress, you'll heal faster. If you think about stress as your brain preparing you for the next event, you'll perform better and have a healthier response. Attitude really is everything.

It reminded me of my first TED experience and how I have changed in the last few years. Especially this past year. I used to be very socially anxious about going to big events. I learned that I do a lot better at them, spend more time getting to know new people, and I feel less socially anxious. Funny, I had to do it alone to figure it out. I started going to events and conferences alone and I got much better at throwing myself right into new conversations. I'm a lot happier to go to things now that I know I can trust myself in new places. It sent me to do research in India, meet awesome mentors at TEDWomen this last fall, and really love being here now. I think, without realizing it, I learned to turn the stress of meeting new people and not knowing what to expect into energy and excitement about engaging with new people and experiences. Worked well for me!

This morning I talked about the trip I am taking to see a friend in Turkey in September with a woman who had gone back packing through Eastern Europe and Turkey 20 years ago (after I fixed a tech glitch on her phone... Look at me being techy!). She lived in Bodrum for a year and made it all sound so magical. I cannot wait to go!

I also talked about informal economic research, India, Brazil, the book I'm doing research for next year, privacy and environmental issues over lunch. It's been a while since someone else was pushing me and digging into other aspects of my research. Such fun.

Of course last night we stayed up late in the bar downstairs. I met the organizer for TEDxMogadishu and we talked about Africa and poachers and Kenya for a while with a TEDFellow from Kenya. I caught up with a friend and former Yale world fellow from Mexico (she is curating a session here and was just named as a cultural minister for Mexico). I had time talking to one of the most inspiring women in my life (she has taken me in as a mentee and is always curious about what I am working on. She is also a hardcore serial entrepreneur, which just adds to how awesome she is) until late.

There was a protest this morning outside of the first session of TEDGlobal because the former prime minister of Greece was speaking. An anti-austerity group sent a few dozen protestors to be outside. They were asked for a question to give the minister, but it seems that didn't work out..

And now Natasha Bedingfield is giving an amazing concert performance!

Running off to meet a friend from India now!

TEDGlobal Day 2. Morning Edition

Hello,

Admittedly it has only been a few hours of TED and real TED hasn't kicked off yet -- it will happen this evening around 4pm. But I am taking my afternoon coffee and mooching off the free wifi in the coffee shop across the street. The people working behind the counter now recognize me. I guess this is my local version of Woodland Tea and Coffee in New Haven...

This morning was a TED Workshop called, Taming Wicked Problems. I ran into a few of the TEDx organizers that I saw yesterday at the TEDx workshop and also at the reception last night in the Edinburgh castle. The workshop was run by a fellow from Autodesk and Singularity University. We tried a new method of workshopping/problem solving that was really interesting. We weren't allowed to speak, but wrote down different elements of a "wicked problem." Then we stuck them all to the board and had to arrange them into categories, still without speaking. I liked this method of communicating something very complicated [the topic my team picked, at the urging of the woman I was sitting next to at the table, was drug trafficking].

This afternoon Dad and I are going to be part of a filming project that will go up tomorrow... exciting and mysterious, no?

Last night we attended a cocktail party in Edinburgh castle, which was lovely. I talked to some really interesting characters, including one of the speakers for this week who is a specialist in "wild sex" research. I also saw a few of the TEDx organizers that I had met earlier that afternoon when we went to hike King Arthur's seat. The sun doesn't set her until after 10, so we had a beautiful sunny view of the city and walked home still in the sunlight around 10pm.

Well, time to run and get ready for this afternoon's activities!

TEDGlobal: TEDx Organizers workshop

Hello!

I got up early this morning, walked to the theater in the now cloudy Edinburgh, and gave my talk! So easy after all the build up haha (it helps that this was my second time and we did a funny stage prep thing to make everyone relax. Rives and Kelly asked us questions like, what was the craziest thing that you did for love? to make everyone laugh. My question was: what is your worst habit? Funny, because I am going to work for Kelly after Global... It was hard to come up with something on the spot, so I said that I get really frustrated when people walk slowly on the sidewalk and I usually grumble to myself). 

My talk will go up later under the TEDx resources page for University students looking to start or continue with their university level TEDx events. I was covering the basic issue of University vs TEDx branding and how to build a partnership with your university. 4 minutes. Alongside some really wonderful TEDx organizers from TEDxParis, TEDxBerlin, TEDxKhartoum, TEDxChange and TEDxCity2.0. 

Me with Kelly Stoetzel on the TED Stage after my talk

Kelly and Rives MCing for the TEDx Organizers workshop

So much fun to be here. My Dad was also in the audience, taking some pictures and adding commentary for when I finished speaking. Rives pointed out that we might be the only Father-Daughter TED team at Global right now. He also mentioned our friends Robin and Cameron, a Mother-Daughter team that has been at TED together before. I wish they were here this year too!

I have a little down time before I go on the TEDx organizers hike on the beautiful hill tops just outside the city. There are a few sessions this afternoon based on specific issues that organizers have encountered during there work, but Dad and I ducked out to check email in a coffee shop and get through some work. 

Some news from today: 

The next TEDx Summit will be in.... BERLIN!!!!!!!!

For those of you who dont know, I love Germany and particularly Berlin. This is wonderful news. 

There will also be a TEDCity2.0 event this year in New York, TEDWomen has moved out to California (Tiffany and I are trying to figure out how we get there...) and organizers around the world are pooling together data and tips for videos on TEDx How Tos that are going online. So look for them!

So that's my update for now. We start official TEDGlobal tomorrow! More time for me to play today.

I got an interesting challenge from Rives, which will be my goal for the week: he said that I am clearly comfortable on stage speaking candidly about things I know something about... so why not try being funny? Or... spoken word.

So there we go! The push I needed -- I'll look for some space for me to give it a try in New York. And, as he put it, push until it doesn't work anymore.

Also, my name tag is really sweet: 

Till later then!

Current Status: TEDxing

So excited for the TEDGlobal TEDx Workshop tomorrow. 

AND THEN IT'S TIME FOR TED! :D

Including Introspection.

This was the speech I wrote and submitted to present at Class Day. I was not selected to speak in the end, but I was a finalist so it was published in a small collection of other students speeches that was given to every member of the class of 2013. It's not online yet, so I thought I'd put it up for anyone who wanted to read it.

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Maybe we’re a little lost right now. But don’t let that scare you, don’t laugh nervously and shrug it off. Let’s talk about it.

We are just graduating and the world is ours to explore. No more pre-set path, it’s all out there to make your own. We spent evenings wondering how we will measure our own impact and what we want to learn along the way. Maybe some of us have a final goal on the horizon, a dream we want to turn into a reality, but we wonder what steps we need to take along the way.

Somewhere along the way, Yale gave me something I still treasure – it gave me a lens with which to consider myself – as an individual and as a member of this community. It built a community of scholars and friends. It gave us the space to be introspective – to ask ourselves, and others, hard questions.

How will you use your time and value your results?

In the endless list of possibilities, what will you decide matters enough for you to add your own unique touch to it and call it your own? What will you remember as a defining moment of your time here? That value system was yours alone to decide.

The character you have become and will keep molding over time comes from your experiences. It comes from days spent wandering through undiscovered corners of your neighborhood, conversations with your suitemates on the floor on your common room until 4 am, and long drives with a mentor figure. Nights where you bent over your desk long into the night cracking codes and accepting that glorious Eureka! moment. Minutes where the song played by your friend on the cello explained exactly what you were feeling but couldn’t explain with words.

Celebrate your uniqueness and everything that you’ve learned here, but please, don’t stop evaluating yourself.

We each invite time for introspection into our lives: For some, it means long, abstract conversations about values, and for others it means meditation or experiments. Maybe it was a long walk through a park with nothing but the sound of joggers passing you and gravel crunching beneath your feet, or maybe it was a pause, between pages, while you read something that really engaged you. Wherever that space was – where you felt uncomfortable, where you examined yourself and your decisions, where you decided what mattered to you most – protect it.

Here comes a thought experiment: Maybe we are lost. But we are forging our way from here on out.

Don’t you see? You will be the deciding factor in your journey. There isn’t a checklist anymore, because you have the freedom to decide what comes next.

You will be afraid sometimes. This is not the last time you will feel uncertain or confused about your direction in life. It’s also not the first time you’ve experienced it.

If you give yourself the bedrock of integrity that comes from knowing who you really are and what you want to make out of your life, no one can ever take that away from you. It is yours to guide you through whatever comes next.

You will probably never leave these conversations with black and white answers to your problems – but regardless of the other people in your life, your new environments, friends, jobs… you’ll be able to make better decisions in that moment about what you truly want holistically. That was what Yale wanted for you. It sought to build leadership through scholarship and character. You have some of the answers you need to ground you through the uncertainty and fear.

Be open to the world around you and learn from the people you meet. You will never stop being a student. There will be situations that challenge you again and force you to question what you stand for, but know yourself and what you value, and you will make decisions that you can live with.

I hope your last days here and everywhere are spent with the knowledge that you want to be where you are or where you are going, in that moment. No one can ever take that away from you.

Confessions of a Fair Trade Shade Grown Vegan Hipster II

The first edition happened last summer in the monsoons of Mumbai. This edition comes from a new Chelsea resident as she gears up for TEDGlobal and the TEDx organizers workshop on June 9th.

Just as recap for people who missed the last one, I am not actually vegan or any of those other things. A friend coined this label for me a few years ago jokingly and it kind of stuck with some of our other friends. It is all in jest.

Well, a year ago I was living in an apartment in Colaba, waiting for the rains to come and take away the heat of Mumbai's early summers. I've come to the point where I miss India. I was reading Shantaram over the last few weeks and it made me miss it even more. I could imagine the scenes taking place in different areas of the city where I spent a good deal of time last summer. I could feel the heat burning my arms and the rains flowing in and out of my plastic shoes.... it was such a treat to read something that took me back there as much as this book did.

Sometimes it takes a year to see and remember what is worth seeing/remembering. For me, anyway, this is very true. I have a few friendships and projects that took time to settle and be everything that I hoped they would be.

Most importantly, I think I learned that we really can't expect every experience/relationship/project to turn out the same way. That seems really basic, especially when I write it out, but it took me a while to process that -- especially with friendships. We learn different things from different people. Why shouldn't the relationship reflect that? I think I'm a lot happier in understanding that we're all trying to do our best being ourselves. And in that, we all have to give a little bit of space to quirks and character. Just as people have to do with me. Plus, it would be really boring if all friendships were identical and taught you the same things. So, really, this is a good discovery for me.

This granola cruncher is getting ready now to leave for TEDGlobal. A perfect loop -- I went for the first time after I graduated from High school, and now I am back. As a recent college graduate. I'm excited to be back in the TEDx organizers Workshops -- TEDxYale is presenting best University level TEDx practices this time. So I'll be up there, giving a 4 minute talk alongside some other really awesome organizers from different TEDx conferences around the world. And then, of course, there is the part where we'll be in beautiful historic Edinburgh...

Catch me June 9th, 9am BST, 4am EST here

I think life works in loops sometimes -- as I said before, I rarely say "Goodbye" because there is a good chance that I will be back in some capacity in the future. I think I like it that way.

Yes, people do move on and fill gaps in their lives when we leave. But sometimes it doesn't matter as much -- like those friendships you go back to after months and it's exactly the same. Sometimes it changes things a lot, but the friendship matures with it. And other times, things need to fade into the background because it is healthier for both of you. There is nothing wrong with that, either.

While some of my friendships from home have grown and shifted with the past few years, we all found ourselves downtown watching the Bruins game in a sports bar last night. Things have changed -- we talked about the apartment and job search instead of things we were talking about in our classes or doing that weekend, but we're still friends. More seasoned, we love Boston more fiercely as a resulting of moving out of the city and being able to come back. I think we only grew to love it more after the Boston Marathon this spring...

So. Here's to time and patience and friendships that can grow along with you.