TEDxAmsterdam 2011, the day before! DId you tune to enjoy the live webcast? From 10 A.M. to 8 P.M., you could follow our interviews with speakers, sponsors and crew of TEDxAmsterdam.
In one of the afternoon sessions, journalist Joris van Heukelom interviewed TEDxAmsterdam licensee Jim Stolze and speaker Esra’a Al Shafei.
Music makes your eyes shine
Like the other interviewees, Jim Stolze got the question to pick his favorite to be streamed during the hour. He picked Benjamin Zander’s talk on classical music. Zander is a classical music director from Boston. Apart from seeing the talk live in 2009, Jim has seen it over fifteen times on video. Jim introduced the talk as one that explains leadership, teaches you how to listen to classical music and ends with a personal note: “How would you talk, how would you walk when everybody loves classical music?”
To people that do not know TED, there are a couple of talks Jim suggests to watch. “Ken Robinson’s talk on education helps everybody to understand what TED is about. As for Benjamin Zander, I really admire him because it is authentic. It’s no format, the way he is interacting with his public is the way he is.”
Jim briefly introduced the topic of 2011. After a couple of brainstorms and meetings, the board chose to use Human Nature. “Last year, the talks were on science & fiction, which means there was more attention for technology than for the human factor. The theme of this year allows going more into personal stories and to cover the human to human level.”
Technology as a means for activism
In the second part, activist Esra’a Al Shafei chose Deb Roy’s talk on language. Van Heukelom was surprised to see that the talk did not deal with activism, but with oppured. ”I am always inspired by groundbreaking technologies. I like to take examples that have nothing to do with politics and activism and turn them in instruments for activism. It’s amazing how that has worked in the Arab spring. Lots of the material broadcasted at CNN and Al Jazeera comes from Youtube”. She is trying to use all these opportunities at their best with MidEastYouth and CrowdVoice. Curious to know how she does that? Check the video below or our live blog on her talk!
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