And we’re off! Laying down the famous red dot where today’s many speakers will perform their TEDtalks, Jim Stolze, proud founder of TEDxAmsterdam and this year’s host, officially opened the third edition of TEDxAmsterdam. After a short video message from Chris Anderson, creater and curator of the TEDconcept, in which he complimented the passion and dedication of the TEDxAmsterdam organization, Jim took the stage to warmly welcome an enthusiastic crowd, full of both TED veterans and virgins, to the TEDxAmsterdam family.
The theme of TEDxAmsterdam 2011 is Human Nature. Today, we ask questions like: What does it mean to be human? Is there something like human nature or are we ‘just monkeys in shoes’ to quote Jim’s father. A great theme for the dreamers, inventors, visionaries, do-ers, and idealists of the TED audience. Jim emphasized that, just like previous editions, a diverse and sometimes unexpected line-up of speakers, musicans and video content from different disciplines will take the stage to perform ‘a ballet for the mind,’ referencing the magical performance of the National Ballet.
Photo: Maurice Mikkers & Jan-Jaap Heine
Jim not only welcomed a crowd full of enthusiastic TEDheads (as last year’s host Pep Rosenfeld called the audience) to the Stadsschouwburg, but he also welcomed all the viewers to the 50 simulcast locations. And because TED is naturally about sharing ideas, we will keep you posted with live blogs on TEDxAmsterdam.com, photo’s on Flickr, Facebook for fun facts and behind the scenes material, YouTube for the latest interviews, and of course Twitter for all news and a Twitter list of speakers. Also, on nu.nl you can find background information, special reports on the speakers, the livestream and a twittermashup. If it gets all a bit too confusing, just take a look at the livemindmaps of the talks, and it all will make sense again!
Hopefully you will be totally hooked by the amazing talks at TEDxAmsterdam, but don’t forget to also tweet your own thoughts and ideas to #TEDxAms, watch them appear in our unique twitterbrain on our webpage, and take an active part in our motto for the day: Ideas UniTED!
Further reading:
- Jim’s speaker profile on TEDxAmsterdam
- @jimstolze
- Jim Stolze’s LinkedIn profile
- http://www.jimstolze.nl/weblog
- http://www.founderinstitute.com
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