Connecting the TEDxAmsterdam 2011 crowd

Connecting people is what drives us all. In telescope view, when we’re hauling in ideas worth spreading from all over the globe. In microscope view, when people like Rogier van der Heide and Rob Baan offer their knowledge to Award winner John Apesos. And back again to what Gary Wolf has called the macroscope view: making sense of those new connections and bringing it back to society. That is what the entire team strives for in organizing TEDxAmsterdam and I hope you will agree with me that we are working our way to reach that goal better each year. So take your time, sit back and join our trip down the already memorable lane of all things TEDxAmsterdam 2011.

Here is how to look back

TEDxAmsterdam's YouTube channel with handy playlists

Our indispensable video partners Feller Media and Hoens Facilities have produced many hours of videos worth watching. Not counting the persons interviewed, a willing crew of more than 40 TED fans worked on organizing, editing and uploading all this material. Thanks to all of them, we have made several playlists on our YouTube channel:

- TEDxAmsterdam TV “the day before” including the 10 full hours of the recorded livestream with interviews and behind the scenes reports, anticipating the event to come

- Behind the scenes videos from during the event, capturing the buzz, excitement and inspiration on the spot

- Visitor’s quotes on their Human Nature experiences, exploring the theme by digging into personal life changing events

- Interviews with speakers on the interview set just before of right after their TEDxAmsterdam Talk, brought to you by our partners Sanoma and Achmea and hosted by Aldith Hunkar

Are you looking for the TEDxAmsterdam 2011 Talks? Those are posted on the official TEDxTalks channel!

Want to read instead of watch?

I get it, you’re at work or some other place where you can’t watch videos. There are more ways to learn!

- Get an overview of the day on nubijlage.nl/TEDx and read Dutch articles on the ideas speakers presented.
- Watch Jan-Jaap Heine’s and Maurice Mikkers‘ official TEDxAmsterdam photos on Flickr.
- Read all the live blogs our social media team wrote from the balcony of the Stadsschouwburg
- Mindblown? Get back on track with this mindmap.

What happened at the simulcast events?

Most retweeted @TEDxAms tweet on 25 November, 2011

We aren’t talking about Vegas, here. You know we like to share stuff, so we created a special page collecting tweets, photos and other material from the simulcast events with the help of Storify.

Surely you’ve seen the living brain from our friends at MediaMonks? It was fed by the amount of tweets sent last Friday and you could filter it by location, for instance. It’s being revamped to maximize it’s use as an interactive story about the day itself (adding videos and more).

If you were present at the Stadsschouwburg we ask you kindly to fill in the TEDx questionnaire – if you attended a simulcast event we would love to hear everything from you at office@tedxamsterdam.nl.

Fun fact: our most succesful tweet (being retweeted 40 times) was about the National Dutch Ballet performing the opening choreography.

We can’t stop thanking you

Experience director Marian Spier took some stage time to thank all of our wonderful partners. Without them, we would not be able to do all the things we can. Every partnership is important to us – check out the full list of people we love working with. If there is any way we can connect you with each other, just let Oliver know. We’re happy to build connections!

What does it feel like being a speaker on stage?

TEDxAmsterdam 2011 volunteers on stage

You couldn’t miss C360’s Henri when he was making a crispy clear new 3D panoramic photo of the audience! Taken from the centre of the red dot, this photo will allow you to tag yourself and share the view on Facebook.

Keep spreading ideas, and we’ll be back in 2012 updating you on the progress of speakers and events we’re organizing.

On 24 November, the day before the event, TEDxAmsterdam presents a dedicated channel from 10 in the morning until 10 in the evening completely dedicated to TEDxAmsterdam topics. You could see the crew hard at work to prepare the big day, witness live interviews with speakers that arrive in Amsterdam, meet important TED guests and watch their favorite TED Talks. Where can you find the livestream and all video on demand footage? A dedicated tab on the Netherlands’ most popular news site NU.nl will give immediate access to the stream as well as all social media activity. Of course the TEDxAmsterdam website will also guide visitors to all video material.

Thanks to our partners

The webcast of TEDxAmsterdam TV is made possible by partners Sanoma Media and Achmea. And the outstanding quality of the video is the result of the hard work by the producers of Feller Media and technicians of Hoens Broadcast Facilities. On behalf of thousands of viewers, we want to thank them!

Marck Feller, general manager Feller Media: “This is the third time we’re producing this amazing multimedia event. Is has been an adventure in exploring the possibilities to give our viewers the best TEDxAmsterdam experience possible. This year we are pushing the envelope a bit more by adding an extra 12 hours livestream as a taster for the day to come. The conference live registration is produced by an outstanding team of media professionals, directed by Dutch award winning tv director Henk van Engen. By combining thorough professional broadcast experience with innovative production methods and creativity we are confident that we will bring our TEDxAmsterdam viewers a real live TED experience.”

Tune into webcast “TEDxAmsterdam TV” on Thursday 24 November from 10.00 until 22.00 or walk into our open studio in the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg (the Gijsbrecht foyer). Join us there in real life or chip in with your questions on Twitter using #TEDxAms. Besides entertainment and inspiration you might also get the very last ticket to TEDxAmsterdam on the 25th or win a copy of the TEDxAmsterdam book “Het begint met een idee” by Carolien Vader.

What’s on the program?

• Session 1 (10-11) “TEDxAmsterdam as a stage to spread ideas”

Hosted by Sylvana Simons, television host

Guest: Carolien Vader, author and magazine producer

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• Session 2 (11-12) “Reflecting on TEDxAmsterdam 2009 and 2010″

Hosted by Ronny Overgoor

Guests: Rogier van der Heide, Chief design officer, Philips Lighting & Christine Meindertsma via Skype from South Africa

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• Session 3 (12-13) “TEDx as a source of inspiration: Conventie van Achlum”

Hosted by Janneke Willemse

Guests: Marjanne Mulder, organiser Conventie van Achlum on behalf of Achmea & Monique van der Vorst, athlete and speaker at the Conventie

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• Session 4 (13-14) “Media innovation and disruptions”

Hosted by  Aldith Hunkar

Guests: Igor Beuker, LaCommunidad & Eric Ariens, Content Publishing Director Digital & Print at Sanoma

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• Session 5 (14-15) “Social innovation”

Hosted by Janneke Willemse

Guest: Bert Rensen, spokesperson Achmea

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• Session 6 (15-16) “What inspires TEDxAmsterdam 2011?”

Hosted by Joris van Heukelom

Guests: Jim Stolze, founder TEDxAmsterdam & Esra’a al Shafei, founder and Executive Director of MideastYouth.com

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• Session 7 (16-17) “TEDx events as a source of inspiration”

Hosted by Meike de Jong

Guests: Anita Mooiweer, Business Developer and editor-in-chief TEDxAmsterdam 2010 magazine & Vivianne Bendemacher, editor-in-chief Kijk (magazine) & Ellen de Jong, editor-in-chief Esta (magazine)

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• Session 8 (17-18) “TEDxAmsterdamWomen”

Hosted by Ruud Hendriks

Guests: Marian Spier, initiator TEDxAmsterdamWomen & Noa Lodeizen, speaker at TEDxAmsterdamWomen 2010

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• Session 9 (18-19) “TEDx events in other Dutch places: Delft and Maastricht”

Hosted by Aldith Hunkar

Guests: Simone de Jong, initiator TEDxDelft & Lucien Engelen, initiator TEDxMaastricht

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• Session 10 (19-20) “Sports and new media”

Hosted by Jan Paul de Wildt

Guests: Boy Sleddering, Rabosport & Geert Slot, spokesperson NOC NSF

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In cooperation with Achmea and Sanoma, Dutch journalist Aldith Hunkar presented the interview channel of TEDxAmsterdam. Aldith, former news anchor of public broadcaster NOS, over the last three years has had quite a lot interesting conversations with the speakers of TEDxAmsterdam. As the interviews allow for a deeper discussion of the drive and background of the speaker, they form a nice addition to the Talks.

Achmea and Sanoma feel very committed to TEDxAmsterdam and have been involved since the very start. Achmea sees this a good opportunity to encourage discussions on societal themes as health care, pension and mobility. In all these spheres, innovative ideas shared via TED Talks may help to deepen the discussion. The content of these talks is certainly used for internal inspiration. To let the thoughts flow freely, Achmea also organized its own simulcast for its personnel.

Sanoma Media, as a large online publisher, has been the main sponsor of TEDxAmsterdam since its conception. Through the website NU.nl, TEDxAmsterdam’s content is distributed amongst a large public. The partnership in the interview channel is mainly focused on speakers who provide a great inspiration in the field of new media and technology, related to Sanoma’s position as a leading business in online media.

The content on the interview channel is produced by Feller Media. All interviews are available on TEDxAmsterdam’s YouTube channel and here below.

Henrik Scharfe

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Henkjan Honing (in Dutch)

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Barry Schwartz

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Pieter van de Rest (in Dutch)

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Andrew Hessel

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Joris Luyendijk (in Dutch)

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Harald Doornbos (in Dutch)

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Eveline Crone (in Dutch)

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Esra’a Al Shafei

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Carla Generaal (in Dutch)

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Kudos to our TEDxAmsterdamWomen sisters, for another inspiring and successful event. Hosted at the Van Gogh museum, catered by Fifteen Amsterdam and celebrated with cocktails and dinner at the House of Bols, the glitz and glam could not over-shine the insightful, strong, inspiring women that attended the event and gave the talks. What did we have on this unforgettable day? Here is a quick overview and an attempt to ‘red thread’ the talks (but click on the links to get the full impact of inspiration and view the talks):

Making the margins visible: fascinating talks by Sonia Faleiro the inspiration and strength she found in documenting the Indian margins and bringing their stories forward in worldwide media and her books. Dr. Amy Leham talking about her floating clinic initiative in Africa’s lake Tanganyika, and the importance and issues around this major source of fresh water. Marieke De Lange told us about her ‘Ubunto’ initiative, helping street kids integrate and have self-worth. Jassica Stern talked about the importance of social media in the fight against terrorism, and most importantly – how influential are the terrorist’s mothers in the process of disengaging them from terror activity.

Identity and empowerment: Kelly Cutrone, marketing and PR guru, spoke about how she followed her own intuition and turned her character flaws into and asset on her path of getting a sense of identity and feminine empowerment. Karin Amatmoekrim – introduced to the idea of authenticity and identity via her personal life story, and how it is easy to loose ourselves in a collective but through the notion of death we can find our way back to our self identity. Jaqueline Rutten talked about Johanna Bonger – the woman who’s faith, devotion and love helped in Vincent Van Gogh’s art. Corina Vermeulen – told us about her moving and positive story of confronting HIV (and the even tougher battle of social misconception) for 25 years. MTV’s fierce Shannon Fitzgerald talked about walking through the doors of opportunity and leaving fearless, or at least despite fear.Mei Lin Ang spoke about how her passion for food made her overcome fear and start-up a deliciously successful (and ‘au natural’) frozen yogurt business.

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Finding balance in the modern world: Mette te Velde spoke about the conflict between our super-connected social media vs. our disconnection from nature itself. Gonnie Been embraces her femininity as a vital source in every aspect of her life, embraces gender diversity and claims that a strive for equality is a sign for lack of ambition…. Marli Huijer spoke about how we lost our social rhythms due to our 24/7 society and gave some advice on how to regain it. Carina Hilders spoke about her innovative fertility treatment allows women to have more options in delayed and post-cancer motherhood. Anne van der Zwaag revealed the world of perception and psychology behind color.

Bringing a spark of innovation & technology: Bregtje van der Haak talked about her documentary, exploring the search of the IQ genome and the implications of such research, she also discussed Chinese investment and support in science and technology vs. the decline of facilities and progress in the west. Hester Bijl demonstrated the world smallest camera carrying flying bio-inspired robot (!) Delfly.

And what is a TEDxWomen without making a fashionable difference? Andy Torres gave secrets and tips about becoming a successful fashion blogger and her ‘Style scrapbook‘ blog, and Marieke Eyskoot spoke about ethical fashion and the amount of people involved in creating one garment (answer – 169)

Not all of the day’s inspiration was verbal and we had some super-inspiring performances and multimedia integrated on the day: the day started with a rocking kick-off, a performance by Anneke Van Giersbergen. Kicking-off the different sessions we had animation pieces by Christa Moesker (stunning black and white illustrations that prove that ‘no obstacle can stand between a porcupine and his happiness’). Hurdy Gurdy woman and modern troubadour Caroline Philips explained and played on the instrument and Jazz Diva Saskia Laroo mesmerized the audience with a trumpet, a sampler, and a ton of energy. The day was sealed by the powerful and soulful voice and performance by Shirma Rouse.
And obviously, this could not have been done it without the dedicated crew and volunteers. Special thanks to the partners that made it all happen and Feller media for the media support!

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Meet Claron McFadden, world-class opera singer and the Artvark Saxophone Quartet. McFadden proved today, again, to be more than well-worth the grand Stadsschouwburg stage. So did the saxophone quartet. Together, they stretch the boundaries of classical music, with their show ‘Sly Meets Callas’, previously performed at the Grachtenfestival 2011 in Amsterdam.

Picture: Maurice Mikkers & Jan Jaap Heine

For this performance, McFadden took up her pen and made her debut as a songwriter, whereas the four gentlemen from Artvark took responsibility for the music. As a quintet, they meander through musical traditions, literally moving across the stage while playing, letting McFadden’s steps follow the whims the music. The saxophones as a voice, taken over by the voice as an instrument. In their last piece, the public is asked to co-perform, and keep the beat. Chakka-chakka-chakka..

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Last month, all ten nominees were invited to present their idea on the 5th of November to the TEDxAmsterdam Award Jury, which had the professional opinions of:

- Jim Stolze: Initiator of TEDxAmsterdam
- Chris Buur: Main editor of the second section ‘V’ at the Volkskrant
- Carla Generaal: Winner TEDxAmsterdam Award 2010
- Rahul Gannamani: TEDxYouth participant, 14 year old

The entries were judged on three criteria: It needed to be inspiring, be for the greater good and it must need human capital. A short video introduced all the nominees that are ready to take the TEDxAmsterdam motto ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’ to the  ‘Ideas Worth Doing’ level:

• MetFarm from John Apesos and Masud Hussein: A plan to grow food in empty office buildings for not only making good use of the buildings, but also helping the environment by keeping transport to a minimum.

• Paypool from Adam Postma: An online joint-savings system to make saving money fun again.

• Stichting Lekker Stuk from Reni de Boer: A campaign to positively change the image of disabled people.

• WeGo from Daniel Leahy: A platform to make car sharing of a lot easier.

• Infosfeer Sustainable CHAINge from Jan-Govert van Gilst: A plan to start sustainable energy plantations in urban wastelands.

• KleanWorldWide from Peter Smith: A campaign to motivate people to get rid of street litter.

•  The Vegetarian Butcher from Lizzy Knip: A butcher who addresses the needs of a meatloving crowd but with environmentally friendly meat substitutes.

• Autitouch BV from Freena Eijffinger: A programme to improve the diagnosis process for autism.

•  1%CLUB from Anna Chojnacka: An international marketplace that links people, money and knowledge to projects of people in developing countries.

•  Text to Change from Josette de Vroeg: an SMS campaign to increase the knowledge about HIV and urge people to be tested.

All great ideas that surely would make the world a little more inspiring, healthy and connected. Unfortunately, there could only be one winner.A very special guest was asked to announce the winner: Lara Stein, the director of the TEDx program at the TED office in New York.

And then…. drumroll (from a very helpful audience), dimmed lights, spotlight….. the winner turned out to be…. MetFarm!

Photo: Maurice Mikkers & Jan-Jaap Heine

After congratulations and loud applause, an overjoyed John Apesos takes the stage to enlighten the audience with his simple but efficient idea for a sustainable solution to the issue of food miles. He asks: “How do we feed the next generation without destroying the planet?” Answer: Just take the food production to the city! Taking advantage of recent developments in LED, hydroponics, and aeroponic technologies, argues John, will allow us to grow cheap, safe, high-quality food inside unused offices and empty industrial space.

He began his talk from a very personal place, his birthplace in Ohio, where agriculture is a big and polluting business. John now directs the spotlight to the audience and says that it’s not about his personal motivations, but that it’s also our personal reality. In which world do we want to live? Consider a world where food travels 20 km instead of 200… Where food is no longer wasted in the food chain…There’s a global crisis in food production today, and it’s time we face this ‘other inconvenient truth’ as John calls it.

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But the TEDxAmsterdam Award is not just a trophy. After this chance to pitch his idea on the TEDxAmsterdam stage, Metfarm is now officialy an Idea Worth Doing 2012, and can count on the human capital, support and access to the TEDxAmsterdam network to turn his idea into reality. And that begins right here and now! Jim Stolze asks John which ten things he really needs to bring his idea further, and then invites members of the audience to offer their help. Who in the audience today wants to be part of the next green revolution? Who wants to be an urban farmer, just like John? There are several audience members who have already gladly offered their help. It’s great to see so much enthusiasm! Please follow John and the other nominees on their way from concept creation to concretely building their dreams. Or, even better, tweet or email your ideas to Jasper de Valk (@jasperdevalk/ jasper@tedxamsterdam.nl) or contact the nominees directly to make their dream reality!

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Last year Carla and the rest of the Winddrinker team had a dream. Their dream was to build a system that could change the world and provide clean and affordable drinking water for all. “By developing a business model that uses natural resources, endorsement of the local communities and relatively simple technology, we felt we could reduce one of the bigger global issues: the shortage of clean drinking water.”

A simple technique

The Winddrinker is a low-tech, low-cost and low-maintenance way of turning salt or brackish water into clean drinking water. And all it needs for this is wind. Researchers of the Delft University of Technology developed a technology, which involves a windmill, water pump, transmission, and a desalination membrane to turn salt water into clean drinking water. But every situation is different; that’s why Carla developed a software model calculating the best model considering all circumstances.

Photo: Maurice Mikkers

Development through entrepeneurship

The implementation of the Winddrinker is done by local entrepeneurs, by providing three elements: innovation, education and investment. In this way the Winddrinker enables a local entrepeneur to provide clean and affordable drinking water for the local community. And it doesn’t only help to stop water shortage in these regions, it also boosts the local economy. Sounds great, let’s start! And so did the Winddrinker with their first pilot in Somaliland.

The power of “WE”

Enablement is an important theme for Carla, something TEDxAmsterdam provided through Ideas Worth Doing. Carla: “We need to combine strengths, knowledge and skills to reach our goal together.” And together we did. The first prototype in Somaliland will be a reality in two weeks, and although it was a bumpy ride it was also a very exciting and rewarding one. “Believe in the power of enablement,” Carla concludes. Thanks Carla, because of this inspiring example we do!

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Further reading:

• The Winddrinker as an Idea Worth Doing
• Website of the Winddrinker
• Follow @thewinddrinker on Twitter

In 2010, Yahay Alabdeli went to TEDxRotterdam, where politician Aboutaleb opened the event in Arabic. So enthusiastic, Alabdeli started to look for a new TEDx event that happened soon, which turned out to be TEDxAmsterdam. He ’stalked’ Jim Stolze who didn’t reply. Only after a while they went for lunch. ”I have a dream. I want this experience in Iraq,” was what Alabdeli said to Jim. But first Alabdeli helped with TEDxYouth Amsterdam 2010, where he worked with a great team. “I thought TEDxYouth Amsterdam was just an event. I was wrong. It was dreams.”

Photo: Maurice Mikkers

With his dream of organising a TEDxBaghdad in mind, Alabdeli booked a ticket to his home country after 33 years. He moved when he was four, stayed in Syria for nine years, lived in Sweden for 15 years, and moved to the Netherlands for love eight years ago. Going back was worth it. The first-ever TEDxBaghdad had the following theme: Make The Impossible Possible. He organised it with almost no electricity and hardly any Internet. The team came from 5 countries, many of them came back home to Baghdad only to organize this TEDx event. And in a country where they’ve never even heard of volunteers, they had 200! Even the Prime Minister of Iraq showed up to the event. “That was not planned in my dream,” Alabdeli jokingly says.

Is it a TEDxevent? No. Is it a dream? Yes. There were tears and a lot of emotions. Behind all those tears there were beautiful smiles. More than 650 people came, and it was livestreamed to more than 90 countries. People were tweeting about their hopes and they had 1,200,000 views on their Facebook page. “I wanted to organise an event. We sent hope that this country needed.” That’s what Yahay Alabdeli wants to show the world. “After so many years of wars and living in a dictatorial regime, facing challenges every day, I want to show the world that we have enough talent and energy to build a new future.” He left us with a movie from TEDxBaghdad while he was getting a standing ovation. All the best to TEDxBaghdad!

Photo: Maurice Mikkers & Jan-Jaap Heine

Louise O. Fresco’s exciting career has involved more than ten years of fieldwork in tropical countries, travels to over 80 countries, a PhD cum laude in tropical agronomy (Wageningen), and chairs and lectureships at prestigious universities such as Wageningen, Uppsala, Louvain and Stanford. She held several leading positions within the FAO of the UN. Fresco is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), was appointed a University Professor at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in June 2006, and specializes in the foundations of sustainable development in an international context at the University of Amsterdam.

Prof. Fresco encapsulated the ‘human nature’ theme into one cohesive idea, or at least create a ‘red thread’ through all the great speakers and insights.

Summarizing is complex

Prof. Fresco started by wondering: “How on earth am I going to summarise it, I think we had such a marvelous combination of creative speakers, they can’t be summed up in one line.”  Fresco discussed the learning curve of today’s conference – in these days of rich ideas, of emotion, moving bodies, spirits and compassion, what she picked is the versatilities of human nature. The way we humans manage to come up with new ideas, new technologies, new sounds, new ways of thinking and they all seem to match.

TED is a ‘third culture’

For Prof. Fresco, TED represents a ‘third culture’, one that is about bridging disciplines rather then being discipline-oriented. We learn to understand the full spectrum of our lives. This is the gist of human nature.

Prof. Fresco believes our main goal as humans is survival. We survive crisis situations; we survived the financial crisis (she was surprised it actually  wasn’t mentioned), but it’s about compassion as well. Have empathy towards other’s suffering, even if you did not experience it yourself. There is a learning curve, compassion was not such an integral part of our culture even a century ago. There was no empathy between people, classes or nation; perhaps we are wiser and more positive, more curious about other lives.

Her third point was that we learned to see how art and science can merge. “There is no more fertile ground than where science and art can meet. We should apply it in our schools. I should like to see more people who can bridge that gap.”

So human nature is about giving us glimpses of other worlds, and that is something we, indeed, saw today. “It is fitting that we speak about the Middle East, not only because of the Arab Spring, but its significance is also due to the seed of civilization that was oriented in the Middle East. It had many schools of learning with an open approach, and it would be wonderful if some of that can come back to us, and link to our Western society.”

Civilization is to control yourself

Another point that was repeatedly raised, was the need to control things. “Civilization comes with a great sense of impulse control, starting with controlling our violence. As general Peter van Uhm said before: “we can prevent violence in society through the state”. We also don’t have sex in public. We don’t normally do as we please in the public space, as we would in our private space. Does that mean that  civilization also means increase control of human nature?” Fresco believes that this control helps us to communicate with each other, and notes an increase in uncontrollable behavior. A manifestation of selfish urges and impatience in public spaces. Society groups feel a lack of trust in the state, science, in the rational. This mix of fears, the lack of trust that goes against the great movement of cultural control. This makes her concerned.

Lastly, we touched on nature, as an inspiration for the way we see the world, the idea of a circle rather then a line, our culture is not a learning curve but a learning spiral. That will give us better understanding and be more inclusive. It’s not going to be an easy task, that space between the individual and the public. “I did not hear anybody give a speech that is negative.” Prof. Fresco believes the positivity of the TED group is so important, because this lack of control symbolizes a growing fear of the unknown, but TED’s positive force will push the world to be better. “We will all leave this conference and bring something back to the world.”

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Photo: Maurice Mikkers & Jan-Jaap Heine

Andrew Hessel has 10 trillion friends. They taught him everything about life, the universe and everything else. Meet Hessel’s friends: the microbes. They are the perfect friend; as long as they have food they will keep growing. Hessel would like to think about them as chemical computers, with ever-adapting capabilities.

The perception of cells acting as computers is pretty new. People started to understand that the architecture of computing systems and organisms are similar (since these are obviously modules we recognize and then recreate). But now we are learning how to make biology into a programmed sequence. We translate the human genome into digital information, our machines are currently reading DNA codes of any living thing. With genetic info, Moore’s law is not just doubling; we’re getting a tenfold improvement every year.

We are still very naive in understanding the most fundamental thing about human beings – our life.

Synthia – the first man made artificial organism, marked the arrival of many more artificially made organisms. Life has become programmable; we can decide what we want to do with it and put in new functions. This technology will literally change our planet. Now we have to ask ourselves what it is that we want to make? There are limitations right now, the technology is first generation. We can’t stitch large genomes together, and its pretty expensive. For now. But more then that, what can we make and bring to the world safely? This is the real challenge for the development of this technology. We are starting to make new diagnostic tools, drugs, fuels. But now we get to control the environment; how can we grow organisms that can live on the surface of mars? We’re creating carbon nanotubes, probably the strongest photosynthetic computers. Imagine grass that spreads the Internet everywhere it grows. It’s not impossible. Synthetic humans are also a possibility, where does it take us?  We have to start thinking about it, exploring it, and educating our children about it. Hessel co-founded the world’s first cooperative biotech company the Pink Army Cooperative, developing a new drug pipeline and bringing researchers, companies and regulators together to create a ‘Cancer Ninja’ army and develop a ‘one drug for one person’ concept. His aim is to crowd-source viruses and give them out for free.

People are scared of synthetic viruses, but viruses are just software. Virus engineering will be the next software engineering. But Hessel’s conclusion is positive: “Mostly I know that we will get through this period, but i believe in human nature… somehow we make the world a better place….we correct mistakes and move on.”

Follow him on Twitter @andrewhessel.

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