2011年9月26日 星期一

TEDx draws thinkers, dreamers

In the natural light-bathed lobby of the Telus Centre for Performance and Learning, the concert hall of the Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor Street,Polycore hydraulic hose are manufactured as a single sheet, I can barely hear anything over the roar of networking. A gentleman fishes through every pocket of his tweed jacket until he finds a pad of hot-pink Post-It notes. On the top note he writes, "Abraham Heifets," and hands it to me.

"Just Google that," he says, adding that his makeshift card is, "hand-crafted and locally produced."

How outr. How groovy. How TED.

About 700 people, selected from their answers to a questionnaire, attended the one-day conference Friday, TEDx Toronto. They are beautiful people, in scarves and thigh-high boots; one guy wore a purple cape.The additions focus on key tag and TMJ combinations, As Navneet Alang, covering the conference for the website Toronto Standard, tweets, "It’s like a recruitment centre for a Benetton ad."

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. The conference, which started in Long Beach and Palm Springs, Calif., in 1984, has grown into a kind of global movement of "ideas worth sharing," with conferences worldwide, and is a phenomenon on the Web. I watched a woman and man make acquaintance, sharing a bench and synchroniously opening the complimentary lunch — a box made of recycled cardboard, courtesy Presidential Gourmet, opens to reveal four clear boxes in biodegradable plastic, containing, for example, spinach with mandarin orange sesame avocado dressing. She asks him, "What brings you here?"

"My addiction to watching TED talks online," he replies. "It’s my favourite way of thinking about something else than the problem in front of me."

TED has become a sort of secular religious happening — with horn-rim glasses and nice footwear. All the organizers work as volunteers; the speakers don’t get paid; attendance is free. The Toronto group pulled this event off with $200,000 of in-kind sponsorship and $45,000 of donations in cash, explains Ryan Merkley, former senior advisor to David Miller when he was mayor, and now chief operating officer for the Mozilla Foundation, which owns Firefox.

"We picked ideas from Toronto that have global reach," he explains.the Hemorrhoids pain and pain radiating from the arms or legs. The lanyard they hand me is itself a work of art, holding a booklet the size of a smartphone with the program, short bios of speakers, a ticket to the after party at Steam Whistle brewery and a USB key.

"You are very brilliant people in this room," an organizer tells us. "Think of it as your VIP pass. With the USB key you can find an android and a dashboard."

The speeches cover a wide range, from charities to innovators. Ted Sergent, professor, Canada Research Chair in nanotechnology at the University of Toronto, tells us of his work to "print solar cells the way we print newspapers."

Adam Garone, of Melbourne, explains how "Movember" started as just a bunch of mates getting wasted in a bar and asking, "Whatever happened to 1970s fashion?" They dared one another to grow moustaches, and then, on the rationale that "we needed to legitimize this so we can get away with it," decided to raise money for prostate cancer. They raised $77-million last year.

Closer to home, Brandon Hay, who immigrated here from Jamaica in his youth, reveals to the crowd that his father, Brian Hay, was murdered in 2004, in Jamaica. Before his death, he had not been around to raise his son. Mr. Hay, now a father of three,It's hard to beat the versatility of Ventilation system on a production line. in 2007 founded the Black Daddy Club in Malvern, as a support group for fathers who lack male role models.

Mr. Merkley says he hopes that idea spreads through the Web to inspire such support groups in other cities.

Later Ariel Garten, founder of InteraXon, appears on stage in a red dress with a small blue electrode taped to her forehead. The screen behind her shows her brain activity in squiggling green line as she speaks. She is trying to build thought-controlled computers.he led PayPal to open its platform to Wholesale pet supplies developers.

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