Short, informative, and sharable, the TED talk is a fascination of the Internet age. TED (technology, entertainment, design) talks are speeches under 20 minutes in length that tackle “ideas worth spreading.” Filmed and made easily available online, the speeches are seen by millions of viewers. With the rising popularity of the talks, organizations worldwide are attempting to replicate the success of TED conferences locally. These TEDX conferences are affiliated with the larger TED organization, but are independently organized.
The fourth annual TEDX Toronto conference was held last Friday, October 26, and packed more than 1,000 audience members into the Sony Center for the Performing Arts, with 30,000 more watching on an online stream. There was a strong energy inside the theatre and the atmosphere was dynamic: attendees were excited and ready to be inspired.
The lineup of speakers included disparate personalities such as urbanist Shawn Micallef, chef Susur Lee, and ex-Barenaked Lady Steven Page. Blocks of semi-related speakers were broken up by three conversation breaks.
The theme for the conference was ‘Alchemy’, inspired by the idea of making extraordinary things from ordinary elements. Lee described in mouth-watering detail his fusion of different cultural tastes into new dishes; Dr. Joseph Cafazzo passionately expressed his belief that non-scientists were desperately needed to revitalize and reshape the medical industry. Other speakers only flirted with the theme: Slutwalk founders Heather Jarvis and Sonya Barnett used the metaphor of harmful language as a disease to inform their speech, but did not push the idea much further.
If the success of a speech is measured by audience engagement, University of Toronto professor Ronald J. Diebert, director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab of U of T, was an early hit at the conference. His talk on Internet security and hacktivism was a fascinating discussion of the new digital landscape. “Cyberspace is changing,” he noted, “but not necessarily for the good.”
This was a comment that may have resonated with the next speaker, Ryan Creighton, president and founder of Untold Entertainment Inc. His daughter, six year old Cassandra, joined him on stage. In 2011, the Creighton father-daughter team created the viral sensation “Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure.” The Creightons spoke about the state of childhood technological education. Creighton noted that when his daughter entered kindergarten, he was excited to see how education had changed in the 15 years that had passed since he had taught the same material. “It hadn’t,” he confessed, and the stasis alarmed him. After all, he argued, “as Douglas Rushkoff puts it, ‘program, or be programmed.’”
Another crowd pleaser was Marcelo da Luz, who brought with him the XOF1, an electric car he built through volunteer labour and design. Da Luz crossed the longest ice road in the world in the XOF1. In his journey to the Arctic, he drove 36,200 kilometers using only solar power. Another sustainability spokesperson, John Dwyer, chairman & CEO of Flax Energy who married concepts of environmentalism and economics in his pitch for flaxseed oil as a replacement for crude oil. Dwyer won the crowd over with his passion and his self-described “awesome Scarborough t-shirt.”
Not all the talks at the conference were as successful. Isha Datar, a Canadian scientist who studies the possibility of growing meat in-vitro, spoke about her research and ways to integrate lab-grown meat into the food system of the masses. If consumers can be persuaded to eat a laboratory-grown steak, this bioengineered food is a solution to food shortages as well as the ethical and environmental problems posed by mass farming. Though Datar’s talk was informative, there was some confusion among the audience: where exactly is science in creating this in vitro meat? Is it a goal achieved, or a goal for the future? The problem is inherent TED’s format: embracing brevity can lead to a concise argument free of frills, but 20 minutes is not always enough time for an idea worth spreading.
Ideas to watch
Art from Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure, a game designed largely by a six year old.
Coverage of Slut Walk, a worldwide event that began in Toronto in 2011.
The talks mentioned in this article and others from the conference will be available at http://www.tedxtoronto.com/talks/ in the coming weeks.
