TEDxSohoLDN was a TEDx event in London, England organized around the TEDWomen livestream.

Andrea’s presentation showed her experience in match-making causes with assets, with companies that included Blogladesh and Stand Up to Cancer.

At the end of the night, Andrea offered internships at Skating Panda to some female students in attendence from Billericay School.

Gail Gallie, the Organiser of TEDxSohoLDN said: “I believe in the power of ideas to change the world, and I certainly believe in the power of women to get things done ...and look forward to seeing what we can get done together.”

Written by Leonara Reed.

Lara Stein, the Licensing Director of the TEDx program, just spend some time in Kenya, where she attended two TEDx events -- TEDxChange @ TEDxKibera and TEDxCinemaNairobi. 

From Lara:

I just returned from a 2 day trip to Kenya. In addition to attending TEDxChange At TEDxKibera, which was incredible, but more on that later, I also attended a TEDxCinemaNairobi event. This is a unique TEDx event, hosted every Saturday morning by Irfan Keshavjee in a cinema in Nairobi's West Gate Mall. Each week, Irfan selects two TEDtalks -- which the audience watches on a large cinema screen --  and then hosts a 30 minute Q & A and lively debate after the screening. 

Turkey, Greece and the terms “collaboration” and “exchange” are rarely together, but in the spirit of TED and “Ideas Worth Spreading”, organizers of TEDxIstanbul and TEDxAthens made it so.

Ozge Yilmaz of TEDxIstanbul met Abraham Tsoukalidis of TEDxAthens at TEDGlobal2010. Abraham invited Ozge and -- TEDxIstanul team members -- to attend their TEDxAthens event.

The TEDxIstanbul team could not attend, so instead, attendees of TEDxAthens were shown a short "shout-out" video from the TEDxIstanbul team, with the goal to show people in their individual countries that TEDx is something “about all of us”.

Says Abraham, “The TEDx community is not about individuals, but about people sharing the common passion for ideas worth spreading and actions worth doing. Linking up regional TEDx events with exchange of attendees and speakers and exchange of videos is a great first step in this direction.”

He also notes, “Istanbul and Athens are continuously strengthening their cooperation ties. The more we listen to each other’s stories, the more we will understand each other and I feel we both want to help spread worthwhile causes and ideas.”

TEDxAthens also showed similar videos from TEDxDubai, TEDxBelgrade and TEDxThessaloniki. Members of the TEDxAthens team will be attending the upcoming and will discuss ideas on how they can continue to cooperate.

While TEDxConstitutionDrive (Menlo Park, CA) shares the Bay Area with other TEDx events, it is organized a bit differently.  We found larger events – such as the official TED conferences – to be fascinating and amazing and interactive, but also somewhat lonely.  Our goal was to create a feeling of intimacy and community in a group of 60-75 people, where thoughtful discussions could thrive, the introverts would feel comfortable, and the speakers were the audience in a felt sense.

The theme of TEDxConstitutionDrive was "Trust."  Trust as both a noun and a verb.  The impetus was a conversation in North Cyprus between two sisters and a local Turkish Cypriot about the political situation stemming from the conflict of the ‘70s and the criticality of trust.  Trust is such an inherently multidisciplinary topic – we thought it’d be great to get people together who were smarter than us and talk about trust as a concept, as a value, and as a solution.

In an intimate venue loosely designed as a small theater with the backdrop of curated artwork from Jane Ferguson and Terri Hill, we explored different perspectives on trust that went beyond the basic morality and reached into business, technology and neuroscience to arrive at sometimes surprising conclusions.  The audience relaxed on low videogame rockers, red loveseats, and a long black serpentine lounge in the back.

The theme of “Trust” was approached from different angles by our remarkable speakers:

• An engaging presentation on trust in entrepreneurship by Anant Agrawal, vending frontierman and co-founder of Cantaloupe Systems
• An active debate on transparency led by Paige Craig, angel investor and former military psy-ops
• A compelling and humorous talk on trust and privacy in social networking by Fran Maier, president of TrustE and co-founder of Match.com
• Sharing his eye-opening research on the science of trust, Paul Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, also known as Dr. Love
• A stimulating webconference on issues in electronic voting with Rebecca Mercuri, leading expert in e-voting systems
• A magical jazz performance by Kaitlin McGaw, bluesy jazz vocalist and songwriter
• An interactive conversation on consumer trust in social media facilitated by Rob Fuggetta, founder of brand advocacy firm Zuberance
• A mindblowing “fire”-dance by Colt Briner, Democrasoft VP and accomplished illusionist
• A heartfelt personal story from Laura Slezinger, managing director of Girls in Tech SF
• A new perspective on certifications from Sri Artham, fair trader of Fair Trade USA
• A highly relevant talk on digital media literacy from Barak Kassar, co-founder of Zibkids.com and creative director at Rassak Experience

The talks were participative, with questions often coming from the speakers to the audience and active debate from the audience (TED administrators – sorry we can’t control our speakers’ or audience’s enthusiasm!)

Yoshi Akiba of the renowned Yoshi’s jazz clubs unfortunately was ill and unable to make it as planned (though we’re hoping she can come next year!), so we had time for two engaging audience talks:

• A hilarious story from Anneke Jong, accomplished storyteller and contributor to NPR’s Snap Judgment
• A fascinating overview of current projects underway by John Murray, director of Cybernetic & Human Systems at SRI International

We kept everyone well-fed with Vietnamese street food and Korean BBQ tacos from food trucks Little Green Cyclo and BBQ Kalbi.  Community members flashed their badges for an all-you-can-eat lunch of whatever suited their fancy.  It was a beautiful day in California and attendees had lunch and chatted at picnic tables outside in the sunshine.  There were a few complaints of being kept too well-fed (!), with fruit and coffee in the morning, an early-session snack of sweet potato fries, and an afternoon snack of Vietnamese summer rolls as well.  

It was a long day but a handful of us still had energy to head over to the nearby British Banker’s Club for drinks and more stimulating discussion.  Afterwards, one of the attendees who had flown in from Arizona for the event hitched a ride with a new acquaintance – a perfect example of what this event was about.

We’re already looking forward to next year’s event and hope you join us.  Our tentative theme will be “Identity.”  Please send a note to tamthaopham@gmail.com if you’d like to be added to the invite list.

In the meantime, experience our 2010 event by watching the videos at http://www.tedxconstitutiondrive.com!

TEDxPalermo -- a TEDx event in Sicily -- held their July 2010 TEDx event in one of the most innovative spaces we've seen yet. 

The Nautoscopio is an architectural structure on the waterfront in Palermo designed by Giuseppe Amato. The name "Nautoscopio" means "instrument shaped like a boat to observe the landscape", and speakers spoke from this structure, while attendees listend on the ground, sitting on benches made of milk crakes and wood planks. 

TEDxPalermo organizer Raffaella Guidobono said that it "seemed to be born for TEDx" and, looking at these breathtaking images, it is surely true: 

See videos from this event by visiting the TEDxPalermo playlist on the TEDx YouTube page, and visiting the TEDxPalermo website. 

This week-end (january 15th) you will be able to watch TEDx Paris 2011 online. To access to the webcast please fill this form : http://bit.ly/webcast2011 

After filling the form, you will receive an email containing URLs and login/pass. The show starts on saturday at 2PM Paris time and ends at 8PM Paris time.

We are waiting for you online ☺

TEDx Paris Team

TEDxGuelphU is a TEDx event in Guelph, Canada organized by students at the University of Guelph.

Now in its second year, the event has launched a new website, and with it, an eye-opening brand identity:

The theme of this year's event is "Envision 2020" and will explore "social trajectory" and "how we can reach the year 2020 smarter by embracing better ways of getting things done." TEDxGuelphU really pushes that theme home with the incorporation of bright red glasses in all of their web properties.

They've even dressed up one of their speakers -- Sarah Elton, author of "The Locavore" -- in a pair:

See more examples of this at TEDxGuelphU's website, Facebook page and Twitter.

TEDxSamsung is a bi-weekly TEDx internal corporate event in South Korea.

Organizer Inyhuk Song loves seeing the effect the event is having on Samsung employees and on company culture saying, “TED changed my life, and TED changed Samsung too. Nowdays, TEDxSamsung is changing Samsung's employees culture,  from top-bottom hierarchical strict organization style to bottom-up internal motivation leading style.”

In December, Song and his team hatched a plan to flashmob the R & D Center building during lunch, dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”:  

The result was playful and unexpected -- at one point, a man in a suit on the phone puts his phone away and happily jumps into the fray.

Song says, “People believe company is just for working place, but now, our employees sometimes tell me, it has changed. This place may have some fantastic possibilities, we feel we can anything together. In point of company culture, it is big progress!”

To learn more about TEDxSamsung, visit their profile on the TEDx website here.

One of the first big issues TEDx organizers tackle is assembling a great and passionate team. TEDx events vary in size and scope -- events can be anywhere from a few people in the room to over 300 attendees. Here, some insight from some TEDx organziers on team structures:

Tomas Carillo of TEDxPhoenix:

Here's what we did with our last event when it came time organize our team:

Speaker Curation and Presentation Coaching Team

Art and Design Team: Responsible for programs, flyers, website and sprucing up speaker's presentations where needed.

Sponsorship Team

Social Activity Crew: Responsible for fostering connections amongst attendees during the event.

Day of Event and AV Team: Responsible for all the behind the scenes craziness that went on during the event.

One person we did sorely miss was an overall Project Manager who could stay on top of all the planning.  We were okay without one, but it would have helped tremendously had we invested in someone to oversee everything.

Ahmad Coucha of TEDxCairo:

Our TEDx Cairo team is divided into 4 smaller teams.

Each team consists of an average of 6 people plus one team leader. The team leader is one of the co-founders of TEDx Cairo. I'd recommend choosing the most experienced and passionate member as the team leader or whoever you see fit for the job.

These 4 teams are:

Fundraising team: Responsible for the budget and sponsor related issues.

MARCOM team: Responsible for marketing and communications.

Talks team: Responsible for the speakers and talks selection according to our theme and strategy for the year.

IT & Publications team: Responsible for designs, website maintenance and filming and photographing the event.

Project Manager: Responsible for managing and putting all the things together; his main focus is on time, quality and cost.

Dave Lim of TEDxSingapore:

We have over 30 people in our team, the first event was done by 2 people.

Since everyone is doing all of this aside from their business of full-time work, each of our TEDx idea events is led by minimum of  2 Co-Curators, and each functional team is led by 2 team leads, to share the responsibilities, work-load, and passion.  All very fluid because the people who are involved can change a lot between events.

The structure, operations and things-to-do is not rocket science, and there's no ideal or best, it  depends also on how many people you have on your team and what their talents and time are.

Most importantly from and for our journey:

Seed and plant your great values, beliefs, culture. (Take a lesson from Simon Sinek’s TEDTalk "Start With Why")

Sun it with plenty of TED spirit, energy and passion and upon this ground, you'll grow your capability, commitment and camaraderie among your present and future team-mates and your
community (speakers, sponsors, TED fans) who contribute to your TEDx event.

To share, we have organised 8 TEDx idea events so far over 13 months, of 150-300+ people each, 40+ speakers/performers in total, and our TED community is  5,000+ people. We have a "100% Community-Created" philosophy, so expenses can be kept at minimal, not more than a few hundred USD per event.  By doing this, the majority of events have been free to attend and when there are out-of-pocket $ costs involved, we have charged for admission, so far never more than USD 6 per person.  We have found that when a different approach and mindset is adopted, creative solutions, amazing and meaningful outcomes will emerge!

Radix J Hidayat of TEDxBandung:

Curatorial Team: Deciding the contents, the "heart" of the event.

Production: Executing the event, recording, etc.

Sponsorship & Partnership: Raising funds and making strategic partnerships.

Venue: Finding the right place for the event, decorations, preparing logistics, multimedia etc.

Community: Communities engagement, branding, ticketing, publications, etc.

I select the most TED-passionate as the persons in charge, and they will lead the team in their own right. We held weekly meeting between the persons in charge to keep the preparations well-executed. Our team is sized no more than 15 persons, so it's easy to maintain control and develop the team as the time goes on.

Tahnee Pantig of TEDxMcGill:

We had a team of 5 with respective subcommittees:

Advertising and PR

Sponsorship and Finances

Speakers

Attendees

Logistics (day of stuff)

Our event had 300 people which had grown from our projected 100. I sent out a Facebook message to some of my closest friends and that's how we came up with the committee; I wanted to keep the committee small and I also wanted to have a committee that was already familiar with each other since we were working on such a short timeline. Because it was small, most of our decisions were made by consensus, however there were certain circumstances which demanded that each member make decisions on behalf of the entire committee; we trusted each other enough to allow this.

One piece of advice: weekly scheduled meetings. Even if there is a lull in planning, touching base each week really helped our team keep up momentum. And having them early in the week is a lot better because you can decide on
what each person should achieve within that week and hear updates at the next meeting.