Pape Gaye, president and CEO of IntraHealth, kicked off the TEDxChapelHill's webcast of TEDxChange by asking the audience to recognize how far we’ve come and how far we have left to go in guaranteeing all global citizens their rights to education, health and dignity.  

Gaye told the audience, made up of students and global health leaders from international public health organizations, universities and corporations, that “if we do mobilize, then by 2015 we can achieve the Millennium Development Goals.” Gaye took the audience through a quick review of the MDGs, focusing specifically on maternal health, child health, HIV/AIDS and global partnerships for development and asked all of the individuals in the room to do more to make the things that we take for granted universally accessible.

Although TEDxChange speakers Mechai Viravaidya, Graca Machel, Hans Rosling and Melinda Gates did not coordinate their remarks ahead of time, all four focused on the essential role of girls and women in achieving our future success and growth as a global community, and stressed the importance of educating girls and guaranteeing their access to health care, including family planning.

Gates wrapped up the event by saying, “We’ve made more progress in the last 10 years than any other period in history combined.”

TEDxChange was produced -- as all other TEDx´s are --  to make us think about what is going on in the world. Four speakers -- Graça Machel, Melinda Gates, Hans Rosling and Mechai Viravaidy -- presented their initiatives and ideas to change the situation and projections in underdeveloped countries. 

Chris Anderson and Graça Machel in particular emphasized the difference between “public politics proposals” and their application, a very difficult thing to do in underdeveloped countries because of the lack of governmental structure and the predatory control of the public organizations.

But there’s now a new force: collaboration.

It's not just the government that can change the political, cultural and social reality of a nation. The truth is, they don’t change it as much as we think -- the real changers are the society members, who establish relationships with each another and really understand people’s needs.

If the government doesn’t supply the society with what they need, people develop ways to do it.

An example of that was presented on TEDxChange, which showed how social collaboration influenced the MDGs.

Brazil is a great example.

The country had its Federal Constitution revived in the 80’s to support a welfare state development, this brought a new look to health, education and welfare and changed the assistentialist politics so that the country could raise the population's social level.

It also gave Brazilians the right to choose and take popular participation in public activities which were previously restricted or nonexistent.

All around the world, groups are converging and connecting to leverage the transformation processes of civil attitude: NGOs who help governments reduce the infant mortality rate by helping mothers; companies that invest in funds to aid the homeless; governments who move their people toward sustainability.

Partnership increasingly appears as a possible way to leverage citizenship to levels unreached before.

Thinking of people as both an individual and as a member are very important in the process of acceptance and cooperation between societies and different kinds of government. Otherwise, respect disappears causing ignorance and rejection, even if they are coming with good intentions.

Written by the Brazilian TEDx'ers. 

TEDxYouthCastilleja is one of the 51 TEDxYouth events happening on TEDxYouthDay -- November 20th, Universal Children's Day.

The idea for the day was born from a conversation between some TEDsters and TED Licensing Director Lara Stein at TED 2010, about what TED and TEDx could do for kids. At the time, there had already been a few one-off TEDx events for youth audiences, including TEDxKids@SMU and TEDxNextGenerationAsheville, but no one initiative that connected all of these events.

There is no central TEDx or TED event connecting TEDxYouth events occurring on TEDxYouthDay, only the fact that they are created for a youth audience and will occur simultaneously, across 14 timezones. A dedicated Livestream page will broadcast both the webstreams and programs of participating events.

With the theme "Be the Change", TEDxYouthCastilleja, taking place at the Castilleja school in Palo Alto, California, already has an impressive line-up of speakers and performers arranged around the concepts of "ideas", "solutions" and "action".

They include: Gever Tulley, founder of Tinkering School; Emily Olsen, founder of Foozie; Chris Flink of IDEO; violinist Alexi Kenney; and Phil Zimbardo of the Heroic Imagination Project; and graffiti artist Estria, among others.

There will also be social sessions, aerialists and outdoor mobile trucks serving sustainable food.

The idea of "action" is built into the program -- attendees will be able to get involved in the conversation around the issue of genocide by creating their own bones to be displayed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. as a part of Naomi Natale's One Million Bones project.

The day will be a literal circus of activities and speakers, ideas and learning.

Organizer Christina McClure hopes the day will create common ground for the kids of the local community as well as give kids pride in themselves and in what they can do.

To learn more about TEDxYouthCastilleja, visit their website. To learn more about other TEDxYouthDay events, visit the TEDxYouthDay website.

Bob Sprankle, the dad of one of the speakers, Zoe Sprankle, from the recent TEDxRedmond, a TEDx event hosted by and for kids, is a school technology integrator in Wells, Maine.

During "free time", he gave his students the choice to either play a computor game, or to watch TEDxRedmond host Adora Svitak's TEDTalk.

Most of the students chose to watch the TEDTalk.

University of Denver graduate and undergraduate students joined faculty and staff at the Sie Cheou Kang Center of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies on September 20th for the webcast of TEDxChange. 

On the DU campus, this webcast was sponsored by the Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) program which facilitates steady online exchanges of students, experts, and communities on the front lines of just and sustainable development. Through 19 academic courses and 19 practitioner workshops, the MDP’s integration of health, natural, social, and management sciences engages the diverse actors, cultures, and disciplines needed for comprehensive work on sustainable development and poverty eradication.

Following the webcast, Dr. Barry Hughes, director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures at DU, helped the audience to conceptualize and extend the MDG approach to development and poverty alleviation.

While the MDG’s 2015 targets presently have the world’s attention, Professor Hughes asked the assembly to consider further how to extend the MDG horizon for an additional generation, how to re-evaluate these targets across countries and regions, and how to improve access to real-time data on the MDGs. Students questioned how conflicts worldwide disrupt MDG work, development forecasting, and policymaking. Others questioned whether the MDGs are realistic, and whether the UN’s goals work constructively with International Futures development forecasting.

Compiled by the Master’s in Development Practice students at the University of Denver. 

(Preface: TEDxSingapore's sixth idea event featuring live local speakers and music artistes and screening of TEDxChange was held in Microsoft auditorium, high above Singapore city with a grand view of F1 cars running around the Formula One Grand Prix track, and inspired this poem.)

O u r   G r a n d e s t   G r a n d   P r i x

IT'S A TRULY EXCITING DAY, 

extraordinary, in every way

The Formula One Grand Prix

right outside the window

of today’s TEDxChange event.

Outside, cars are racing fast. 

Our world’s racing fast. 

After all,

WE ARE THE HUMAN RACE.

Hungry for speed

Hungry to get ahead

Hungry to win!

 ____

Yes, everywhere too

there's millions and millions

of us hungry

...for just something to eat each day.

....for a cup of clean water to drink.

...for children not to die.

_____

So, let

us

 pause.

Let us think: 

"Who are we leaving behind in our human race?"  

 ______

Outside, cars are racing,

F1 drivers changing gears.

Inside our heads, let us remember:

  We are drivers of our future.     

What gears shall we change?  

What change shall we bring?

______

Outside, cars are racing.  

Inside, our hearts are racing,

racing, racing

WITH EXCITEMENT

because there are people

all around us,

all around our planet,  

 with ideas in their heads

 with passion in their hearts

for the future we will make!

It's our grandest Grand Prix.

TRULY EXCITING!

______________

(written by Dave Lim, Curator, TEDxSingapore during global TEDxChange week.)

CC by-nc-sa  TEDxSingapore ~for passion, for people, for purpose

Although the main TEDxChange event occurred on September 20th, which was also the day most TEDx events hosted their webstream and individual programming, some TEDx for TEDxChange events will also
happen this weekend:

TEDxSingapore: Sept. 25. Watch at Livestream.com/tedx
TEDxMyeongDong: Sept. 27. Watch at Livestream.com/tedx
TEDxKumaun: Sept. 27. More info at http://tedxkumaun.eventbrite.com/
TEDxBahrainona: Sept 30. More info at http://www.tedxbahrainona.com/

Here is a great blog post on TEDxSingapore's program for their TEDxChange event. 

9/27

TEDxMeongDong for TEDxChange: http://www.livestream.com/tedx
 

9/30

TEDxToronto: http://tedxtoronto.com/

10/1

TEDxUPenn: http://livestream.com/tedx

In a room of Geneva's Graduate Institute for International Development, 100 people from across all sectors in Geneva attended TEDxGeneva's TEDxChange event.

The audience was really engaged, listening very attentively, clapping and laughing; conversation during the breaks was buzzing.