Although delayed by over a week, the enthusiasm in Jakarta (Indonesia) toward TED2011: The Rediscovery of Wonders was not dampened. On March 12th, 2011, over 700+ people came to watch the conference's second day together. We were fortunate to secure the perfect venue "@america" - one of the first high-tech cultural centers in the world. The door opened at 10 am and we completed all the four sessions by 9pm.  It was a free-flowing event as people came to sessions of their choosing, and explored our exhibitions. 

Our TEDxJakarta team was inspired by the TED Active atmosphere and set up three main areas: 

The Main Auditorium 

This main hall was a great cinematic auditorium complete with the latest audiovisual technologies. People sat on paddy-field inspired terrace seatings with cushions and inflatable chairs. Some even sat on the floor not wanting to miss out on the show. 

Incredibly, all four sessions were fully occupied. And though we were watching a delayed screening, people were laughing, clapping and engaging the content as if it was live. Many were seen taking down notes and discussing, albeit softly, as the talks unfolded. 

The Exhibition Areas

The exhibition area was prepared for people to minggle aroudn during breaks and to accommodate attendees who could not get seats in the main auditorium. The walls were digitally decorated with looping videos and pictures from TEDx events around the world. People could experiment with the Google Liquid Galaxy machine, borrowed iPads to browse TED content and learnt more about TED2011 and TED in general on our large touchscreens. 

This hall was also packed with people seated on the floor when the show began. 

The TEDxJakarta Classroom

The TEDxJakarta Classroom is a corner where we people could discuss the content, debate on anything and learn more about TED and TEDxJakarta. Across LCD screens and touchscreens, we showed our past videos and informational slides on our direction. Our volunteers encouraged people to participate more on the discussions on TED.com and to look into hosting their own TEDx events. 

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Around 250 people from Lahore and its enviorns assembled at Kinnaird College to 'rethink'. TEDxKinnaird, curated by Areej Mehdi, held its second successful TEDx event on February 19. The theme was chosen keeping in mind the following fable:

"A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. Years passed and the eagle grew old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. The old eagle looked up in awe. 'Who's that?' he asked. 

"'That's the eagle, the king of the birds,' said his neighbor. 'He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth; we're chickens.'

So the eagle lived and died as a chicken, for that's what he thought he was."

This story is so much more than a mere fable. It’s a story about human life. It’s about breaking out of comfort zones. It’s about the endless possibilities that reveal themselves to you when you let yourself believe. Imagine what we could do if we really looked at those ideas. Seemingly simple but at a second glance; profound.

With TEDxKinnaird, we wanted to give our attendees a chance to take the step in the direction of 'rethinking us'. The conference featured young speakers, passionate about their work and ideas. Jazib Zahir, a Stanford graduate, shared his vision of a world where games are a part of regular curriculums. Natasha Noorani, explained why she thought photography could be used to change stereotypes. Sonya Rehman, talked about the need for citizen journalism and cited recent examples that are shaping our world. Younas Chowdhry, shared his idea of the common man rising above his daily, petty worries through an immersive experience of street theatre. Younas' crew performed a street play "Machine" for the audience which earned them a round of applause. Other speakers who shared their ideas on stage included Elaine Alam, from FACES Pakistan; Mehreen Kasana, a prominent blogger and doodler; GIKI student Faisal Mehmood, who has three patents to his name already in the field of engineering; and Zubair Khan, CEO of Tranchulas.  

Attendees were especially happy with the way the networking break was conducted. A human scavanger hunt allowed attendees to approach each other easily and establish a basis for funny Q&A back and forth. Those who successfully completed the questions provided to them had the opportunity to participate in a lucky draw. One lucky winner was the recepient of a digital camera. 

TEDxKinnaird was all the more effective not only because of its live speakers but also the selection of TEDTalks. Maz Jobrani had the audience laughing with his quirky humor and The LXD elicited awed applause with its breath taking performance. 

On the whole, the event has received great positive feedback from the attendees. Here's to ideas worth spreading!

[More preliminary photos on our Facebook album: http://on.fb.me/hugonfacebook]

TEDxJakarta is a TEDx event/community in Jakarta, Indonesia. As one of the earlier TEDx licensees, the organizing team  (http://www.tedxjkt.org/team/) has seen the community grew exponentially over the past two years. 

Our last  event, on December 19th, 2010 , was dedicated to encourage attendees to visualize things differently and to act proactively in their respective communities to bring about progress and positive change. The event drew a full house of more than 450 people and received overwhelming media coverage.

The 3.5 minutes overview of the event can be found here: (http://on.fb.me/tedxjkt6)

It left an unforgettable impression and a TED 'High' feeling like none other, as this attendee's blog post (http://bit.ly/fGOzsc) aptly described the day as "Simply explosive."  

In the first session - Visualize - Chandra Tresnadi shared his efforts to re-popularize Batik (one of Indonesia's most treasured heritage) through the use of social, interactive, and touch-screen digital technologies.

Adi Panuntun, known for his video-mapping project of Museum Fatahillah, spoke about 'design-thinking' as an agent of change. He moved away from his film-making conventions to project a jaw-dropping video on to public buildings and museums to promote awareness for the lack of public space in Jakarta and to bring the 'cool' back to museums. 

In the second session - Act - Sanggar Roda, a community that brings together street and marginalized kids from East Jakarta and teaches them non-formal music education, entertained everybody with 3 great songs using basic musical instruments. They received a standing ovation from the whole auditorium.  

Betti Alisjahbana, former CEO of IBM Indonesia, talked about a scholarship program that hunts proactively for bright children from very poor families and give them the opportunity to attend the country's best schools with bridging programs that include soft-skills building courses. 

Anies Baswedan, rector of Paramadina University gave an update of Indonesia Mengajar (Indonesia Teaches), a program that sends Indonesia's best and brightest to the country's most remote areas, often without electricity, to teach for a year. 

Rene Suhardono, career coach and author of “Your Job is Not Your Career,” urged attendants to reconsider their conceptualization of happiness and passion. 

In 2011 - the team has prepared a great series of events which include TEDxJakartaLive this March 5th and a Best of TEDxJakarta event. We plan to hold 4 events this year. 

Contributed by: 

Benson Engelbert
Co-Curator , TEDxJakarta

www.tedxjkt.org 
benson@tedxjkt.org
tw: @bensonengelbert 

Recently, TEDx Organizers from 11 different cities in Asia (Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia) descended upon Taipei for the incredible event that was TEDxTaipei. The event itself, whose theme was "Big Hope" and centered around nine questions for the future, featured talks by 20 inspiring speakers, including the former CTO of One Laptop Per Child, a spiritual guru from India, and native Taiwanese folk singers. We all walked away from the day-long event, our hearts and minds filled with wonderful new ideas - but that was only the beginning of the fun.

Jason Hsu and Kevin Peng, the curators of TEDxTaipei, organized a three-day tour of Taipei and surroundings, specially for the TEDx Organizer family, along with the speakers and other honored guests, including Salome Heusel from the TED office. The jam-packed itinerary, which left little room for sleep (but ample opportunities for coffee), consisted of:

Culture  - Though the entire trip was about culture (most of us were, after all, in Taiwan for the very first time), we got to experience Taiwanese culture firsthand through visiting a traditional tea house in the Maokong Mountains, enjoying a private performance by the drumming group U-Theatre at their mountaintop theater space, and touring the Flora Expo, which exhibited many elements of Taiwan's natural resources and potential through its exhibits and pavilions.

Technology - Taiwan, as we learned, actually manufactures about 40% of the world's consumer electronics. We had a chance to tour the campus of Quanta Computer, the world's largest notebook computer manufacturer, as well as play with some of their newest technologies that haven't yet hit the market, and discuss ideas with their CTO and other Quanta leaders. We also sat with the CTO of ITRI, the Industrial Technology Research Institute, a Taiwan-based international research group that whose ethos involves mixing scientists with designers and industry leaders in order to create new technologies for the market.

Development & Entrepreneurship - We met several local business leaders, such as Ping Chu, head of AVEDA Taiwan, and exchanged ideas of social enterprise and business ethos. We went to Field Office, an architectural station in the agricultural Yilan County, where a team of young architects work together to bring creative ideas for cultural buildings to the community. We talked to professors at local universities about creativity and entrepreneurship in education, and how to inspire the next generation towards prosperity and social responsibility.

Food - Our gustatory senses were constantly tickled by local delights, and we had a bit of everything - from dinners made of completely fresh and local ingredients, to Taiwan's famed street food from the ubiquitous nightmarkets.

Decompression - Of course, no extended gathering in Asia would dare exclude karaoke, and we all had a chance to break the ice through mutual embarrassment and rousing off-key choruses of A Whole New World. A morning walk and yoga session in the mountains of northern Taiwan also helped get us back to our element.

TEDx (Ex)change - Our ultimate goal was to convene as a group of TEDx Organizers and share our thoughts about how we organize events in our own cities. We had structured discussions, sharing all of our questions and hopes for our own events, as well as our strategies for how to continue the dialogue. We all share the same goal that is embodied by TED, but we found that we also shared many issues in adapting our TEDx events for our own audiences, from the big framework such as how to make events more locally-oriented to the details of how to deal with language barriers between speakers and attendees, and having four wonderful days to spend with each other gave us the chance to understand how everyone made their own events work.

The best part? We all came away with over 30 new friends, confidants, collaborators, and now know expert tour guides when we visit any of Asia's major cities. But it wasn't just about us - even though we deepened our understanding and formed new relationships, the greatest takeaway was about how we all, as purveyors of TED and TEDx, hope to bring these sorts of experiences of idea and culture exchange to our own home communities, and to encourage these friendships and to spread the positive energy amongst our own peers. It was about how we're all going to make the world a better place, one TEDx at a time.

Written by Cindy Wang