Bringing TED home through TEDxJakartaLive March 12th, 2011

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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#hugcampaign on Valentine's Day

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

It started as a late lunch conversation on Feb 13th, 2011 about the idea of spending time with friends from TEDxJakarta on Valentine's Day. Lalitia (tw: @lalitia), our co-curator, twitted that friends should come and we would hug one another.

The twit was retwitted, and someone put a hashtag #hugcampaign. Hundreds of twits and retwits later, in the span of four hours, it was officially a trending topic. One major radio channel (Cosmopolitan 90.4 FM) suddenly called in asking for a 7:45am interview the following day on this hug campaign. The law of unintended consequences and the power of twitter in Indonesia had spoken: we were going to give hugs to ALOT of people and it psyched the living day out of us. 

In the span of less than twenty-four hours, we managed to get the top management of Pacific Place Mall (the mall caught in action) to agree (into taking risk) with our rather non-conventional activity. In a relatively conservative and religious country like Indonesia, any form of public display of affection is a sensitive issue. We engaged @America (venue at the mall) to allow us use their space for pre-gathering and our "Board of Compassion". We brought in the videographers and the volunteers.

So on Valentine's day - we held a FREE HUG campaign to share warmth and compassion with others , especially strangers. 

TEDxJakarta believes compassion, toward loved ones, friends, acquaintances and strangers, is an idea worth spreading. Recently, we've been bombarded with domestic news of violence related to religion. This has left the country as a whole feeling unsettled and tired. This year, TEDxJakarta plans to incorporate the Charter of Compassion in our agenda and promote the charter's initiatives proactively. The viral video from this #hugcampaign will kickstart our initiative. 

In the few hours we were there putting our arms out, we were surprised by the response. A girl came and hugged saying "I am alone on Valentine's day". An elderly gentleman walked up with teary eyes, hugged, said "Thank you", and walked away quietly. A little boy ran up to us happy and of course we had plenty of group hugs.

We did it to share compassion, warmth and presence with others. However, we also did it for ourselves. We were reminded of what's possible and the humanism that still exists strong if we bothered to look. 

At the end of the night, we were literally High on Hugs. It was the most amazing experience. 
Thank you @pacificplace @atamerica and @TEDxJKT team for making it possible. 

Happy Valentine's Day TEDx Community. 

Contributed by: 

Benson Engelbert

Co-curator, TEDxJakarta (www.tedxjkt.org)
tw: @bensonengelbert