We want to thank you for supporting TEDxOilSpill on Monday. It was an incredible day packed with amazing speakers and conversation, and we hope you found it as valuable and inspiring as we did. It truly was a long day, but there were a lot of topics to cover, and if you missed some of it, we will be posting high-quality video shortly. You can also re-watch the live stream here: http://tedxoilspill.com/live

Some major announcements happened at TEDxOilSpill, including Susan Shaw from MERI launching an independent research group to study the environmental impacts of oil and dispersants mixing in the Gulf (more details here). The X PRIZE Foundation also took the stage at TEDxOilSpill to announce the only 5th ever X PRIZE devoted to the development of rapidly-deployable methods to clean up oil from our coastlines and oceans. This will be a multi-million dollar prize, and details of the challenge will be announced in the coming weeks (more details here).

But this effort does not stop now. It cannot stop now. In fact, we have an immediate call to action and we need your help.

Google is teaming up with PBS NewsHour to take you to BP headquarters in Houston for an exclusive interview with Bob Dudley, President and CEO of BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organization. In a live session moderated by the PBS NewsHour’s Ray Suarez, Mr. Dudley will respond directly to questions from the public.

Instead of offering up standard questions about BP’s actions that they will simply ignore or dodge, we at TEDxOilSpill want to put together a solid, cohesive request for very specific sets of data that would help better understand and visualize the scope of this disaster. With better data, we can be more informed about what action should be taken in the Gulf, and this is an opportunity to make that request in a way BP will have trouble refusing.

Our goal is to put together a list of the top-5 datasets that we ask the respective data owners to release to the public. Google will be supporting this effort, and it could lead to substantive action.

But we don’t have much time! The Q&A with Google Moderator will be happening today

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Thursday July 1 and questions will only be accepted until 3:30pm ET. The sooner we have the question up and can point BP to a page with the request for this data, the more likely it will be that they will answer. Questions must be voted on, which means the earlier we can submit, the better.

Please send an e-mail to tedxoilspill@tedxmidatlantic.com with your ideas for data that would be beneficial to you.

You can also submit a question directly to Google here.

Thank you again for making TEDxOilSpill an important and memorable event. Now let's continue the conversation.