By Aditi Simlai Tiwari
At a time of economic uncertainty, one thing remains clear. There’s an unmistakable shift of influence to the east. It’s not just about IT outsourcing. Increasingly India, China and the rest of Asia are making their presence felt globally in new technologies, design brilliance, cultural and economic innovation. And so, the theme for 2009: “The Future Beckons.”
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. TED believes passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.
Today, TED is therefore best thought of as a global community. It’s a community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who have just two things in common: they seek a deeper understanding of the world, and they hope to turn that understanding into a better future for us all.
TED was born in 1984 out of the observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a powerful convergence between Technology, Entertainment and Design. The first TED included demos of the newly released Macintosh computer and Sony compact disc, while mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals and AI guru Marvin Minsky outlined his powerful new model of the mind. Several influential members of the burgeoning digerati community were also there, including Nicholas Negroponte and Stewart Brand.
But despite the stellar lineup, the event lost money, and it was six years before Wurman and his partner Harry Marks tried again. This time, the world was ready and the numbers worked. TED has been held regularly in Monterey, California, ever since, attracting a growing and influential audience from many different disciplines united by their curiosity, open-mindedness, a desire to think outside the box … and also by their shared discovery of an exciting secret.
The roster of presenters has broadened to include scientists, philosophers, musicians, religious leaders, philanthropists and many others. Over the years, TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Frank Gehry, Jane Goodall, Al Gore, Billy Graham, Peter Gabriel, Quincy Jones, Bono. Yet often the real stars have been the unexpected: Li Lu, a key organizer of the Tiananmen Square student protest; Aimee Mullins, a Paralympics competitor who tried out a new pair of artificial legs onstage; or Jennifer Lin, a 14-year-old pianist whose 6-minute improvisation moved the audience to tears.
For many of the attendees, TED became one of the intellectual and emotional highlights of the year. That was certainly true for media entrepreneur Chris Anderson, who met with Wurman in 2000 to discuss the conference’s future. Wurman, at age 65, was ready to pass on the reins. A deal was struck, and in 2001, Chris’s foundation (The Sapling Foundation) acquired TED, and Chris became TED’s curator.
Chris pledged to stand by the principles that made TED great, but, there were also significant changes under the new ownership. First, the content continued to broaden. TED has explicitly sought out the world’s most interesting speakers, no matter what their field of expertise, and there has been a growing attempt to reach outside the US. Second, there was a growing realization that the ideas and inspiration generated at TED could and should have an impact well beyond the conference itself.
Accordingly the years 2001–2006 saw three major additions to the TED family:
a sister conference, TEDGlobal, held in a different country every other year
the TED Prize, which grants its winners “one wish to change the world”
a ground-breaking audio and video podcast series, TEDTalks, in which the best TED content is released free online.
This year, TED came to India and more specifically to Mysore from November 4-7, 2009. According to the organisers of TED, the site chosen TEDIndia is a powerful metaphor for the reshaped world of the 21st century. TEDIndia was held on the incredible high-tech campus built by Infosys to train its thousands of engineering graduates. In addition to its beautiful setting, the campus represents the heart of the Asian outsourcing industry that’s transformed the global economy. Truly an appropriate place to gather to think about tomorrow.
TED’s greatest natural resource is people. Most speakers stayed for the whole conference, and the attendees were every bit as extraordinary. As a result, chance encounters at TED and TEDIndia led to new ideas, projects, perspectives, companies. They were as essential to the experience as the stage program itself.
A glimpse of the eminent speakers who made TED 2009 a truly memorable experience:
Charles Anderson: Marine biologist: Charles Anderson studies marine life in the Maldives, a nation of coral atolls in the Indian ocean.
A. Balasubramaniam: Artist: Sculptor, painter and printmaker A. Balasubramaniam makes work that crosses the boundary between art, perception and life.
Sashwati Banerjee: Educator: With Galli Galli Sim Sim (an Indian version of Sesame Street), Sashwati Banerjee and her cast of Muppets share joyful learning with millions of kids.
Harsha Bhogle: Cricket commentator: Harsha Bhogle can talk about the business side of cricket, the technicalities of play and the psychology of the players with equal authority.
Shukla Bose: Education activist: Shukla Bose is the founder and head of the Parikrma Humanity Foundation, a nonprofit that runs four extraordinary schools for poor children.
Eve Ensler: Playwright, activist: Eve Ensler created the ground-breaking Vagina Monologues, whose success propelled her to found V-Day — a movement to end violence against women and girls everywhere.
Longinus Fernandes: Choreographer: Longinus Fernandes is an award-winning choreographer for Indian film — and the world knows his work on “Jai Ho,” the exuberant closing dance sequence from Slumdog Millionaire.
Shekhar Kapur: Director and writer: Shekhar Kapur is a visionary filmmaker and storyteller who works at the intersection of art, myth and activism.
His Holiness the Karmapa: Spiritual leader: Ogyen Trinley Dorje is the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, a revered figure in Tibetan Buddhism devoted to preserving and propagating Buddhist teachings.
Erin McKean: Dictionary editor: As the CEO and co-founder of new online dictionary Wordnik, Erin McKean is reshaping not just dictionaries, but how we interact with language itself.
Pranav Mistry: MIT grad student: Pranav Mistry is the genius behind SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data.
Kavita Ramdas: Philanthropist: Kavita Ramdas directs the Global Fund for Women, the largest foundation in the world supporting women’s human rights across all borders.
Mallika Sarabhai: Dancer, actor, activist: As the leader of Darpana, Mallika Sarabhai is a pioneer in using dance and the arts for social change.
Ananda Shankar Jayant: Dancer and choreographer: With precision and sparkling grace, Ananda Shankar Jayant performs and teaches the classical dance styles of Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi.
Shashi Tharoor: Politician and writer: Author and activist Shashi Tharoor is a member of Parliament and the Indian minister of state for external affairs.
Robert Thurman: Buddhist scholar: The first American to be ordained a Tibetan Monk by the Dalai Lama, Robert A.F. Thurman is a scholar, author and tireless proponent of peace.
The TED India conference aimed to answer questions such as:
Which local innovations are destined for global impact?
Who are the young thinkers and doers capable of shaping the future?
Can there be economic advancement without environmental destruction?
Can a pluralistic democracy survive in the face of rising fundamentalism?
Can we make money and be good? Really?
What should we learn – or fear? — from China’s investment in Africa?
Do we have enough water for everyone?
How do we keep our youth challenged and our aged healthy?
How can anti-poverty solutions be brought to scale?
Is there wisdom to be found in traditional medicine?
Which other ancient traditions can illuminate modern life?
Speaking at the eve of the conference, TEDIndia co-host Lakshmi Praturysaid she would like those attending the Mysore conference to take back three things:
1) No one who sits through a talk or seminar is with it all the time, a hundred percent. Even if they stay focused on what they hear, for a brief moment , they should feel it is a moment when they would rather be here than anywhere else;
2) Her expectation is that on gatherings like this one meets at least one person who becomes a friend for life; and
3) Her hope is that those who sit through the proceedings would pick up an idea or two that is not necessarily related their prime interest.
As TED India managed to build a clearinghouse that offered free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other, we can vouch that the TED story continues…
