TEDxJohannesburg live blog
Hi all. I know I said I wasn’t blogging here, but now I am, just for the day.
It’s 9:30am on Sunday, and outside the city is complete chaos. I’m safely ensconced in the Theatre on the Square, where they’re keeping me under close protection from cyclists (and vice versa.)
The occasion is:
… TEDxJohannesburg, an innovative day of ideas and cleverness, organised with commendable verve and energy by Alicia Woolf. The idea is to live-blog the event. Essentially, that means I’ll be taking notes, and updating this post in chronological order. If all goes well, you won’t be spammed by multiple e-mails or RSS updates. Reload this frequently if you want to follow the proceedings during the course of the day.
Some notes and conventions:
* Normal text constitutes notes. Unless otherwise specified, or obvious from context (such as descriptions of videos or presentations) they’re as near to direct quotes by the speaker most recently identified.
* My own comments will be in [square brackets]. Don’t blame anyone else for them.
* The Twitter hashtag for today is #TEDxJohannesburg. I’m fairly sure lots of people will tweet the proceedings.
* PS. This post is, I hear, 7000 words long. It contains errors. I’m not going to fix them. I understand typos are horribly offensive, but I trust you’ll get over it within weeks.
10:24 Introduction about ideas worth spreading, and the format of independently organised TED events, known as TEDx. The day will include a selection of talks and lots of conversation about them. Videos from the official TED events will also be shown.
And Alicia Thomas-Woolf, the local organiser, takes the stage. Everyone wrote something they’d like to do before they die on their name tags. [Mine is “Colonise the moon”] We want to leave a legacy, because changing society starts with individuals who talk to each other. It’s been a very collaborative effort, organised by people with lots of passion, little sleep and too much caffeine.
The sign in the photograph is by Sidney Matebula, who sits on the corner of Coleraine and Ballyclare, selling newspapers and making beaded sculptures.
