Women of @TEDxBrussels

TEDxBrussels (on 22 November 2011 in Bozar, Brussels) is one of the many independently organised TED events, but for the Brussels chapter it's already the 3rd edition. I'm part of the blogging team this year, and in this first post I'm having a look at the women in this year's speaker list. More or less in order of preference:

Entrepreneur, investor and business adviser Julie Meyer (@JulieMarieMeyer) is U.S. based, but most know her as one of the dragons on BBC's Dragon's Den. She is the founder and CEO of Ariadne Capital and the Managing Partner of Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund (ACE).

"Kaliya Hamlin is @IdentityWoman" sounds a little like a cheesy trailer for a female superhero tv series. But Kaliya is really a user-centric ID expert, who facilitates numerous internet ID workshops and unconferences. I'm playing with the idea to write a book about online identity and reputation, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how she's managed to convince companies and organisations to innovate identity tools and systems that work for people on an internet scale.

Leila Chirayath Janah (@Leila_C) is mostly known as the CEO and founder of Samasource, a social enterprise that gives digital work to impoverished people around the world. But in her Twitter bio she describes herself also as a bit of an "adventurette". While attending Harvard, she did field work in Mozambique, Senegal and Rwanda and she's a visiting scholar at Stanford, Yale, and the University of Calgary. Her main mission is to alleviate poverty by empowering the world's poor as producers of goods and services in the global economy, because "the greatest natural resource in the world that has been overlooked is the brainpower at the bottom of the pyramid." Check out her blog and official site for more.

Interesting idea: the X Prize FoundationX PRIZE Foundation, an organization dedicated to developing radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity through incentive prize competitions. Or, in other words, gamifying doing social good by rewarding the most groundbreaking ideas in a competition. TEDx speaker Eileen Bartholomew (@ebartholomew) has been a Senior Director, Life Sciences, Prize Development at the X Prize Foundation for over 2 years now. She describes her mission as "Relentlessly pursuing creativity and style in a world of necessary engagements."

You Suck On Waffels

The title of this post was conveniently generated by the Youtube Insult Generator: "basically a "search engine for insults." Type in a search term, and it'll give you insults you can use against a person who doesn't like that term. For example, enter "the godfather," and it'll give you "You sleep with the fishes," "You sleeps with horsehead in bed" and "You will get an offer you can't refuse." Enter "alfred hitchcock" and it'll say "You had your eyes plucked out by crows" and "You have Vertigo." Enter "mario brothers" and it'll say "You aren't Super enough for Mario," "You can't beat world 1-1" and "You are bowser." You get the idea. It finds stuff only about 50% of the time, but it works surprisingly well when it does work. Try general terms ("car") and pop culture ("michael jordan", "i love lucy"). Each insult includes a link to its source YouTube video. "

My boy lollipop

Take This Lollipop is an Interactive Live Action Facebook Connect experience. And a very creepy one, too.

I'm sorry, Elke.

Practice life through play

Auti is "an interactive toy developed especially for autistic children. [It] shuts down in response to negative behaviour such as hitting or screaming, but quickly responds to the slightest positive interaction. Each sensor can be adjusted to respond appropriately to each child’s individual characteristics, making Auti immediately compatible with the child."

This toy can teach autistic children how to be less "rough" when seeking contact with other children. But what I like most about this concept is that it is suitable for not just autistic children, but anyone else.

Auti from Helen Andreae on Vimeo.

Dinner signs

Sign Dining - Op-Art - NYTimes.com: "In 1944, Alfred Eisenstaedt shot a photo essay for Life magazine, depicting the secret hand signals Sherman Billingsley used to communicate with the staff of this famous nightspot, the Stork Club."

I've used these numerous times (adding the universal "pinkie" sign for one glass of beer). Most of the time the people at my table laugh at me, but the waiters always get what I mean. Bless them.

[EDIT]There are more, like the "one thumb, one pinkie" devil sign for Duvel beer, and flapping your hands if you want "light" Coke. Got any signs of your own for noisy bars or restaurants?

To live not knowing

You'll probably remember the 7 part Sagan Series, and now the Feynman Series have just started.

Richard Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium. He died in 1988, aged 69.

From part 1, about Beauty:

Feynman: “I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in this mysterious universe without having any purpose.”

“I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than having answers which might be wrong”

This blog is 28.6% sad

Emotional Breakdown.

View Today’s Emotional Breakdown, an experimental visualization of the mood of people in photographs from The Guardian’s 24 hours in pictures.

Everybody is an artist. But is that a good thing?

PressPausePlay: "The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, unleashing unlimited creative opportunites.
But does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature or is true talent instead flooded and drowned in the vast digital ocean of mass culture? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity?
This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era."

One of these influential creators is American entrepreneur, author and public speaker Seth Godin. His take:

there has never been a better time to be an artist.

British-American entrepreneur and author Andrew Keen is more of a technology pessimist:

we may well be on the verge of a new dark age… where the creative world is destroyed.

What do you think?

The concept of the film itself is interesting: there are free versions to download, and others to buy on iTunes or Amazon. They know how to use a mix of Flickr, YouTube, a Facebook page and even a somewhat vague application of Twitter and Facebook login. Here's one of the film's trailers:

Disappointment

Oh, So That's What That Really Means