Will you listen?

July 21, 2009 · Posted in Technology · Comment 

listeningSo technically TED Global hasn’t begun but this morning’s first session was part 1 of 2 for TED University, a segment of the conference where “professors” have 6 minutes to give a presentation on variety of topics.  The list of speakers and their presentations were incredible.

We’ve heard amazing talks and ideas already in this first hour… Some that stood out for me were -

Ian Goldin, who presented “6 Things You Need to Know about 2030″ and talked about both the perils and amazing opportunities of continues growth in technology and globalization.

Rachel Pike, who presented “What makes a climate headline”, talked about the massive amount of work that is behind even the tiniest of publications for climate research.

Jim Walker unaided by visuals gave us a great imagining of the future of power controlled by intelligent application of information technology.

Julian Treasure, who presented “Sound Affects”, talked about the physiological and psychological effects of sound.

The list goes on and on…  but what I loved about their presentations is that many of them proposed a strong and viable solution to the problems they discussed.  Their ideas filled me with hope about the future.  So what really struck me was that our key to surviving and thriving as the human race will not be whether we can come up with solutions to problems in education, energy, climate change, globalization, etc…  Many solutions are already there.  The main question is:   Will we collectively listen and act?

So, will you listen?

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