Azi s-a desfășurat în București ce-a de-a opta ediție a conferinței anuale TEDxBucharest, iar tema a fost “Ahead of time” (Înaintea timpurilor noastre): despre cercetări cu impact potențial uriaș in medicină sau tehnologie, abordări progresiste în domeniile educației și comportamentului uman sau schimbări de paradigmă în economie sau societate.

Au petrecut în total 9 ore la Sala Radio, timp în care am ascultat 15 speech-uri de 18 minute și 2 trupe senzaționale. Astea sunt câteva dintre lucrurile care mi-au plăcut:

 

Delia Dumitrescu – Trendwatching

Trends are patterns in consumer expectations.
Your costumers’ expectations are set outside your industry!
So who are you competing against?

 

Cornel Amariei – known for inventing .lumen, a blind assisting device which help the visually impaired regain a part of their visual perception. First prototype is already done, maybe in 2 years it will be on the market.

„Question everything thought to be obvious”

Make meaning, not money. (money will come afterwards)

You have to be exposed to more than just a domain. (in order to have a different view)

Which dots will you connect? 

 

Zoe Philpott – writer, director & designer

100 000 jobs in tech created every year in UK but only 14% are taken by women. Less women today in tech than 20 years ago.

So she decided to update HIStory with HER story. She made a show in order to tell the story of Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer.

We’re now encouraged to stand up, but we don’t have role models.

 

Dani Sandu – freelance sociologist

We are living a 4th Industrial Revolution: artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology etc.
10 % of the population have college degree – it’s a good time to live, since there are more people in the world who have a college degree than people who live in poverty. But what happens with the people who will be replaced by AI?

 

What would you do if money was not important? (Stop doing a job you hate so you can get money to live a life you don’t like)

He also talked about an Universal basic income.

 

Nikola Serafimovski 

He’s working for PureLiFi, which uses the visible light spectrum instead of radio frequencies to enable high-speed wireless data communication and internet access. Fascinating demo.

 

John White – Leadership consultant (Leadership is a transfer of belief)
After stepping on a bomb in Afghanistan, he lost three limbs. He could have chosen to stay angry, but he discovered he had to forgive.

We underestimate the strength of the human body.

After he finished a 28.5h kayaking competition, he says:
Rule 1 – Keep Paddling

Rule 2 – Keep Cool

Rule 3 – Shit happens! When it does, refer to rule 1!

And now simply change the word „paddling” for „going”.

Do the impossible just to see if you can. 

 

Flavia Oprea is still a student. She leads team ENTy, an innovative med-tech start-up aiming to empower doctors to issue data-based assessments, while also increase accessibility to medical grade devices for doctors around the world.

In the ImagineCup international competition, Flavia took the stage and delivered a remarkable speech, blending tech elements with user experience and usability, and securing ENTy’s top position in one of the most prestigious youth tech competitions in the world.

She also demonstrated us how ENTy works and how it can reduce the outrageous cost of 11.000$ for a machine doing the Romberg test.

So she’s trying to make the world a better place. She says you have lived for nothing if you haven’t helped someone who can’t pay you back.

Be always balanced!

 

Ana Bercaru is only 16 years old and she wants to conquer infinity.

She talked about Alcubierre Warp Drive, that stretches spacetime in a wave causing the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand. And about other things that I don’t understand.

Her speech was not perfect, but it was definitely impressive: „My dream is that through this one single precious life I would contribute and maybe accelerate the research and development in FTL (faster than light) travel methods in the hope that I will catch at least the beginning of the Intergalactic Era.” 

So she wants to see intergalactic travel during her lifetime. Thinking ahead of time, indeed.

 

Bogdan Micu – he’s the one responsible for Inspectorul Pădurii app! He shared his idea on Facebook and over 100 developers offered to help. More than it was needed. (He is a volunteer consultant for the ministry of forestry and he made suggestions to improve the system. But when his idea was not accepted, he changed the tactics. Then they were forced to accept it)

He also said that in Romania they cut forests of the size of Bucharest and half of the wood cut is illegal.

 

Catalin Cosoi was one of my favourite speakers – very informed guy, talked about the bad versus the good hackers, he himself being a good hacker working for Bitdefender.

Main concern of the future? Security, since by 2020 each of us will use at least 5 wifi connected devices.

 

Alexandra Butmalai are 19 ani și știe foarte bine pentru ce se trezește fericită în fiecare dimineață. Pentru Fabrica de Experimente – o serie de experimente practice care explică teoriile de la școală. Împreună cu mai mulți elevi olimpici a realizat și o trusă de experimente, care e un fel de kit. Nu i-a ieșit chiar din prima, dar azi, la 19 ani, se poate numi Social Entrepreneur.

 

Cristina Bălan left Romania 14 years ago and was part of the engineering teams that designed two of the most famous US products in the world – Tesla Model S and Boeing 787 Dreamliner!

 

Patrick Kraker talked about wearables no longer only worn but also implanted.

 

Mi-au plăcut mult și momentele muzicale, foarte bine alese.

Mi-am dat seama că Zoli Toth e foarte tare. Mai întâi a pus bazele unei trupe spectaculoase care-a fost mult timp pe val (Sistem), iar apoi a reușit să se reinventeze. Iar acum Zoli Toth project este o formulă unică prin componență și instrumentele folosite: vioară, violoncel, tobe, butoaie electronice, vibrofon și marimba, o combinație între muzică clasică și pop&rock. În plus, el personal se implică în diverse campanii umanitare și luptă pentru multe cauze ecologice.

Iar de Subcarpați ce să mai zic? Mi se pare genial cum reușesc să combine elemente din muzica electronică și hip-hop cu influențe din folclorul românesc și să fie pe placul tot mai multor oameni, de vârste diferite. Au ridicat și azi sala în picioare. Și au dedicat la final această melodie speakerilor și organizatorilor TEDx: