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Reflections on TedX Cape Town – Closing Thoughts

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This is the final part of my series about TedX Cape Town 2011, and here is where I get to reflect on the experience as a whole, and what I got out of it.

For those of you that are interested in the previous parts of this series, discussing the individual sessions:

The whole experience for me was truly amazing. It was a true pleasure to listen to intelligent and passionate people who are truly working to change and improve the world we all live in. It made me want to do something that matters more with my life, and to pick a truly inspiring cause for myself.

In addition to that, it managed ot make me more aware of the role water plays in our lives, and of the limitations that the ways we are currently utilising it are putting on our development. In one day, they managed to make me care more about water, than an entrie childhood spent with two civil engineers speicialising in water supply. In that sense, TedX Cape Town was a success.

The audience at the talk was every bit as interesting as the people on the stage, and I believe that every single person I spoke to had an idea worth spreading, and deserved to be on the stage in a future Ted event. I really hope I manage to stay in touch with the people that I have met.

And finally, here are a couple of links, for those of you that want to learn more about TedX Cape Town, or just read somebody else’s point of view on it:

Reflections on TedX Cape Town – Session 3

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This is my overview of the first afternoon session of TedX Cape Town 2011.

If you are interested in reading the rest of the entries, you can find them here:

Justin Friedman – For Love of Water

I came back a bit late from lunch, and missed the first couple of minutes of this presentation. Here Justin talked about For Love of Water. And encouraged all of us to be for the love of water, and to try to understand and appreciate its power and impact that it has on us.

Edwin Roberts- Share the Vision, Dream and Future Realities of Broadband and Biometrics

In this presentation Edwin talks about biometrics, and the use of mobile phones to store and track biometric data, for use in areas such as health and payments. Biometrics can be used to ensure that a person is present, and to confirm their identity, and therefore enable easier monitoring of how resources are used, as well as tracking the effects of various attempted fixes.

Simon de Haan – Making the Invisible Visible

This session was one of the most interesting for me. In it, Simon talks about the fact that a lot of Soth Africans have cellphones, most of them on prepaid contracts. As he pointed out, even though they often cannot phone or sms out, the fact that they have a cellphone means that they can still be reached. They are invisible, and his foundation makes sure that they do not feel undervalued.

The first project he spoke about is simply sending reminders to people for when they need to come in to take their retrovirals. Apparently this simple steps resulted in reducing missed appointments from 30% to about 5%.

The second project he spoke about was a system that would keep farmers updated about the sales of their crops by agents, also using sms.

The third and last project Simon talked about involved a mobile site for young people about sex and relationships.

I really think that mobile is the future, and it was interesting to see the uses that people are putting mobile technology to.

Ard Matthews - Loop de loop

This was the surprise guest of the day, and he performed two songs, Shallow Waters and Redemption, both very appropriate to TedX Cape Town.

Between the songs, Ard spoke about the fact that he uses very few chords in his songs, and that by keeping things simple, he is able to make beautiful music.

Claire Janisch – The Genius of Water

This was a short presentation about biomimicry, the idea of seeing how thin

Reflections on TedX Cape Town – Session 2

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If you are interested in reading the rest of the entries, you can find them here:

The second session of the day involved more in-depth talks, which were a bit longer on average.

Tony Budden – Hemp: Educate Innovate Cultivate

In this presentation, Tony spoke about the uses or Bannabis, or more specifically Hemp, which is not psychoactive, ulike its better known cousin, Marijuana. Despite this shortcoming, hemp does have a bounty of uses, including clothing, food, paper, oil and even building material. It can be used for all this, using a minimum of arable land, time and resources.

Tony also spoke about the hemp house being built at the moment, in which the entire house and most of the furnishings is made from hemp materials. It looks like a fascinating project, and I would love to see the house once it is finished.

Kershan Pancham – Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Me of Them All?

I think this was one of my favorite presentations of TedX, in which Kershan speaks about how we can determine who we really are, and leads to the suggestion that we can learn about ourselves by using the people and situations around us as mirrors, suggesting that we the things that we hate or love about the people around us are merely reflections of our own capabilities and problems, we merely like or dislike things in ourselves, but the other people act as mirrors, revealing our own selves.

This is not a new idea to me, but I have never seen it so well presented as with what Kershan did.

Leigh Meinert – Jump University

A presentation about an independent university, which provides bursaries to people from disadvantaged communities, and provides them with a well rounded education, producing leaders and people to build up the industry.

Rob Harmon – How the Market can Keep Streams Flowing

This was a pre-recorded talk, about the problems of river water wastage in Montana, due to outdated water laws, and using the market to ensure that water remains within the river, by encouraging companies to “buy” the water from the people who hold the rights to it, and leaving it in the river.

It was actually a fairly interesting idea. But it also seemed to highlight how outdated laws can cause a lot of damage, and a workaround like the one implemented should not have been necessary in the first place.

Theresa Mallinson – Media Freedom in Africa: an Ideal Worth Living For

Theresa started off by presenting the shocking state of the free media in Africa, apparently there are only five countries in Africa that meet the highest free media criteria, and even those only barely (and no, South Africa is not one of them).

She then spoke about free African media, a site that published stories about media freedom from the whole continent. They are planning to release the articles under a creative commons license, in order to ensure that the information gets out to as many people as possible.

Nathan Daniel Heller – Playing to Change the World

It seems that the last presentation of a session suffers a bit from the fact that the audience has been drinking from a firehose of thought and inspiration from the speakers before.

Nathan spoke about the project he was involved with in South America, in which his team integrated with the people, in order to help them improve their lives through creativity and play.

Reflections on TedX Cape Town – Session 1

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As those of you that follow me on twitter already know, I attended TedX Cape Town this Saturday, and I had an absolutely amazing time.

I have decided to write a series of posts in order to share my impressions of the proceedings, while they are still somewhat fresh in my mind.

If you are interested in reading the rest of the entries, you can find them here:

The videos for the talks will be released on the 5th of May, and the talks are all available already as a free podcast from iono.fm.

So, I will start with the talks in session 1. These are the talks I remember, and if I have left any out, please let me now in the comments.

Session 1 was mainly dedicated to young ideas, that are still in their early stage of development, and the talks were very short, lasting a couple of minutes each.

After the introduction, the first speech should technically go to Bruce Lee, as the organisers played the following clip, in order to set the tone for the rest of the talk.

Richard Palmer – water:sewer:power:food

In this talk, Richard spoke about how water, sewage, power and food supply are treated as separate systems, which, while they may be individually efficient, may still produce inefficiencies through their interaction. He proposed a new system for urban areas, in which the four systems were interlinked. It was an interesting speech, and I really felt that the short time did not do the topic justice.

Joseph Wamicha – Improving the future of Wireless Communications

This was the first of the technology sessions, in which Joseph spoke about rethinking the design of antennas, in order to increase the range and capacity of current wifi and radio networks, which would go to some length towards making the net more accessible throughout the world.

Justin Alvey – A water-well Inspired Approach to Sharing Power in Rural Areas

An interesting idea, and the first time one of the recurring themes of TedX Cape Town was mentioned, although in passing, which is of the importance of mobile communications in Africa, and the developing world in general.

The basic idea is simple, and in my opinion, very practical. Justin proposes that each village have an ‘electricity well’ (my term, not Justin’s), a central generator, powered by renewable energy, and that each household should get a large ‘battery’, which they could recharge at the ‘well’, and use the power at home for their needs.

Peter Janse van Rensburg – 10 Nifty things YOU can do with Nanotechnology

In this highly interesting presentation, Peter took one particular example of nanotechnology, a spray that coats a surface with a water replant layer, allowing the water to slide of. He then went one to propose ten different uses for this technology, ranging from world shaking to silly. I found it an interesting and highly amusing presentation.

Ricky Lee Gordon – Inspiring Ourselves to Inspire Others to Inspire Change

This was a pre-recorded speech, in which Ricky explained his approach to art, and the various projects that he has been involved with to pretify areas around South Africa.

It was one of those presentations that I struggle to find something to say about, since the main impact was in seeing the amazing work that Ricky and his team do.

Phindile Mangwana – The Role of Environmental Education in Tackling the Urban Water Crisis

Phindile talked about the fact that water and conservation are problems that are best tackled at the level of community, and by looking for solutions from with the community.

Lise Pretorius – A New Generation of Wealth

In this speech, Lise spoke about her experiences when she had the chance to live in a small village without water or electricity, and how the scarcity of water and other resources lead to them getting treated as precious.

Ntombiza Lingani – The Wilderness Experience

For me, this was one of the most powerful presentations of the first session. In it, Ntombiza talks about her experience of solitude in the mountains, and how that allowed her to get in touch with her core, and helped her to get clear on what she wanted out of life.

I think the reason why I found this so intriguing is because I have always been fascinated by the idea of solitude, having spent my whole life in cities and surrounded by people.

Bernelle Verster – Musings of a Water Maverick

Bernelle, one of the organisers of TedX Cape Town, toke the last presentation of the session, and she spoke about “For Love of Water”, and the important work they do in spreading awareness, and in looking for solutions to the current water crisis.

Bernelle’s presentation was very good, but by this stage I was already feeling a bit overwhelmed by the firehose of the ideas I had been exposed to by then, and I did not give it the attention it deserved.

That was it for the first session, I will try to do a write up for the second session soon as well.