Day 316 - TEDxVancouver

I'm still not a morning person; I barely got any sleep (less then 2 hours at best) @_@ But when I woke up, I had more energy then I should have! And even though I rushed to leave the house, I ended up missing the first 41st bus to UBC at 7:24am >_<

I did take some pictures at the event but I forgot my 50mm lens at home and my 30mm lens was just too wide, so I'm probably not going to post any of what I did get.

Anyway. Like how TEDxKids@BC was set-up, TEDxVancouver had a number of speakers talking about the frontiers in whatever field they are involved in. The theme for TEDxVancouver was "The Frontier" with the slogan "Ideas Worth Spreading" and even the notebook that we got has a very nice quote in it from Carl Sagan "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known"!

Although all of the speakers were really good, there were a few that I liked the most: Nolan Watson, Seth Cooper, General Romero Dallaire, Jer Thorp and Victor Lucas.

Nolan spoke about how our compassion in regards to helping the poor in Africa, kills. His premise was on how non-profit organizations spend 90% of what they raise on administration costs (even if they say otherwise) and the left over money goes to orphanages and such. The problem is based around how we AREN'T treating the cause of the problem, sure we're helping keep orphaned kids alive but we aren't teaching them the necessary skills to survive on their own and they grown up relying on the food and medicine that is handed-out to them. This dependence passes on their kids in the future since the parents don't know any other way to survive; this is unsustainable dependence. In the long term, more people die because of the lack of survival skills. He was suggesting that we should try to solve the problem at the root by investing in the ailing countries economy or supporting a charity that is building a school or something else that would support the infrastructure of the place in need. I do agree with his idea of fixing the root of the problem instead of just trying to "fix" the end result of it.

Seth's talk was about how video games can help major scientific discoveries become much easier to achieve. I've read articles about this before and it still kind of surprises me that people, who haven't studied a specific field, are capable of doing such amazing things when they believe that they are playing a game!

Now the General had a very interesting talk, I was paying quite a bit of attention to him. He was basically going over things that my poli sci teacher had gone over before in class. I don't want to paraphrase what he went over in-case I miss his meaning so I will see about adding his video into this post when it is posted online. I did however see a few holes in his message. He seemed to be forgetting that corporations exist to make the most money possible with the lowest costs associated with making that profit; it's what drives them to do things like encouraging war or for supplying both sides with weapons (because we all know that war is a very profitable business after all). Until they change and stop focusing on their bottom line, the status quo won't be that easy to change. Along with the fact that the world is almost blind to issues that are not being reported as well (or just not being reported enough), so many problems we just aren't seeing :/

Jer showed some amazing visualizations of how data is shared all over the internet and how it goes from person to person. One of the projects he made was openpaths.cc which takes the location data that iPhones store, and brought some controversy to Apple this year, and let you (the user/1st-party) actually see your own movements in visual form!

And last, but certainly not least, my favorite of the day; Victor Lucas. He runs his own production company but what I remember him most for are two TV shows that he hosts/hosted; Electric Playground and Reviews on the Run. I loved watching both shows when I was younger, they came on on the weekend when I had little to do and I think that they actually had a bit of an influence when I became interested in 3D animation (although we know how well that venture turned out). His talk was about how not to be a "dick" (seriously). Basically on why being a nice, caring person and staying around nice, caring people will make your life much better then someone who "dicks around" and has no clear goals. Seeing his talk would be far better then me just typing about it! And I REALLY wanted to meet him but I never got the chance too with such a large crowd at the Chan Centre

A few hours after the main event ended, there was a networking soiree event happening at the Space Centre as an after-party to TEDxVancouver. I didn't get any pictures since I had no one else to talk to and help me break the ice with anyone; the pains of having an introverted personality in situations where you believe you have nothing to offer to a conversation *sigh*. I'm never, ever going to go to such an event again if I can't confirm that someone I know is coming along too

Over all the day went really nicely. I still am saddened by the fact that I wasn't chosen as a volunteer photographer for the event but I still have TEDxLangara to look forward too at least.

Now to get some rest..