TEDxAmsterdam

If often happens you need a truck full of sentences to explain your excitement to someone. On rare occasions you can succeed with only a handful of words. But only once you need just these three letters: TED. The annual conference on technology, entertainment and design that since 1984 has so succesfully been organised  first in Monterey and now in Long Beach, California, is about riveting talks by remarkable people. The sum of these talks make a living museum of ideas worth spreading, free to the world.

TED has kindly given cities around the planet permission to organise their own TED-like event, called TEDxTEDx Amsterdam will take place on Friday 20 November. The TEDx team consists of wonderful local talent, all armed with idiosyncratic experience from their respective fields: Jim Stolze (president and commander in chief), Marian Spier (vice-president and motor) and Monique van Dusseldorp (programme director and creative genius). And it is with great joy and even greater confusion I can announce they have invited me to become creative director of this event. This means I will be responsible for the complete TEDx experience in Amsterdam, on and offline, making it a unique Amsterdam adventure. Luckily, I won’t be doing this alone.  There are more people involved, like our good friend Nalden, whom I will mention as things develop.

Have a look at all the wonderful presentations at TED.com to get in the mood. As always, if you want to get involved or if you have great ideas, please get in touch with us or leave a comment below. Here are three of my favourite presentations, by Freeman DysonHans Rosling and Malcolm Gladwell:

By Juha — Posted June 8, 2009 — 50 Comments