During the two sessions we had the chance to watch, we heard about the good and the bad: conflicts in the most dangerous parts of the world, and art that makes cities flourish. We also had time to reflect, and to give in to the hypnotizing southern music.

Photo (cc by-nc-nd) Piotr Mleczko

During the breaks, Kasia and Justyna organized a little upcycling workshop and taught us how to make wonderful cardboard wallets. They work, and they are fantastic

Photo (cc by-nc-nd) Piotr Mleczko

We ended the evening with an open lesson of a brazilian dance – Forró. Junior Arto from space for dance and movement Kontakt shared some of his energy and knowledge with us, and taught us the basics. It was so much fun, we left for dry land just before midnight.

Photo (cc by-nc-nd) Piotr Mleczko

We’re preparing a small video from the event, and event more photos — so stay tuned by following us on Facebook. See you at the next TEDxKrakowLive!

Last time, all the entrance “tickets” (they are free of course) were taken 36 minutes after we published the information about the registration on Facebook. We’re impressed by your enthusiasm and happy that you want to join us on BARKA food.life.music in Krakow to watch the live transmission from TED Global, taking place in far Rio.

Our event starts on 9 October at 5 pm, and the streaming begins at 6 pm. Some of you asked why we’re hosting a smaller event this time – it’s an experiment, we just wanted to have a cozy atmosphere to have a good talk and get to know you all better. Barka seems an ideal place for such an event (it’s a ship!).

We’re preparing some great attractions apart from the very streaming, so don’t hesitate to register. The registration form will go live again today at 3 pm. Hope to see you next week!

Fot. Dzięki uprzejmości BARKA food.life.music.

With expanding globalisation, the fact that cities becoming increasingly powerful entities in their own right, and the fast-approaching local government elections in Poland, it seems a good moment to reflect on our rights as citizens of this city, to influence its future. What kind of people should we elect to represent us and manage the mechanics of keeping Krakow going? Do we want pragmatists, or visionaries? How can we monitor if the power that we entrust to them is used properly?

The meeting is going to be led by two of our team members who are both fans of urban life: Ewa Spohn and Rafał Sanecki.

Ewa Spohn, curator of TEDxKrakow, during our main conference in 2013 at Stara Zajezdnia, and Marek Wierzbicki with whom she co-hosted the event.

Ewa, a born and bred Londoner, has been curator of TEDxKrakow for the last 4 years, where she manages a team of over 20 volunteers. She reads a lot, cooks very well and clearly has the talent and drive to find awesome speakers for our live conferences. As for Rafał, who looks after our sponsors, he comes from Mielec but has been living and working in Krakow for a couple of years. He is constantly passionate about the idea of smart city and also known in our team as a “city maniac” as he blogs at miastamaniak.pl.

Rafał Sanecki alias “city maniac” talks about Kraków’s challenges at the meeting organized in June 2014 at Wytwórnia by the Code for Poland and Social Innovations Workshop.

Whether you’re a committed voter or an ambivalent transient, join us from 6.30pm on Tuesday 2 September at Pauza In Garden (ul. Rajska 12, entrance from ul. Szujskiego) for a discussion on where we’re heading (we’ll start with the TED Talks and discussion at 7pm sharp). The TED Talks will be in English with Polish subtitles and the discussion will be primarily held in Polish, however contributions in English will be welcome. The number of spaces is limited so registration is essential.

You can register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tedxkrakowcinema-tickets-12823000941

We are looking for people who are doing something special, have charisma and know how to involve others to change the world for the better. Do you know someone like that? Nominate him for the 2015 TED Prize! You really should, because the award is not only prestigious, but is awarded to an extraordinary individual with a creative and bold vision to spark global change. TED Prize supports that one wish to inspire the world by giving that person $1 million dollars towards their powerful idea.  This year’s winner has just been announced! Charmian Gooch, focused on fighting against corruption, is the 2014 TED Prize recipient.

Don’t miss this chance to nominate someone special you know. Nominations for the 2015 TED Prize may be submitted until March 31, 2014.

Join the discussion this week…

This Wednesday at 16.00, we will meet in Krakow’s Klub Pauza to watch together the broadcast from this year’s main TED conference in Vancouver, that will include a speech from Charmian Gooch. But before we broadcast the first session, we will want to talk to you about your ideas for 2015 TED Prize nominees from Krakow or Poland. The mic will be yours; we will listen and take notes. The criteria for nominations is pretty simple: any individual that envisions and executes a high-impact project that can spur global change. We hope that you will come on Wednesday with many great ideas to share!

Past Award Recipients…

In 2010, Jamie Oliver, who advocates the culinary revolution working to build healthy habits in kids and adults through impacting school institutions, businesses, and the government received the TED Prize. Healthy eating is, according to Jamie, the key to health and the most effective remedy for the high rates of obesity in the United States.

Among winners of the TED Prize, there are also politicians, scientists and artists. In 2007, the prize was awarded to Bill Clinton, who through his Clinton Health Access Initiatives foundation ( CHAI ) has created together with the Government of Rwanda a program to combat HIV / AIDS. Through this initiative, hospitals and a network of qualified medical personnel who support the local community in terms of medical assistance were established in Rwanda, as well as educational program about HIV infection prevention.

Past TED Prize Winners.

In 2011, a French photographer called JR was recognized for his art project Inside Out. JR traveled from Ecuador to Nepal, and Mexico to Palestine, inspiring group actions on topics such as hope, diversity, gender-based violence and climate change. As part of the Inside Out project over 110,00 portraits have been posted in 108 countries.

“Women Are Heroes” organized in Kenya by JR.

Qualification Process…

After the submission deadline of March 31 passes, a judging committee goes through all the applications until June 11. After July 21, the selected finalists undergo thorough examination by the judges and a winner gets selected. Results will be announced during next year’s TED conference in March 2015.

Nomination evaluation process.

Hope to see you on Wednesday (19 March 2014) at 16.00 in the basement of Klub Pauza on Florianska 18. Remember, seating is first come first serve.

Our speaker leads a nomadic life between the Carpathian Mountains, Krakow and the rest of Europe. She is addicted to the mountains, especially those over two thousand meters above sea level. Passion for nomadic life is reflected in her academic and artistic activity that resembles a constant journey between her many interests. Radio listeners will know the voice of Anna’s broadcast “The negatives of pop culture.” Experimental folk lovers – from Magic Carpathians CDs or concerts, which started our as a musical project created in 1998 with Marek Styczyński. Her students will know her from her classes on cyberculture, media theory, cultural studies, gender issues, anthropology and audio-visual concepts, as well as research of sound.

Anna is an assistant professor at the Institute of Audiovisual Arts at the Jagiellonian University and co-author of the research project titled “Urban Culture – nodes and flows.” She studied different forms of communication in the city’s social ecosystem as part of her research. As she says “the deeply hidden element of urban culture ” are the things that determine the atmosphere or magic of the city.

In her TEDxKraków talk, she’ll suggest new ways of thinking about communication within Kraków; rather than treating the audience as a scattered unit belonging to different categories based on age, education or identity, it is worth thinking about groups, nodes and associations, that are linked together in very complex networks. You can learn more about Anna’s work from her blog and also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Not at all. In fact, Agnieszka is a strong advocate for the “prophylactic” use of lawyers. She argues that these days, ordinary people go to lawyers the way they went to dentists 30 years ago: only when they are in so much pain that they can no longer ignore it. Unfortunately, this approach leads to far too many teeth being pulled that could have been saved had their owners sought treatment earlier. Agnieszka argues that it’s pretty a similar situation for legal advice.

It all started when Agnieszka tried out writing down the law she was studying at the Jagiellonian University as algorithms. It just seemed like a natural way of understanding what was going on and many of her classmates agreed – she got so many requests to share them that she decided to publish them on her blog. She wants to make it possible for anyone to understand the laws of the land, and not just highly paid lawyers. The blog took off almost immediately! Her original goal was to make legal information accessible, but she soon found that she was getting constant requests for legal opinions on specific situations.

At TEDxKraków, Agnieszka will argue that setting this information free is not ruining the market as some of her peers (and professors) have suggested but is ultimately beneficial for both parties. She says that a more informed public means more informed clients that call on lawyers more often, in a preventative way.

Photo: Michael Brands

The broadcast attracted large crowds of Kraków’s TED enthusiasts who believe in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. This, in a nutshell, is the TED motto of “Ideas Worth Spreading”.

From yo-yo play to biotech
TEDxKrakówLive lasts just one evening, but so much has happened that we do not know where to start! In the first couple of hours we saw over 20 talks given by some fascinating people from all over the world. The speakers were designers, artists, scientists, inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, architects, environmentalists. We found out, among other things, the spectacular tricks you can do with a simple yo-yo, the difference between couch surfing and crowd surfing, what crowd funding is, how biotechnologists are working to bring back extinct species and how, in 10-15 years from now, we will be able to transfer ideas from our heads straight to digital media. It is impossible to list everything – if you weren’t there, you’ll just have to look out for the talks as they are published on TED.com!

Nuclear fusion in a garage
We were captivated by Taylor Wilson who, as a 14 year old, became the youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion – with a reactor he built in his parents’ garage. A self-taught nuclear scientist, Taylor graduated from high school in May 2012 and rather than going to college he was funded by Silicon Valley’s Peter Theil to start up his own business. Now he is working on, among other things, low-cost radiation detectors for plutonium and uranium, which will help to fight nuclear terror at seaports. When TED Curator Chris Anderson asked Taylor’s mother where he came from, she answered: “I don’t know”.

How to make an unfeasible film
Referring to his film debut “Mars et Avril”, a remarkable science-fiction romance, Martin Villeneuve struck us with his words: “I made a film that was impossible to make, only I didn’t know it was impossible. That is actually why I was able to do it, because I did not know it was impossible”. The graphic artist noticed that people tend to seek the constraints rather than looking for solutions but, he reasoned, “if you treat the problems as your allies rather than your opponents, life will start to dance with you in the most amazing ways.”

Martin Villeneuve presenting the stunning shots of his first-ever film “Mars et Avril”, a romantic sci-fi movie set in a futuristic Montreal. | Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Don’t make people pay for music. Figure out how to let them.
Speaking to the TEDxKrakówLive participants during breaks between sessions, I found out that many were most touched by Amanda Palmer’s talk on “The art of asking”. The American musician and blogger presented an astonishing vision of the new relationship between artist and fans which is built on trust. As Amanda says, if she asks the audience for their help, whether it’s financial support, a bed for the night or a meal, it leads to authentic human bonding with her fans. I am not keen on her music, but her speech was important, revelatory and precious to me.

Backstage notes
I went to TEDxKrakówLive because of curiosity which was stronger than pain from a sinus infection. Irritable, with a runny nose, I left home at 4pm with a box of tissues and a book. I took along the book so I could participate in the “Exchange of Inspirations” interaction. I got back home at 1am (!), happy about the thrilling evening I was unexpectedly given and smiling widely even though nobody could see me anymore in a quiet sleeping house. The only thing that did not change was my sinusitis which remained untouched by the exchange idea. Well, I guess maybe it’s better this way.

Exchange of inspirations
We asked everyone to bring a movie, a book or anything that had inspired them or changed their life and exchange it with something from someone else. As I wanted to experience the “Exchange of Inspirations”, I chose Paul Arden’s book, “Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite”, to give it away. It turned out there were two different people who wanted to get it, but I had only one copy; moreover, both of them had equally enticing titles to offer and I could not decide who I wanted to exchange with. Eventually, we exchanged our emails and we will exchange the books again someday soon. This is double interaction, why not?! Also, the publication I received from a likable stranger in the first “round” is really… inspirational to me, as I do not have children yet: “God Knows Parenting Is a Wild Ride: 9 Things to Hold on to” by Kathy Coffey.

Postscript
In addition to a million of surprising thoughts, I brought about even something more from TEDxKrakówLive: an unexpected invitation to an interesting event for women, an unexpected cooperation proposal and three emails to the amazing girls with whom I spent a great evening. One of them is an architect, the other – a pharmacist, and the third one – a mother, a house manager and a milliner in one person. We could not stop talking!

TEDxKrakówLive thanks our partners for their support in making this event possible: AON Hewitt, iMad and Pauza.