The registration desks opened at 9:30 and that’s how the day started. It seemed everyone was surprised by the amount of colours, which added cheerfulness to the rather moderate black, red and white interior of ICE Kraków Congress Centre (TED colours!), as well as by the number of smiling, eager to help volunteers.

fot. Marc McLaughlin

Those who came early could take their time to discover companies that presented their developments in the Demo Alley. It was a space for unusual local entrepreneurs, created in collaboration with Krakow Technology Park (read more about Demo Alley here).

Right before 11 am the main auditorium started to fill up with people – the total number of participants was about 1200! The hosts, Ewa and Marcin, greeted the guests (among which was Marek Sowa, voivodeship marshal of Lesser Poland) and quickly made way to the speakers. The first talk was given by professor Jerzy Vetulani, a frequent speaker at TEDx events. He spoke about how our brain is able to „connect the dots” and navigate. He was followed by Ania Gruszczyńska, who encouraged us to accept ourselves as we are and to resist accepting the perfect body image which is being promoted by the media. Then, it was back to the familiar faces – Tal Golesworthy told of his experiences after speaking at TEDxKraków in 2011 (his talk is available here). The session was concluded with the performance of the Nowodworski Choir – its conductor Ryszard Źróbek disclosed the secrets of combining different melodic lines (as well as personalities) in order to achieve perfect harmony.

The first break seemed short, probably thanks to great, light snacks and delicious coffee. Judging by the queues, it must’ve been good!

During the second session we heard three speakers: Joanna McCoy (why do we help others and what acting selflessly really is?), Matt Clarke (he encouraged us to positively influence other people) and Stephen Coates, who told the story of USSR citizens who risked their freedom for music forbidden during the Cold War. The talks were followed by a performance by Dariusz Dobroszczyk Trio, during which many of us had a chance to relax and ponder about…well, lunch maybe?

In order to facilitate integration (and service) we encouraged everyone to gather in groups of four, who were then given vegetarian burgers. Happy and full, we dispersed taking over the whole ICE. Some sat on the terrace enjoying the view of Wawel and the Wisła river. Others decided to burn the calories on stationary bikes provided by one of the partners. There was also a group which went to the Demo Alley to relax in a mini-park and play with robots.

fot. Bartosz Pawlik

Speaking of robots… the third session was started by little Matt. Afterwards the scene was taken over by Iwona Olszowska, who through dance and words convinced us to work on the mind and body connection. Artist Alek Janicki showed us his multimedia art installations and Magda Kozłowska urged us to raise the issue of air pollution in Kraków – is everyone aware that we’re living in the third most polluted city in Europe? The last two speakers were well known to the Kraków’s start up circles – Piotr Wilam talked about the IT business cluster and Paweł Jarmołkowicz made a case for trying to solve the most serious problems of our world. Hopefully you felt as motivated as we did! All was left to do is rethink all this during a performance by Patrick the Pan.

fot. Wojciech Pasoń

If you want to go back to this day and to the talks, read our live blog, take a look at our Facebook and Twitter. See also Instagram for the pictures. Judging by the amount of your posts, photos and comments, for you this also was a really special day. Flickr is slowly filling up with pictures from our photographers and soon we will be sharing the recorded talks of our speakers.

We’re happy you spent the day with us!

9.00: Doors open, Demo Alley

9.30: Registration

11.00-12.30: Session 1: Reconnect yourself
Jerzy Vetulani
Anna Gruszczyńska
Tal Golesworthy
Rycerzyki
Ryszard Źróbek & Chór Nowodworski

13.15-14.45: Session 2: Reconnecting dreams
Joanna McCoy
Matt Clarke
Stephen Coates
Dariusz Dobroszczyk Trio
Rob Wilmot

16.15-18.00: Session 3: Reconnecting us
Iwona Olszowska
Alek Janicki
Magda Kozłowska
Paweł Jarmołkowicz
Piotr Wilam
Patrick the Pan

19.00: Afterparty
Pasaż (Pasaż Bielaka, Rynek Główny 9/Stolarska 6)

———————–

WIFI:
name: State Street
password: joinourteam

#tedxkrakow
@tedxkrakow

It has been four years since your talk at TEDxKraków. What have you been working on?
I just finished working on the film “Paradise on Earth”. It’s the story of Arthur and Iwona, a homeless couple I met two years ago, when I stepped into an abandoned house on my street. I never would have thought that this meeting would turn into a new art project.
To create the project “6 rivers”, I chose to kayak on all the rivers of Krakow. I don’t know if someone has ever done it before … and mind you, there are no queues there, like on Mount Everest… (smiles)
From discussions with my guide, ornithologist Kazimierz Walasz I learned that city rivers, even the smallest ones, are wildlife sanctuaries. I discovered that waterways are rich ecosystems and that they are full of life. Rivers are the lifeblood of our town. Krakowód – a map of local rivers shows a completely new perspective of the city. As a result, we discover that nature in Krakow is actually at our fingertips.

We also had to once more put on the butterfly wings, in order to protect Zakrzówek.
When working on new projects, I discovered that I am not alone. Water Critical Mass was established and I feel that I have friends.
Then there was also “Białka’s Braids” – a protest against the regulation of river Białka. It is not in Krakow, but it has been present in my life since childhood. The idea of weaving braids came to me when I was doing my daughter’s hair.

What is your next project?
The project “Let’s protect the Riparian Forest” is already underway. Trees in the Vistula river floodplain in Przegorzały have been labeled by authority. We have a bad feeling about what’s coming, but we will not let them be cut down. Together with students of Art Education and our collective Water Critical Mass, we are preparing to take action in order to save trees from being cut down and to prevent the construction of a parking lot at Plac Inwalidow. It’s called “Threads of the parking lot” which is a Polish idiom and means that nothing will come of it.

And what is Cecylia Malik’s dream?
Of course, after every new project I dream to spend more time with my family. I would love to spend time kayaking with my husband and create a series of new beautiful paintings.

Thank you very much for your time and the interview and I already invite you to our next edition of TEDxKraków, on 13 June 2015 r.!

The interview was conducted by Katarzyna Mroczek. Watch Cecylia’s 2011 Talk below:

This is exactly the kind of story TEDxKraków likes the most, so we invited Michał to become a TEDxKraków 2013 Speaker. A year and a half later, when I messaged Michał via Facebook to ask him if he’d liked to answer a couple of questions on his activities since his Talk, he replied: „Sure. I lost my job, nothing makes me happy and my dog ran away from me”, and after a couple of minutes (sometimes you have to make time for tea, don’t you?): „Ula, are you there? I was kidding…”. Thankfully, it went more smoothly later on!

You know TEDxKraków both from the Attendee and the Speaker’s side, so you know best what is the experience like. Can you tell us something about it?My being a TEDxKraków Speaker was one of the coolest experiences of my life, but also one of the most stressfull. Those couple of minutes before you enter the stage and cannot cancel it, and you wish for this undiscovered asteroid approaching Kraków… it’s hard to describe. It was a special mixture of huge satisfaction and stress, the latter totally unnecessary. If I could give some advice to future speakers, it’d be: think of the joy of being part of this amazing initiative! The rest will just happen. Stress is overrated!
What’s important, we’ve been noticed by some magazines and radio stations, and soon we’re appearing in Astronarium TV show, devoted to Polish astronomy.

What else happened since then?
A lot has changed. First of all, we’re operating our second observatory on the Atakama Desert in Chile. Like the Italian Rantiga Osservatorio I spoke about on TEDx, it’s a remotely controlled robot, which, thanks to the Internet connection, does not need direct supervision. I co-own the observatory with my friend from Poznań, an astrophotographer, Marcin Gędek, and of course the irraplaceable Michał Kusiak helps me comb through the sky. Due to the huge amount of data, we have even more help – from Rafał Reszelewski.

And what about the Italian observatory? We hope you don’t neglect the cows!
Not at all! Rantiga now searches not only for planetoids, but also for supernovas. The research team has grown here as well – Grzegorz Duszanowicz, based in Sweden, marked his place in Polish astronomy thanks to his supernova discoveries made through an amateur observatory near Stockholm.
The cows are fine. I’d like to pass my greetings to TEDxKraków fans, but I cannot do it without the herd leader’s consent.

It must be quite a challenge, operating two observatories on two different parts of the globe!
Well, it’s demanding. You don’t sleep a lot with more than 300 clear nights in Chile and a quite good weather in Italy. Despite full automatization, we have to visit the locations quite often – cleanse the optics, change the rolls, cords and dust the interiors.

And the effects? Do such amateur observatories have the chance to have their say among those big, state-financed projects?
Last June me and Michał Kusiak had a speech at the most important conference on asteroids, comets and supernovas. We were the only amateurs there. We talked about building our observatory in front of managers of the world’s biggest research programs. What’s more, while listening to a speech concerning the work of contemporary observatories, we saw the discoveries of our own Rantiga Osservatorio on one of the slides. Just next to million-dollar enterprises. You can imagine the satisfaction.

Wow, congratulations! So what are the chances for the TEDxKraków asteroid? You promised!
We’re still waiting for our discoveries to be confirmed by the Harvard’s Minor Planet Center. It’s a long process until we get „our” asteroids numbered. So far we’ve got „Zdzisław Łączny”, named after an engineer who helped us build Rantiga. I also have my part of the space of a diameter of 2 kilometers, called Żołnowski (384815), which orbits between Mars and Jupiter.

Thank you very much for the talk and I hope we’ll meet on TEDxKraków 2015!

Michał Żołnowski is a physician and an amateur astronomer, who built remotely controlled astronomical observatory in an Italian village Tincana. Listen how he shares the story on TEDxKraków 2013 stage:

P.S. Asked to recommend the TEDx community some TED Talks, Michał chose two: Distant Time and the Hint of a Multiverse by Sean Carroll and Four Principles for the Open World by Don Tapscott. Enjoy!

In case of TEDxKraków2013 in Stara Zajezdnia, it took us a couple of months of solid work to prepare for the event. We decided to use the Service Design method for this purpose and thought about the conference as about a service that needs to be designed in a way that will be most beneficial for TEDx fans. In May 2013 we met for an all-day workshop led by our team members: Krzysiek and Bartek, who taught us all about this method and helped us in the planning process step by step. We started from analysing feedback received from participants of the previous TEDx editions and looking at all the different questions and comments we came across e.g.: “why is the registration form so complicated”, “I wonder if anyone thought of vegetarian dishes” and “I hope they are not going to run out of coffee”.

We then tried to identify ourselves with the conference participants by creating profiles of certain types of people attending TEDx. We created detailed “personas” for each type by almost turning them into real characters and describing their lifestyle, appearance, their main concerns and things that make them happy. That’s how Jacek was brought to life. Jacek is an IT student, who constantly plays with his smartphone and is worried that he won’t be able to check in at the conference. Kasia, another persona we created, is a wife of one of the speakers who doesn’t know what to expect at the event, but would like to meet new people and spend a nice day with them. We developed over a dozen of such profiles – you well know how diverse is the TEDx audience and how many different lifestyles they represent.

Having in mind all the expectations, needs and different personalities amongst our audience, we tried to imagine how they find out about the conference, where do they look for information and how do they get to know the program. That was enough work to keep us busy for the next couple of months. We met every week during the summer before TEDxKraków 2013 to plan all interactions with participants that took place before the event (e.g. how should the registration and the attendance confirmation look like, how to announce upcoming speakers and activities on the day of the conference), during the conference (handing out the badges, goodie bags, the distance to cloakroom and toilets) and after the event (planning after-party, collecting feedback, retaining relations). On top of planning the path of attending the event for each type of participants (including standard attendees, speakers, media representatives, sponsors), we also mapped the interactions with the key internal, external and associated stakeholders (simply speaking, we thought about who is or/and could potentially be involved in the event and what are the relationships between them).

Did we think of everything and everyone? Definitely not. However, what we do know is that TEDxKraków 2013 was the best conference we managed to organise so far and we plan to do so even better the next time round. Despite the fact that the next conference will take place in the middle of 2015, all teams have already started to discuss the paths of ‘their’ types of participants and we are going to meet all together at the beginning of December to unite our forces and combine our ideas. There is one thing we know for sure – TEDxKraków2015 is going be something big!

P.S. If you are interested in Service Design and would like to find out more about the tools we used to plan TEDxKraków 2013, visit Krzysiek’s company website – PLEO Design.

In theory the answer to this question should be pretty straightforward no matter where you are, but if you ask around you realize it depends more on people’s background than their location. Americans will automatically think about the southern United States, Warsawians will direct you to the south of the city, and for some English native speakers “heading south” will mean for something to begin to fail or start going bad. Things can get even more complicated if you ask this question in China, where historically people orient themselves using not 4, but 5 cardinal directions, with the fifth one heading to the center of the country! The way we perceive the world is biased by our background, experiences and culture, and as Nelson Mandela said, “Where you stand depends on where you sit”.

Having that in mind, we invite you to look at the world from a different angle and get energized by fresh, innovative ideas from South America that will be presented at the next TEDGlobal 2014 conference “South!” taking place in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Join us on 9^th October at TEDxKrakowLive 2014 to watch a live transmission from Rio de Janeiro and let us completely change your world perspective. The venue still remains a secret, but the registration will open very soon, so follow us and watch out for details!

Why “South!”?

South America and Brazil in particular have been experiencing rapid economic growth over the past few years, what is visible not only in the region’s financial results, but also in changes within society. The middle class is growing very fast; the government makes efforts to reform education, and the urban population growth forces cities to revolutionize their infrastructure. The fast growth brings challenges too and as Poles know from their own experience, nothing boosts the creativity more than difficult life conditions. And as investors turn South to look for business opportunities, TEDGlobal goes to Rio de Janeiro to hunt for fresh, innovative ideas and the energy that enables the South to grow and to turn upside down everything the western hemisphere often takes for granted.

For a taste of what is going on in the south, check out TED Talks from Latin American speakers, including a TED Talk from the Rio’s mayor – Eduardo Paes, presenting both challenges and hopes of the conference’s host city – Rio de Janeiro.

TEDKrakówLive 2014 – registration will start soon!

We will soon reveal the venue of the next TEDKrakówLive, taking place on 9th of October 2014 and open up the event registration. There is no admission fee to attend the event, but the number of seats is limited, so don’t miss your chance and follow our blog and Facebook for updates.

See you in the “South!”!

The house was full of people right when the event started at 16.00. Everyone looking forward to having a chance of participating in the 30th anniversary TED conference. We started the evening off with a discussion on which Polish people should be nominated for the TED Prize – a prize of one million dollars for implementation a wish that will change the world for the better. It was great to hear everyone’s ideas!

Afterwards, everyone took seat and prepared for tuning in to Session 4: Wish straight from Vancouver, Canada, where this year’s TED conference was taking place. The first speaker, son of a terrorist, Zak Ebrahim, told a story of how he had to learn to question beliefs in which he was raised. Then Bill and Melinda Gates in an interview conducted by Chris Anderson, shared their thoughts on philanthropic activities. Later, Charmian Gooch of Global Witness organization and winner of this year’s TED Prize, discussed fighting with anonymous, corrupted companies. And at the end of the evening, Sting performed songs from his latest album The Last Ship as well as his hit Message in the Bottle.

After nearly two hours of presentations, the time came again for some interaction. “When planning TEDxKrakówLive, I wanted to get participants to talk to each other, to know each other, and above all – to think critically about ideas they heard from Canada,” said Ula Madej, one of the organizers of the event. “Are the ideas from Canada actually worth promoting? Do you want them to be implemented in our local community?” she continued.

TED’s slogan is ” ideas worth spreading” and TED encourages us to take a critical approach to the submitted ideas and share the really valuable ones as that is the purpose of our local TEDx events.

Group discussions emerged and a lot of interesting ideas were shared from certificates granted by consumers for ethical companies through teaching kids located in rural areas how to better present their ideas. It’s amazing how much you can come up with in just 20 minutes of discussion with people you have never met before. You can find the notes taken during the event on our Facebook page and we encourage you to continue the discussion!

After a short break, we moved back in front of the screens to see the All Stars session: Beauty and the Brain.” It was fairly short with some of the best speakers who appeared on the TED stage in previous years. Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist, talked about the impact of computer games as well as growing up without a father on the development of young boys; Jane McGonigal talked about the benefits of computer gamers on mental health; Jill Bolte Taylor (her TED Talk already has 15 million hits!) talked how TED has changed her life; and Emily Levine presented a short video that was different but entertaining.

Thank you again to everyone that came that evening to support TEDxKraków. As soon as the recording of the conference will appear on TED.com, we will let you know via Facebook.  Also, big thank you to iMad for renting us the registration equipment, Very Nice Media for preparing promotional video and Bartolomeo for taking pictures at the event.

The last weekend of October will see making happening all over Kraków. The TEDxKraków theme this year is Make! so we’ve invited a number of local initiatives as well as a few of this year’s TEDxKraków speakers to run a series of workshops and meetings under the banner of Maker Weekend.

The workshops cover all sorts of subjects, so everyone should find something that interests them. For example, you’ll be able to find out how 3D printing works, practice speaking and singing in public, learn to code, have go at tinkering or bake some bread. We’ve got a lot of surprises for you!

Here’s a list of some of the initiatives that will be taking part:
- Alvernia Studios – Poland’s most advanced film studio
- Materialination – the largest 3D printing community in Poland
- Czysta ReForma – a theatre based on a vision that is open to direct contact with modernity.
- Untitled Kingdom – specialists in iOS applications and not only…
- Grupa LASEM – a collective of artists, technicians and alchemists, creating walking works of art from paintings.
- Najedzeni Fest – the second edition of the culinary festival that presents some of Kraków’s newest restaurants and producers as well as fresh culinary ideas.
- Lukka – artisan maker of clever and creative toys that teach children to think, be patient, appreciate beauty and develop imagination.
- Panie i Panowie – PiP is a vocal group made ​​up of five positively crazy people who create music infused with positive energy. They perform a cappella songs, that is, without the use of instruments. They have performed around Poland (while winning awards at numerous competitions) as well as abroad. They’re passionate about promoting vocal music among people of all ages.
- WebMuses – a women empowered IT-oriented community. WebMuses are interested in everything connected with information technology: from coding to design.

And we’ve also got a few workshops being led by this year’s TEDxKraków speakers:
- Bread baking workshop – led by the queen of Nordic cooking, Trine Hahnemann. We’re bringing over some Danish flour specially for this workshop so we can compare the results of baking the same recipes with different flours.
- Tinkering Workshop – for children and grandparents (not necessarily their own), led by the US-based Tinkering School founder Gever Tulley.
- “Code for Poland” – an initiative of Fundacja ePaństwo, organised in partnership with Otwartą Małopolską (Open Małopolska) with the help of Code For America. It will be launched by Catherine Bracy of Code for America and will bring together over 300 designers, programmers, activists and citizens from all over Poland to work on developing prototypes of applications for our common good.

Details of how to register for the workshops will follow soon, so stay tuned to our blog!

As a Kraków councilor and the director of the digital Library of Polish Songs, Waldemar is quite knowledgeable about both the nation’s history and its proud tradition of song, which according to him is the best medium for ideas. In 2007 he set up the Library, which now has over 60,000 records, including over 2,000 biographies of writers and their music, as well as the stories of bands and performers and the origins of the songs. The culmination of his activities led him to be named Kraków’s Man of the Year 2011 in a poll by the Gazeta Krakowska newspaper. For the past two years, Waldemar has also been running a project called the Małopolska Musicians List in cooperation with the City Council. Its aim is to revitalize the music market in the city, as well as to create a professional and accurate database of musicians, bands, orchestras and choirs performing in the region.

At this year’s TEDxKraków, Waldemar will speak about being a local leader and maker based on his experiences of working with municipal governments as well as other members of the community. People come from near and far to take part in the Singing Lessons, and they come away with an experience of social community and togetherness. Waldemar’s goal is to promote modern patriotism and community through songs and singing. As he says: “It doesn’t have to be all about suffering”.

It was with great sadness that we learnt of the tragic murder of Ross Langdon and his wife Elif Yavuz in the terrorist attacks in Nairobi on Saturday. They were expecting their first baby in a couple of weeks. Ross spoke at TEDxKraków in 2012 about his work as an architect in Africa. He devoted his life to creating sustainable architecture that is integrated into communities, and he left us with hope for humanity. It’s impossible to make sense of this senseless and shocking loss of life. We send our condolences to both their families.