I was privileged to be selected as one of 100 attendee's at today's TEDx Manitoba, held at the Park Theatre. Now the last time I was at the Park Theatre, I was about 30 yrs younger, lived in the area, and it was a still an active local movie theatre. Now it is a chic renovated destination for entertainment and cultural events. I never visualized the potential of the location, it was great!
Back to TEDx Manitoba
Our MC, Kevin Hnatiuk did a great job keeping things going today.
The day began with some African drumming from Chango. A great way to get the day going, although I felt rhythmically challenged first thing today :-)
Next up was Robert Sawyer, SCI Fi Writer. He talked about consciousness and how the internet if the first technology approaching the number of synapses, in discussing his concepts with other attendee's it would appear that there is a shared belief that the internet could be considered a growing shared global consciousness.
Not as impactful I believe was our second speaker Nicole Buckley, from the Canadian Space Agency. What she did share was that the amount of research that must go into addressing the challenges still ahead of us if we wish to consider travel to distant planets. Most uniquely was the research to solve those issues appears to have a correlation to solving diseases associated with ageing.
Kerry Stevenson raised some very interesting questions to which there are no immediate answers related to the impact of 3D Printing. Yes 3D printing. If someone can print a knife that is banned in a country, how to we control that if the 3D model is a file shared online?
For me one of the most emotional stories shared was that from Karen Latourneau, Ultrasound technician. She initiated a review of procedures (protocols) in order to improve the discovery of prenatal heart disease. Her initiative and review with her peers resulted in a drop of infant deaths from approx. 27 deaths a year in Manitoba to ZERO, her dream is to share the simplified protocols they created with other jurisdictions.
Len Brownlie, shared his insight in Olympic sport. It was interesting to note that the time differential between gold medalists and silver medalists was .measured in hundredths or thousands of a second. Using sport technology can contribute to that success.
Dr. Frank Plummer shared an interesting story about sex trade workers in Aftrica that appear to have natural immunity to the HIV virus. The story isn't complete regarding his research and we were left hanging. The implications to the developers of vaccines is huge as this heads in a completely different direction than they have ben going.
A very encouraging story was shared by Shaun Loney, BUILD project. It makes me wonder why I never heard of this yet and why we aren't endorsing projects like this? Maybe electoral votes has something to do with it?
Phil Doucette, shared a strong and impassioned story about Forgiveness and Monopoly.
Lin-Lin Wang, Chinese Musician impressed all with her performances on the 2 stringed Chinese instrument called Erhu.
Rick Van Eck, educational reform enabled through the use of concepts from Video Games.
John Weigelt, a National Technology Officer from Microsoft Canada came to share the understanding he has over the development of the economy that is recovering and rather than talking about a "Digital Economy", he talked about an economy enabled through technology.
Leslie Silverman & Columpa Bobb, I am sorry I didn't understand this session and what message they were trying to share. As an artistic dialogue it was very engaging and enjoyable.
Scott Striton, As CEO of local Smith Carter Architects he talked about Intelligent Buildings. It made a lot of sense and was an impressive approach that he shared.
I had a chance to talk to the father of HannahTaylor. Her presentation about caring and how such a small act of recognizing a homeless person can make a difference was inspiring. As her father shared, Hannah shares an insight and maturity not found elsewhere, she may just be an "old soul"
While I will admit I am a listener of Terry MacLeod's morning radio show on CBC, the story he lead with his 3 Guests left me awestruck at the back ground and brutal honesty of his 3 guests, all former gang members. They also deserved the standing ovation they received as I believe there is hope and they are striving to be better citizens as they re create their lives for the betterment of them and their families. POWERFUL
Les Foltos, Peer Coaching for teachers. Interesting concept that delivered a part of the solution on how to transform education to utilize 21st century techniques to educate our youth.
Bernard McCoy - He is a monk and CEO of lasermonks.com, His presentation about Social Entrepreneurism was very intriguing. Basically a concept of creating for profit business that fund non profit organizations. This idea of doing things for the GOOD of the masses was a new approach to the perpetual question of funding for non profit organizations that do social good in our communities.
The final high energy presenter was Terry Godwalt - Teacher and contributing founder of DeforestAction. He presented so much high impact material, I am still absorbing it. But basically the message was about developing meaningful ways to have children invloved in global issues. The key here is that they get to see meaningful results as part of their contribution thereby reinforcing the message that they can bring change.
The final item that I heard was not from any speaker but from discussing these ideas with others in attendance. We have so much to contribute and now the goal is to decide how each of us will play a part. It was inspiring to see that we do have a hidden resource in Manitoba with so many great thinkers, now it's time to share these idea's, and I am beginning with this post.
Thanks for listening . . .
