Archive for category: TEDxDelft 2013

In 2012, Mars One Founder Bas Lansdorp did his TEDxDelft talk. Mars One will establish a human settlement on Mars. You can participate in the first major step: a private Mars Lander and Satellite mission in 2018. The Mars One foundation will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. A newly launched Indiegogo campaign will help us jumpstart the first major step in our project – a private Mars Lander and Satellite mission in 2018. Your participation will help fund the 2018 mission and above all, show the partners & sponsors that the world is ready for this to happen. Mars One gives you the opportunity to participate in this historic project. This can be your mission to Mars!

Wonder what it was like at the dress rehearsals for TEDxDelft 2013? Reporter Heather Beasley Doyle gives you the scoop.

The TEDxDelft 2013 rehearsal took a slightly frantic turn as event production volunteer Erika Teeuwisse raced down a hall and up the stairs leading to the auditorium entrance inside the Aula building on the TU Delft campus.  Full steam ahead, she opened the door to the darkened space with a slap of her hand.  Surveying the area, Teeuwisse spotted a woman dancing onstage and looked around, murmuring that during her TEDx talk, the woman would be doing something with the audience. She excused herself and made a beeline for the auditorium control room. It was October 3^rd, and the doors to “TEDxDelft 2013: Do try this at home”, would open in less than 24 hours.  Teeuwisse had a lot to do.

“One day before the event is always a really strange day”, explained TEDxDelft founder Rob Speekenbrink, who initiated a TEDx event in Delft in 2010 after attending several other European TEDx events.  TEDxDelft made its debut in November 2011.  Speekenbrink loves the event because, “The energy that people get is enormous.  I like people smiling, being entertained and at ease.”

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Wow, it’s a wrap! TEDxDelft 2013 has come to an end, and what great moments it brought us! Just to mention some of it. Marije Nie, who makes poetry with her feet, Anne Walraven who believes in sharing dreams instead of nightmares, Ben Bronsema’s inspiration by his late wife that caused him to do some incredible stuff. Talks about building on water and plans on cleaning the oceans. Gerwin Smit making the difference in the field of prostheses and Tim Zaman making 3D paintings. There was books swapping and radiation tests and even playing music with bananas.  Japie being his rebellious self and John Cohn an amazing nutty professor. Yes, it was a pretty great, inspiring and FUNtastic day! If you missed out, you can read the live blog on the website. We have put all photos on Flickr. And in a few weeks all the talks will be on YouTube.

We also received the blog written by Laetitia Martina, Studiolae that gives you a nice impression of the day.

Winners of the TEDxDelft Salon Maartje en Kine were on stage today at TEDxDelft. Possibly the most entertaining performance of the day.

They said the first thing you learn studying classical music is to never write your own songs because they just won’t ever be as good as Mozart’s. For this special occasion of do try this at home, Maartje and Kine did write their own songs. And I can tell you, it was every bit as good as Mozart!

Today is world animal day. So Maartje en Kine sang a song about pandas. Very appropriate on two levels, because Delft is also arguably home to the largest pack of pandas in the world. For those not familiar with this Delft tradition, you can figure this one out by listening to Maartje en Kines song. Their song titled ‘panda’ tells the tale of the extinction of the panda. Think upbeat fun music and even funnier lines.

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At 14:04  today, a winner of the TEDxDelft motor driven class of the Tram Car Race could be announced, and 20 minutes later, a winner of the manual class.

The first race was between a motorcycle driven tram car, built by eight students at De Haagse Hogeschool, and a diesel generator – motor combination, built by Rolf Hut‘s own team. The motorcycle, as might be expected, did the trick, and the tram car flew away. To his great disappointment, Rolf’s team were not able to finish without a helping hand, after a chain jump short after start. Hard work undoubtedly pays off. “I only slept three hours last night” says the team leader, Mark van der Leer, “Besides some minor hickups, it went as expected”.

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Jongens van de Tekeningen (‘Boys from the Drawings’ in Dutch)

Besides all the TEDxDelft talks being available on our Youtube channel, and all the photo’s that were made during the day, there’s one other thing to remember this year’s event by. And that is a huge, huge drawing, made by the Jongens van de Tekeningen. Combining digital and regular drawing with pencils and markers, they create a visualisation of all the speakers, performers and everything else that’s happening today. When this post went online, the drawing was — meter, and they still had to go — hours! They’re here all day, so if you want to know how they make the drawing and how long it is now, visit them on the top floor.

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Anne Walraven was in NRCNext and on the TEDx Delft stage today. Not bad. The perfect example that individuals ‘like you and me’ can become so much more powerful in this day and age.

After finishing her studies Anne Walraven understood her peers that were feeling self-doubt and confusion due to the lack of jobs. An environmentalists herself she was used to communicating 90{95388bbb2e9df0f2b3d26445fc24fe82185b1b567dbb094bc3a45074083d0a2b} about all the problems that the world faces and only 10{95388bbb2e9df0f2b3d26445fc24fe82185b1b567dbb094bc3a45074083d0a2b} about the solutions. And that 10{95388bbb2e9df0f2b3d26445fc24fe82185b1b567dbb094bc3a45074083d0a2b} you can come up with easily. Cosmopolitan and Glamour magazine know how to do it. 10 easy ways to change the world. Eat local food, vote for the right politicians etc. Some books claim you can even make money whilst saving the world or that you can do it together with your horse. If it is that easy why are we still stuck with crisis after crisis? Read more

Do try this at home TEDxDelft: talk to ID coach Chantal van Arensbergen. You can find MOVISIE in the foyer on the first floor. TED talks are about getting inspired. But what does that mean? Inspiration alone doesn’t change the world. Being inspired should always mean to be inspired to take action. This is what the ID coach can help you with. Just that little push, only a small nudge. To turn ideas into reality. To make the world a better place. Chantal van Arensbergen has already helped quite a few of you out there, for example to become a social entrepreneur, to no longer be a student but still be abe to hang on to that youth and childlike curiosity. Feel like you have a great idea and inspiration? Go visit the ID coach to do something with it.

Sipke Jan Boersema already demonstrated them but just in case you haven’t tried them yet. You can find adorable blue ‘klikklaks’ everywhere on the tables. Great conversation starters. Spot anyone that looks interesting? Walk up to them and challenge them to try it. If you’re already  suffering from inspiration overlaod use them as food for thought later when thinking back to TEDxDelft. One day I will… Who are you going to inspire? It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the answers yet. Just start thinking about it though..

The prostheses we have today have not changed for more than 100 years: they don’t look like hands; they are hard to operate; or, they don’t provide an accurate enough grip. They are not very reliable, either. There is another huge problem: they are very heavy. You can literally say that the problem outweighs the benefits.

The current answer to this is to add more functions, making the prosthesis more complex, and heavier- and the users even more dissatisfied with their artificial hands- a vicious circle!
Enter Gerwin Smit, a PhD fellow at the TU Delft. His idea is to make the device much lighter by focusing on body-powered devices rather than electric ones. Thinking about ways to reduce friction in a body-powered artificial hand, Gerwin then looked at airplanes and cars (yes, airplanes and cars) that use hydraulic cylinders for their brakes.

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The Pop-Up Library at TEDxDelft

Ideas worth sharing come in many avatars. Most popularly books. One of the most visited side events at TEDxDelft is the Pop-Up Library. One corner of the Van Hasseltzaal in the Aula at TU Delft has been set up as a temporary library. Visitors can drop off books and pick up some that interest them. We saw a copy of Being Jane Austen, some books by Jodi Picoult, and even a Dutch translation of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.

TEDxDelft blogger Ulf Winberg donated some of his girlfriend’s books to the library. They included some Dutch comic books and a training manual. “We both feel that we rarely read any book twice and to keep them around would serve no purpose other than showing off. So, we decided to donate them to the Pop-Up Library,” said Winberg. Read more

Is failure a bad thing? “No”, says Matthew Rogers. At TEDxDelft he tells about the Joy of Failure. Face, love and free yourself!

As a 21-year old man, he was a university boxer with the ambition to become a Roman Catholic priest. He didn’t follow any education in that direction, but his confessor, priest John Gallen, is willing to teach him. Over a period of three years, the priest becomes uncomfortably close. Whenever Matthew confronts him, the priest turns it around and says that he is the one with emotional problems. Matthew wants to go away, but can´t. Until a friend physically removes him from John Gallen’s presence. This is a turning-point in his life. He graduates cum laude from law-school, gets married and becomes a father of three sons.

Black box

He put his memories in a ‘black box’ and hides it. “But the voices came back. Every day, like a radio. I tried to change the channel, but couldn’t”, he jokes. Over the course of his marriage, he had hit his wife. They divorce, and she wrote a book about it. “Then I learned to face my memories, to love what I saw and finally free myself. I found joy!” His life continues in a good way. Read more

Another speaker mentioned that there is a relatively small group of people promoting green buildings. However Ben Bronsema is one of them. Do try this at home is the perfect theme for him. Because Ben Bronsema does not only have a dream, he also has a plan. Anyone who owns a building is kindly invited to connect to Ben Bronsema to ‘try this at home’ and turn the building into a mini power plant.

Ben Bronsema’s late wife is his inspiration. She is the one who told him: “your job is your passion, your life and your joy. This is your purpose in life when I am no longer here”.

Ben Bronsema has had a hard and difficult life working on air-conditioning systems as they are not liked by anyone. People don’t like the noise, the draft or high energy usage and they complain about the air quality. Getting his ideas from the inner workings of termite hills can’t have been a pleasure either. But he stuck with it and it worked. Read more

TEDxDelft has the hostess with the mostess. Well more than one actually. Everybody got a very warm welcome at TEDxDelft from the colorful characters at the entrance. They immediately made you feel the promise of this day. Everywhere the red and black and creativity of TEDxDelft is visible and a good organization goes a long way to optimize your time to get inspired! The lovely ladies and gents in red were a much appreciated something extra to help us find workshops and events.

Like the one of Hack Your Home, Dreamups and Metabolic who took over commissiekamer 2. A showroom for DIY clean technologies. A non techie myself I haven’t been able to unravel all of the smart innovative technologies behind it but can you believe I played a banana piano? Yes closing the circuit with your finger, you can use bananas as piano keys. I recommend going there and trying it out! You can also have a look at scanners and 3D printers and flowsensors. Did you know that for just 20 euro’s you can buy a sensor to measure your resource consumption and waste consumption. If you want to take it a bit further you can create a system that tells you when to water your plants. Now I know that this invention will save lives! Read more

Scott predicts the future without a crystal ball!

Scott worked in the computer and software industry, creating analytical models for commercial clients like AT&T. He is interested in operations research and decision sciences approaches for policy making. In particular he is interested in statistical analytics of social exchange. Now he uses these analytics to predict the future. Read more

Rutger de Graaf is a man with a mission: to build the first floating city on earth. Why? Because by the year 2100 earth’s population is expected to rise to ten million, and we’re simple running out of space.

Rutger the Graaf dazzles us with some big numbers. We already live in giant cities along the coast, he says, and 150,000 people move to a city every day. That means that by the end of his talk, the number of people in the audience – 1,000 – will have relocated to a city. And by the end of the century a staggering total of 4.5 billion people. Combined with ever-rising consumption, we will need twice as much farmland forty  years from now.   Not only that, but land is lost due to sea level rise. Fossil fuels are depleted, so we need land to grow bio fuels. All in all, we are faced with a future land shortage of 22 million square kilometres, the size of North America. Read more

Registration opens to hundreds of visitors from across Delft and the Netherlands. #TEDxDelft

Rob Speekenbrink, the founder of TEDxDelft, welcomes the visitors

TEDxDelft 2013 opened to an audience of 1,100 visitors. Crowds began gathering at 8am despite the wet and cold morning. The day began with a pre-recorded message by Chris Anderson, curator TED, who spoke about the concept of TEDx and bringing ideas alive around the world. Read more