Recap: TEDxVolcano
April 18, 2010 · Print This Article
I’m at The Hub incubator space next to London Kings Cross station this evening. I’m attending a spontaneous entrepreneurial event called TEDxVolcano that has been set up in 24 hours by Nathaniel Whittemore of AssetMap and Change.org with the support of TED, TEDxLondon, Sandbox Network and many others. The wonderful MC was June Cohen of TED Media.
Video of the event is now up at http://ow.ly/1zZOE.
The amazing line up of TEDxVolcano speakers were:
- Larry Brilliant, Skoll Foundation
- Rita King, Dancing Ink
- Chris Fralic, First Round Capital
- Jim Fruchterman, BenetechJim Burke, Participant Media
- Cara Mertes, SunDance Festival
- Sally Osborn, Skoll Foundation
- Matthew Bishop, The Economist, Author of Philanthrocapitalism
- Jim Hornthal, CMEA Capital
- Gary Bolls, Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) Conference
- Peter Greenberg, Travel Correspondent CBS
- Elizabeth Lindsey, Mapping the Human Story
- Jeff Skoll, The Skoll Foundation
Videos shown:
There were also three wonderful musical performances by Sushella Raman.
Here are some funny or especially noteworthy quotes:
“Money doesn’t really matter when you’re stuck by a volcano. You could have a private jet, but that just means you’d get to die alone.” – Cara Mertes
“This is the generation that has to decide whether we will actually have a civilization” – Cara Mertes, Sundance
“The name of the volcano Eyjafjallajokull in the local Icelandic dialect actually means Goldman Sachs.” Matt Bishop, Philanthrocapitalism
“It is difficult to have an intelligent debate today on many critical issues like capitalism and on climate change without people immediately taking sides.” – Matt Bishop, Philanthrocapitalism
“Thank you to the British allowing us colonials to stay here for an indefinite period of time.” – Jim Hornthal
“How many people are stranded. You’re screwed. So, what’s the best thing to do when you’re caught in a trap. Eat the cheese!” – Peter Greenberg, CBS Travel Correspondent
“Today in Kenya, 400 tonnes of flour (or flowers?) in Kenya was thrown out because it is rotting. Think about the economic impact.” – Peter Greenberg, CBS Travel Correspondent
“For every day we’re not flying and air cargo is not flying documents aren’t being delivered, produce is not being delivered, medicine and organs aren’t being delivered.” – Peter Greenberg, CBS Travel Correspondent
“Even in the best of times, airlines lie. If they were running the shipping business they would have listed the Titanic as on time.” – Peter Greenberg, CBS Travel Correspondent
“We all have watches, but we have no time.” – Elizabeth Lindsey
“Perhaps this time is essential for you to consider, are you going to upgrade your impact” – Elizabeth Lindsey
“We wanted to keep our friends here after Skoll. Do you know hard it is to fake a volcano. Damn the volcano, let’s have a ball.” – Jeff Skoll, Skoll Foundation
Here was the TED Blog post on the event.
[...] you’re caught in a trap. Eat the cheese!” Read more about the best quotes of the evening on Ryan Allis’ [...]
[...] to sound a little bit like a hemispheric snow day – perhaps the best example of this was the TEDxVolcano conference, organized in less than 24 hours to take advantage of the fact that a lot of very smart people were [...]
[...] Recap: TEDxVolcano | Dare Mighty Things – The Blog of Entrepreneur & Social Entrepreneur R… Notes from a spontaneously organized TED conference in London, caused by smart folks grounded by the Icelandic volcano eruption. (tags: TED volcano conference twitter spontaneous travel virtual) [...]
[...] to sound a little bit like a hemispheric snow day – perhaps the best example of this was the TEDxVolcano conference, organized in less than 24 hours to take advantage of the fact that a lot of very smart people were [...]