Watch the performances on the TEDxRotterdam Vimeo channel or on our videopage.

]]> http://www.tedxrdam.nl/2010/06/first-tedxrotterdam-talks-online/feed/ 0 http://www.tedxrdam.nl/2010/06/first-tedxrotterdam-edition-adds-extra-dimension-to-the-city/ http://www.tedxrdam.nl/2010/06/first-tedxrotterdam-edition-adds-extra-dimension-to-the-city/#comments Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:20:10 +0000 floyd http://www.tedxrdam.nl/?p=1891 Dear TEDxGuests

At times we wonder, ‘where have all the smart en beautiful people gone?’ On 4th of june we knew were you were. Here with us in the New Luxor Theater getting our rocks off with 30 fantastic TEDxTalks!

Many of you we have already spoken in person and thanked you for being there. You went through an elaborate registration process and often on a short term notice you cancelled all your appointments for the day.

You got yourself onto trains and trams and bicycles much earlier than normal to arrive on time and you faced an enormous queue in front of the Luxor. On the first day of summer you spend 10 hours with us in a dark theater to listen to people of whom you mostly had never heard before.

You believed in TEDxRotterdam just as much a we did!

You trusted us, and you deserved us. The TEDx Crew gave you the very best we could and we loved sharing this great event with you.

Without you TEDxRotterdam wouldn’t have been the same.

Thank you all. We love you! And see you next year!

For more pictures take a look at our Flickr photostream.

TEDxRotterdam host Max Westerman

Audience @ New Luxor Theater

The Mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb

Scapino Ballet

During the breaks (picture by Theo Lagendijk)

Ntjam Rosie

Daan Roosegaarde

Max Westerman & TEDxRotterdam Founders Isis Spuijbroek and Myron Freeling

We would love to hear your ideas for TEDxRotterdam 2011. You can share your thoughts by commenting here. We are looking forward to your replies and feedback!

TEDxRotterdam was also watched by hundreds of people who joined one of the six Salons de TEDxRefusees. In the Erasmus University, the Willem de Kooning Art Academy and other schools and art centers many people joined the live streaming parties for TEDxRotterdam.

Here’s a small selection, see more TEDxRotterdam tweets including twitter timeline on Google Updates search or Twitter.

brithammer #TEDxRdam was BRILLIANT! The whole thing was well-done and we were so well cared for including the wonderful b-fast, lunch & dinner! Kudos!

novaversa #TEDxRdam — Attended TEDxRotterdam!! It was great — wonderful initiative, amazing speakers and performers — very inspiring!

marijketevreden #tedxrdam 1e TEDx Rotterdam op 4/6 was fantastisch! Een ware snoepwinkel met diverse disciplines: dans, filosofie, geloof, wetenschap etc

wenceslaus RT @Deksel61: Ntjam Rosie & Besim Hoti really touched me in the heart @ #TedXRdam. Daan Roosegaarde & Igor Nikolic got into my brain. Inspiration galore!

martjeninga Still blow away by TEDx Rotterdam yesterday. It was was an honor to play with Celine Cairo between such inspiring people! #TEDxRdam

Mrgot Great event #TEDxRdam yesterday!Thanks for free OVChipcard!Great speakers like Eppo van Nispen,awesome music:Ntjam Rosie and so much more!

jurreantonisse #tedxrdam what a day! Inspiring, gives so much energy, Bas Haring, Eppo, Julian Oliver, Scapino ballet.

Sitethief #TEDxRdam was so full of energy and ideas, and I can’t decide what my favorite talk was!

And now for someone completely different.

His face and his voice are known by everyone in the Netherlands. He is an outstanding reporter and journalist. He was an eyewitness to countless occasions when history was in the making and now he is writing books and producing television shows. Today he is doing something very different, he is being our host!

Hosting TEDxRotterdam implies introducing 30 speakers and performers to a critical, interested, smart and very large audience.

Hosting TEDxRotterdam means bonding with over 800 guests and creating cohesion in the theatre.

Hosting TEDxRotterdam requires a sharp wit as well as a clear mind and the ability to sketch a profile in a few fetching words.

On 4 June 2010, Max Westerman is TEDxRotterdam host and he is everything we could have wanted for the conference and more. For fifteen years, until 2006, Westerman was the U.S. correspondent for RTL4 Dutch Television and covered all the major events of that period: four presidential elections, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Oklahoma city bombing, the trial against O.J. Simpson, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the destruction of New Orleans by hurricane Katrina. Westerman was the only Dutch TV correspondent in New York City in 2001 when the World Trade Center was attacked. His reporting on those events, as well as his features on various aspects of American society, has earned him much critical acclaim.

In “Max And The City” he took a humorous look at New York City and in “Max in alle Staten” at American society at large. In 2008 he hosted the TV-series “Westermans Nieuwe Wereld”, in which he compares the Netherlands to the United States. He also produced documentaries about America’s prison industry, the O.J. Simpson case, the 2000 elections and the death penalty.

Westerman wrote two bestselling books about his adventures in the United States.

www.maxwesterman.nl

How cool is TEDxRotterdam?

What is it that makes now so very special?  How do you define TEDxRotterdam and what does it mean to it’s attendants and guests?  Farid Tabarki is an expert in asking the right questions in order to to determine the sign of the times. May it be in politics, in youth culture or a in crossover event like TEDxRotterdam with people from many different backgrounds, Tabarki  manages to put into words what seemed quite abstract before.

Tabarki adds a  keen personal note to the events and debates he leads. His style is sharp, he loves to discuss but remains bright and positive all the same. It is the ideas and the concepts people talk about that are intriguing to him. He likes to analyze and together with the speakers and the audience he looks for solutions to dilemma’s that come up.

Farid has been known to translate trends and movements into projects and advise that are inspiring and attract large audiences. As the founder and director of Studio Zeitgeist Farid conducts and coordinates research and develops projects on the local, national and European ‘Zeitgeist’. Previously he has done research for Stichting Nederland Kennisland and NPS. He has led many debates for divers organizations. He is also well known for his presentations on the MTV program Coolpolitics.

www.studiozeitgeist.eu

Everything of value is defenseless.

‘Alles van waarde is weerloos’ means everything of value is defenseless. A verse line on the top of a former ABN AMRO building on the Blaak states it. The bank has left the building long ago, but Lucebert’s verse in green neon letters still domi­nates the city center. How defenseless is a bank? And what is true value? Jacob van der Goot is working with these questions every day. For him there is a time before and a time after ‘the day a train ran over the bank’, as he calls it.The day it became obvious that ABN AMRO and Fortis bank were at risk to fall.

Jacob van der Goot is managing director of ABN AMRO Rotterdam. He is also a Rotterdam ‘regent’ in the sense that such a classification may include: chairman of the Royal Yachtclub De Maas, board member of more than one museum and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Van der Goot does not have an online profile nor will you find many references when you google his name. His playing field is the bank and the city. After working a few years abroad his passion for the city brought him home. Former Mayor Ivo Opstelten welcomed him back to the local network with the question: ‘So, are you with us again?‘

His world used to be safe, orderly and predictable. Until the thing with the train happened. How does one deal with it as a director, as a human, as a ‘Rotterdammer’ when a bank needs to be rescued by the government? What needs to be preserved and passed on in the major changes taking place? What is important for yourself and what for others?

‘There are people involved’, Van der Goot says, ‘though it may all seem to be about finance, it is the people that count.‘ He explains: The financial crisis deals blows to everyone. It is making us uncertain, our generation is not used to dealing with setbacks. Therefore one must look beyond this, towards the future but also to the past. The ABN AMRO bank is used to doing just that, and I have learned to do that too. Not even a hundred years ago the bank went through another major crisis. It has since survived two wars and a merger. In that light, today’s crisis is one of many. That does not make it any less serious, but it is not a national disaster either. ABN AMRO bank is part of Rotterdam in the same way that Rotterdam and the bank belong together. Together they will get through this. With a sweep of his arm, Van der Goot points to the offices behind him. ‘It is turbulent times. What is important now is to look after the people’.

Does the world become a different place when we use different words?
What makes us feel in control?
Why are some numbers too small to understand?

Bas Haring has managed to increase television ratings with amazing programs on philosophy. He is bright. He is titillating. And he is searching for answers to questions that everybody could have asked, but no one ever does. It’s is not black and white thinking Bas Haring is after. Ideas and concepts show us what differs from others and from the other. And what exactly is it that makes us so different to rabbits and computers?

Bas Haring is a professor at the Leiden University where he teaches Public Understanding of Science. He recently published his book: “For a Successful Life” – delivering a convincing advocacy to opt for just the opposite: an unsuccessful life. Almost everybody is dreaming of having succes. But why? How necessary is being successful compared to being happy and simply feeling good? Do we really strive for success or are we forced into the concept?

www.basharing.com

Click here to view the embedded video.