Conscious Reflection
Our main event of 2018 took place on 01 December. Around 500 people came together for a full day of inspiration at the Audimax of the Technical University of Munich. 11 speakers and performances shared their remarkable ideas, and the breaks offered endless possibilities for exploration and interaction.
About THE THEME: CONSCIOUS REFLECTION
Nowadays it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the pace of change and the amount of information surrounding us. The increased complexity of our lives leaves us in a state where conscious reflection has become rare, but vital. The challenges we face today require fruitful, holistic cooperation — by embracing our diversity, we as communities can collectively tackle challenges that may remain too elusive and ominous to the individual person.
This diversity is both a great challenge and a great chance for synergy. Although it’s easy to only see our differences, let’s remember that underneath there are similar, profoundly human desires: to be heard, to be respected, to be needed, to belong. If we recognize that we as individuals influence our community and that everyone contributes in their own way, how much better could our collaboration become? Could we inflict positive change through our mindsets and actions and find our place in the bigger picture?
At TEDxTUM 2018 we invited you to take that much needed time to stop and reflect, deliberately and consciously, on ideas from a variety of fields and disciplines.
Event Experience
We always say only 50% of the value of a TEDx event comes from the talks. The other 50% come from the experiences and new friends you make. Our Audience Experience team prepped an entire year, going above and beyond in trying to bring fun activities to life. We also challenged our partners to provide experiences which would enrich our attendees’ overall TEDxTUM experience!
AR Reality Check
Is your opinion more optimistic or pessimistic than reality? We gave you the try to find out! With the (Augmented) Reality Check: we featured a custom-made app using AR in which attendees could explore their knowledge and biases about the world. Inspired by the Gapminder quiz, the questions asked about current issues in the world as well as topics from speakers’ talks on that day.
Circular Curation
We believe that the best ideas come from our local community, so we like to start our curation process for the next event on the day of an event itself. For this, we prepared cards where attendees could share ideas that fascinated them, scared them, interested them or kept them awake at night. Our mobile curation box circulated around the venue to take in all the ideas to be considered for the next TEDxTUM lineup.
Poster Challenge
We hid posters featuring quotes related to the theme “Conscious Reflection” throughout the venue. Attendees had to find the posters and write the word highlighted on each onto a pre-printed card. The result was a secret message which had to be kept quiet at all costs! Attendees who returned their completed card before the end of the coffee break had the chance to win a prize!
Phospho Photos
This is a photobooth of an extraoridnary kind! We prepared a wall that conserves light for our attendees to get creative: they could record their silhouette using a very bright flash, and even record multiple pictures overlaying each other. Needless to say, we had all kinds of props prepared. The result was a wonderful collection of quirky and funny photos, telling stories from fights to loving encounters.
Speakers
Ralph Ammer
Interaction Designer, Illustrator, and Writer
Tommaso Gecchelin
Physicist and Industrial Designer
Ilona Grunwald Kadow
Professor of Neural Circuits and Metabolism
Lin Kayser
Entrepreneur
Steffen Linßen & Daniel Kühbacher
Students
Christoph Lüthi
Professor of Sanitation, Water, and Solid Waste for Development
Justus Schütze
Energy Entrepreneur
Maria Spletter
Developmental Geneticist
Xiaoxiang Zhu
Professor of Signal Processing in Earth Observation
Perfomances
Sema Karakurt & Urs Jandl
Dancers
Gustavo Strauß
Musician and Composer
TED Talks shown at the event
At TEDxTUM 2018, we showed one TED talk in each session, introduced individually by a member of our community with a story to tell. Passion was the driving force in our selection process, as we strived to ensure that each introduction was full of dedication and personal connection.
Karen Hitschke works at a philanthropic venture fund in Munich and cares deeply about helping sustainable social businesses grow. She presented Ludwig Marishane’s talk “A bath without water,” telling a young entrepreneur’s story about how he invented the world’s first bath-substituting lotion.
York Hovest‘s mission is to travel to the most dangerous and remote areas of the planet in order to display their beauty and cultural diversity. One of his favorite projects is on saving the ocean, which is why the talk he presented was David Katz’s “The surprising solution to ocean plastic,” which centers around his idea of a worldwide plastic garbage trading system for goods and services.
Mogan Ramesh had just started his job at TUM ProLehre when he presented the TED talk, “A call to men” by Tony Porter—an arresting talk aimed at men across the world to saw through the chains of toxic masculinity once and for all. In his introduction, Mogan shared a witty and relatable personal story about having to manage the expectations of one’s family, and the challenges that presented along the way.
Partners
Thanks to our generous partners, we can provide a high-quality event. If you’d like to get involved, please contact us.