TEDxFriedrichshain

Through social media I had heard that a TEDx event was taking place in Berlin. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, are a series of conferences that run under the slogan 'Ideas worth spreading' and their talks are well known, accessible for free on the internet and usually very interesting.

A TEDx event is an independent event that is run locally under the TED framework.

The TEDx event we went to was called TEDxFriedrichshain (which is our local neighbourhood) because I think the guy who organised it also lives in Friedrichshain. However the event actually was held in Prenzlauer Berg, a neighbouring area.

So, on a rainy Friday night we went to the event at 'Die Backfabrik', a former baking factory. The hosts were a company called 'Wooga' which make games for Facebook and mobile devices.

Inside the company offices were really cool. If you ever have thought to yourself 'What would Google's office be like?' then Wooga's must be mighty similar. Everything is suitably 'funky', a bit unconventional with the use of materials (exposed pine, shade cloth for flooring, bright colours), pods everywhere and the in house auditorium where the event was being held. The place felt young and fresh, collaborative and just looked like it would be a fun place to work. But we weren't here to job hunt.

As we waited for the thing to start we were invited to go to the staff kitchen and help ourselves to drinks. I went to check it out, where the Wooga staff were congregating for Friday night drinks. There were several glass fronted fridges in the kitchen full of beers and soft drinks. I asked someone 'Can I just take whatever I want?' She shrugged her shoulders and said 'Yea', like I was an idiot for asking.

The event started with an introduction by the host and then we dialled in to a live stream of a TED event in New York (we were aware that were would be watching a live stream).

The New York event was about 're-imagining the city' and had several speakers, with the schedule listed her (taken from the TED website).

Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan is putting pedestrians at the forefront of transportation policy in New York City

Visionary architect Chris Downey, who lost his sight and gained new ways of seeing the world

Robin Nagle, an anthropologist in residence at the NYC dept of sanitation, talks trash

Street performers John Pita and Avi Snow of City of the Sun are flamenco/blues/indie rockers

Place maker Toni Griffin, an urban planner working to make cities more just

Housing advocate Shaun Donovan, the U.S. Secretary of Housing & Urban Development

Sustainability guru Lance Hosey, who's on a mission to make green design beautiful

I particularly liked the first speaker, the Commissioner of New York's Department of Transport. She spoke of changes her department made to the city which were quick and easy yet had huge positive impacts. These included a pilot of making Times Square pedestrian friendly (by blocking traffic, painting the pedestrian zone on the ground and putting out lawn chairs), adding dedicated bike and bus lanes and re-purposing poorly designed or underutilised road space for primarily pedestrian uses.

What was best about her talk is the eagerness she had to make the changes happen quickly and how she demonstrated how easily some of these things could be done - her strategy was 'paint', paint the road to designate the new area as pedestrian....job done. You may need to watch the video for it to make more sense.

After the talks were over we were supposed to reconvene in the Wooga kitchen / cafe area for a discussion about the evening. We went there and got a couple of drinks and waited briefly.

In the kitchen, Wooga employees (I think) were wrapping up their drinks and starting to leave, and very few of the people from the TED event came promptly. It was an awkward feeling to be sitting there and so we decided to leave. As we left it looked like most other attendees had no intention of sticking around. We weren't there any longer to see if at least a decent amount of the group stayed to chat with the organiser.

Despite the end discussion component of the evening, the event was really interesting for us - the talks and the Wooga experience. After the event I was sent a survey abut the event so I gave my positive feedback and mentioned the awkwardness of the supposed 'discussion' part of the evening. I'm sure the guy didn't need me to tell him that, but that part needs a bit of finessing to make it work better.

The organiser said he was hoping to get some more TEDx events organised - so we will definitely look out for that and hopefully be able to go again.