Review of TEDx Manchester - 14th February 2016

As a fan of TED talks generally, when a friend (Lucy) posted on Facebook a few months ago that TEDx tickets for Manchester had just gone on a sale, I jumped at the chance to attend.  Failing to make the last TEDx talk in 2009, I was excited to get involved.  TEDx events are produced independently of the TED conferences (which cost thousands of dollars to attend) but the event is based on the same TED format and rules.

A few weeks before the event, the main speakers were announced, and to be totally frank, I was not overly impressed by the list.  I did not recognise anyone, and nothing 'jumped out' as particular subjects of interest.  Following a very enjoyable experience at the Hay Festival a couple of years back, part of me had perhaps hoped for something similar.  Despite this, I assured myself that being open-minded and embracing the unknown would be good for me.  Even the allure of meeting new creative types would be worth the trip out, and I longed to show off my new business card.

On that promise, I wrapped myself up against the cold and headed for HOME in Manchester.

After a much needed (free) coffee, and meeting my friend Lucy (and a couple of her friends, Sarah and another Lucy), I joined the queue to the lecture theatre, hoping that my attendance at TEDx on my own would help secure me a seat near to the front row. On the way in, I chatted to another 'single' attendee, Claire, who, like me, had a partner at home not interested in TEDx (shock, horror!).  We chatted amiably about my love of writing and Claire impressed me no end when she said she was as a youth community worker.  Delighted that I had met my first amazing stranger of the day, my excitement was further compounded when I managed to secure a single seat in the second row from the front!  I said hello to Fiona and Adam, a lovely couple who really gave the whole of my time at TEDx that romantic, Valentine’s Day feel, as they held hands for the entirety of the show.

Founder of TEDx Manchester, Herb Kim, graced the stage and made his introductions and then very quickly we moved on to our first speaker of the day, Tom Cheesewright.

Tom was vaguely familiar from his photo but it soon became evident that I did not really recognise him.  But he was one of the speakers I had wanted to see.  A futurist, he spoke about his @bookofthefuture and gave us an insight into whether or not, we, in the audience, were bionic.  Tom argued that the human brain is a robot and that we are all cyborgs, and in a way, I could see his point.  We do facilitate information available to us (ie. from search engines) to get to a result.  Furthermore, Tom looked at everything becoming autonomous with self-driving cars knowing where to come and find us at a particular place and time, and our decision-making processes being taken away from us with technology replacing the toilet roll holder without us having to ask! Tom finished his talk on asking us 'how far do we really want to go?' then concluding that in fact, we had already passed that point on the moral debate.

It was really quite an interesting concept, one, admittedly, I had already used in my book (for those of you who have read it, the ‘psi-kick’ is the futuristic autonomous model of today’s mobile phone which predicts your actions), but I was still interested to learn more.  But before I had a chance to muse further on the idea of us all becoming cyborgs, my daydreaming was suddenly quashed by the appearance on the stage of BURNING trees set against a backdrop containing the words 'DIGITAL WILDFIRES'.

Then entered the next speaker, Rob Procter, a computer science professor from Warwick University.  He walked on the stage without a smile and as if to compound the 'hell and damnation' images I had conjured up in my mind, a lectern was brought on from him to preach, erm, sorry, speak from.

Rob, did in fact, provide a really compelling discussion about controlling social media.  Whist social media has helped improve management of crises, such as the London riots in 2011, it has revealed an underclass of 'trolls' who publish provocative content.  Rob’s term, 'digital wildfires' was used to describe, essentially, the moment when a piece of social media goes viral on the internet which contains misleading or provocative consequences.  He used examples from the Guardian newspaper which had identified fake tweets, such as 'rioters attacked London zoo and release animals' (not true) or 'rioters attack Birmingham’s children’s hospital' (also, not true).  A full report on 'reading the riots' can be found here. The research, argued Rob, showed an immediate increase of these tweets being published online after initial release, but then over time, their claims were refuted by people questioning their reliability.  Local knowledge proved very important in disputing these rumours. Rob talked about dealing with internet trolls, citing particular accounts which are known for such practices, and explained how the bar for prosecution via the police is very high.   Interestingly, Twitter are establishing a council of experts to deal with the delicate balance between freedom of expression versus the harm of unmoderated expression.  I, like Rob, look forward to seeing this take effect.

From the future and the technological revolution, we moved on to our first female speaker, Aala El-Khani.

Up until this point, the speakers had been engaging, informative and interesting in the delivery of their talks, but as well as this, Aala brought something new to the conference – she brought emotion.

Well, of course, given the content of her session - a look at the mental health of children who had experienced armed conflict – it did not make for easy listening.  1.5 BILLION people are experiencing armed conflict in the world right now.  There are 15 million refugees.  Children as victims, develop catastrophic emotional problems.  Aala spoke in a way that was clearly very passionate, and it was obvious she had real belief in the work she does.  Sitting so close to the front, I could see on several occasions her eyes glaze over.  Aala explained that research had shown that the quality of care given to children within family units greatly improved the protection of their mental health.  A drawing from a ten year old child who had experienced armed conflict was put up on the screen and it was not until about a few minutes in that I really understood what I was seeing.  Of course, as a mother, I am used to seeing kids’ pictures, but not like this.  Not with stick figures lying next to red crayola’d splotches.

Parent training programmes on how parents can help their children deal with the horrendous mental after-effects of living with armed conflict was one way to help the refugees.  Aala was able to send 3,000 psychological first aid leaflets encased in bread wrappers to refugees in just one week.   Aala challenged us to think of the faces, to think beyond the news images and appreciate the refugees for who they really are: as people.

Aala’s thought-provoking talk was followed by the next speaker, Ruth Daniel, who also looks at ways to help those people who have stories to tell, but were not able to share them on the stage.  In scruffy denim shorts and big hooped earrings, Ruth did not impress on first appearance, but this proud Mancunian explained about her creation, 'Unconvention' and how music can change the world around you.

Ruth gave examples of how music had changed the lives of people who had less opportunity than herself.  She talked about how in Columbia, hip hop movements had provided alternatives to children destined for life in the drugs trade. She explained how hip hop workshops were being used in prisons in Uganda to stop people from reoffending and returning to prison.  Ruth explained that in Brazil, a small start-up business by 4 students creating a micro exchange economy system for musicians had grown exponentially to generate $44m a year. Touching upon Aala’s talk, Ruth then warned us all not to be too complacent, arguing that the war in Syria affects us all and that we need to learn how to innovate from the oldest, indigenous populations of the world. She asked, what could we do to change our world?

From war torn conflict, our final speaker, Sam Aaron took to the stage, and I did not envy his 'last slot' position during Session 1, just before lunch.  Nevertheless, he bounded to the stage and smiled through minor initial set up delays, but I am sure in hindsight, no one would argue with me when I say he was worth the wait.

And what did Sam want to talk to us about? Computer science, in particular coding.  When it emerged that this guy works at the University of Cambridge, I admit, my brain started to wander to thoughts of whether I should eat the egg and cress sandwich in my bag or try the soup…

But! A little voice inside my mind told me to 'stick with it' and I listened to Sam’s explanation that just because you study English, you are not necessarily a writer, and just because you study computer programming, it doesn’t make you a computer programmer.  He asked, why do we code? To reduce cost (you can use raspberry pi as an alternative to a computer, and free software, Sonic Pi @sonic_pi); to reduce how complicated it is (yeah, right, I thought); and to create motivation. I congratulated myself on recognising that 'raspberry pi' is not spelt with an 'e' at the end.

He then started to show us how easy it is to code.  And I admit, it did, AT FIRST, look pretty simple to understand.  ‘Play 80’ plays a beep.  The higher the number, the higher the beep.  Using ‘sleep’ separates the beeps.  And then you have a tune.  But then you can add to it. Using Sonic Pi, you can add different layers such as ‘Rerezzed’.  Sam started to play a little tune, then added to it with a bit more coding, and it was all very clever.

Herb Kim (our compère) then jumped up to the stage and asked us if we wanted to hear more and there was a raucous cry of 'yeah!' Sam had explained that he had a live Thursday night show and often played in clubs, but to be honest, I thought this geek was just name dropping a little and probably played a few 'cody-like beats' from his bedroom. In his mother’s house.

But I was proved wrong. So wrong.  Sam made the geeks in the room look cool.  You only have to see the internet traffic he generated during his performance to know how good he was.  We could have been in a nightclub.  Seriously, this guy was so good, he even coded in his exit speech to the song. Genius. (There is apparently a competition for coders via the raspberrypi.org website with the EU Space Agency where you can get your coded song played in space! Yeah, you should check that out!)

And then it was lunch.   After a furious discussion with friends Lucy, Lucy and Sarah(!) about what we had just witnessed (and a little bit about all of us filtered into the discussion), we made our way back to the lecture theatre and I (yay!) managed to get back into my seat behind the front row.

Next up was the flat capped, long-haired Jeff Coghlan (@jeffcoghlan)

Jeff argued that play is essential to us as a species and whilst I do have a secret Sims addiction, I do not necessarily agree with this statement.  But I was interested to hear more about Jeff and his company ‘matmi’. Jeff said that computer gaming encouraged teamwork, maths and physics intelligence.  I do have a friend who learnt how to speak English (fluently) from time spent playing World of Warcraft so I appreciate the relevant points regarding learning.  We learnt that thanks to Candy Crush there are more female adult gamers than boys under the age of 18 and that 68% of gamers are over the age of 18.  We looked at gamification, the reasons why people play and how different types of play appeals to different people.

Jeff then showed us a film where a bottle bank was made into a game (the more bottles you put in the bank the more points you got) and how it increased the amount of people visiting the bottle bank.  We were then told that he had worked on the new Alton Towers ride Galactica (how, I am not entirely sure).  He did discuss an interesting idea about how actually accessing a theme park can be turned into a game, where park visitors will be told as part of their 'game mission' to get to a ride (which will at the time be not too queue heavy) and in turn, thus reduce the amount of queue times.  

Next up was Ian Forrester, a self-proclaimed serial dater who presented a talk on 'dating against humanity'.  He explained that he had met someone online in the US, and got married the same year, only to be divorced after 4.5 years.  He then showed other photos of other women and gave a lesson on the pitfalls of internet dating.  We watched a short film from Neeve of ‘Catfish’ fame explaining what a Catfish is. I don’t really have too much to say on Ian’s talk because as someone who has also had quite a lot of online dates in the past, there was not much for me to learn from him! One thing that did grab my interest was the 'birthday paradox' – if you have 23 people in a room together, there is a strong likelihood two of you will share the same birthday.  The same applies to dating sites – you will eventually meet someone you connect with, based on the fact people are congregating in the same place.

After Ian’s presentation, we were then treated to a video from TEDx in Bloomington about shared experiences and shared thoughts.  It was brilliant and I would encourage you to give it a watch. It was about a company called ‘Improv Everywhere’ who pulls stunts to try and brighten peoples' day through a shared collective thought process.  For example, on a New York subway, a guy gets on a train in just his boxer shorts, then another guy gets on at the next station, also in boxer shorts and so on.  They film the expression of one particular female passenger, and it isn’t until she shares her mortification with another passenger… rather than me explain all this… just watch the film. It’s here. PS. Rob wants to give you a high five.

We then had a short musical interlude from Hayley Parkes, a world-class pianist who introduced herself briefly, admitted she was nervous, and then proceeded to play a piece of music on a grand piano that I had never heard before, and which had a title so long I couldn’t write it all down!  She then told us about a piece of music she had played at the age of 14 and how she had been amazed by an elderly lady saying it was her 50th wedding anniversary that day, and the music she was playing was the song she had walked down the aisle to. Hayley asked us to guess the song (but didn’t tell us the answer!) It was Clair de Lune by Debussy by the way – my mother is a pianist, and I listen to a lot of classical music.

Following Hayley’s expert performance, we were treated to Jan Blake, a real-life storyteller.  All that was missing was a campfire and marshmallows.  She explained stories are a way of us understanding what it means to be a human being.  Jan told us the story of 'The Fisherman: A Tale of Passion, Loss and Hope' which was as exciting as it sounds.  I questioned if there was a meaning to the story, or a moral lesson, but I guess that is the while point of storytelling, and something for me to dwell on over the next few days.

A brief break followed, but I stayed in my seat and waited expectantly for the final session.  A tall guy paced the floor in front of me, and I wondered whether he was one of the speakers as he acted so nervous.  He drummed his fingers on the stage.  He changed his trainers to shoes.  A lady looking after the stage laughed at his sudden change of footwear, and he reminded me of how nervous I always get at the start of races, and how I obsess over my footwear.  Leaning forward, I smiled. 'I prefer the lime green trainers,' I confided in him.

He went with the lime green trainers after my suggestion that there was less chance of him tripping up on the stage in them.  We had a brief chat about whether or not I was the radio frequency engineer due to speak on the stage (clearly not me) and I laughed and said I was in fact, a sci-fi writer but it would be a dream come true to present on stage.  Completely and utterly winging it (check out my blog on 'winging it'), I passed him my business card, and told him to google me.  After giving lots of praise for my 'cool-looking business card', he was called away and it was only a few minutes later I realised that I had been speaking to Lemn Sissay, the Chancellor of the University of Manchester.  To be fair, the gold necklace with the word ‘Lemn’ round his neck should have given that away.

As the audience returned to the room, we were then treated to a video of different people saying the words to the song 'Hello' by Adele.  After that completely weird and random moment, we delved right into the world of engineering, courtesy of Danielle George.

Oh my gosh, Danielle was bright.  She said she believed that everyone was born a scientist.  Those that question 'why' grow up to be scientists. And those that ask 'how' are engineers.

Danielle then went on to explain that she uses radiowaves to engineer scientific discovery…

… after 30 seconds of not understanding what was being said, yet understanding that the subject content had gone completely way over my head, I heard the fact that 2.8 BILLION people in the world are without water and Danielle was working on a way to solve that crisis.  To do this (bear with me here) she uses RFID technology in the form of nodes buried into soil and a RFID reader on a tractor which takes measurements and tells you what you need to do with the soil to make it arable for crops. RFID stands for 'radio frequency identification'. She explained that RFID was being used in public buildings to guide blind people to braille signs using apps from the second they walk through the door. That sounded amazing.

Danielle then talked about a supadupa (technical term supplied by me there) ‘ska’, a square kilometre array, which is a telescope 50 times more sensitive than any other instrument.  The dishes of this telescope alone will generate over ten times the amount of global internet traffic and will be used to explore further into space.  Admirably, Danielle explained she had stayed in an academic career (although also does research) so that she can help to inspire the next generation of engineers and get more people interested in it as a career.

Thankful that my brain cells no longer had to use my limited scientific knowledge anymore, we were then introduced to Ed Carter who showed us how architecture and music is linked.  He encouraged us to look at buildings and see how we can play music from them, and vice versa.  He showed us, using scientific measurements, how we can play a composition using the Lowry buildings.  I can’t say this is something I will ever consider using in my day-to-day life, but it will definitely challenge my thinking on what constitutes a piece of architecture.

Next up was my new found friend Lemn Sissay, the newly elected Chancellor of the University of Manchester.  He even got a cheer when he came onto the stage.  I had no idea what to expect, but I prayed he did not fall over in his lime green trainers, or drop my business card. He started to tell us what he called a 'love poem' in honour of Valentine’s Day but then seemed to go off on a tangent about process, and bureaucracy, funding, and criteria.  Then we got onto a discussion about race, and how he is not black, but a human being, unless he is applying for funding (which got a lot of laughs) and then he questioned why people say they don’t see colour when they say it when they actually do see colour.

He talked briefly about being fostered as a child, and how he was called ‘Norman’.  As a black speaker with a huge head of afro hair you can see why this is [sadly] funny but from his discussion it became evident that he was in care for most of his childhood.  He then went on to talk about racism and how it is learned behaviour, not something we are born with, and how everyone should get together and all be racist together, and kick the s*it out of each other then have group hugs.  This got a lot of laughs.

Lemn treated us to the poem 'invisible kisses' which merged into a poem referencing Martin Luther King.  It kind of had me in awe.  It was such a passionate retelling.  Lemn used his entire body to eject the words out at us.  He spoke with a steady rhythm, which verged on the use of a hip hop beat, and then he forced out the words which seemed trapped behind his teeth.  His head shook.  Lemn’s entire body bent over double at least twice.  He convulsed on stage.  I would even go as far to say that if you did not realise he was reciting poetry, you would think he was demonically possessed.  Someone in the audience laughed out loud.  I was transfixed, amazed at the complete and utter confidence of creativity being shown on stage.  The final seconds were of complete silence.  Lemn came to an abrupt stop on the stage and EVERYONE stared.  And then he simply said, 'thanks.'

It was clever. It defied convention. I liked it.

The final act was a 19 year old girl, Yandass Ndlovu, who was billed as a performer.  Yandass had a natural talent for speaking to an audience, and she was instantly likeable because of her youth and passion for what she did.  Her shoelaces kept coming undone and she stopped to retie them, but this made her oddly, even more likeable.  She is a born dancer.  Completely self-taught, Yandass can dance a variety of styles simply because she lives and breathes dance.  It is evident the second she appears on stage that she is an athlete because she looks so superfit.  Her facial expressions shows she believes in every single dance move.  I always remember, as a Michael Jackson fan, an interview with him where he said that to learn to dance, you had to listen to the beat of the song and dance with your heart.  This is what Yandass does.

The conference ended on a high, with a room still packed full of people. Would I go again? Definitely.  It’s never just about the people you meet on stage, it’s about the people in the audience too, and what you can learn from them! Thanks so much to TEDx  Manchester organisers and HOME for hosting the superbly organised event!

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