Category Archives: Youtube

Kharkov, Video, Youtube

TEDxKharkov!

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The first ever TEDxKharkov took place today, and I’ve got a case of information overload. I’m still processing all that I saw and heard over the course of 3-4 hours. The speakers ran a wide range of topics, from mathematics to pedagogy, from ecology to medicine, from physics to IT. While all of the live speakers were in Russian, there were also a number of pre-recorded talks in English, which I’ll post below.
TEDxKharkov Stage

I went with @ala_manzana, who did a great job live-tweeting the whole thing. You can look up most of her pictures through the #TEDxKh hashtag.

Pictures of the event are popping up all over, you can already catch some of them here and here, for example.

The live speakers for the event were, in the following order:

  • The Master of Ceremonies, Sergei Lavrik
  • Professor of Mathematics Dmitry Yelchaninov
  • Activist and Doctor Anna Gerashchenko
  • Alexander Yesyukov, Director and President of TeamDev
  • Physicist Yuri Erin
  • Doctor Igor Kostyuk
  • Student (and future automotive engineer) Alexander Chernyshyov
  • Pedagogue Valeriy Leyko
  • Max Burtsev, Founder of the ad agency “Arriba”

TEDxKharkov: Dr Kostyuk about to operate

Quite frankly, each speaker deserves their own post. Especially the last speaker. They were all good, they all had a high level of enthusiasm, energy, and a positive message. When the vidoes are online, I’ll be sure to post each one of them with an explanation.

In the first video of the day, Mitchell Joachim spoke about the possibility of architecture and biology merging with one another and giving us the ability to grow our own homes:


In the second video of the day, we saw that it’s possible to make a lightweight bird fly, with the help of Markus Fischer and his team:


In the third video of the day, Benjamin Zander spoke about how to make everyone a classical music lover. This was especially a big hit with the crowd, both recorded and in the hall:


In short: it was great. The organizers did a super job. This is definitely not the last time I’ll attend a TEDx in Kharkov, and definitely not the last time I’ll write about this event. I had a great time, and I am sure the organizers are happy (and relieved) that the event went as planned. Stay tuned for the next post about TEDxKharkov…

Kharkov, Startups, Video, Youtube

my saturday morning: TEDxKharkov

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This morning, I went to go see the free discussion and presentation for TEDxKharkov, called “Утро с TED”, which was held at IT_Cafe in Kharkov, Ukraine. Overall, the entire affair was in Russian, but some of the recorded talks were in English with Russian subtitles.

The theme for today’s meeting was “полезные советы” or Useful Advice. After a few annoucements we started watching the vidoes.

The first video we saw and discussed was with Jessi Arrington and her theme of ‘wearing nothing new’. She always finds interesting outfits from second-hand stores. This was kind of a weak lead-in for Ukrainians who didn’t know what TED was all about (I saw some people leave right away), and also a strange talk because of the stark difference between second-hand stores in Ukraine vs. second-hand stores in the USA.

EDIT: check out more about Jessi Arrington here. I didn’t want that above paragraph to sound negative about Jessi, but it wasn’t TED’s best introduction, IMO.


The next film was from TEDx Odessa, Boris Khodorkovsky talked about how to manage the barrage of information we accumulate, and how to filter it best:


Our third film was from Thomas Thwaites and his efforts to build a toaster from scratch. Here’s where the talks really started to engage me and the rest of the audience at the IT_Cafe.


The fourth film was clearly the best of all the films; from TEDx Vorobyovy Gory, professional business trainer Radislav Gandapas talked about how to motivate the ‘energy inside us’.


The next video was James Cameron, describing his work between Titanic and Avatar.


What followed were several funny vidoes from TED: one from Jenny Mccarthy about the virtues of marriage, and the next from Charlie Todd’s Improv Everywhere:



While the whole event was a bit long (I had to truck out of there right at 12:30, when it ended), I enjoyed going and hope they’ll keep doing it after the TEDxKharkov event next week.

TEDxKharkov tickets are on sale here, the event is taking place March 31 at Sun City 2 Trade Center, near the Moskovsky Prospect Metro.