My take on it is very, very different indeed.

I think the reason why TED attracts such interesting and amazing people is due, directly, to the fact that, though it’s very expensive, one’s ability to pay doesn’t guarantee an invitation. There seems to be a typical ‘TED person’: intelligent, interesting, positive, socially aware, altruistic, passionate, emotional, wealthy. That, I believe, is the order in which those traits matter at TED. ‘Wealth’ as the single guarantee of entry would make it a very, very different experience and one that the rest of us wouldn’t care about attending. The thing that sets TED apart from every other important human gathering is the sheer abundance of the previous traits in people.

To be jealous based purely upon the idea of ‘wealth’, I believe, is entirely misguided. What people should be jealous of is that they mightn’t be as intelligent, interesting, positive, socially aware, altruistic, passionate and emotional as the typical ‘TED person’. I know a lot of wealthy people, very wealthy people, but I know very, very few people of the type I met at TED. So please, be jealous of all of those other traits first before ‘wealth’ enters your mind.

One of the reasons why ‘wealth’ is important, however, is the TED Prize. Without the wealth given freely by TEDsters, the TED Prize wouldn’t exist. Every year TED gives three people $100,000 and a ‘wish to change the world’. This year the TED Prize winners were Karen Armstrong, Dave Eggers and Neil Turok. All of their wishes are interesting and compelling- and Dave Eggers’ talk was excellent!- but Brian and I have volunteered to help with Neil Turok’s wish: “My wish is that you help us unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa, so that within our lifetimes we are celebrating an African Einstein.”

Thursday night after the TED Prizes were announced we talked to Neil at the dinner and met with a couple of graduates from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) started by Neil. We spoke to Shehu AbdusSalam who is doing his PhD at Cambridge in the Theoretical High Energy Physics Group (he recognised Brian immediately and they talked a lot about CERN). We also spoke to Tendai Mugwagwa who is doing her PhD at Utrecht University doing mathematical modeling of T-cells for HIV research. We had a brilliant time with them and were very interested to hear more about AIMS.

The next day we attended Neil Turok’s TED Prize Lunch for everyone who was interested in helping out with his wish. This was where we were able to write down how we might be able to help out. Brian volunteered to lecture at AIMS for a term; I volunteered my online marketing and social networks experience. Neil isn’t the only one who is looking for ‘geek skills’, but I believe the potential impact on the world from his wish is immense.

Now, this isn’t just for people who attended TED, anyone can volunteer to help out. Like, say, you.

Neil is specifically asking for:

• Individual and corporate commitments of expertise to help build the proposed network of AIMS centers, including project management and management consultancy, academic/teaching, legal, financial/auditing, IT, PR, property development, diplomatic expertise/connections, design.
• A team to build the Next Einstein from Africa website, maximizing use of simple or open-source technologies and designed to be fully operable by AIMS.
• A production company to travel to Cape Town to film and interview young African scientists (around the May 12, 2008, launch) to create core content for the website
• Vital material support in the form of computers, communications and Internet equipment, books, software, office equipment, security equipment.
• Help getting governments, universities, companies, foundations, rock stars, etc. on board the campaign
• Marketing and creative campaign help
• Media partners
• PR
• Endowments, sponsorships, funding

So, I’d like to ask you to be intelligent, interesting, positive, socially aware, altruistic, passionate and emotional and help make Neil Turok’s wish come true. It can be as small as volunteering to help out with their website or as big as getting your employer to fund one student at AIMS per year (if I remember correctly, that’s only £5000 a year) or 5 students or 10 or, if you are a scientist, perhaps you’d want to lecture there for a term or, if you are a film-maker, volunteer to go out to film at AIMS or maybe you are none of those things, but you know someone who is, tell them. Just go to Neil’s TED Prize page have a read of his whole wish and press the ‘offer help’ button.

So, you mightn’t ever be able to attend the 4 day TED conference, but you can join in on the important things TED does during the other 361 days of the year.

**EDIT**
Neil Turok’s talk is up.

Brian and I

Me

Brian

Brian on stage at TED before the audience was let in

And again.

Brian during his talk (from ‘whatcounts’ at Flickr, click through)

He told me how he’d just got a job on BBC Radio 5, a technology programme, and told me that they only had male contributors and that they wanted to find more women to work on it. He asked me if I was into technology at all. I told him that I had had a ZX81 when I was a kid and had, since the late 80s, used electronic organisers and had a mobile phone for a few years, but wasn’t *really* into technology that much. He told me that he wanted me to write a piece about technology and he’d bring it to the producer and if the producer liked it, maybe I’d get to work on the programme. I told him again that I didn’t know much about technology and I couldn’t think of what I’d write about.

He asked, ‘Well, if there was one bit of technology you could have, anything at all, what would it be?’

I thought. ‘A full sized Pac Man arcade game.’

‘Write about it.’

So I wrote a piece about how much I loved Pac Man growing up and how I thought the reason Pac Man was so popular with girls was that you were able to eat and eat without getting fat. It was the ultimate, virtual eating disorder.

Gareth brought the article into the producer who thought it was great and so I was hired as the ‘Computer Culture Correspondent’ on Radio 5′s ‘The Big Byte’.

I immediately went online and started devouring everything I could about the web. I rode 2 hours roundtrip on my bike just to get to White City in order to spend time online (the Big Byte was the only place in the BBC with a modem), I bought Wired magazine every month, found a couple copies of Mondo 2000, started reading stuff done by or about Stewart Brand and Danny Hillis, Kevin Kelly’s Out of Control and Douglas Rushkoff’s ‘Media Virus’ rewired my brain. I soaked it all up and combined it with all the hippiness I grew up with. I became a West Coast CyberUtopian despite the fact that I was living in South London.

In all of the years since then, I’ve never met anyone else in the geek-laden world I inhabit in the UK who had the same introduction to the ‘net. In the early days, the men tend to be much more hardware focussed, the women tended to be into games, no one was into, for example, the Gaia Theory-based idea that the ‘net was the Earth’s brain or that the ‘net was New Heaven where our ‘souls’ existed or a clock that ticked once a century and bonged once a millenium.

Once blogging and social networks came along, a whole new group of people came along who had never even heard of the Long Now Foundation, WELL or TED. Their view of the internet and where it had come from and what it could do was fairly different from mine – many of them went online post-advertising, so hadn’t ever seen the pristine web. There was still the hint of subversion there, but far, far less of the hippiness (except for Euan Semple, the big hippy ;). It was all Cluetrain this, Cluetrain that. All about business and marketing and making money. And, of course, conversations.

For, perhaps, a brief moment in early 2004 there was a hint that blogging/social media/Web 2.0 was about big, world-changing ideas. But it very quickly became all about spewing out as much crap as you can. Quantity over quality. Fact checking? Who cares! Opinions are all that matter! Construct a beautiful photograph? No way! Point and shoot and dump it ALL on Flickr. Friends. Friends. I need more and more friends. Interviewing skills? That’s so old media! I don’t care about that! Look! I can stream video from my phone! I’m streaming live right now!!! Come chat!!! It’s about praising every piece of rubbish an online friend of yours does like it’s all ‘genius’. It’s about believing that just cos you’ve got a fricken blog or podcast, the world should owe you something and treat you with reverence and respect. There’s no taste or style. There’s no big ideas. There’s no quality. It’s 99% crap.

For me, going to TED was an incredibly big deal. Everything that has shaped me since 1994 came out of TED. I was very excited and was expecting it to be brilliant. It far exceeded that. It made me remember what it’s all about and made me realise that there are still people out there who believe in the same things I do.

The afternoon after Brian’s talk, he was grabbed by some people to go be interviewed for Pangea Day. I saw the name tag of the woman with him and it said, ‘Pati Hillis’. My first thought was, ‘I wonder if she’s Danny Hillis’s wife?!’ Then just thought I was being a silly fangirl and forgot about it (I did the same thing when I saw someone named Laura Druyan and my first thought was, ‘I wonder if she’s related to Ann?! Oh, don’t be silly’ Turns out Laura’s her niece).

A few minutes later, Pati said something like, ‘I wish Danny could have been here to see your talk. He would have loved it.’ And I squeed, ‘Danny Hillis?! He’s your husband??!’ She looked at me and said, ‘You’ve heard of him?’ Brian said, ‘Gia’s a big fan of his!’ I said, ‘He’s one of my inspirations! Oh my god! Oh my god! I mean, the Long Now Foundation!’ And I just totally dorked out on the moment.

After that, it was an insane 24 hour whirlwind during which Pati introduced us to the most mindblowingly interesting people. I couldn’t even begin to write any of it down in a way that could convey the amazingness of it all.

In a few days, I’m heading back to the bullshit. Where people complain that TED is ‘elitist’. Where they think that podcasting deserves the same respect as Radio 4. Where TV executives get all excited and say that they think blogging might be the next big thing (OK that was 6 months ago, it mightn’t be as sad now). Where no one cares about big ideas.

I’m so happy that TED re-opened that place in my heart where the big ideas live. I’m going to get them out.

Here are a few photos from the past few days.

Dork

Dork Dressed up

Two Dorks Ready For Dinner

Dinner

It’s Freakin’ Sputnik, For Christ’s Sake!!!

Brian On Stage – The only photo I took. I didn’t even look at the camera when taking it. I hope we can get copies of TED’s photos!

This morning I attended TED University – short talks/courses about disparate, but very ‘TED’ topics. My favourite was 8 Ways To Get Into Space by Peter Diamandis (the Chair and CEO of X Prize). After his talk I met Eric Anderson of Space Adventures. His company is why Brian and I started speaking in the first place. So I told him that if it wasn’t for him, my husband and I wouldn’t be married. I think he thought that was kinda cool. I’m *totally* going to introduce Brian to Eric and Peter when I see them again.

Another TED U course was How To Get In To See Anyone You Want by Sunny Bates in which she defined people called ‘connectors’. I realised that’s a big part of what I do- introduce people who I think will like each other, work well together, have something to give to each other. She’s made a very successful career doing that… It made me realise I should try and figure out how I can benefit from all of the introductions I make which end up benefitting others…

Now, Brian and I are going out for some lunch. The talks start later today, so Brian’s going to those and I’ll stay at the hotel and work. I don’t have a pass to all the talks. I chose instead to attend only the evening events in exchange for TED paying for Brian’s business class flight.

Aren’t I a lovely wife?