On the 30th of November 2009 I was one of the lucky ones to attend the first-ever TED-related event in Germany. TEDx Berlin was organized by German communication agency red onion around Stephan Balzer and took place at the Grand Hyatt in Berlin. Stephan Balzer was also the moderator of the event and did a great job guiding through the day. The location was also a great choice as it (apparently) offered all its services for free to the event and the layout of the hotel and its facilities supported the collaborative character of the event.

The event was organized meticulously and it was just a great pleasure to be guided through the day. The choice of speakers and their stories was phenomenal as the list was quite diverse, some talks were in a sense complementing, and the whole atmosphere was very stimulating.

The balance between talks and opportunities to talk to the speakers and other participants was excellent. Frequent coffee breaks and a very nice lunch gave everyone the opportunity to network.

My Favourite Talks

Till Behnke – The Web of Trust

Till Behnke’s presentation about the web or trust was another great example of how web technologies (being very intangible) can solve a very pressing and devastating issue like poverty or lack of access to resources (being very tangible). His website is achieving this through matching supply and demand. Mr. Behnke told the audience about his younger years when he made the transformation from an up and coming rugby player to corporate player to internet entrepreneur.

Having visited South Africa and having seen its beauty and foremost its devastating problems he decided to attempt to change something about it. He started off with organizing some volunteers for a housing project but was never quite satisfied since he could not find access to a larger lever that would really move things. When researching opportunities to raise money he was shocked by the amount on in-transparency in most charitable organizations. His project betterplace.org is giving people with lack of resources access to people with resources. They are “merely” matching people with projects to people with money and the desire to invest it in charitable projects. I enjoyed his presentation a lot since the level of energy was very high. Till Behnke was not really talking just about a problem but more a problem that he made his own. The level of pure passion to talk about this topic was very inspiring.

Ralf Schmerberg – Who is Independent in the 21st Century?

What I liked especially about Mr. Schmerberg’s talk was that he showed some vulnerability and shared some very personal thoughts. He talked extensively about his “past” life in which he was part of a corporate machine that he started to hate more and more. Finally, he broke out of it and changed the direction of his life. Instead of using his energy to promote and sell products in large amounts he dedicated more and more of his time to “independent” (film) projects.

An interesting approach that his projects take is to not pay anything. According to Mr. Schmerberg this works out perfectly. The idea is simple: They don’t pay themselves, external service providers, and they also not sell their movies. He made the comparison of what would have happened if they tried to sell their latest documentary. Had they tried the traditional channels he claimed that they might have sold 50k copies of the film but instead they made it available online and had 4m views in a very short time. Overall, Mr. Schmerberg’s message was to really think about how independent you are from people, money, ideologies, and preconceived opinions.

Peter Eigen – Grand Corruption & Petty Corruption – Fighting them Through Civil Society

Mr. Eigen was the most inspiring speaker of the day for me personally. Having worked for the World Bank Mr. Eigen told stories about facing grand corruption and his deep desire to stop it. In other words he said that corruption is in many developing places the root of all evil and rather culminates problems than to solve them. He named corruption as prime reason for poverty since corruption creates inefficient and economically unjustifiable situations.

He founded Transparency International with this dilemma in mind and formed the hypothesis that corruption could only be fought through the formation of a civil society. Mr. Eigen went on to explain this: The backbone of the idea is that corruption is criminalized (in many developed nations this is apparently still not the case) and society itself is the driving force behind an enforcement. In other words corruption becomes socially unacceptable and is not tolerated at all by the citizens. This is especially important in developing nations as this would prevent waste of public money.

One of the most remarkable things about Mr. Eigen’s talk was that he spoke from decades of experience. His service in the World Bank gave him a great look and perspective from the inside that he generously shared with the audience. Also his level of passion for the topic and clarity with which he presented made is a pure pleasure to listen to him.

My Favourite Video

One rule a TEDx event has to apply is to show a certain amount of videos of the “real” TED conference in Monterrey. The team of TEDx Berlin presented a great choice of videos: David Logan’s “Tribal Leadership”, Pattie Maes’ “The 6th Sense”, and “Hans Rosling’s “The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen”. I knew Hans Rosling’s and  Pattie Maes’ talk already and they are more than a must-watch.

The talk given by David Logan is very inspiring and fascinating since he shows how our society (or better: all societies around the globe) actually work like tribes. His main point is that we all live and work in tribes and that we are part of many tribes.

You can find the video here: David Logan on Tribal Leadership

(At this moment TEDx Berlin has not yet published any pictures or videos – I will add them when they come online eventually.)

So would you go again?

It was the very first TEDx in Germany and I will try to attend all the upcoming TEDx events near me. The level of inspiration is overwhelming and I can only recommend it to anyone who is interested beyond whatever it is they are doing. Luckily, the organizers announced that in about 6 months they will try to realize TEDx Hamburg which I will try to be a part of as well. Thank you for the great event!