Avian’s Blog

I just got back from Institute Jožef Stefan, where I attended TEDx Ljubljana, the first Slovenian independently organized TED event. It was organized under license from the TED conference by three volunteers in the spirit of their motto, ideas worth spreading. The attendance was free, which is quite a contrast to the four-figure annual membership fee that is required at the official talks in California. There was a mandatory registration though, and all tickets were given away in just three days.

The topic of today's event was education and standard of living. Just like the schedule it wasn't published before the start of the event, which is an interesting trick. The idea of TED is that the best way of getting new ideas is to get off your daily routine and listen to people outside your expertise. Indeed, I most likely wouldn't attend if I knew the topic beforehand.

Nevertheless I enjoyed being there. There were four half-hour live talks by Slovenian speakers and two recorded and subtitled English talks from California.

First on the schedule were Boris Pavlih and Andrej Bauer, former a high school and latter an university professor. They both talked about the problems they see with students today, how the public perception seems to be that the parents only need to provide for the material good of their children while everything else about their education is the domain of the school. How school seems to be only the necessary evil that gets you a good pay check and should be gone through with as little effort as possible.

Especially dr. Bauer gave a engaging performance that was truly in the spirit of talks like you see recorded on TED.

Following were Sebastjan Mislej, who gave a tour of the videolectures.net effort and how they're bringing knowledge to the far corners of the planet, and mag. Nada Rotovnik, who talked about the common misconceptions about healthy living (e.g. food and exercise) and how there's no such thing as a single, ideal one-fits-all diet (even pure sugar can be good for your in some situations).

The event was concluded by play-back of two TED talks, that are also available on-line and which I really recommend watching: Everything and How schools kill creativity.

As I said, a wonderful evening and looking forward to the next TEDx.