Theme: Movement

Movements and ideas all over the world are continuously spreading. We are on the move. Constantly. Cohesively. Contradictory. Creatively. We move and are being moved independently and together, physically and emotionally, socially and politically. In this spirit TEDxCopenhagen is hosting our annual main event focusing on MOVEMENT in every aspect. Join TEDxCopenhagen on September 18th 2012.

Bremen
Copenhagen
Denmark

Bente Klarlund Pedersen

In Denmark, physical inactivity is considered the number two actual cause of death. Physically inactive people have a life span, which is 5 years shorter than that of a physically active individual. We need a political statement and laws about “health consequences”. Just as politicians always should consider gender and ethnic issues, they should also consider health aspects, including how infrastructure and architecture may influence the population’s physical activity level. To win the war against physical inactivity, we must close the gap between science and practice.

Birger Lindberg Pedersen

Synthetic biology is a new movement setting the hearts and minds of scientists across the world on fire. But really plants, and not scientists, are at the center of this movement: They can help us think completely out-of-the-box for solutions to the challenges we as a global community are facing in the move to a biobased society. Plants are world champions in driving complex chemistry with sunlight as the sole energy input and using carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as carbon source. Let’s collaborate!

Claus Meyer

Co-founder of noma – the world’s best restaurant 3 years running – Claus Meyer has for more than 20 years challenged conventional thinking in agriculture, food production and cooking. He has inspired a generation to rediscover local Nordic produce through cookbooks, TV shows, lectures and food debates. Claus Meyer reveals how he actively searches for territories and challenges where there is a basis for creating a movement, which will bring about changes of avalanche proportions.

Dark Matters

Dark Matters works by conveying messages into a minimalistic abstract visual language, embracing the audience’s own imaginations, allowing space for personal interpretation. With the video projection as an architectural extension of physical space, Dark Matters presents their take on movement in modern communication. Be ready for a visual journey, an engaging narrative experience, in minimalistic graphics.

Eman Osman

Eman Osman is Somali and as a 9-year old, she came to Denmark from Kuwait as a refugee. She currently works at the Immigrant Women’s center for a project called “Somali Mother’s Building Bridge”, which is about being active in your own community and helping others who need a bit of support to be a part of Danish society. Her goal is to get these two communities to understand each other better.

Emil Wilk

Emil Wilk is a young think-doer within social innovation, advertising and television. He believes that We is the new Me, and that you can build profit while building a better world, both as a business and as a person. The concept of FreeBikes is simple, but the impact great: Ad-funded bikes are lent to students in Denmark. After one year serving as sustainable advertising channels, the bikes are shipped to Ghana for students in rural areas, who have a long way to school.

IKI

IKI is bubbling intuition and EXPLODING improvisation. IKI evolves and transforms singing and brings it into new unchartered territories. IKI’s basic concept is: Nine voices, no rules! Everything is totally improvised. The musicians themselves see it as a philosophy of being in the present, creating new music, and exploring the human voice and its many facets and sounds.

Jakob Silas Lund

Play31 is a peace-building organization that uses football to bring together people who have been torn apart by war. The name refers to the 31st article of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that all children in the world have the right to play. Jakob’s talk gives examples of how this process works at a micro-level and suggests that it oftentimes takes less than we think to make a difference and bring people together.

Jerry Michalski

Many institutions we take for granted are designed from a basis of mistrust. Skip school too often? Go to jail. Run that red light, even when nobody is around for blocks? Ticket. Movements around the world are finding new ways, flipping the model, building practices and institutions based on the initial gesture of trust. Building on trust, we are rediscovering how to be citizens in civilization together. The effects of this shift will catalyze every sector of human activity, a process we’ve only just begun.

Joseph Hamoud

Joseph Hamoud portrays and tells the story of Syria through a series of stories and personal thoughts, to give the audience a colorful account of the Syrian revolution. He portrays the great heroism and sacrifice of the Syrian people in its pursuit of freedom and he gives a hopeful image for Syria’s future. He asks the audience to reflect on their and their governments’ stand on the Syrian issue, because each and one of us could be doing a lot more for the case of freedom all over the world.

Kasper Guldager

How do spiders and mushrooms inspire tomorrow’s buildings? In architecture the word design is mainly associated with the design of buildings and objects. In the world of materials design is something internal. The development of production methods on the micro scale has led to far greater control of how we design and construct new materials. This kind of design is invisible to the human eye. In fact materials of the future are already a reality today, and they can help us answer many of the ecological design challenges we are facing.

Kirsten Ejlerskov

I love running. When I run, I feel as though my body is doing what it’s meant to do. The physical, emotional and rational melt seamlessly together. If I’m upset or angry, a run makes me feel better. If I have a problem or am looking for inspiration, I find my solutions.

Klaus Phanareth

Imagine a future where we all, regardless of education or wealth, have the power and the knowledge to take charge of our own health. Our health care system will coach, support and empower us in using its services to do so anytime we need it. What if chronic disease no longer will require us to visit specialists, or spend time in hospital? Klaus Phanareth explains how this is possible though the Epital concept that combines digitalization, accessible telehealth services and common sense.

Lars AP

In 2010 Lars AP wrote the book F***ing Flink (‘Flink’ is Danish for friendly). Since then, he has rallied together a constantly growing posse of friendly people, leading F***ing Flink forward to become a national movement hell-bent on nudging Danes to become friendlier – at home, at work, or at the busstop. As the movement continues to assert its social acupuncture, Lars AP’s goal is clear: That Danes – the world’s happiest people – one day also become the world’s friendliest.

Lasse Birk Olesen

Scientists argued for 150 years that politicians needed to stop population growth, but it wasn’t new laws that stopped its acceleration. No, it happened as the pill became widely available. When we have a social agenda we still behave like those old scientists – we agitate instead of innovate. So let’s rethink devoting resources to the zero-sum game of politics and instead focus on enabling technologies that change society!

Mary Embry

The original term ‘copenhagenise’ described the British habit of taking a defeated enemy’s navy home with them, as Admiral Nelson did after bombing Copenhagen in 1807. In her talk, The Copenhagenize Project, Embry reveals its current meaning: A positive brand for creating mainstream bicycle culture and liveable cities.

Moonhound Theatre

Stories are seeds that do not stay seeds. But instead they grow when a person invites a story into their hearts. It grows and grows into a tree full of pictures and other great stories to tell. Painting a picture one body at a time. Creating classical as well as original stories by exploring the human body and transforming it into images that stay, Sam Taylor, Fabiola Gonzalez, Kay Taylor, and David Roby tell stories using physical theatre. Together they are “Moonhound Theatre: Stories that Move.”

Ole Qvist Sørensen

We must draw more together. We all know that a picture is worth a 1000 words. Pictures can convey complex information in a way, which is natural for our brains to grasp. Visual thinking is a gift we all have and drawing is an easy and simple way to show and involve others in understanding – or seeing – what we mean. Drawing together can be seen as a collective meaning-making process for a group. It is easy to learn. It is intuitive. It starts with pen, paper and curiosity.

Risenga Manghezi

The freetown of Christiania saw the light of day in 1971 and has since been embroiled in controversy due to their alternative views on how society should be run. Lately Christiania has been forced to think creatively in order to move forward while staying true to its purpose of challenging conventions and changing the world. This process comes down to choosing between introvert self-sufficiency and sharing the sanctuary with people from all over the world.

Selena Juul

Consumers are the key players in reducing food waste. Within the last 4 years, the Danish Stop Wasting Food movement (Stop Spild Af Mad) has grown from a small Facebook group to the biggest Danish NGO against food waste, influencing the retailers as well as the politicians and helping to put the topic on EU’s and UN’s agenda. Food has become a political tool for changing the world. The consumers have become the new politicians – and consumer movements are gaining the power to create global change.

Signe Bjørg Jensen

Scouting is a true worldwide movement. Try travelling from Greenland to South Africa, and from New Zealand to USA and you will be able to find members of the scouting organisation. Most people know what scouts do. But do they know why they do it? Since age 6 Signe has been a scout and for the last 10 years a scout leader – and she knows exactly why she does it.

Soluaima Gourani

Soulaima Gourani has always been ambitious, but nobody expected that she would go far in life. In fourth grade her teacher even said that she should lower her ambitions since she was a girl, had dark skin and was called Soulaima. She found ways of overcoming these “challenges” and realised that her emotional and social skills were in high demand. According to her a greater focus on these ´soft´ qualities in our schools is needed to ensure the future happiness and success of our children.

Troels Petersen

At CERN’s giant LHC accelerator, protons move at almost the speed of light. The protons are brought to collide in an attempt to convert the energy in their movement into new particles and phenomena. In this way we can explore the fundamental building blocks of our Universe. However, challenging the riddles of the Universe is a tough task, and there are many technical difficulties to overcome in the process. Overcoming these challenges enables spectacular discoveries, which fundamentally move our understanding of the Universe.

Tuk og Sofie

People meet all the time, but what happens when language isn’t enough to communicate? The experiences we all discover through movement and physical contact are sometimes what binds us together and challenges us to search for other ways to interact. But being upside-down and loosing control is not a part of daily life we like to explore, we prefer to stay in our comfort zones. However, when “normal” isn’t a possibility we must challenge our minds and bodies and see where it takes us…