I’ve been watching Twitter for Volcano related tweets lately in order to stay on top of the situation and was curious when a few #TEDxvolcano tags appeared in my feed.
According to the TEDblog, some of their members who were stranded in London due to the Volcano decided to make the best of it and put together an impromptu event that is being live streamed to the rest of the world:
Stranded by the ash cloud, inspired by the just-concluded Skoll World Forum, and temporarily headquartered in one of the world’s greatest cities, a group of entrepreneurs, thinkers, tinkerers and creatives is throwing an unprecendented TEDx event: TEDxVolcano.
Put together in 48 hours by TEDster Nathaniel Whittemore with the support of TED, TEDxLondon, The Hub, Sandbox Network, Assetmap and many others, TEDxVolcano will feature a wide range of thinkers and doers stranded by the volcano, plus inspired audience participation and a few ash-induced surprises. Also: the extraordinary sounds of London-based, global-minded musician Susheela Raman.
The list of speakers includes:
- Cara Mertes, director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program
- 2006 TED Prize winner Larry Brilliant, president of Skoll Global Threats Fund
- CBS travel correspondent Peter Greenberg
- First Round Capital‘s Chris Fralic
- Skoll Foundation executive director Sally Osberg
- Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech and MacArthur “genius” fellow
- Rita King, CEO of Dancing Ink Productions
- Matthew Bishop & Michael Green, author of Philantrocapitalism and The Road from Ruin
- and Jim Berk, CEO of Participant Media
It’s set to start at 6pm UK time, and we’ll be RT’ing it live from @TEDNews — hashtag #tedxvolcano — and posting photos from Robert Leslie and others as soon as they come in.
I love that when faced with an unforeseen obstacle, people will still find ways to come together and exchange ideas and knowledge. I also love the spontaneity of the whole thing and how in 48 hours people came together to launch what is sounding like a pretty awesome event.
That’s really awesome. Making the best of a bad situation by thinking outside of the box and being positive. Sounds like a blast.