Student initiative TEDxTUM
Bringing inspiration to center stage
![TEDxTUM_stage Students of TEDxTUM initiative on stage at TUm Audimax](/fileadmin/_processed_/f/1/csm_53655646988_738fb715ea_o_841bb36588.jpg)
Giovanna and Vladi stand on the stage of the Audimax main auditorium and ask the audience to close their eyes. The TEDxTUM hosts launch their annual event with a Mindfulness exercise: "Breathe in. Breathe out"… Then it's time for the presentations. This Saturday in November 2023 has a lot in store for the audience, who will see and hear a paleontologist, a pianist, a performance artists and a robotics researcher, among others.
For about ten years now the student initiative TEDxTUM has been bringing the worldwide renowned TED Talks to Munich: The annual live events bring together people from widely varying fields to talk with and inspire one another, in keeping with the TED Talks motto: "Discover ideas worth spreading".
The TEDxTUM event "Still Charging" will take place on November 16, 2024. Tickets are now on sale.
Enough electric outlets and coffee cups for the big day
Emre, Kathi, Janni, Oliver and Dario, among others, make sure that everything goes smoothly at the conference for the over 400 guests. During one of their online meetings almost a week before the big day, they knock off an open agenda item every minute: Returnable coffee cups, yes or no? Are there enough electric outlets and microphones? Who'll saw out the new styrofoam logo? How many tickets are still left?
Approximately 60 current and former students and doctoral candidates make TEDxTUM work. During the semester they meet in various groups to deal with topics ranging from selecting potential speakers to financing the event. Kathi, Janni and the others are Group Leads, contributing updates and open questions from their groups to the weekly online conferences.
For example, there's the question of whether or not to hire a professional piano mover for the performance by a jazz and street musician. "This is a one-time opportunity!" says Kathi Weiss. She completed the TUM Elite Master's program in Biomedical Neuroscience and now works in scientific communication. In 2023, she led the curation team together with Dario Zappone, a PhD student in Plant Biology, and was thus jointly responsible for the stage program of the TEDxTUM main event.
"There's so much in the world we don't know. And it's great fun to explore this unknown together with people from entirely diverse backgrounds," says Kathi. Accordingly, the TEDxTUM events showcase not only scientific lectures, but also artistic performances. "For us it's about addressing feelings and making our audience happy," Kathi adds. She's convinced: "And that makes it worth having a piano delivered."
Creating value for the audience and society
Janni Ioannou-Nikolaides also sees the importance of the value the TEDxTUM program creates for the audience. Since completing a Master's degree in Particle Physics at TUM, he has been a visiting scholar at the University of Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institute. "As researchers, we bear a responsibility to society. That's why I think it's important to give experts in given fields a showplace where their talks can lead to a real increase in knowledge."
Janni would rather not think about the exact number of hours he puts into TEDxTUM, he says: "During the semester I have three meetings a week, and there's plenty of organizational work to do, too." In 2023, he led the "Experience Coordination" team. He leads the "Experience Coordination" team. "We take care of the stage, catering, the stands in the lobby – everything our guests can see, hear or even taste," he adds.
On the day of the TED event Janni says a friendly hello, but has to keep moving on: Several wall sockets are broken, and there's a lot of electric cable to be installed. But Janni stays optimistic: "A couple of things went wrong, but in the end nobody will notice a thing."
The debut of an "artificial immune defense system for the planet"
Not much later the robotics researcher Sami Haddadin has taken the stage, standing in front of the TEDxTUM logo. He talks about an idea: Implementing a worldwide network of robots equipped with Artificial Intelligence that would for example remove trash from bodies of waterrivers or lakes and the environment. He calls the concept an "artificial immune defense system for the planet".
Sami Haddadin, Professor of Robotics and System Intelligence, hardly finds the time to give public lectures on AI or robotics anymore. But he's making an exception for TEDxTUM: "We had already completed the first experiments. And I thought, this is exactly the right audience to present his idea to for the first time," he says.
Professor Haddadin, an electrical engineer and computer scientist, studied at TUM and attended lectures held in the Audimax main auditorium. During the lunch break he stands in the lobby, surrounded by people, in a specially reserved area. The "Speakers Corners" between the coffee bar and the information stand are a permanent fixture in the TEDxTUM Talks concept: "People are often totally excited about the opportunity to ask questions and have a discussion with the speakers. This direct interaction is very valuable," Kathi says with confidence.
The number of participants tells a very similar story: After the Covid pandemic years, when the TED Talks didn't take place, "The best thing of all was to once again see so many people together at our event," Janni writes in a short update several days after the event. In spite of all the work effort and considerable sleep deprivation, he's relaxed while looking ahead to the 2024 edition of the TEDxTUM conference: "I'm looking forward to the new team members and their new ideas."
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This year's edition of TEDxTUM, entitled "Still Charging", will take place on November 16, 2024. Six renowned speakers will headline an exciting afternoon full of ideas which are worth sharing. Program, tickets and information on the current TEDxTUM team are available at www.tedxtum.com.
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Freunde der TUM e.V. (TUM Association of Alumni and Friends) supports projects by student initiatives, including TEDxTUM. Become a member and support talented young academics at TUM!
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