Asia Pacific’s First TEDx ED Event


The TEDxHongKong team is happy to bring you Asia Pacific’s First TEDx ED Event ever! We are grateful that are taking the time to learn about our event. Our team has been hard at work putting together this event, and fully believes that Education is truly an Idea Worth Spreading.

Please feel free to let us know if you have any further questions. Make sure to buy your tickets soon – last year’s TEDxHongKong filled up quicker than we thought it would!

 

Why Does This Event Matter?

The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn’t need to be reformed — it needs to be transformed

-Sir Ken Robinson

We believe that Education is at a tipping point, especially in Hong Kong. In today’s society, where we rush to throw our child into any and every after-school tutor and activity, are we really doing what’s right for our kids? Are we doing what’s right for our city? Is there really no better and more effective, more economically efficient way for our children to grow and development?

Our event will be loosely focused on the following four themes:

  • Perspectives from Within the Classroom – How are we doing in our schools? What works? What needs to be changed?
  • Perspectives on Learning Outside of the Classroom - Are we only bound to learn inside the four walls of a classroom? How can we learn from our surroundings? What should we be aware of?
  • Entrepreneurship and Failure - Why is entrepreneurship important? Why is failure important? How do we learn from failure?
  • Education Science and Policy – Are we as a society doing a good job at promoting learning over regurgitation? What does our physiology tell us about how we are wired to learn?

Speakers and Topics

The team is proud to have the following speakers come and present at TEDxHongKongED 2013! We want to make sure this becomes more than just an education convention – we want to embody an attitude of life-long learning and not just reading for the grade; a sense of wonder of how the world works, beyond the four walls of the classroom. These are our guiding principles when we carefully selected speakers for this year’s event.

Below is a tentative speaking schedule. Click on each speaker’s name to view their full speaker bio!

Segment 1 (10:00AM – 11:30AM): Perspectives from Within the Classroom
Dr. Jadis Blurton, Principal and Director at The Harbour School: “What’s In When School’s Out?”
Douglas Kidd, Special Education Needs Coordinator: “Making SENse”
Yvonne Chiu, Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Administration, HKU: “Censorship and Controlling Ideas in the Classroom”

Segment 2 (11:30AM – 1:00PM): Perspectives from Outside the Classroom
Chris Brien, International Drumset Artist, Author, Composer, Percussionist, Educator and Clinician: “Creativity, Rhythm, and Education”
Rob Lilwall, Adventurer, Author, and Speaker: “Learning on the Road”
Melissa Lee, Founder, the Fairytale Project: “Translating the Human Experience”
Brett Hilliard, Pastor, IslandECC: “Multidimensional Teaching and Creativity”

Lunch (1:00PM to 2:00PM)

Segment 3 (2:00PM to 3:15PM): Extreme Education
Dr. Lamont Tang, Neuroscientist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UCSF: “Genius, Mental Illness, and Everything In Between”
Sophie Leung, Founder and Chairman, the Young Entrepreneurs Development Council: “Instilling Hope to Students in a Skewed Education System”
Julian Zhu, Training Instructor, Dialogue in the Dark Hong Kong: “The Best Way to Learn is to Encounter”

Segment 4 (3:15PM to 4:30PM): Entrepreneurship and Failure
Merijn Everaarts, Founder, Dopper: “Education in a Bottle”
Francis Ngai, Founder and CEO, Social Ventures Hong Kong: “Learn to be a Social Innovator in 15 Minutes”
Peter Kenny, Founder, Branksome Hall: “Conformity Opposing Creativity”

 

Get Involved!

We’re looking for additional sponsors for our event, and also for volunteer video post-production team members! Drop us an email at [email protected], or fill out our contact form!

 

TEDxHongKong

Gino Yu is the official license holder and spokesperson for TEDxHongKong.

The TEDx Mission

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.

About TED

TED is an annual event where some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to share what they are most passionate about. “TED” stands for Technology,  Entertainment, Design — three broad subject areas that are, collectively, shaping our future. And in fact, the event is broader still, showcasing ideas that matter in any discipline. Attendees have called it “the ultimate brain spa” and “a four-day journey into the future.” The diverse audience — CEOs, scientists, creatives, philanthropists — is almost as extraordinary as the speakers, who have included Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Frank Gehry, Paul Simon, Sir Richard Branson, Philippe Starck and Bono.

TED was first held in Monterey, California, in 1984. In 2001, Chris Anderson’s Sapling Foundation acquired TED from its founder, Richard Saul Wurman. In recent years, TED has expanded to include an international conference, TEDGlobal; media initiatives, including TED Talks and TED.com; and the TED Prize.