TEDxEHL – Some Great Ideas Shared – Videos now available

In order of appearance in the programme, they are briefly introduced below. We encourage you to watch them and let us know what you think. Enjoy!

1. Live Speaker: Mike Hatrick – “Tales of the Unexpected” addresses innovation, telling stories that beg questions such as “How do you cater for customers’ racehorses?” “Who is your unexpected IT guy in the bushwhacker hat 3’000 miles away with THE idea for the business jet of the future?” and “Could a SWAT team of inexperienced, unusual suspects trump your chief engineer?”

From talking of innovation in unexpected places to an innovative, alternative to Styrofoam from an unexpected source…



2. TEDTalk Video: Eben Bayer – “Are Mushrooms the New Plastic?”
promotes an eco-alternative to Styrofoam – which has the same energy content of 1.5 litres of petrol… yet it’s thrown in the trash. 20 billion dollars of Styrofoam is produced every year and it occupies 25% of US landfills. Eben explains how, using mushroom mycelium as glue, we can mould things from agricultural byproducts – replacing Styrofoam cups and packaging!

From mycelium-based packaging to an insightful look at packaging design…



3. Live Speaker: Sophie Maxwell – “Designing the future of taste” asks “Should we be packaging food that already has the best kind of natural packaging?” She shows how, rather than hero food & all its wonders, software-led packaging design created barriers, misrepresentation & bad habits. And she predicts the future of taste being a greater appreciation of our food’s virtues & possibilities, clearly communicated and experienced.

From how we perceive packaged food to our perception of the food we eat…

4. Live Speaker: Birgit Schleifenbaum – “Fuel for Life” 
presents some shocking statistics about food production. For example, annual sugar production is 160 million tons/year – equal to the quantity of sand needed to build the Dubai Palm Island and requiring as much as 3 times the Lake Geneva to produce. But luckily we are not made of sugar and food is much more than calories and the science of senses and flavour can help us in the future.

From flavour science to the links between flavour, farming and feeds…



5. TEDTalkVideo: Dan Barber – “How I Fell In Love with a Fish”

tells the story of the feed-free Veta La Palma fish farm in Spain, where pink-bellied feasting flamingos signal the health of the system. “To feed ourselves in the future, let’s look to the ecological model, and to farms that farm extensively & restore”, promotes Dan. “Farmers that are experts in relationships are experts in flavour too and… a better chef than I’ll ever be.”

From an ecological farming model to the ecosystem services mathematics… 



6. Live Speaker: Eva Zabey – “The Economy – It’s Nature’s Business” proposes: “How about we use the economy to guard the environment as part of the way we work it?” She explains that natural ecosystems provide services not accounted for in today’s economy because they’re not appropriately valued. And as all businesses depend on ecosystems services, we need to use evolving methodologies to do the mathematics necessary to value ecosystem services and make informed decisions.

From ecosystems to a highline wildscape proving valuable to Manhattan…

7. TEDTalk Video: Robert Hammond – “Building a Park in the Sky”
speaks of how a park was born, inspired by 1.5 miles of wildflowers running through mid-Manhattan on an elevated rail line. Friends of The Highline saved it from destruction by creating a wildscape park. It cost $250 Million. Now people estimate the Highline park has / will create about half a billion dollars in tax revenues for the city.

From the re-creation of space on a rail line to re-creating space thinking like a novelist…



8. Live Speaker: Maeve Ryan – “(Re)Creating Spaces – Thinking Like a Novelist” suggests that thinking like a novelist can open up new ways of pursuing innovation in any number of career paths. Creating a fictional space for a story is not far removed from the process of creating a real space, explains Eva. Readers are tourists. If you want to create something new, to innovate – try starting with a character and write them into story.

From creative writing to creating interactive and influential spaces…



9. Live Speaker: Kynan Eng – “Interactive and Influential Spaces” speaks about how, since early humans, we’ve created spaces partitioning us away from a biosphere of highly active & interactive space. Yet now the spaces we create are increasingly interactive and intelligent. They can even be conditioned to learn to influence us.

From interactive spaces to the world of gaming…



10. TEDTalk Video: Jane McGonigal “Gaming Can Make a Better World”
describes how game playing gives us urgent optimism, believing that an epic win is possible and worth trying. She explains how dice games saved the kingdom of Lydia during famine, and how nowadays (quoting economist Ed Castronova) “We’re witnessing a mass exodus to virtual worlds and online game environments”.

From gaming to another phenomenon of anthropological interest: hospitality and hostility…



11. Live Speaker: Tom Selwyn – “Being At Home in the World” considers hospitality’s role in occasions where social relationships are symbolized and argues that hospitality is in a fundamental sense for society itself, marking the making of social / political alliances and transitions. At the same time, hospitality is first cousin to hostility. From earliest times the refugee has always been the neediest of hospitality, and yet increasingly it is harder to find.

From classical music to the music of the EHL Committee…



Music from Ilia Zolas and the EHL Music Committee wrapped up the programme, performing a song reflecting the TEDxEcoleHôtelièreLausanne event.