It was another gathering of the greats at the TEDxLagos event last Friday, as seasoned speakers and many other great minds gathered at the Oriental hotels,Lagos for a loaded ten hour event. TED meaning Technology, Entertainment and Design is standard program designed to stimulate progressive conversations.
TEDx events are special TED events are held with permission of the mother body TED which seeks to propagate “Ideas worth spreading”. This one in particular was organized TED fellow and convener Femi Akinde with the assistance of a volunteer team. It was indeed a mind blowing experience.
Parading seasoned speakers such as Kelechi Amadi Obi (Veteran photographer), Yewande Sadiku (CEO Stanbic Capital), Tayo Oviawe (Paga), Bunmi Otegbade (Generation enterprise), Ben Lazarus (US Consulate), Chef Fregz, Dr. Innocent Okuku (Notore), Tannaz Bahnam (Lost in Lagos), Deepankar Rustagi (VConnect) and many others.
From a pure techie’s perspective, you might have enjoyed particular sessions by Tayo Oviawe of Paga titled “The Thin Line between bravery and stupidity”, Uwa Agbonile’s “How to build your own enterprise software firm in 18mins or less”, or Kelechi Amadi Obi’s “Nigeria in just 41 pictures” – wowing shots all taken with a Nokia Lumia phone.
Quoting Wura Alase ( @_wura_)’s twitter post: “TEDxLagos was really worth my 10 hours. So much inspiration from all the speakers, my head hurts.” This thought essentially captured the overall atmosphere on the day.
Picking a leaf from their website “TEDxLagos was created in the spirit of the TED mission, “ideas worth spreading.” The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals for and in Nigeria the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences in Lagos. Our TEDxLagos conference is multi-disciplinary; our theme: inclusion is broad enough that it will encapsulate the work of all our speakers and performers in their wide range of fields. It gives a common thread that will tie our live speakers and performers; helping ideas flow from one presentation or performance into the next. At TEDxLagos, live presenters will spark deep conversation and connections. TEDxLagos is fully planned and coordinated independently by volunteers for and in Nigeria.”
If this was all they set out to do, the program fully fulfilled its aim, and probably surpassed it, as there were really inspiring sessions which threw up interesting and amazing ideas. The audience was also entertained with performances by Nene, Somi, and Timi Dakolo.
The hash-tag #TEDxLagos does a good job of capturing the event. You could look through the thread for views and excerpts from a cross-section of the audience who were able to put them across on Twitter.
