Fold tHe boX (3)

The Jack Klaff session had some weird vibes: laughing one minute, getting completely thrown off the scent the next and ending with a chilling finale. Klaft is a South African born Princeton professor/actor who was also involved in the Starlab initiative (as is Serguei by the way) in Brussels. I'm not sure I know what he talked about in the end ... but he got us sitting on the tip of our chairs.

He was followed by John Engel, production manager in the movie business and author of Uncommon Sound, a history of the guitar since the 1920's with a focus on all those ground-breaking left-handed guitar players like himself. He introduced us to another lefthanded guitar player, Djamel Laroussi, Algerian-French, who produced some trancelike sounds from his guitar (with the strings upside down) and who got the audience joining him in clapping and singing ... sort of, anyway.

I missed the last part, so I didn't get to see Catherine Verfaillie (which is a pitty), nor R.U.Sirius (behind the 10Zenmonkeys blog) nor Noam Perski (who, I read on Twitter made this equation: all datacenters in the world have an energy consumption of 2% which is more than the aviation industry worldwide) , Calligrafitti (who probably designed the awfull TEDx t-shirts) or Paul Collier. And I don't know either whether the missing speakers (Pedro Brugada, the heart surgeon? Caroline Gabriel? ) eventually showed up.

I wouldn't call it Burn the Box, and I do realize that when we think TED, we think TED.com and all those really really great guests they seem to have an endless stock of. It was certainly worth the trip, however. And absolutely to be repeated next year, with more possibilities for interaction (tweets on a screen for example and have speakers react to them if they want to)

I haven't figured out what the incentive was for those like me who paid double the amount of the 50€ fee ... and I haven't found any information yet on the TEDxBrussels website (movies, slideshows, ..) so I'm guessing it will come, eventually.

I hope.