Looking back at TEDxDelft
Our journey starts in august 2010 when me and a few of my
friends and collegues had attended a TEDx event in the Netherlands. The
question was why there was no TEDx in Delft. None of us could come up with a
good answer. “because it takes time and effort” was one, “because there are
other TEDx events already” was another.
Delft is a medium sized city in between Rotterdam and
Amsterdam. Delft has a very rich history of creators and creations, of Vermeer
and Van Leeuwenhoek, of Senz umbrellas and Plakkies flipflops, of quantum
mechanics and satelite experts. Delft has a top ranking University of
Technology, a city centre that is a treasure of cultural heritage. Delft has
Delft blue pottery, royalty, design, Delft knows how to win solar power races
(or almost). Delft is all about Ideas Worth Spreading. Delft is all about
Creating History.
Simone de Jong and me decided to explore the idea of
bringing TEDx to Delft. Although we both work for TU Delft, we wanted TEDxDelft
to be something for and about the city as a whole, not just for the university.
We believe that if it’s good for the city, it’s good for it’s university and
the other way around.
The first thing we did is form a project team of people from
TU Delft, Delft local government and two companies in Delft. Then we formed an
independent non-profit foundation with
representatives local government, university and Delft business. The
organization is responsible for the event, its finance etc. This seems like a
far-fetched construction but it helped us a lot because of the independence
from large organizations. It also allowed us to spend time on TEDxDelft within
working hours: this made the founding allies sponsors of the event.
We formed an advisory board with Jim Stolze of TEDxAmsterdam
in it, a few speakers from other TEDx events and other event organizers. We
asked for their advice on all kinds of matters throughout the process.
We started looking for sponsors and speakers. Because it was
going to be our first event it was not always clear to potential sponsors what
a TEDx was. Luckily TEDxAmsterdam en TEDxRotterdam paved the way for us but
finding sponsors without having an event yet is tricky. Building an event
without proper funding is a challenge as well.
We have put a lot of effort in finding the right speakers in
the time slots we chose: 6, 12 and 18 minutes. I think we spoke to double the
amount of speakers after we had already screened them online and by asking
outlines for their idea worth spreading. We reserved one (6 min) spot in our
program as a wildcard. A group of students organized an award event two weeks
before ours: the prize was being on our stage.
We found volunteers, sponsors (most of them in-kind) and a
venue. We could use TU Delft’s main auditorium for free (including technical
staff and all infrastructure inside) which can house up to 1100 people. We wanted our first event to be huge
but we thought 800 was enough so we closed down a few sections. The event was
sold out a week before the actual event.
We are very proud of our host of the day, professional
comedian and holding a PhD degree: Jasper van Kuijk. He did a very good job
keeping the speakers to their max timeslot and was able to put some humorous
remarks in without being to much present himself.
Of course some thing could have done better by us. Our
registration procedure was slowing down quick
entrance of guests for instance. Some of the in-kind sponsors were too
demanding and put too much stress on the organizing team. The English pronunciation
could have been better.
Concluding our first event: we had a great time preparing, a
wonderful time on the day of the event and everyone had a fantastic time
experiencing TEDx in Delft. I’ll leave you with the closing words from our
host Jasper van Kuijk. He summarized TEDxDelft in a poem (one of the speakers (Bauke Steenhuisen) idea worth
spreading was that poetry says more than most management reports).
Do not prozify
Have a goal
Or none at all
Electrify
Build, tinker
Create life, and nurse it
Seek beauty in complexity
Find elegance in calculations
Caress a book
Listen
But never to design briefs
Think upside down
Become an astronaut
Democratize, power the people
Feel, don’t deny your emotions
Compose
Take fiction out of science fiction
Make it rain
Make music
Hold on to your dreams
Go beyond the current context
Make things
