TEDTalks shown at TEDxCanberra 2011

As a part of every TEDx, there’s a require­ment to show sev­eral TEDTalks from the main TED site. This year, we picked sev­eral that illus­trated things we were inter­ested in, and filled gaps in our lineup.

Here, for you, are the videos we showed.

Christo­pher McDougall’s talk appealed as sev­eral of the TEDx­Can­berra team are run­ners. None par­tic­u­larly tal­ented, but cer­tainly enthu­si­as­tic. His take on how and why we run, and both the sci­en­tific and cul­tural aspects are worth pay­ing close atten­tion to.

Emily Pilloton’s talk about revi­tal­is­ing rural towns through design think­ing hit us where it counts. Drive through any small town in rural Aus­tralia and the sit­u­a­tion is lit­tle dif­fer­ent to that Emily shows in Bertie County, North Car­olina. Revi­tal­is­ing our rural com­mu­ni­ties and pro­vid­ing them with the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture to thrive, ought to be a pri­or­ity we all share.

More than a few TEDx­Can­berra team mem­bers are data geeks as well as being deeply inter­ested in issues of sus­tain­abil­ity. Rapid, cheap and clean trans­mis­sion of data, espe­cially if Har­ald Haas’ work can be devel­oped into mul­ti­ple data streams in mul­ti­ple direc­tions, has enor­mous energy, sus­tain­abil­ity and com­mu­ni­ca­tions implications.

Brian Cox is a per­sonal hero of TEDxCanberra’s Cre­ative Cat­a­lyst, Stephen Collins. Not to men­tion his wife, Alli, con­sid­ers Pro­fes­sor Cox to have about the sex­i­est voice ever. His call for us to strive for ongo­ing curios­ity about all aspects of our uni­verse has an appeal we can’t deny.