tedxmakati 2012

TEDxMakati 2012 was a dose of positivity in a long day riddled with negative coincidences with Friday the 13th, including North Korea's failure to launch and America voting for the worst on Idol and trashing the best; apparently the human race possesses many twisted values!

It was a welcome respite to attend TEDxMakati which was held within Global City in Taguig - which is a bit of an oddity. I forgot to ask the organizers why there's an apparent disconnect. I reckon they might have initially thought of doing it within Makati, took out the TEDx license bearing the city's name, but found Fort Bonifacio to be more convenient.

Still, the organizers - Jam Cipres, Nadine Bautista, Zyrus Deri, Takuya Oka, Cyra Capparos - pulled it off very nicely. In fact, they have built a pretty good momentum at the end of the event by getting a lot of suggestions after tinkering into the idea of holding a second, bolder TEDxMakati.

So anyway, TEDxMakati 2012 was primarily an estimated 2-hour viewing of the archived TEDxChange 2012 which was recently done in Berlin, with four key issues laid on the table:

• rural sanitation practices in Cambodia
• renewable energy in Germany
• African women empowerment, and
• birth control availability in SubSaharan Africa and South Asia

Not surprisingly, you can find parallel examples in our own country:

• daily rotating power shortages in many areas in Mindanao
• open dumping of human waste on the banks of Pasig River, Manila Bay, etc.
• 11 Filipinas die in childbirth each day with 4 in 10 births lacking medical attention, and
• staunch opposition of some religious sects against artificial contraceptive measures being legislated

Seeing effective solutions done in other countries should lead us to think that it's really not impossible to overcome our current struggles as a developing nation. In fact, all these four ideas dubbed "worth sharing" are also great ideas "worth doing" in our country.

More importantly, I think, today's Filipino youth are constantly challenging the old ways, and they're actually doing something to change the status quo.For example, the TEDxMakati organizers have effectively put the TEDxChange agenda forward, while the audience shared their experiences in current advocacies such as Filipino Freethinkers, MTV Exit, and environmental issues. Here's hoping that our generation can live up to these expectations.

By the way, you can check out TEDxMakati's website, Twitter, and Facebook, join in the conversation at random, and chat with the organizers if you want to suggest something for the next TEDxMakati, e..g, suggest someone inspiring as TEDx speaker. I can attest that they're really friendly and warm, and your suggestions for the next staging of TEDxMakati are most welcome.