TedxDelft: Never Grow Up, Part I!

If there is one thing I’ve learnt over the course of my life is that if you only talk and don’t listen, you miss out on a lot of wisdom. Things is, there’s a shitload of smart people out there. (Also dumbasses but for the sake of this argument I’m skipping over that right now, trusting you can tell the difference.) 

I believe the less interesting you find yourself and the more interested in the world around you and the people in it, the smarter you become. After all, there is so much interesting information to be found if you listen to what other people have discovered and what they have done with their lives. Soaking it up is a smart move, and that’s exactly why I’m so deeply enamored with anything Tedx and right now, TedxDelft in particular.

There’s plenty of cool Tedx Videos available on-line, and whereas a lot of them focus on motivation and other areas completely in my scene, TedxDelft is a little bit more beta. And you know what? That’s good for an alfa like me! I like being oriented on more than just my easy targets. Here’s some of the performers that I will gladly stalk to listen to their TedxTalks on the 5th of October.

Tom de Bruyne: A Belgian clinical psychologist who accidentally got into advertising and made some amazing, award-winning cross-media campaigns. He now works in Amsterdam and based on his profile as well as the phrase ‘Homo Digitalis’, I am already fascinated.

Ionica Smeets: I wrote this profile about her and I love her all-round experience in media, science and mathematics. She loves mathematics? Alright. I’m willing to find out why. I’ve seen some of her videos and she does it with great entertainment value.

Arend Schwab: I love this. Arend Schwab is a professor at the Technical University of Delft where he runs the bicycle mechanics labs and whenever he figures out a new assignments for the students, he pulls out all the stops with any bicycle-like object. Very creative. Also, I read his main interest is collision and rolling…I know this doesn’t speak for me, but that automatically created the image of Arend in bicycle accidents singing “They See Me Rolling”. I bet the actual research is much more scientific and a lot less ridiculous. So much worthier of the check-out than my childish imagination.

Bas Lansdorp: This man is now working on getting people to Mars. I’m sorry, but I don’t think any further explanation is required on why that’s awesome.

Manon Ossevoort: Her project ‘Tractor Girl’ can’t really be explained well (at least not by me) but I am in awe of it. Go check it out on the website. I find it creative, daring and it shows off a beautiful poetic side of not only Manon herself, but also of all those that conspire to help her.

I’m quite excited for the 5th of October already. And these aren’t even all the performers just yet. Check out the website or wait for me to go over the rest of the list. Cheers!