Letter from Vancouver: Dispatches from TED2016

I’m at TED2016 in Vancouver.

I’m here for the eighth year in a row and I’m sat currently listening to the rain (note: it ALWAYS rains in Vancouver) reflecting on everything I’ve heard so far.

Now the I’m only 2.5 days into a 4.5 day conference so there’s still plenty to hear but I’ll try and sum it up.

If you ever get the chance to come to TED – and I consider myself insanely lucky that I get to come – then you should do everything you can to try to get here. OK it’s a bit pretentious and a little smug and self-congratulatory. But if you’d achieved what TED has achieved over the last ten years then I think you would be too. It’s simultaneously terrifying and incredibly enlightening. Humbling at the same time as making you feel like you’re quite a big deal just for being here!

I’ve heard from Al Gore about how we’re winning the climate change battle, I’ve heard from Dan Gross about how America is at the tipping point of winning the gun control debate, from Tim Urban on the power of procrastination – and tonight I heard from Bryan Stevenson about how America is finally coming to terms with its genocidal past of slavery. But I’ve also heard scary stuff about “gene-drivers” that have the ability to change the genetic make up of entire species, I’ve heard about how human action will eradicate 50% of the species on earth by 2100 and also how we’re potentially on the brink of the 6th great mass extinction event in human history if we’re not careful.

The TED conference is simultaneously ridiculously elitist (due to it’s hefty $8500 a ticket price tag) but also phenomenally liberating and a force for good. It raises, publicises and is helping solve some of the big issues of our age. It’s also AMAZING for humble bragging – I’ve shaken the hand of Al Gore, I’ve got a smile from Meg Ryan, I grabbed a selfie with Indiana Jones (yes, Mr Ford was here) and had a really lovely chat with Monica Lewinsky.

And that was just today.

It’s exhausting in its intensity (100+ TED talks in four days) but also leaves you phenomenally energised and wanting more. There’s loads of very cool stuff to do and see – flying drone stuff and brilliant AR demos of technologies like VOID.

My wife always says that the week that I come back from TED is the week when I am simultaneously the “best me” and the “worst me” of the year. The best me because my head is buzzing with 1001 ideas of great things I could do or get involved in. The best me because it awakens all the greatest traits in a planner of bringing interesting and useful things to the table. The worst me because I am left in a pit of self-loathing that I’m not curing cancer, or solving climate change. I’ve not worked out a way to make all energy renewable. And I’m not Han Solo.

So what are the best things to look for coming online in the next few weeks?

Look for Shonda Rhimes talk on the addictive “hum” of being a workaholic.
Look for Astro Teller’s talk on the Google “moonshot factory” and what we can all learn from it.
Dalia Mogahed’s talk on what it means to be a Muslim in America in 2016 was both humbling and electrifying.
And you should definitely see Amit Sood’s talk/demo on the Google Cultural Institute.

But as usual the things I’ll take away will probably be the things that happen outside the theatre and the talks. The myriad of fascinating, eclectic, intelligent, motivated and impressive bunch of 1000+ attendees you get to chat to over fifty tons of vegan snacks and ridiculously pretentious artisan coffee in the break times. Every one of them has a story.

Every one of them has something brilliant to tell you. It does mean I have to break my English habit of a lifetime and actually talk to strangers. But Kio Stark has a talk on that too. Make sure you check it out when it goes online at TED.com. I’m already excited about what I’m going to see and the people I’m going to meet tomorrow.

I’d better get off to bed.
Night night.

Read more from Kevin Chesters here and follow him @hairychesters