Videos of talks presented at TEDxCERN 2015 are now online. The event, held on 9 October in the CMS Assembly Hall at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, was attended by around 600 people. Around 4000 followed the live webcast with 22 institutes around the world hosting their own TEDxCERN viewing parties.
“Interest in TEDxCERN has grown tremendously. The demand for tickets this year was three times higher than we could accommodate. The feedback we have received is both positive and generous. Speakers and participants alike have written to say how their participation has lead to new ideas, new collaborations and even funding for school projects”, says Claudia Marcelloni, head of TEDxCERN.
The theme for this year’s event, TEDxCERN’s third edition, was ‘Breaking the Rules’ and brought scientists from different fields on stage to present novel solutions to life’s problems.
From neuroscience and the ethics of neurotechnology, to designs for the third millennium, TEDxCERN featured visionaries and rulebreakers who are already changing the way we think.
Edda Gschwendtner, project leader of CERN’s Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE), talked about a new method that could help create compact high-energy accelerators. Linda Liukas, Digital Champion of Finland, explained why she writes children’s books on programming. And Michael Bodekaer gave a demonstration on how the teaching of science in classrooms could be changed through school lessons taught in immersive virtual worlds.
“In just three years, TEDxCERN has become one of our finest TEDx events, and we look to TEDxCERN to surface new ideas in science. A number of talks from TEDxCERN have been featured on TED.com and collectively have been viewed by large audiences around the globe", says Jay Herrati, director of TEDx events.
In the spirit of the TED format, the programme also included the hilarious talk by comedian Vikki Stone, who gave a lesson to CERN scientists on how they could have better communicated the discovery of the Higgs Boson, through narrative and that underappreciated instrument of 80s rock and roll, the keytar.
To see these talks and more visit TEDxCERN.