Observer to hold one-day event based on TED conference

The Observer is to hold a day-long conference at its King's Place offices under license from the US events organisation TED.

The TEDxObserver event, called "Where Inspiration meets Action", will be made up of short talks, films and musical perfomances ranging from six to 18 minutes.

In a release, John Mulholland, editor of the Observer, said: "TEDxObserver will encapsulate the philosophy of The Observer, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper which has a long tradition of encouraging debate, discourse and the spread of ideas.

"The day-long festival of ideas is packed with an incredibly diverse range of speakers. On the day, around twenty leaders in their respective fields will deliver a series of short talks, by turns inspirational, provocative and emotional, on a range of issues."

The speakers, who have been drawn from a wide range of disciplines, include sci-fi writer and blogger Cory Doctorow, Olympian Denise Lewis and winner of the 2010 Fields Medal for mathematics Cédric Villani.

The event will be streamed live to a number of other venues around the country.

TEDx is a program of local, independently organised events based on the annual TED conference in the US. TED, which stands for Technology; Entertainment; Design, began as a four day conference 25 years ago and continues today in Longbeach, California with a livestream in Palm Springs. Previous speakers include Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson and Gordon Brown.

A TEDGlobal event is held each year in Oxford, UK. TEDxObserver takes place on Saturday 19 March, tickets cost £65.

Image courtesy of Kevglobal on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

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