To kick-off session two Danny Sriskandarajah CEO for Oxfam GB explained that abject poverty and mass displacement is an enduring global issue that no longer makes the news cycle, with the reduction in communal spaces in sharp decline across the world. He also talked about how he plans to take Oxfam back to core principles and sees no benefit in following his peers who focus on charity leaderboards. Check out some of Oxfam's amazing projects
including the use of Tiger Worms to create fertiliser from human waste.
Beth Gardiner journalist and author of Choked came to share with us how ill conceived government policy to increase the take up of diesel vehicles has contributed to already catastrophic levels pollution in cities across the UK, and it's effect on our health and wellbeing. She gave a stark call to action to reduce our use of fossil fuels to end the crisis.
King’s College neuroscientist Dr Kris De Meyer spoke of how nights of trying to prove "someone on the internet is wrong!" lead him to study unconscious bias, the dynamics of opposing views and how it drives apart even further leading to gridlock or worse. He's even created The Justice Syndicate a piece of interactive theatre that shows us how our unconscious minds can affect the the world around us.
Jonathan Mijs used powerful drone photos from photographer Jonny Miller's unequal scenes project to show us that as well as the socio-economic barriers, psychical separation is also in place across the world to separate the rich and poor.
He shared data that showed that as inequality grows the level of concern over poverty drops also fuelling the issues, and how as a belief in meritocracy has risen so too has inequality. Leading us to challenge and question these structures, and to actively remove the assumptions we make and barriers we put up between us.
The beginning of the final session saw Performer, Writer and Filmmaker Amrou Al-Kadhi (AKA Glamrou) take the stage. Glamrou spoke of how an appreciation of quantum physics helps prove that our reality is a set of contradictions with no fixed foundation, a theory that has deep personal meaning for Amrou who has many chontractdicary dimensions.
Policy and communications expert Susannah Temko followed sharing her personal journey. After discovering she was intersex at aged 16 she campaigns to increase the positive visibility around the intersex community.
Intersex people to constitute an estimated
1.7% of the population, which makes being intersex
as common as having red hair (1%-2%).
Susannah went on to described the physical and emotional trauma that can be caused when we are restricted to a binary distinction of gender and the importance of understanding that being different is not the same as defective.
Next up we were transported to a world of Biotech... With the number of terminally ill recipients awaiting organ transplants far outweighing the number of compatible donors, David Martos - A Biomedical engineer, plans to close that gap using a game changing technique called 'Decellularisation'. David has been researching the ability to use the 'scaffolding' of incompatible or even dying donor organs to regrow healthy compatible organs ready for transplant. This would effectively take millions of unusable organs out of the trash and give life back to the increasing population of terminally ill.
Professor in law Iyiola Solanke then suggested we should be fighting inequality as you would a viral outbreak like Ebola. This model give us a frame work that we can use to identify how the virus of inequality is incubated and transmitted. Iyiola suggests we must be breaking the "Chain of infection" at multiple places to fight against outbreaks of inequality.
PhD Student Abhishek Parajuli then spoke about a Punishment bias that leads to certain groups being punished more harshly for mistakes that we as humans all make. He used the example of a High ranking Government official being caught up in a salacious scandal and how this almost bounces off one individual/group, but takes down another.
How does one personally view it, both consciously and unconsciously? How does it get reported in the media? How do we share/debate this information in social media? What does it mean for the individuals involved and any victims?
hat did I take home from the the day and why did I feel compelled to share?
The message I took away was that despite one's personal field of vision and major advances in the understanding of our world and ourselves, devisions in our societies, continue to exist and even grow. The inequalities and rigid structures that exist within our economies, our communication methods, our politics, our belief systems and ourselves are ever-present. We must work together on a global scale, and within ourselves to work through these differences for the good of all who inhabit our planet in everything we do.
....After reading the above paragraph back it feels very grandiose, but I honestly believe we all can and should make a difference.
At the time of posting the 2019 videos are not yet available, until they are posted you can watch last years here: https://tedxlondon.com/watch
