Some really big ideas came out of TEDxIrie

TEDxIrie left an enthusiastic audience calling for more from six brilliant minds who came together to share ideas on art, creativity, innovation, technology, music and culture.

Held under the theme "Small Island. Big Ideas," the event last Saturday was a mix of live speakers (all with connections to Jamaica) and TED videos that engaged attendees and stirred thought-provoking discussions. Speakers at the Courtleigh Auditorium in New Kingston included Jamaican author and literary scholar Professor Carolyn Cooper; Jacqueline Sutherland, Founder & CEO of Global Gateway Solutions, Inc. and its Chairman, Mark Jones; artist and Assistant Professor in Painting at the University of Kentucky Ebony Patterson; Kaiton Williams, a Ph.D. student in Cornell's Information Science program and a senior engineer at Microsoft; and Wayne Marshall, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT and an ethnomusicologist focusing on the popular music of the Caribbean and the Americas.

"The event shows there is intellectual force we can bring to the problems that face Jamaica today," says Knolly Moses, the TEDxIrie organizer and CEO of Panmedia Ltd. "The presentations offered practical ideas that would be easily achievable if we can summon the leadership and the political will."

"TEDxIrie gave its audience some rich ideas that can help us all make Jamaica a better place," says Stephen Facey, CEO of Pan Jamaican Investment Trust Limited, who also attended TEDxJamaica, held last November at UWI, Mona.

"It was an inspiring session, particularly the talks that focused on maximizing Jamaica's cultural industries where we already have a competitive advantage," says Stefan Wright, a Senior Investment Officer at the Inter-American Development Bank.

TED, an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design, began as a four-day conference of idea sharing in California 25 years ago. It has since grown to annual TED conferences in Long Beach and a TEDGlobal in Edinburgh, Scotland. TEDxIrie is an independently organized TED-like event. Last year there were 910 TEDx events around the world.

The speakers at TEDxIrie all fashioned in their own way a presentation that fitted the theme of Small Island. Big Ideas.

Professor Carolyn Cooper looked at Jamaica's value to the world in a stimulating presentation entitled "A Speck of Greatness: Repositioning Brand Jamaica."

Small Island. Big Ideas:Jamaican author and literary scholar Professor Carolyn Cooper gives a stimulating presentation titled “A Speck of Greatness: Repositioning Brand Jamaica.” The occasion was the inaugural TEDxIrie event held April 2 at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston, under the theme “Small Island. Big Ideas.” The event was a mix of live speakers and video presentations that engaged participants’ and stirred thought-provoking ideas on art, creativity, innovation, technology, music and culture.

Speaking as a team, Jacqueline Sutherland and Mark Jones provoked attendees with a series of What Ifs About Jamaica's approach to Information Communication Technology.

Ebony Patterson's vibrant talk, entitled "Fashion Ova' Style: Conversations of Beauty, Gender & the Masculinity", looked at how her art has been influenced by young Jamaican male culture; men who bleach their skin, pluck their eyebrows and wear "bling" jewelry in defiance of racial and sexual stereotypes.

Kaiton Williams explained how human-technology interaction in a Jamaican context offers many opportunities for national development and export.

In the final talk, Wayne Marshall looked at the way Jamaica's deejays and dancehall have had a large influence on hip hop and world music and how they redefined the way audiences relate to that music.
The common theme of the presentations was the great value in things Jamaican –music, art, technology or culture – and the significant impact that our island perspective is having on the rest of the word.
TEDxIrie was sponsored by The Gleaner Company, Wisynco, Caribbean Aviation College, Surrey Paving & Aggregate, AV Concepts Limited and Pan Jamaican Investment Trust Limited.

Others who contributed to the event were Rupika Delgoda; Joylene Griffiths-Irving of Scotiabank Group Jamaica; Lesley Chang of Star Fish Oils; Chris Issa of Spanish Court Hotel; and Jan Polack of Caribbean Producers Jamaica Limited.

About TEDx
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.

About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place in Long Beach, California, with simulcast in Palm Springs; TEDGlobal is held each year in Oxford, UK. TED's media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to organize local, independent TED-like events around the world; and the TEDFellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

TEDGlobal 2011, "The Stuff of Life," will be held July 11-15, 2011, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Follow TED on Twitter at twitter.com/TEDTalks, or on Facebook at facebook.com/TED.