Thanks, TEDx Amsterdam

I want to live in a world that’s more like the TEDx event in Ams­ter­dam. A place bub­bling with opti­mism and enthu­si­asm and good ideas and beau­ti­ful peo­ple and the buzz of human con­nec­tion. I loved every­thing about this year’s event, from the the­me of #New­Pow­er (Hat Tip: Jere­my Heimans & Hen­ry Timms) to the back­stage assem­bly of the audi­ence (we have all now offi­cial­ly been on a TEDx stage!) to the speak­ers to the gad­gets to the veg­an food served with edi­ble spoons to the vol­un­teers.

It’s hard to choose a top 3 among the bril­liant ideas pow­er­ful­ly pre­sent­ed. Irene Rompa’s incred­i­ble reaf­fir­ma­tion of human kind­ness was the kind of spir­it the world des­per­ate­ly needs more of:

Spe­cial treat was Mandy Smith’s amaz­ing sto­ry of her serendip­i­tous jour­ney to becom­ing a paper artist, and how a chance mis-google turned her art to activism. (Shame­less plug: I’m shar­ing a stage with this amaz­ing sto­ry­teller at Simon Hodges’ Gath­er­ing Point event tomor­row night in Ams­ter­dam West, where I’ll be read­ing The Moon Can­dy Rebel­lion)

And the kick off from Jere­my Heimans was the per­fect #New­Pow­er the­me-set­ter.

It’s worth watch­ing every sin­gle speech: there wasn’t a flat note in the day. Great Tech­nol­o­gy. Great Enter­tain­ment. Great Design. But most of all, the kind of peo­ple that gath­er at an event like this: cre­ative, opti­mistic, pow­er­ful in the most open and gen­er­ous ways.