NEWS Yesterday, this year’s TEDxUmeå took place at Väven. 400 participants listened to eighteen speakers and their inspiring, 15 minute long talks. The messages revolved around our view on the human body, difficulties regarding plant breeding, scientific breakthroughs, norm-breaking and what really is important in life – only to name a few.
“We are incredible pleased about this year’s TEDxUmeå. It turned out to be a great mix of ideas and fantastic speakers. Personally, I also enjoyed to finally get the chance to listen to speakers that we booked already last autumn. Today, we are taking a deep breath of relief but we will soon be kicking off planning for next year,” says Malin Vikström, communications officer at External relations at Umeå University and one of the organisers of TEDxUmeå.
Some of the speakers who really got the audience emotional were the two first speakers, Aron Andersson and Christina Rickardsson, who shared their dreadful yet impressive life stories and reached the conclusion that we ought to use our backgrounds to fulfil our dreams and ponder over the “lottery of life” and our part in it. They set the bar high for the other speakers – who also managed to deliver.
Researcher Nasim Sabouri reminded us about the importance of welcoming newcomers to Sweden and providing these individuals with a chance at a quick integration into society, which was something she herself experienced and has benefited from when she moved to Sweden as a child.
Plant scientist Stefan Jansson raised the ridiculousness in plant breeding legislation being too slow at adapting to scientific advances; several methods can give the same end result, but some methods are allowed and others aren’t. To visualize this, he picked out regular vegetables such as a pepper and broccoli out of a basket and pointed out how plant breeding has existed for as long as we can remember. A change in legislation regarding GMO products could also make farming more efficient and sustainable.
Historian Lotta Vikström delivered a look-back upon how society treated people with various disabilities in the early 1900s and showed that women on average did better and lived longer than men. Whilst Sara Edenheim talked about the downsides of norm criticism and the dangers of believing that norm criticism in itself is enough for change.
Kalle Grill’s philosophical questions on how we should separate what’s important in our lives, compared to what is important to the world – and how many parents a child should really have – arouse thoughts in the audience and led to interesting discussions during the breaks.
Reader in English Literature, Virginia Langum, raised the question of what we blame our bodies for and described the relationship between medicine and religion in medieval times and touched upon what consequences this has had – even on today’s views on the human body.
The university freelance photographer Elin Berge showed her beautiful pictures portraying young Muslim women from her exhibition Slöjor (Veils). All of which raised the thought-provoking question: Who is more free, the woman with or without a veil?
Thought-provoking, debate-friendly and inspiring subjects delivered by enthusiastic speakers is what the audience took home from this year’s event. If you missed it, you will soon be able to see all talks online. Until then, there is an incredible amount of other inspiring TED-Talks available already:
Umeå University is one of the organisers behind TEDxUmeå together with Umeå kommun, Ledarskapscentrum, Nicke&Nico, Region Västerbotten, Blå Huset, Dohi and Heja.
Editor: Anna Lawrence