A summary of what was said at last nights excellent meeting can be found here : http://joannejacobs.net/?p=1407

The three teacher-led BETT Fringe events got a mention in The Guardian this week:

Tomorrow, on the opening day, TEDx Orenda, a kind of counter-conference, will examine education in the widest possible terms. It is a spin-off from TED, the invitation-only conference series which features an elite roster of inspirational speakers such as Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Bono.

“Orenda is a Huron Indian word,” says Drew Buddie, a teacher at Rickmansworth secondary school, in Hertfordshire, and the event’s organiser. “It means the opposite of fate. Things don’t have to turn out the way they have to, we can help influence them. I thought that was a perfect description of what our ethos is all about.”

The programme is as unorthodox as the name suggests. On the bill: Pat Kane, a musician and writer; two London cabbies who twitter; a pair of economists who study “collapsonomics”; and a social media expert from Sky News.

On Thursday evening, visitors to Bett are being invited to the Amplified conference, which again tries to engage teachers with ideas from other areas.

Read the full article here

Kiran Bir Sethi shows how her groundbreaking Riverside School in India teaches kids life’s most valuable lesson: “I can.” Watch her students take local issues into their own hands, lead other young people, even educate their parents.

We’re pleased to be able to announce another speaker to our growing list of excellent speakers at tomorrow nights TEDxOrenda unconference, the television personality Gail Porter.

Gail is a television presenter, having worked on shows such as Top of the Pops, The Big Breakfast and The Gadget Show. In 2005 she began to suffer from alopecia areata, causing her to lose much of her hair. She refused to wear a hat or wig, deciding instead to maintain a public profile and raise awareness of the condition. She became Ambassador for the Little Princess Trust, a charity which provides wigs to children with hairloss.

Gail will talk about making the most of what life throws at you.

We’re really excited that Gail has agreed to talk at the event. The full list of amazing speakers is available here.

We have a few tickets left for the event, and you can obtain them, for free, here.

With just over a week to go until TEDxOrenda, we’re excited to be able to confirm several more speakers for the event. Speakers added to our list include:

Caroline Bosher (@carolinebosher)

A Special Agent on a mission to transform businesses through exceptional branding and connections.  Caroline has a passion for infiltrating high calibre networks, uncovering remarkable customer experiences, and working with her team to co-ordinate all components required to create strong brand attraction.  Working in London, Sydney and New York she ‘cross-pollinates’ ideas across industries, cultures and entrepreneurs to ensure her clients stand out from the crowd and build their tribe of raving fans.

Caroline will use her experience of working with Ed Hardy (fashion chain) to highlight the importance of ensuring your organisation protects its identity.

Dougald Hine (@dougald)

Dugald works with ideas – exploring and developing them, and collaborating to put them into practice. This involves writing, speaking, bringing people together from different worlds to find common narratives, then helping to steer the ideas that come out of those conversations into reality.

In 2006, he co-founded School of Everything: a Web 2.0 startup that makes it really easy to find people near you to teach or learn with in your local area. The site won a New Statesman New Media Award and a Prime Minister’s Catalyst Award in 2008, and was an Official Honoree in the 2009 Webby Awards.

He is still involved in School of Everything, but now spends most of my time on other projects. These currently include:

Space Makers – an online and offline network, connecting people involved in creating collaborative spaces, including co-working, hack labs, arts spaces, social centres and temporary use of empty shops

The Dark Mountain Project – a new literary movement for an age of global disruption.

Dougald will talk about the importance of community involvement in making a project happen.

Maz Nadjm (@mazi)

Maz Nadjm is responsible for Sky Portal’s social media strategy and implementation. The Sky Portal has over 1 billion monthly page impressions and many millions of unique visitors. Maz works closely with each Sky site, providing on-going technology and strategy assessment within the context of the competitive landscape and Site needs.

In addition to his role at Sky, Maz has launched the Times Online commenting system. Prior to Sky, Maz co-founded Rareface and InfieldParking.com, a social networking site and growing online community of NASCAR racing fans in commercial partnership with its most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Maz is a mentor for start ups, video blogger for Sky News TechTalk, founder of www.Mazi.TV and CozyTweetup.com.

Maz will talk about ways in which communities can be given a voice, and how this should be handled.

Sadly the following speakers are now no longer able to attend. We are hoping that they may provide us with videos to be shown on the evening: Michael Acton Smith, Paul A Smith and John Carnell.

As the term ‘Orenda’ came from the book ‘They have a word for it’ written by Howard Rheingold, Howard can be safely described as the inspriration for this event, albeit unwittingly so.

We are proud to announce that Howard has agreed to be the Honorary Inspirator & Instigator for TEDxOrenda, and in support of this he has agreed to make a short introductory video for us which will be shown at the start of TEDxOrenda. This is a great honour as Howard is widely credited with inventing the term  ‘virtual communities’.

The 2nd batch of tickets for TEDxOrenda are now available free of charge from our eventbrite page: at  : http://tedxorenda.eventbrite.com

As this event is taking place immediately after the BETT Show closes on the Wednesday evening, it is suggested that you also register to attend the BETT Show as this will streamline your access to the event.

Registration for the BETT Show is free and you can register here

This video highlights the progress TEDx has made over the past couple of months and was shown at TEDGlobal 09 in Oxford, England to officially announce TEDx to the TED Global Community.

To view original speaker presentations from TEDx events, TEDx teasers for upcoming events, attendee POV videos, and any other TEDx-related content, please visit our TEDx YouTube Channel: http://youtube.com/tedxtalks.

What is 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 in a small group. 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.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

To learn more about TEDx, please visit http://ted.com/tedx

Tickets for TEDxOrenda are available free of charge.

To obtain your free tickets, please visit : http://tedxorenda.eventbrite.com

Tickets will be released in several batches in the period leading up to the event itself and will always be FREE. The first batch of tickets will be available from 9am on Monday 21st December

As this event is taking place immediately after the BETT Show closes on the Wednesday eveving, it is suggested that you also register to attend the BETT Show as this will streamline your access to the event.

Registration for the BETT Show is free and you can register here

(Image from Thomas Hawk. Original)

We are pleased to be able to announce the following speakers at TEDxOrenda. More details can be found on our Speakers page.

Compere:

Bill Thompson – BBC technology writer

Speakers:

Pat Kane – musician and writer

Mamading Ceesay – social entrepreneur

Alfie Dennen – creative technologist

James Proud – entrepreneur

John Carnell – CEO of @bullyingUK

Georgia Wonder – band

Lilly Evans – business adviser and consultant

Lee Cox – black cab driver

Michael Acton Smith – Moshi Monsters

Paul A Smith – Twitchhiker project

Hadley Beeman – Futuregov Consultancy

+ 2 more speakers to be confirmed