Washington, D.C. — In the shadow of one of the world's most iconic mountains, several hundred people will gather in Tanzania this June in a global version of the annual gathering in Monterey, California known as the TED conferences. Programme director for the Africa event, Emeka Okafor, says change is afoot in Africa, which is confronting the challenges of development, and the conference will bring together "creative, resourceful types who roll up their sleeves and get it done."
Begun in 1984 – the year the Apple Macintosh and the Sony compact disk were unveiled – the TED conferences are produced by the private, non-profit Sapling Foundation, which donates the earnings from the event to social causes, and it asks delegates to vote on how the funds are allocated. A million U.S. dollars in profits from the 1993 TED went to ocean conservation, clean water and public health in the developing world.
The invitation-only events attract about 1000 paying participants, who the organizers say are "thought-leaders," in business, science and the arts, as well as in the three areas from which TED got its name – technology, entertainment and design. Next year's TED Global, called "Africa- the Next Chapter" – will take place in Arusha, a town at the foot of Mt. Kilamanjaro and the gateway to the Serengeti, one of the world's best-known wildlife sanctuaries.
Sapling's founder, Chris Anderson – who launched it with funds from the sale of publishing ventures including Business 2.0 – says the first TED conveyed "a tantalizing sense that something big was in the air." He told guests at a recent New York event to announce the Africa conference that "something similar may happen in Arusha next June." Africa, he said, "is at a tipping point."
Anderson, born in Pakistan, where his father was a missionary eye surgeon, and raised in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, is a former journalist and radio producer who became fascinated by computers and technology. He sees TED as the "prize asset," of the Sapling Foundation, less a revenue generator, although it is, than as a venue for creative people, united only by curiosity, to share ideas that excite each other. "For four days," he says, "you have 50 speakers who have the complete attention of other extraordinary people."
TED partnership director Tom Rielly, an early proponent of technology for social purposes and founder of PlanetOut, was a consummate networker at the announcement event, circulating to make sure everyone in the diverse crowd at TED's downtown Manhattan loft made new connections. "We want your ideas," he told a group of Tanzanian journalists, "and we hope you'll help us make what happens inside the sessions available to people who can't be there. We don't want a closed circle."
TEDGlobal's Okafor, a UK-raised, New York-based entrepreneur of Nigerian origins, points out that 100 of the invitees will be people actively involved in creating Africa's future who could not afford to attend on their own. Four companies – AMD, GE, Google and Sun Microsystems – are providing fellowships to cover expenses, and admission fees will be waived.
Okafor started blogging about three years ago "on a whim," he says. His timbuktuchronicles is oriented towards "entrepreneurship, science, technology, geeky stuff." He says the people who attend TedGlobal in Arusha will be people who can demonstrate, as well as discuss, the transformation Africa is experiencing. Confirmed presenters include scientists, software engineers, film producers – people like Harvard-educated lawyer, technologist, blogger and human rights activist Ory Okolloh, who works at the intersection of multiple disciplines.
Among the enthusiasts for the conference in Arusha is Dr. Larry Brilliant, named executive director of Google.org ten months ago. Last year he won a TED prize, which bestows $100,000 on "world changers" to help them realize their dreams. Brilliant, a respected leader in public health, helped lead the campaign to eradicate smallpox and co-founded the pioneering online community The Well. He's won other prestigious prizes but says the TED prize is the one that changed his world.
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"Everything since is a blur," he quipped, to the crowd at the announcement about Arusha. "We went around afterwards making pitches for the TED prize; one of them was to a company called Google…"
Google is excited about sponsoring TEDGlobal in Arusha, he says, because "we're a global company and Africa is one of the most important parts of the world – and a part of the world that hasn't got its fair share."
There has been, he says, "an almost irresponsible pessimism" about Africa's prospects. "TED has seen early that this is Africa's turn, and we want to be part of it." Touching lives, Brilliant says, is what TED does, "and it is my prayer that TED does this now, in Tanzania, for Africa."
