Talks about TEDx: Lara Stein at TEDxDubai

Global TEDx Director, producer, performer, Lara Stein shares how TEDx has emerged, evolved and expanded all over the world. She also urges you to host your TEDx event to reach out into your community.

It's really amazing
to be here.

I've actually tried to make it
to Dubai the last two years.

For one reason or another,
I just couldn't make it.

But, TEDxDubai 2009
was actually

one of the very first large scale
TEDx events in the Middle East.

What's extraordinary
about that is

that you are really the founding members
of this amazing TEDx community.

That is a really, pretty
incredible undertaking.

TEDx started off as this little experiment
just over 2 years ago.

It has grown beyond any
of our wildest expectations.

We've had
over almost 2,500 events

with another about
1,200 events planned.

We have about 106 events
in the Middle East

and we have another
76 events planned.

So, for those of you
that don't know

TED started off in 1984,

at that time is was a small conference
about 500 people.

In around 2002, Chirs Anderson
took it over and he transformed it

from a for-proift conference
into a non-for-profit conference

with a mantra of
"Ideas worth spreading".

And, in 2007 we put TED talks
online for free.

At that time, it was
before the proliferation of video.

Not a lot of people
were watching the talks.

But we were getting emails
like this.

And, this is an email we got
about Majora Carter's talk.

Basically, what we understood from this mail
is that people

were connecting to these talks
on a very deep and passionate level.

So, we really felt like
we were onto something at that point.

Shortly thereafter, we decided that
we wanted to really take

this concept of open source
to the next level.

So, we launched
our Open Translation Program in about 2008.

So, the combination of putting TED talks
online for free

and Open Translation Program,

more and more people around the world
were exposed to the TED brand.

So, people were coming up to us
and asking us to hold

official TED conferences
in their cities and their countries.

This idea in itself
was very hard to scale.

So, at the time, Chris and I sat down
to try to figure out

what we could do to really take
the TED brand

and open source it in a way
that we could really give it back

to you, the communities
around the world

and enable you to really have
a deep dialogue on a local level.

So, out of that
the TEDx program was born.

So, really TEDx
is your program.

It is about creating a safe place
for you to engage

and have
an intellectual conversation.

So, really more so,
I think that anywhere else in the world,

I am really excited about what this means
within this region of the world.

I think that TEDx can really create
and there is a huge potential

for this program to really inspire
and affect change on a local level.

I think the timing in fact
couldn't be better.

So, I just wanted to say
thank you,

thank you to all the TEDx organizers
that made it here today.

As you can see, it really is
an incredible group of people

that work tirelessly, volunteer every day
to bring these kinds of events to you.

I wanna say thank you,
especially to Giorgio,

and his entire team
for doing this year after year.

So, thank you.

(Applause)