Lose The Gloom with TEDxBoston

Whenever you see a quick market drop or a flood of bad news, like we did this week, it’s a good time to look around for the great things that are happening right now. The good news is, there ARE plenty of great things to be excited about. TED Talks are a prime example. Last week the TEDxBoston group gathered in Faneuil Hall’s “Great Hall”, a birthplace of our independence and democracy and an appropriate venue for today’s revolutionary ideas. During this event we got to hear Boston’s finest thinkers, tinkerers, and doers publicly discuss the ideas that get them excited. It’s a day full of outrageous concepts and a great place to witness real time innovation in action.

If you’re not familiar with TED Talks, T(echnology) E(ntertainment) D(esign), they are 20 minute lectures aimed at inspiring, entertaining, and educating their audience. Their biggest breakthrough from this platform is that all of the talks are free to watch online. One of my favorite recent technology talks is this one on Drones: The Astounding Athletic Power of Quadcopters.

“I’m a sucker for all things innovation.” I heard this as walked into the TEDxBoston event last Thursday. This week for Osbon on the Money I thought I’d list for you a few of my favorite moments from TEDxBoston so that you can know more about the amazing things going on right here in your backyard:

• Bomb sniffing bees. Yes, that’s a thing. Noah Wilson-Rich, aka The Urban Beekeeper, is working on teaching bees to equate the scent from explosives chemicals, land mines in particular, with food sources so when they are released in a field they will congregate around leftover land mines. Noah’s day job is to install bee hives for homes and businesses in New England.
  
• Molecules are not alive. Chemical reactions are not alive. But cells… CELLS ARE ALIVE! – George Whitesides, renowned local Harvard scientist, reminded up how little we actually know about what makes life tick at a molecular level. “We’re just sacks of molecules and chemical reactions.”
• #NerdFarming The MIT media lab is transforming farming from 2D to 3D as they demonstrated with photos of their basement MIT ‘aeroponics’ broccoli farm. Where 1 sq ft of farming used to yield 3 heads of broccoli their new configuration can use the same space to yield 18 heads of broccoli. Or a ~6X increase over traditional methods.
• Bostonology.com for a daily spoonful of Boston in one photo, one piece of trivia, and one link to something interesting. Sign up here
• “My ex-girlfriend was my motivation for studying how the brain forgets bad memories” – Steve Ramirez on manipulating memories in mice.
• “Cities are for people, not for machines. Design for people and add in technology only when it’s useful.” – MIT Media Lab
• “Time to stand up and kick some sand up” – A spoken word poem “Cry Havoc” by Regie Gibson
• “Robots do replace our jobs, but they also allow us to do far more with far less which is great economic news.” –Andrew McAfee
• “Use your imagination for action. Practice it before you see it. Vicarious Rehearsal exists!” – Rob Osgood explaining how he prepares for emergency situations at Tufts medical center.

Max Osbon – mosbon@osboncapital.com