Just a heads up that I will be attending TEDx Canberra this weekend! After forgetting to signup properly to TEDx Sydney and having never published a blog post on it I will be making a much more concentrated effort this time around!

TED is awesome

Prior to November 2008 I'd never heard of TED, TED.com or anything like it. It was only while reading Chang-Won Kim's Web 2.0 Asia Weblog and noticing a technology event called TEDxSeoul (that Chang was talking at) that I worked it all out. If you don't know, or haven't heard about TED then read the Wikipedia entry on it.

Any spare time I've had since leaving TEDxSeoul in November I've been watching TED talks. I'm also keen to get to the next  TEDxMelbourne (I watched the one recently  live online), and I'm dead keen hearing about what goes on at on TEDxSydney.

As well as watching TED videos, I've also been telling everyone I know about them and sending them links on facebook. In the future I will direct them to this post.

Here's a list of my favorite TED videos in no real order, I've never watched a bad one...

• JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure  Harvard University June 2008
• Steve Jobs: How to live before you die Stanford University June 2005
• David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 minutes TEDMED2009
• Bill Gates on mosquitos, malaria and education. TED 2009
• Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero! TED 2010
• Brian Cox on CERN's supercollider. TED 2008
• Brian Greene on string theory. TED 2005
• Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food. TED 2010
• Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds. TED 2010
• Devdutt Pattanaik: East vs West - the myths that mystify. TEDIndia 2009
• Chang W Kim Korea Internet Galapagos TedxSeoul 2009
• Richard Dawkins on militant atheism TED2002
• Richard Dawkins on our "queer" universe TEDGlobal 2005

Hans Rosling

Hans Rosling is fascinating with his statistics, and desire to get the world's publicly funded data accessable and searchable for everyone.

• Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen TED2006
• Hans Rosling's new insights on poverty. TED 2007
• Hans Rosling: Asia's rise - how and when. TedIndia 2009
• Hans Rosling on HIV: New facts and stunning data visuals

More on Hans Rosling and his gapminder data and software at gapminder.org