The TEDxLahore experience – A Review

by Amna K

I only felt a little ostentatious upon being told by the host, when we finally settled in the auditorium, that we, the attendees of TEDxLahore, were the selected participants who totaled 380 in number out of more than a thousand applications that had come in from all over Pakistan. (I do have my doubts about their criteria for selection though) And so we weren’t just any audience, but an audience of ‘Collective Genius’. A slightly vague theme for the show but it surely pumped up many people’s egos.

Many reviews have already started to pour in since the post event. Some are talking about the positive impact it has made on the audience and that the job of ‘ideas worth spreading’ has been well-performed, while others are choosing the path of criticism and have tried to extract the negativities that came along with the event. Those who are criticizing are sounding a little foolish (personally to me) because what they are doing is over-looking the fact that the whole event was completely organized by a batch of fresh graduates and undergraduates. And they did a remarkable job. So what if we had to wait a little extra half hour for the event to start on, and SO WHAT if the youngsters managing the sound system had to go through a little bit of technical difficulties during the proceedings of the event?

Yes, what I do agree with is that the event duration was stretched a little too long and the number of speakers was a little too big. Heck, we have so much talent in Pakistan! Couldn’t be helped, I guess. Just imagine how hard it would’ve been for the team to shortlist the speakers. An economist, a scholar, an editor, an environmental activist, an epidemiologist, a technology enthusiast, a philanthropist, an engineering student, a linguist, an architect, an innovator, a musician, a communication specialist, a designer and a CEO – all these people who have proved themselves extraordinary in their own way, came forward on a common platform, a rostrum of free thought and speech, to share their ideas with an audience desirous of doing something for the good of mankind and they came with a passion to seek a better tomorrow.

There are a few important pointers which I would wish to keep in mind for as long as I can and am able to that I learnt from the show. The understanding is in my head and since they’ve come from knowledgeable people themselves, I am in grave danger of circumventing the whole meaning, but I’m ready to give it a shot. Mr. Arif Hassan, the architect speaker, who spoke about Globalization and its impact on the coming generations, said: ‘We have more doctors than paramedics.’ Isn’t that strange? For a country like ours and more so, the times that we are living in, everybody wants to be a doctor, an engineer, a PhD, what we do not realize is the fact that we don’t need these titles more than we need the ‘skills.’ Yes, we need skilled people more than we need the PhDs. We need more paramedics than we need the doctors. Let’s just think about it. Now, which (elite or comparatively elite) parent would ever be ‘okay’ with their child growing or studying to become a paramedic? Eh… not happening!

Mr. Tariq Rahman, the socio-linguist said that often we see people using two kinds of language, most commonly around us we observe ‘Urdish’, that is, a mix of Urdu and English. The psyche behind this is that people are comfortable with using both the languages and not because they cannot find words from either one of the language. That is a misconception. He traced back to many famous poets and writers and their multi-lingual poetry and prose, and that is where this interesting insight from people’s minds comes. It was pretty much ‘wow’.

Dr. Usmani said: ‘Get a ‘good’ education and move to a ‘bad’ neighborhood.’ That’s what his professor used to say to him. Now how many of us would actually do that? But you see that that is the whole point of education, no? Make the good out of the bad. What! Who does that! ‘All I need to do is serve a multi-national company/organization or an awesome profitable bank, work my ass off for them, and earn me a handsome Blackberry/iphone to show off to my friends and cousins later.’ This is what is over and above the mind of a passionate youth these days. This is not to suggest that one is making wrong use of his education; this is to suggest that we should be a little more conscious of our deeds and in making certain decisions in that we realize the need to make good use of our education by doing a little something for the society as well – more precisely the marginalized communities.

A new word I learnt from Beena Raza’s presentation, which she said is actually no word as it isn’t found in the English Language dictionary: Mentology. It means that ‘change has to come from within the human mind’. That is what we commonly term as ‘creativity’.

Disappointed I was, like many other people in the audience, when it was announced that the environmental activist Rafay Alam was not able to make it, since he was stuck at the Delhi airport. I was really looking forward to his presentation, which I knew was to be based on his own initiative of ‘Critical Mass.’ But, no regrets!

At the end of the show, an amazingly talented group entertained us by playing the drums, tabla (the Indian drums) and a dhol. I absolutely loved it.

And when we had returned from our networking/food break, there were these goody bags placed on our seats. I couldn’t stop from smiling crazy wide because it contained three of my most favorite things: a tree sapling, a gift voucher to get a book and a copy of ‘Natura’, an environmental magazine. I really wanted more of those vouchers!

So, I guess by the end of the event, I walked out truly inspired and thinking to myself: ‘Man, it’s a long, long road to cover.’

This is the TEDxLahore soundtrack that was composed by a young volunteer musician. Yes, we have talent!