TED Blog

Meet Masahiro Kyushima, TED volunteer translator

2009-12-04T18:58:10Z

In the next weeks, the TED Blog will shine the spotlight on the fantastic TED volunteer translators -- offering a glimpse of the people whose efforts continue to enrich the Open Translation Project. Today, we'd like you to meet Masahiro Kyushima.

Tell us about yourself.

In my childhood, I was a trivia king, reading all image-attached entries of encyclopedias. Reading Hugo Gernsback, Jules Verne, and Sir Arthur C. Clarke got me into science fiction stories. The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey had a huge impact on me.

The Beatles broke up before I was interested in music, and my true musical god was Paul Simon. I copied his guitar styles a lot. In my college time, I got involved in a fusion music band as a drummer, so Steve Gadd became my second god. I also was an avid car driver participating in college rally car-racing events. Around the same time I discovered that I really enjoy fine arts at museums, and art became my true joy. So far I have been to about 100 museums, keeping up with all sorts of arts. I do a bit of painting myself as well.

I graduated from medical school and became a physician at Okinawa Chubu Hospital in Okinawa, Japan, where I have been working since. Now I am a cardiologist, and also the chief of medical informatics at our hospital. So I'm taking care of my patients at one time, and also watching screens of my Mac and Linux servers at another.

I also enjoy taking photographs, pottery-making and performing Japanese traditional tea service called "Chado" or "Sado."

What drew you to TED?

While I was doing some research about the video podcast, I came across one of the TEDTalks, which was the TED Prize speech of James Nachtwey. I was shocked because, while dealing with humankind's most serious and tragic events such as war, conflicts, health and environmental issues, his photographs were artistically beautiful. The discrepancy of tragedy and beauty living on a same image struck me, and introduced me to a taste of the framework of what the world really is all about. That shock drove me to dig into the TEDTalks more, and I became a regular viewer.

Personally, the intermingled existence of vast areas of knowledge at TED is a comfort to me, because I myself have fairly wide range of curiosity: technology (as an IT worker and a medical doctor), entertainment (as a musician), design (as a potter and a tea ceremony performer and an art enthusiast) and other areas. I feel this style of existence, of a broad spectrum of information mixed together, is very important in the era of the Internet, and will be the next style of knowledge. It's the platform for inspiration and collaboration connected together.

Why do you translate?

I actually have two reasons to translate. One is just the same as TED itself: the talks are worth spreading. As a long-time networker and a person who wants to contribute to the Internet in some way, translating these ideas to my mother language and spreading them in Japanese society are a good practice of contribution.

Another reason is because I'm now preparing for a local TEDx event here in Okinawa, and I want to provide all the TEDTalks I will use with Japanese subtitles. In Japan, in order to spread these talks and ideas to the Japanese people, translation is essential. So, I've participated in the translation project myself, along with one of my friends who is bilingually fluent in English. While I was translating, I noticed that we needed a compact and active network of Japanese translators to systematically perform translations and reviews on mutual-aid basis. I started to volunteer for other translators' reviews, and invited those translators to join in the mutual aid group which I made as a Google Group. One of my fellow translators, Akira Kakinohana, happens to be a programmer, and he wrote a couple of Perl scripts to handle the translation process on a shared Google Doc, which made our translations and reviews much easier than otherwise. Having the mutual-aid group and an efficient workflow using the shared Google Doc are the keys to how we handle the translation tasks fairly efficiently.

I am particularly grateful for those colleagues who joined my group and helped me by reviewing my translations.

As of today, we have about 170 Japanese translations done, and I feel I have enough TEDTalks to use in our TEDx. However, I can hardly stop translating more, because the contents of the new talks are really interesting for me personally. Now I'm translating them just for fun.

Taking apart the art of puzzles: Scott Kim on TED.com

2009-12-04T15:16:43Z

At the 2008 EG conference, famed puzzle designer Scott Kim takes us inside the puzzle-maker's frame of mind. Sampling his career's work, he introduces a few of the most popular types, and shares the fascinations that inspired some of his best. (Recorded at TEDIndia, November 2009, Mysore, India. Duration: 11:50)

Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/226Z

Watch Scott Kim's talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

The ancient ingenuity of water-harvesting: Anupam Mishra on TED.com

2009-12-03T15:47:35Z

With wisdom and wit, Anupam Mishra talks about the amazing feats of engineering built centuries ago by the people of India's Golden Desert to harvest water. These structures are still used today -- and are often superior to modern water megaprojects.(Recorded at TEDIndia, November 2009, Mysore, India. Duration: 17:14)

Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/216V

Watch Anupam Mishra's talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

Cindy Gallop: Make love, not porn

2009-12-02T17:25:52Z

ALERT: Talk contains graphic sexual language

At TED2009, audience member Cindy Gallop gave a 4-minute presentation that became one of the event's most talked about. Speaking from her personal experience, she argued that hardcore pornography had distorted the way a generation of young men think about sex, and talked about how she was fighting back with the launch of a website to correct the myths being propagated.

Her talk's graphic content means we can't include it in the main run of full TEDTalks, which go by default to subscribers, including children. But we do think it's worth posting here. Cindy is no prude, and not everyone will enjoy the graphic language on her website, MakeLoveNotPorn.com. But she has courageously (and wittily) raised an important issue, which we think deserves wider attention. Constructive comments welcome!

Embed this video: Use this code to post Cindy Gallop's TEDTalk to your own site:

Tweet this talk: http://on.ted.com/206I

Q&A with Cindy Gallop: Tackling porn, feminism and big dreams

2009-12-02T16:05:43Z

Advertising whiz Cindy Gallop delivered one of the most talked-about talks at TED2009, so before it was posted the TED Blog had to snag her for an interview. Spirited as usual, she did not disappoint. Keep reading for answers on what people thought of MakeLoveNotPorn.com, Gallop’s bold position on feminism, her new project IfWeRanTheWorld and the story of her success.

What sort of feedback have you gotten on MakeLoveNotPorn.com? What do people think of it?

What MakeLoveNotPorn has in common with my other ventures is that when I encounter something that I feel very strongly about, I do something about it. Incidentally, that’s the whole point of my other venture IfWeRanTheWorld. It’s all about turning good intentions into action, being a very action-oriented person myself.

As I make clear in my talk, MakeLoveNotPorn is designed to address an issue that would never have crossed my mind if I had not encountered it within my personal life and specifically, because I date younger men who tend to be in their twenties, who are part of Generation Y. In this context, when I encountered this issue personally, I really felt that I wanted to do something about it. That is why I created MakeLoveNotPorn.com, and then welcomed the opportunity to launch it at TED.

I will say that I was extremely nervous before I gave my TEDTalk, and I was nervous for two reasons. The first is that I had absolutely no idea how MakeLoveNotPorn.com would be received. I talked to a few people about it in the process of conceiving the idea and then executing it, but predominantly friends of mine. It had received a generally very positive response, but I obviously still had no idea how the wider world would view it. The second reason I was nervous was I knew that in order to launch this I was going to have to really launch it, in the sense that I was going to have to be straightforward in order to have people understand why this was so necessary. I made a deliberate decision to be very frank in the language and the terminology that I used. This isn’t an issue that one can fence around if you want there to be complete clarity and understanding of what makelovenotporn.com is designed to address.

I was enormously gratified by the extraordinarily positive response I received at TED. The talk was obviously BoingBoing’ed immediately. Mark, from BoingBoing, told me it was the highlight of his first day at TED. The Twitter stream went mad. Robin Williams came up to me during the coffee break afterwards, told me how wonderful he thought it was and did an entire ten-minute comedy routine around it, which was terrific. But what I was really pleased about was that for the remaining three days of TED, loads of people came up to me and said it was fantastic. And they said it was fantastic in a number of contexts. Parents were particularly struck by it, and a lot of them said to me that they’d forwarded the site to their 16-year-old daughter or 18-year-old son. I think they particularly welcomed the fact that they could forward the link on without needing to have the conversation themselves, which is precisely why I began the site.

A number of people said that while they love the fact that TED covers science, art and technology, touching on the area of human relationships in the way that I did was really welcomed. A number of young people, and lots of the TED Fellows, said to me, “Oh my God! I love it. That is absolutely what I’ve encountered myself.” So, actually, the response at TED itself was absolutely wonderful in terms of having the audience understand and appreciate what this was intended to do.

Also, the site is very nascent at the moment. I put it up with no money. All you can do there is leave comments, send in your own porn world/real world ideas, and you can write to info@makelovenotporn.com. But judging by the comments that started appearing, I can see that MakeLoveNotPorn.com has achieved what I wanted it to, which is that it’s gotten to young people out in the mainstream, beyond the more TED intelligentsia-inclined audience. I’ve had a huge amount of submissions from people sending in their own porn world/real world ideas. These are very interesting to read, because while the vast majority of them are screamingly funny, some of them are also very serious and very heartfelt. One interesting thing, for me, was that I designed MakeLoveNotPorn to be deliberately gender-equal. It’s talking to men and women equally. A lot of men have submitted ideas that are much more about the male experience and the false expectations of men that porn engenders, which made me realize that when I do develop the site further, I will need to encompass the male experience more. I’ve got fantastic input there.

Also, MakeLoveNotPorn is very much a global concept. I work globally as a consultant, and I’ve encountered a great response to this from people in other countries. It’s absolutely reflected in the visitors to the site as well. I’m not actively promoting MakeLoveNotPorn at the moment because I don’t have the resources and I don’t have a lot to send people to yet. Nevertheless, I monitor it on Google and it pops up on French blogs, Chinese blogs, Greek blogs. One of the last emails I received was from a young guy in Morocco who wrote to me -- by the way, when people write to info@makelovenotporn.com, they have no idea who they’re writing to and I identify as myself when I write back. Anyway, this young guy wrote to say, “Thank you so much. Young people in Morocco are like young people in the US, they are heavily influenced by porn. Now at last I can tell my friends how to make love to a girl, thanks to your wonderful website.” And I just love getting emails like that.

So, what’s next?

I have further plans for development and promotion based on finding far-sighted and broad-minded investors. For the time being I’m very pleased with the response that MakeLoveNotPorn has received, both in terms of overall recognition of the issue and in getting to exactly the audience I wanted to get to.

Your talk and this project seem to convey the words and ideas of a very empowered woman. Do you consider yourself to be a feminist?

I consider myself a rampant feminist. I deplore the shying away that can go on, within women, from the term “feminist.” I am, absolutely, all about being a feminist. My personal cause and platform, if you like, is women’s rights and women’s issues. In the context of my other web venture IfWeRanTheWorld (MakeLoveNotPorn is my secondary venture), if I ran the world, I would help the cause of women everywhere. Unfortunately, that embraces a huge spectrum of problems and issues, a very fractional amount of which I donate money to at the moment and which, when IfWeRanTheWorld is up and operational, I absolutely want to address myself.

Also, I like to describe myself as a proudly visible member of the most invisible segments of our society -- older women. I’m 49. I make an active point of telling people how old I am, as often as possible, because I’d like to confound expectations of what an older woman should be, look and act like. I say that because it’s taken me 49 years to feel this good about myself. As women, from the moment we are born, everything around us, from a socio-cultural perspective, conspires to make us feel insecure about absolutely everything to do with ourselves -- our looks, our bodies, whether people like us, whether boys like us. In many ways, an overarching wish of mine is that, if I ran the world I would give every woman the confidence that she deserves, to feel empowered to live her life the way she wants to live it. The fact is that girls are massively constrained in other parts of the world, but are constrained in First World countries as well. That desire infuses an awful lot of what I do.

I absolutely get involved in women-specific areas within my industry. I work with Advertising Women of New York, with Girls in Tech. I provide advice and help on a regular basis to many, many women on their personal lives, career, business ventures, particularly younger women who, very flatteringly, see me as a role model. I do everything I can to help them. That is something that I feel very strongly about. I’m a rampant feminist and proud to call myself a feminist.

On the topic of feminism, you seem very comfortable as a woman who talks about having a sex life, without being ashamed of that at all. What did you have to overcome psychologically and socially to get to that point?

That’s a very interesting question. I’ve never really analyzed that, but I think I would say, funnily enough, that where I’m at today, personally has a lot to do with the industry I’ve grown up in professionally, and that is advertising. The single best lesson that I’ve ever learnt was born out of the advertising industry: When you identify what your personal brand stands for, when you know what you believe in, what you value, what your personal philosophy of life is, it makes life so much easier. Life will still throw at you all the crap it always does, but you know exactly how to respond to it in any given situation, in a way that is true to you. And that has a tremendous role to play in building self-belief, self-empowerment and self-confidence.

I've done a lot of talks and given a lot of business advice on the future of advertising and marketing, and something that I say to people is that the new marketing reality today is complete transparency. Particularly with the Internet, everything that brands and companies do today is in the public domain. When I talk to brand marketers who are nervous about this, I say, “Interestingly, the answer to that is the same answer as it is for a person: When you have a very strong sense of who you are and what you stand for, and you always act from and operate on that basis, you have nothing to worry about in terms of wherever people encounter you, because you are simply being completely honest.” Authenticity, integrity, honesty means you don’t have to worry about what people think of you, because you are being true to yourself. It’s true of brands, and it’s true of people.

So, bizarrely enough, where I’ve arrived at personally has something to do with where I’ve come from professionally. I find that life’s so much easier when you’re straightforward and say, “Here I am. Take me as you find me. Are you with me, or are you not?” If you’re not, that’s fine. There will be enough people who are.

What about your current project, IfWeRanTheWorld. What is it all about, and where do you see it going?

First, I’d like to explain where the concept came from. It’s an idea that I had, kind of accidentally, two and a half years ago. When I had it, I just thought, “This is one of those ideas I have to make happen or die trying.” It comes out of two places. It comes out of the kind of person that I am and it comes out of the industry I work in. When I talk about the kind of person that I am, what I mean is that I’m someone who is enormously action-oriented. I’m all about making things happen, totally believe in being the change you want to see, and quite frankly, have a very low tolerance level for people who whinge and whine about stuff and never do anything to change it.

So, it was coming out of all that that I found myself thinking that arguably, the single biggest pool of untapped natural resource in this world is human good intentions that never translate into action. Even though I talk about myself as being action-oriented, I can be just as guilty of this as anybody else. After reading The New York Times, I’ll go, “Oh my God. That’s terrible. I must do something about that.” I’ll turn the page, and the moment’s gone. The intention was absolutely there, but it never got acted on. So I found myself thinking, if you could find a way to take all those good intentions that all of us have on a daily basis and somehow find a way to turn them, at the moment of intention, into action, you would then unleash a force of energy and power that could do extraordinary things in the world.

That was one half of my thinking, and the other half of my thinking was, it actually came out of 24 years working in marketing, brand-building and advertising. I happen to know there is another equally large, equally powerful, untapped resource, which is corporate good intentions. There is no shortage of companies, both large and small, who know that in order to earn the right to do business in the world today, they have to be “corporately socially responsible,” often have very large budgets dedicated to CSR, employ whole teams of people whose sole purpose in life is to find effective way to spend this budget, but who nevertheless waste them taking out full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal saying, “Look how green we are,” that nobody reads. They are missing the opportunity of allowing their CSR agenda to support their business objective in a way that proves that you can do good and make money simultaneously. I’m trying to bring those two things together -- human good intentions and corporate good intentions -- and to transform them, collectively, into shared action and shared objectives that will produce shared, mutually beneficial end results. That’s the thinking behind IfWeRanTheWorld.

When I decided to do this, I was very aware, coming from the ad industry, that it's never just what you do, it’s the way that you do it. And I’m very conscious of the fact that, sadly, for a lot of people and businesses, the idea of doing good is inherently very, very boring. When you go to the homepage of many a social endeavor or nonprofit, sadly, you are all too often met with an instant yawn factor, a part of the worthy but dull syndrome. Before you do anything, you feel, “Oh my God. I’m half-asleep already.” I’m trying to make doing good sexy as hell. Everything about IfWeRanTheWorld is crafted to ultimately achieve that effect. It’ll be launching in January 2010, which I think is perfect. January is always the month of good intentions -- new year, new start.

You’ve really got a lot going on. How did you manage to get to this point -- to move from English literature Oxford student to advertising force?

Without any conscious thought whatsoever. I actually fell very madly in love with theater at Oxford. It’s got a very thriving student drama scene. I wrote, I acted, I directed, I stage-managed and I essentially decided that all I wanted to do was work in theater for the rest of my life. I knew I wasn’t good enough to be an actress or a director, but one of the things that I always enjoyed doing at Oxford was selling shows. I used to design theater posters. I would do the publicity and information for them, and so I actually went into theater as a publicity and marketing officer for several theaters in the UK.

Then I started getting tired of the fact that I was working every hour God gave me, and earning chicken feed, which is what happens in theater. At that time, I was the marketing officer for the , and part of my job was giving talks on the theater. So I gave a talk one afternoon to a group of women, and after the talk, one of them came up to me and she said, “Young lady, you could sell a fridge to an Eskimo.” And I thought, “Right. The universe has spoken. I think it’s time to sell out to the establishment and get into advertising.”

So I did. I applied to a very large number of ad agencies, because it wasn’t so easy to get into, particularly with no experience. I actually ended up going right back to the beginning again, and getting a job as an entry-level graduate trainee recruit at an ad agency in London. I worked at several advertising agencies. By the way, after working as an impoverished theater person, when I joined this agency in London, in the heyday of the ’80s, in the first month there I drank more champagne than I had in my entire life to date. I thought, “This is the industry for me!”

In ’89, I joined BBH in London. I realized when I joined them that this was a very special agency, but I had no idea how big they would be. First, I ran several pieces of big business for them out of London -- Coca-Cola, Ray-Ban, Polaroid. In 1996, I moved to Singapore to help start and run BBH Asia Pacific, and worked as the number two person there. Then in 1998, I got my dream job, which I had put in a request for, which was to come here to New York and start BBH US. It literally began as me in a room with a phone, on my own, starting up an ad agency in the world’s toughest advertising marketplace. And my employee number two, after me, and my executive creative director, Ty Montague, who is now the chief creative officer at JWT, he had a great phrase in the early years. Whenever anybody asked us, “How’s it going?” he’d reply, “We’re having hard fun.” And that’s exactly what it was like starting up an agency in New York -- hard fun. But it went very well and it was enormous fun running BBH here.

When I said earlier that I’d done all this with no thought whatsoever, in a way that’s deliberate. Very early on, I was invited to a big ad industry event. I remember looking around that hall, which was full of tables of all the big American agencies -- JWT, Y&R, Grey, McCann -- and I was sitting there, it was about three months after I’d moved to New York, we had a staff of about five, and I thought, “If I stop to think about what I’m trying to do here, which is launch the BBH brand into the American marketplace, if I look around at the advertising behemoths that dominate the marketplace, I’ll get so frightened, I’ll never do it.” So I thought I’d better not.

I used to say to my employees, “Our vision for BBH US is that we’re going to be the best agency in America.” Then I would think that if McCann could hear us, they’d be rolling around the floor in hysterics, laughing. But one should always have a big vision, and one should always strive to achieve it.

The hunt for a supermassive black hole: Andrea Ghez on TED.com

2009-12-02T14:49:52Z

With new data from the Keck telescopes, Andrea Ghez shows how state-of-the-art adaptive optics are helping astronomers understand the universe's most mysterious objects -- black holes. She shares evidence that a supermassive black hole may be lurking at the center of the Milky Way. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 16:26)

Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/204M

Watch Andrea Ghez's talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

Raise your awareness on World AIDS Day

2009-12-01T18:29:08Z

Every year, on December 1, the globe comes together on World AIDS Day to learn more about the virus and to show support for those have been infected. Currently, there are approximately 33 million people living with HIV, while stigma and prejudice continue to cripple educational efforts in many countries.

To increase our awareness of the effect of the AIDS virus on the world and on specific individuals, and to help understand it's spread and preventative measures, we'd like to offer three TED Talks, each capturing a different aspect of this global issue.

Hans Rosling on HIV: New facts and stunning data visuals

Kristen Ashburn's photos of AIDS

Emily Oster flips our thinking on AIDS in Africa

Gordon Brown on global ethic vs. national interest

2009-12-01T14:47:39Z

Can the interests of an individual nation be reconciled with humanity's greater good? Can a patriotic, nationally elected politician really give people in other countries equal consideration? Following his TEDTalk calling for a global ethic, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown fields questions from TED Curator Chris Anderson. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 17:11)

Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/192P

Watch Gordon Brown's Q&A on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

Turning dunes into architecture: Magnus Larsson on TED.com

2009-11-25T15:34:04Z

Architecture student Magnus Larsson details his bold plan to transform the harsh Sahara desert using bacteria and a surprising construction material: the sand itself.(Recorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 11:44)

Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/126Y

Watch Magnus Larsson's talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

The best of times, the worst of times

2009-11-24T20:10:26Z

Historically, American happiness nose-dives in tandem with economic downturns. But despite the recession, current indicators paradoxically show that Americans are, right now, quite happy indeed. Although happiness spiked downward with last fall’s market drop, by this summer, it was at an all-time high. Americans are more optimistic about their health, well-being, and finances than a year ago, and plan to have a merrier Christmas this year, though they will spend less money. Why?

According to this Time.com essay, as the American Dream became more and more exaggerated -- big cars, huge homes, gigantic TVs and ever-evolving tech -- “Expectation Inflation” set in. But our ballooning concept of the middle-class lifestyle has become unsustainable, to the relief of many Americans, who are learning the highest return on happiness comes from the causes they believe in and making others happy. To explore happiness further, check out Barry Schwartz’s talk on the paradox of choice, Dan Gilbert’s talks on our mistaken expectations and why we are happy, and Benjamin Wallace’s talk on the price of happiness.

Transition to a world without oil: Rob Hopkins on TED.com

2009-11-24T15:07:24Z

Rob Hopkins reminds us that the oil our world depends on is steadily running out. He proposes a unique solution to this problem -- the Transition response, where we prepare ourselves for life without oil and sacrifice our luxuries to build systems and communities that are completely independent of fossil fuels. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 16:40)

Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/110U

Watch Rob Hopkins' talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

LHC back in action

2009-11-20T21:24:02Z

Tonight scientists at CERN are rebooting the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in an attempt to recreate conditions fractions of a second after the Big Bang by crashing opposing proton beams, traveling at nearly the speed of light, into one another. Shortly after the LHC’s debut last September, a manufacturing glitch in wiring led to a liquid helium explosion that left the surrounding equipment damaged and ice-coated. The LHC faced another (albeit more humorous) setback earlier this month when a bird dropped a piece of baguette into the machine, causing a short circuit.

Now that repairs are completed, scientists hope the LHC will offer insight into several puzzling theories such as dark matter and the Higgs boson, a particle which gives other particles mass. For the latest updates, follow @CERN on Twitter. To learn more about the LHC, check out Brian Cox’s talks on CERN’s supercollider and what went wrong at the LHC.

Meet Anwar Dafa-Alla, TED volunteer translator

2009-11-20T15:56:29Z

Tell us about yourself.

My full name is Anwar Fatihelrahman Ahmed Dafa-Alla. I was born in Port Sudan, Sudan on January 23, 1978, and got my early education there. Graduated from the AASTMT as a Computer Engineer in 2003.

I'm married and have a small Sudanese family, my beloved wife Salma and my lovely daughter Egabl, the most valuable people in my life.

I'm the oldest brother of nine, four boys and four girls.

I worked as web designer/developer during my university days, and then as a part-time lecturer in my home town after graduation, for two colleges, and I established my own small company in the capital city of Khartoum in 2003, just before I came to South Korea and joined the Master course in Chungbuk National University, CheongJu, Chungbuk, Korea.

I finished my Master course in 2006, established my own company here also, till I suspended it and switched again to full-time Ph.D student at the same lab, hopefully to graduate next year, 2010. My research areas include, but are not limited to, databases, data mining, security, social networks, Internet applications and some mathematics.

What drew you to TED?

Some Sudanese friends and I are sharing video lectures, papers and whatever comes to our hands. My lab mate sent me a link to a very inspiring talk. Later I watched the "African Einstein" talk by Neil Turok. The first thing came to my mind is how to spread this talk to many people in my country and our continent.

We love to follow the new ideas and discoveries from all disciplines. And I'm always optimistic that the best that humanity can offer has yet to come.

Participating in establishing several NGO and groups in Sudan, such as Sudan Developers Association, I believe in the ability of open source and collaboration work in changing our world to a better place.

And that's exactly what I found in TED. I believe that every idea worth spreading, no matter what's my humble opinion about it, reveals some "hidden possibility" in human-human interaction or even human-machine interaction. I'm a big fan of Hans Rosling, and I always whisper to myself: let my dataset change your mindset. :-)

Why do you translate?

I'm a kind of restless guy, so I would do more than one task in parallel (multitask). Education is a life mission for me, through which my country Sudan, my continent, Africa, and the whole world can flourish.

I translate for the millions of Arabic language speakers (spoken by more than 280 million people as a first language). I translate because it's a way to promote mutual respect between different cultures, people, religions, etc. Translation is a way to exchange ideas among us as humans.

I also translate for my friends; I think it's a good gift that could change something in their lives. I translate for my daughter, your daughter and every kid and for the coming generations. I hope they'll one day benefit a little from my translations.

Participating in the translation project is good method to show how compassionate we are toward each other, given that Arabic speakers are from different religious and cultural backgrounds.

Being from a country like Sudan, 7,000 years old, and the first civilization that built pyramids, I translate to promote peace and prosperity in my country also, complementing the efforts of my friend Emmanuel Jal who has done good steps that will change people's perception about our Sudan -- even among Sudanese themselves. The message of peace and love, that we're one people, one nation, unlike what politics suggest. So, through translation I can change a little bit as well.

Currently my country has some conflicts; a lot of people have a single story about Sudan; even in our neighbor countries, we are stereotyped in a bad way. And that must be changed by us, solving our problems and participating actively in the global society. I met with a lot of talented people in Sudan; they couldn't get the chance to show their creativity. For example, I met with Mamoun, 12 years old boy who does mathemagic. Unfortunately, he's suffering from a disease.

I translate also because it tends to create new tribes and I meet a lot of great people. One of my favorite hobbies is to know people and cooperate with them for good causes. I would like to thank everyone who contributes something through TED, the compassionate place, where the are great Ideas Worth Spreading.

TEDxNASA and TEDxAmsterdam stream live tomorrow!

2009-11-19T17:57:42Z

Tomorrow, Friday November 20th, two of our most exciting TEDx events so far will be streamed live. TEDxNASA was organized by NASA's Langley Research Center and the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA). It's a full day of talks on science, technology, entertainment and the arts. Speakers include author Mitch Albom, experimental artist Chakaia Booker innovation coach Gregg Fraley, robotics inventor Dr. Dennis Hong and Oprah & Friends radio host John St. Augustine.

TEDxAmsterdam is another day-long experience, with a string of fascinating speakers. The program will be opened by the Mayor of Amsterdam and includes the Netherlands' Minister for Foreign Affairs, TEDsters Kevin Kelly and Bjarke Ingels as well as our own TEDGlobal Director Bruno Giussani and many other notable academics, artists, entrepreneurs and techies.

TEDxNASA runs from 10 am to 7 pm EST. To watch the stream, click here >>

To see the TEDxNASA speakers, click here >>

TEDxAmsterdam begins at 9:15 am CET. To watch the stream, go to the TEDxAmsterdam homepage here >>

To see the full TEDxAmsterdam program, click here >>

If you're in the Netherlands, you can watch TEDxAmsterdam with a group of other involved and interested viewers. To find a free simulcast location across the Netherlands, click here >>

East vs. West -- the myths that mystify: Devdutt Pattanaik on TED.com

2009-11-19T15:00:00Z

At TEDIndia, Devdutt Pattanaik takes an eye-opening look at the myths of India and of the West, and shows how these two fundamentally different sets of beliefs about gods, death and heaven help us consistently misunderstand one another. His goal is to help us all understand these founding beliefs -- and use them to understand one another better. (Recorded at TEDIndia, November 2009, Mysore, India. Duration: 18:26)

Watch Devdutt Pattanaik's talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 550+ TEDTalks.