TEDGlobal: Why Am I Here?

Why am I here?

No, not why am I at TEDTalks.

Why am I on this planet?

I am here at TEDGlobal with hundreds of people who know exactly how to answer that question.

And they can do it in 5 minutes or less.

Which is pretty impressive, to say the least.

I just finished watching the TEDFellows speak on the O'Reilly stage at Keble College in Oxford, with some 15 young(er) first time TED speakers sharing their take on that question. For example, the creator of an installation art project that aims to connect people living thousands of miles away from a conflict zone to the daily death toll (to move from 2D statistical deaths reported in the media to a more sensory experience of them.) Including time to reflect on how our actions those thousands of miles away may be contributing to them.

Other TEDFellows shared discoveries on using banana peels to clean toxins from water, using poetry to access the unseen (for the poet this was "bringing" her Nigerian neighborhood to central Boston.) Using mobile technology to make organic farming "sexy" to younger farmers in Kenya, and attracting the attention of the "Afghanistan" generation in the USA who doesn't watch the news on TV (but they are all over Facebook.) And more inspiring answers to the question "Why am I here?" How would you answer?