Friday 19 February 2016
Interview with the five young people who have organized TEDxLarissa in Linto Editor: Gogo Dimopoulou
G.D.: What is the philosophy behind TEDxLarissa?
Andreas Tzekas: TED was launched by the architect Richard Saul Wurman, who mentions that “traveling by plane, the most interesting people I have met have been mostly related to technology, entertainment and design”. In 1980 he organized a conference, which gradually evolved into something much bigger. The most important goal is to bring together people from different professions. The most famous concept of TEDx is that the speech part takes 18’ rather than 20’ and this is because they want the audience to understand that are very specific and will not violate this time restriction - neither too long nor too short a time period.
Alexandra Agorastou: The goal is to carry out speeches that inspire, inform, and awaken the public. They develop a topic in a way that can be understood by the audience and be approached, for example through technology or through its impact on society. They simplify the way you can comprehend some more complex issues and then make them part of your life in order you yourself to evolve through this.
Efthymis Skoufas: In fact, they change everyone’s way of thinking and they are speeches that aim at offering the audience food for thought and bringing them face to face with themselves and their new habits, but also on a social level, perhaps because sometimes the issues addressed by the TEDx speeches relate to social issues and their possible solutions too.
G.D.: TEDx speeches are intended to impart new ideas. How do you think the lectures on "dreams" may have helped the audience that attended today?
Angeliki Koltsida: All speeches are a real incentive for the audience. The audience is very important. They are the ones who give the true dimension of the event. Along with the speakers they are a thought and innovation tank. Along with the speakers we are able to dream and in fact dream big, which sometimes can scare us, but it gives us a boost on many aspects and everyone according to their field can take it further as much as possible.
Andreas Tzekas: In a speech I attended on "visionaries", it was mentioned that a "visionary" person is the one who not only tells you about the future, but at the same time they relate it to the present. So the "dream" is not only the future, but also what we can do now to get there.
Efthymis Skoufas: Dreams are a very interesting topic in the sense that one dreams not only while sleeping, but also when awake. And those dreams can be targeted at improving their life, things that they want for themselves, for others or even for society. It is a multidimensional issue, which is not limited to anything specific and you have much space inside the topic of "dreams" to approach many different sides, as was done here this year.
Angeliki Koltsida: Everyone perceives it as they wish, interprets it as they really think and it helps them with personal growth and on a social level as Efthymis has already mentioned.
G.D.: Is the audience in our city familiar with this institution or is it still something new, and what was its turnout to today’s TEDx?
Alexandra Agorastou: I believe that the people here are aware, especially the young and the students, and this is because it has gone big over the internet. What they may not know is how easy it is for them to make a TEDx themselves. The turnout in today's event shows that there are people who know about it, people who want to integrate it into their lives and develop it.
G.D.: How easy was it for five young students like you to organize it?
Efthymis Skoufas: We had Dimitris Chelidonas’s and his team’s support who organized the first TEDxLarissa held in 2014. They were there for us in anything we needed and of course Linto Organisation helped a lot in this endeavor.
Andreas Tzekas: It was a big test for all of us, it brought together the five of us who study in different cities and proved that it was possible to work in groups and not individually, having a very nice outcome.
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