NEWS: Close the doors, open the windows!

Well, dear TEDxers, the speakers’ list for the inaugural TEDxWarsaw is now closed, and what a list it is, too. Science will meet Philosophy and together they will wander through the Old Library building chatting to Business and the Arts about such things as social entrepreneurship, how education will look in 2050 and why it seems so difficult for Polish people to find a common tongue outside of times of deep national crisis. Never let it be said that we shirk from those difficult subjects…

While we are humbled and excited to be hosting this first TEDx event in Poland we are certain that the range and quality fo speakers will leave a memorable impression on the audience and the live-streamers. (We need to report that the seats in the auditorium have all but disapperaed but we are busily lining up the best technology we can to make the live-streaming as good as possible and we still haven’t closed the list of guests – feel free to astonish us or win a contest, but first of all, don’t forget to register!)

Our speakers are a gathering worth of a Renaissance salon. We have a leading psychotherapist and a social psychologist, a trail-blazing businessman and a quick-witted monk, a biologist, a journalist, musicians, artists, a horse whisperer…. And that’s not the half of it. The names of our illustrious speakers are being published on this site in a semblance of order but if you can’t stand the suspense and want to be in on the excitement, follow us on Twitter @tedxwarsaw for sneak previews, pre-release news and generally letting the cat out of the bag in an unruly fashion. There, of course, you can join the conversation. We love to hear from you.

A point of explanation: a question has been posed as to why we have chosen to run TEDxWarsaw in English instead of Polish so let us address that now. Firstly, that is not entirely correct since the speakers are perfectly welcome to speak in any language they think the audience will understand. Secondly, the majority of the audience at Warsaw Uni will already be bi-lingual. Thirdly, we are a part of an international community with whom we are exchanging some of those ideas worth spreading – from Dubai to Manchester and from Singapore to Auckland. And of course we all know what the world’s lingua franca is these days. So, for the sake of practical expediency as well as ease of communication, English it is.