We all had to adapt and reinvent our plans and daily routines in 2020. For TEDx organizers around the world, this has been a challenge. While we realized we wouldn’t be able to organize TEDx events as we were used to, we were also convinced that “ideas worth spreading” were still, or even more so, relevant than ever.
Ideas help us understand different points of view, question our assumptions, inspire us to think of new solutions, and connect us to different ways of thinking, while reflecting on our human condition and provoking our next steps. At the same time, the stories and speakers behind each idea connect us to our shared humanity.
During the first few weeks of the pandemic, we at TEDxSãoPaulo were quiet. We felt we had to step back in order to see the bigger picture in a media landscape that was suddenly flooded by virtual happy hours, yoga classes, and cooking videos. We quickly came to realize that as content creators, we had an important role in our community. Our mission is not just to organize events, rather, it is to seek and share ideas worth spreading. And ideas don’t need auditoriums, theaters, or stages.
Due to social isolation measures, we had to adapt the ways we were used to host TEDx events. We played with different formats throughout 2020. TEDxSãoPaulo ended up organizing 18 online events in 2020. Some of these events, especially at the beginning, were entirely digital using the Zoom platform.
Then we started experimenting with hybrid formats, filming some TEDx talks in a studio while simultaneously streaming them on youtube and facebook. Two of our events were live-streamed on TikTok. We hosted a drive-in event in a soccer stadium, with three live audiences: some in their cars, others in a Zoom meeting, and others watching live on YouTube or Facebook. Over 120 TEDx talks will be published with the content we have created during 2020 at TEDxSãoPaulo.
We are proud to be a part of the TEDx Skoll Conversation series focused on health, thanks to a partnership between TED and the Skoll Foundation. Ideas on health and science have been a part of all our online events. In May we had a scientific researcher who gave a beautiful talk about how science and medicine have advanced together for the benefit of humanity. In July, two of our speakers were Gustavo Cabral, one of the main immunologists and researchers behind the development of one of the COVID-19 vaccines, and Nathalia Guapyassu, a young doctor working in Intensive Care Units in public hospitals in São Paulo (the COVID-19 epicenter in Latin America). TEDxSaoPaulo hosted two events in partnership with the Skoll Foundation on November 7th and December 12th.
Our event in November was mostly about physical health, specifically related to COVID-19 and to heart and brain health. One of the highlights of this event was renowned Brazilian composer, singer and songwriter Gilberto Gil, known for his contribution to Brazilian music with more than 69 albums released and nine Grammy Awards. He has been an “Artist for Peace” for UNESCO, a UN ambassador for agriculture and food, and the Minister of Culture of Brazil. He had a candid conversation on health and medicine with his doctor Roberta Saretta and shared memories of his father, who was a doctor in a rural area in the state of Bahia in Brazil. We also had the honor to learn from Marlo Libel, a Brazilian MD working as a researcher at Ending Pandemics.
Guilherme Nogueira talked about his experience having a stroke when he was only 19 years old. He was followed by doctor Sheila Martins, the president of the World Stroke Association, who shared the main 10 risk factors that lead to a stroke and how to prevent them. Artist Lu Gastal shared her journey moving from city life to her family farm, where she learned the benefits of taking time for the important things in life and where she lives as an artist, farmer, and content creator.
In December we brought mental health and wellness to the table. We wanted to wrap up the year 2020 with information about the pandemic in Brazil followed by talks on mental health, well-being and what we can expect for the coming future.
We had an opening talk by the MD and researcher whose graphs about the advancement of Covid-19 in Brazil became viral, doctor José Rocha Faria Neto, who shared his research on the spread of the virus. Gisela Rao experienced painful loss this year and shared some tips on how to deal with mourning and grief.
Then we learned from doctor Luciana Savoy Fornari about her PhD research. She found out that teaching kids about health has an impact on their parents’ health.
Fábio Gandour is a medical doctor who devoted his life to studying the relationship between new technologies and health. He believes that we need to take into account that the future of medicine has to be designed for the humans of the future.
Carleara Weiss is a Brazilian nurse who moved to Buffalo, NY to pursue her masters and PhD research on the role of sleep. She explained why we need to take care of our sleep patterns and we need to make sure we get our much needed rest.
Izabella Camargo is a journalist, TV presenter, and writer and she has done extensive research on the way we relate to time after experiencing burnout herself. She reminded us of the importance of taking care of ourselves and allowing free time to decompress and recharge our energy and creative levels.
We believe these last two are invaluable messages not only for TEDx organizers like ourselves but also for the global community of social entrepreneurs who feel the urgency to devote entirely to their causes and sometimes risk forgetting about the need to care for their own physical and mental health.
As curators and organizers, we love finding people that have a special spark in their eyes. We look for inspiring and courageous voices; we help them craft their scripts, and then we host events to make it possible for people to listen to them. This year we’ve learned to do all this in different ways, to keep offering a safe space for meaningful conversations and share those ideas with the world.
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