JEDDAH — An idea starts with a single thought, to inspire and be inspired, that's what TEDx Jeddah is hoping to achieve through the event held Sunday night with 20 speakers talking about their success stories and personal experiences. Bandar Al-Mutlaq, TEDx Jeddah creator, said that the main purpose of the event was to show young talents and ideas of average people who could help inspire others. “In forums and conferences we always have officials speaking on a certain issue or a project but in TEDx Jeddah we want average people who work in a company for example or have an inspiring story worth sharing,” he said. TEDx Jeddah is part of TEDx, which is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. Al-Mutlaq also said that TEDx Jeddah is medium for exchanging ideas and getting inspired and to transform into reality one day. The event had 20 speakers talking about their personal experiences and sharing their success stories on stage to around 1,400 men and women attending the event Sunday night. At the end of the event, they were shown the last episode of “Tekki” a YouTube drama directed by Mohammed Makki, a young filmmaker who had a dream of having one of his films on a big screen. Under the title, Jeddah; The dream, TEDx Jeddah is aiming to bring solutions and ideas to make the city a better place to live and get the society to participate in the process of change. “Jeddah is going through a transition right now and it's all because after Jeddah floods crises we demanded an infrastructure and to have better roads. So, we have to be patient and cooperate with the plan,” said Al-Mutlaq. He also believes that there are young people who haven't discovered their talents yet and hopefully TEDx Jeddah would inspire them. “We want to find solutions to help this city become like what we dream,” he added. TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a conference in California 26 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with many initiatives. At a TED conference, the world's leading thinkers and doers are asked to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes maximum. Each speaker talked about his or her personal experience or presented a project on how our society can work hand in hand to become like any other society in the world. One of the speakers, Ibraheem Abbas, Chief Creative Officer of Focus Communication Group and a novelist, talked about the heritage of the city and how can simple things like food and books maintain the culture and identify. His presentation also talked about his novel which uses a “Hijazi dialect” the region's dialect as a way to emphasize the culture and to be proud of its identity. Lama Al-Ghalib, Executive Director “Our Youth” summer program, talked about social harmony and how all cities in the region should come together. “Jeddah; the dream” could become one day “Jeddah, the reality” through its young generation.
