TEDx Talks at UCL

Friday 6th December, an early start and a venture into the unknown as I became a producer for the day! We began by picking up the kit consisting of five cameras, four tripods, a sound desk, 6radio mics, a ridiculous amount of power leads, kettle leads, XLRs and adaptors ...the list goes on! All we had to worry about was getting to UCL safely, with all the thousands of pounds worth of kit unscathed .... ooooh the responsibility! (Thankfully I had a great cab driver called Paul who actually taxied Anthony Hopkins around for a few months and had some great anecdotes to share! Lovely guy).

On arrival at UCL, it was straight to rigging, with just 90mins until we went live. I should explain that this venue sports an incredible amount of power sockets - by that I mean a total of 4. I am pretty sure we ended up breaking every power safety rule that exists in order to ensure our cameras were powered up, our lights were lit and our sound desk was ready and waiting. It's amazing that we managed to gather enough power, it really is!

With everything set-up and enough gaffer tape to wrap around the world eleven times, the event kicked off. With ten speakers in total, it was inevitable that the event would over-run, which played havok with the limited amount of P2 cards we had to record to (not the fault of any UCL students or crew I might add). With that aside, the highlights for me were four speakers in particular: Alice Bentinck about the lack of women in tech start-ups, Iman Mujahed speaking about Women's Issues and her experiences in Syria, Adrian Furnham about gender based intelligence and the star of the show, Ang Swee Chai about her experiences as a doctor in the field, working in Palestine and making a small difference.

Alice Bentinck, spoke really confidently about her initiative to launch tech-start-ups led by women. For example, she showed us results of a Female-only Coding Class resulting in a 30% rise in female-led start-ups, as opposed to her original 10%. It was promising to see, and nice to know that although I may not consider myself an adoring fan of working in technology, I certainly have my moments. Put me behind a camera for example, and great!

Iman Mujahed told us all of her efforts to deliver necessities like tampons and sanitary towels to Syria, and educate society there about the female cycle. Not only was she humorous in offering us examples of questions from Syrian men such as: 'what the hell are wings?'... she truly delivered an inspiring notion in 'making things happen'. She accompanied deliveries all across Syria and was greeted by women with cries of adoration for her gifts...the gifts that we need only walk to the corner shop here in Britain. It is both saddening and liberating to know that there are women across the world who don't have access to things we deem a necessity, and indeed that there are things we can do to help.

Thirdly, Adrian made me laugh with his ridiculous examples of conclusions drawn between intelligence and gender. He explored the depths to the human brain in that women seem to more adept in emotional intelligence, whereas men are more adept to knowledge and interest in numbers or statistics. He also explained that men, are more adept to physical and spacial awareness, however concluded that there are always those that will prove the science of the brain wrong. Perhaps what made this funnier for me, is the fact that my boyfriend (also a crew member) was stood next to me and has atrocious balance and spacial awareness! I also found it exceedingly interesting to compare exam results. It is said that the difference in results between men and women, in later life is down not to the knowledge of the test but merely to the way that they prepare for a teat. A female brain is more likely to contaminate her knowledge with panic or worry, or stress due to a heightened emotional intelligence. It doesn't mean they aren't as clever! I found it simply fascinating.

Picture: Global Research

Finally, I come to the speech that captivated me from beginning to end. Beginning with tales of how her mother had gathered a group of industrial workers in China to rise up within the Chinese revolution, just as I had seen in the play 'World of Extreme Happiness' (also on this blog) Ang Swee Chai elaborated on her work as a surgeon. With the knowledge from this production, I could only imagine the struggle that her mother went through and could only refer to newsreels and films in terms of her tales of conflict. She particularly mentioned her work in Palestine, working in an overcrowded hospital after she had quit her job to take it. Here she and all the others in the building were rounded up by gunmen, a women pleaded with her to take her baby to safety before a guard thrust the child back into her arms and moved her on. Ang found out later, that both the mother and young child were shot. The vividness of that image in my head, reminded me of a story I was told by a holocaust survivor, about being pulled through a refuse exit in a house away from her sister who was pulled away by Nazi soldiers. Conflict is timeless...Ang's message is too. On her return from working in the field to work as a surgeon in Britain, she met a patient. Her patient was convinced that Ang should be back out there helping patients, and that she shouldn't waste her time  with a broken arm. Ang simply took her hand and said words close to, 'It might not be a big problem, but it is a real problem. And a real problem, is not small to me.' As I had been producing the video coverage of the event, I had not been completely focussed on the content of the talks. But something in Ang's voice resounded in me, and I found myself moved to tears by that statement. She was truly inspiring, and it was clear that everyone in the room felt the same. She was a charming lady and I have a lot of admiration for her.

And so, that rounds it up. We were down from four cameras to three for the last two speakers, due to the P2 cards finally filling up with the event slightly over-running but I have to hand it to the guys at UCL we were working with, the event was non-profit, and as stated by one of the team was certainly a 'labour of love' for organiser Sujitha Selvarajah. They did a fantastic job and the only thing I would say about next year, is have confidence in your planning, because it can only mean you surpass the high level you set this year!!! I want to thank them for allowing us and the crew to boss the, around the stage at times and steal their food, I'm glad I got to hear some truly inspirational women, from Jude Kelly and her Women of the World Festival to Catherine Purkiss speaking about Tackling Homophobia and the representation of Lesbian women. I look forward to making the videos available online for the TEDx website!! Congrats to everyone involved!

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