4
The Keble Review 2013
Student Life
The day classical pianist James Rhodes, advertising man Rory
Sutherland and founder of Kids Company Camila Batmanghelidjh
appeared together on one stage was the highlight of my Oxford
career and my life so far. They were all speakers at TED
x
Oxford, an
event which I set up and organised in my three years at university
and which has become an annual event now that I have left.
TED was founded in the USA in 1984 as a yearly conference
dedicated to the fields of technology, entertainment and design
(hence the acronym). At TED, speakers are invited to share one
idea “worth spreading” in an accessible 18
minute talk, which is then broadcast across
the world via the TED website. From 2009,
TED gave permission to the public to set up
their very own “TED
x
” events. I have always
been an admirer of TED and its ethos, so in
2010 I applied for and was granted a licence to organise Oxford
University’s very own independent TED conference.
With funding from Neptune Investment Management, a company
set up by Keble Old Member Robin Geffen (1976), I wanted to
build a conference of as high a quality as TED proper but at a
fraction of the price, so that young people could afford it. The
first thing I did was assemble a team of brilliant students who
were as ambitious as I was about the project. We were, of course,
all completely unqualified. We spent much of our time choosing
speakers and convincing them to be involved. This involved scores
of letters and hundreds of phone calls (the most memorable of
these was my own with Sir David Attenborough).
As for affordability, we were conscious that the ticket price would
make or break our events. For the first conference in 2011, we let
the audience decide for themselves. With a recommended price
of £25, we allowed the one hundred audience members to pay
whatever they thought the day was worth. To our surprise, the
majority paid the full £25, some paid even more, and only one
person paid nothing at all. For the second TED
x
in 2012 at the
Oxford Playhouse, we tried something completely different. In
order to create a sense of urgency, we raised the ticket price as
we got closer to the event. The majority of the 600 seats were
bought within the first week, and we sold out in three.
Of course, a lot went wrong too - more than I care to mention.
One lesson that has stayed with me from the experience is that
the freedom to fail is the most important ingredient of good
learning. When organising TED
x
Oxford, we were fortunate
enough to have that freedom. As a result, the chance of an
idea being implemented and working well was down only to its
strength and our ability. This gave us space to experiment and
explore, to succeed and - most importantly - to fail, in equal
measure.
(The next TED
x
Oxford will take place on 26 January 2014 at the
New Theatre in Oxford; visi
to find out
more.)
Chris Toumazis
2010 Biological Sciences
TED
x
Oxford
We spent much of our time choosing speakers and
convincing them to be involved [through] hundreds of
phone calls (the most memorable of these was my own
with Sir David Attenborough)
Chris Toumazis
