2 Articles for 'TEDx'

  1. 2009/12/29 My TEDx Seoul Talk Is Now Up (7)
  2. 2009/11/17 Help Needed: My TEDx Seoul Talk on November 28 (19)

My TEDx Seoul Talk Is Now Up

Other | 2009/12/29 09:01 | Web 2.0 Asia

It looks like TEDx Seoul videos are now up. Mine is here. Show some link/share love!

Since the video is offered in Windows Media plug-in, not in Flash media (a la YouTube), I can't take the share codes and embed them in this post. Also the audio quality is obviously less than desirable, with quite a few portions of the talk sounding broken and incomprehensible -- thanks to the wireless mic that came on and off all the time, leading to the frustrations of some speakers including myself. For a conference speaker, nothing is worse than a malfuctioning mic. About 2 paragraphs of planned talk got wiped out from my brain on stage, and those were the funniest 2 paragraphs! Sigh.

As a Korean, I definitely feel more comfortable talking in Korean, but given the subject and the global nature of the conference, I did my talk in English. Subtitles don't seem to be offered yet -- but as soon as they are up, please come back and see some TED Talks by our Korean speakers. They are as much entertaining and engaging as any other TED speakers from around the world.

Chang Kim's TEDx Seoul talk: http://tedxseoul.com/xe/5491



Help Needed: My TEDx Seoul Talk on November 28

Other | 2009/11/17 00:26 | Web 2.0 Asia


TEDx is an extension of TED conference that are independently organized and hosted by local groups around the world. Various cities have held TEDx's, and now it's finally Seoul's turn. The inaugural TEDx Seoul will be held on Saturday, November 28, in Sinchon, Seoul (near Yonsei University). For more info, visit TEDx Seoul website

I've been invited as a speaker (many thanks to those recommended me! Thou shall receive karma). The topic that I chose was, well, what else could it be? The Korean web. Given that TEDx Seoul is not a super geeky conference, I will keep my talk to be pretty high-level. 

Here are some of the underlying thoughts for my talk, as can be found on the website: 

"Ten years ago, Korea was an innovation powerhouse in the web industry -- The country was filled with entrepreneurship and was churning out some of the most interesting web services before any other countries did. But these days Korea-born innovations are hard to come by. On the contrary, some worry that Korea might be becoming "internet Galapagos", inflicted by walled gardens and lack of entrepreneurial spirits. What happened, and what should Korea do? Are there any signs of hope we can find?"

Based on this, I have put together some slides that may form the foundation of my talk (definitely far from being a final version, as you can see). Final slides will likely feature bunch of pics and images, true to TED tradition. 

TEDx early draft
View more presentations from chang1.

Now, I'd like to ask your collective intelligence to help me build my cases. My talk will be roughly organized into three parts: a) good old days of the Korean web industry, b) challenges we are facing, and c) signs of hope that we can see despite all those challenges. I will especially focus my talk on the c), namely the "signs of hope" part, because that's what matters most anyway. This is the area that I'm having most difficulty finding compelling cases too. 

So anyone out there reading this post, please help me out: Let me know any interesting people, companies, ideas, or trends that you believe will help re-igniting the Korean web. I know it's a big and awfully vaguely defined question, but I'm intentionally leaving it open-ended for now so that you can give me, well, anything. Let's keep good ideas coming. Thanks in advance!