by Greg Apodaca
Coordinator, TEDxPasadena
It is said that it’s impossible to light someone’s path without also lighting your own path. Truer words were never spoken. We see possibility for ourselves in the examples of others. We are lifted by the examples of other humans doing the extraordinary and the seemingly impossible. We cheer our fellow human beings who make life a little, or a lot, easier for others. We feel hope for the future, our future, when we see people come together to face global challenges together.
In Masitawa Village, Wembe, Malawi, William Kamkwamba, a 14 year old boy used spare bicycle parts to build a windmill and provide electricity to power two lights and two radios for his home. Now 19, he wants to build a windmill powerful enough to provide irrigation for his entire village.
In the Philippines, volunteers use empty soda bottles filled with a mixture of water and bleach to create a 55 watt light bulb to provide free light in a slum where walls are located so close together that usually no light gets into living spaces , and people cannot afford to pay for electricity. The cost for each light is 1 dollar. Fifteen thousand have been installed so far, and social entrepreneur Illac Diaz has plans to install many more.
In Massachusetts at MIT, Patti Maes and Pranav Mistry demonstrate how the human brain and a laptop computer are now able to communicate instantaneously to project the current time on your wrist simply by wondering what time it is, and looking where a wristwatch should be kept.
These stories are available in video format for all to see on many web sites. They are bundled with and lost among the millions of commercials, infomercials, and insipid notes, tweets, and messages from hundreds of friends tweeting about what they had for lunch today and what they're already hungry for tomorrow.
Except on the one web site that illuminates the best of the human spirit, every day, 24/7 – TEDtalks is the one site dedicated to "ideas worth spreading." No inane banter, just honest stories about people like you and me who've had a stroke of brilliance and have used it to benefit mankind instead of just themselves. TEDtalks and live speakers on many topics that will inspire and illuminate us all will be brought to Pasadena at TEDxPasadena on October 22, 9 AM-4 PM. Visit TEDxPasadena.com to purchase a ticket. Seating is limited. Tickets will not be sold at the door.
TED is in its 25th year of inspiring us with our own stories. May it go on forever. There is no better work, no greater service to humanity that lifting the spirit of another. Because when you lift the spirit of one, you lift the spirits of us all.
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Greg Apodaca is coordinator of TEDxPasadena. TEDxPasadena is an independently organized TED event. The event theme is: Creating The Future. www.TEDxPasadena.com
