We chose the theme of “Illumination” for our main TEDxKazimierz event on June 9. We love this theme because illumination is associated with light, discovery and epiphany. On the TEDxKazimierz stage, we want to shine the spotlight on powerful, transformative speakers and ideas. Illumination also speaks to our core values of transparency and openness, with which we curate our events and engage in a dialog with our audience. In the welcoming, sunlit spaces of the Manggha Museum, TEDxKazimierz will allow great ideas to be illuminated and flooded with light in 2018.

TEDxKazimierz 2017 was a full-day event on 22nd April in the Variété Theatre Kraków, with the theme of “Inspiration“. All our team members and speakers worked for free as volunteers.

Notable moments were when Alina Malocha, a teacher from Rabka, and some of her pupils, received a standing ovation for their talk, when 8 year old Marianna Pawlik played her violin, and when YouTube star MC Silk, who has more than 10 million views of his “Rap Nobody Faster than Rap God (Eminem)” video, was interviewed on stage.

The event was oversubscribed, as usual, with 380 tickets sold at cost to pay for catering, plus another 40-50 people at the event as team members, speakers, sponsors, technical crew and volunteers. The audience was curated in the sense that each person who applied had to say why they deserved a ticket.

It was very highly rated both by verbal feedback during the day and in the independent NPS survey sent out by TED and not controlled by TEDxKazimierz.

Apart from the talks, we had laughter yoga, warm-up activities, icebreakers, a live pianist in the lobby, a “Before I Die” wall and a “TEDxKazimierz Community Notice Board”, UV face-painting, a photo wall, a TEDxKazimierz Fingerprint Tree, workshops on hula hoop and drama, magicians, live simultaneous interpretation and a video stream of the conference.

TEDxKazimierz 2016 took place for the second time in the Jewish Galicia Museum.

The conference aimed to serve the local community by giving great people, ideas and projects in Kazimierz a global stage. The theme of the event was “Transformation“, which covered a wide variety of positive “before” and “after” stories, where the speaker showed how the idea they wanted to share address a problem or challenge and could potentially help resolve the issue. TED Prize Winner Professor Sugata Mitra recorded a special video message for the event; Dariusz Aksamit received a standing ovation for his talk on how he wants to change the way we educate children. Joanna Garnier of La Strada foundation talked about her battles against human trafficking and sex slavery in Poland. Rapper Kosha Dillz told us how freestyle rap saved his life, getting him out of prison and addiction. Entrepreneur of the Year John Lynch described how his battles to save his company changed his life. We had talks from the builders of the community of magicians in Poland, Michał Skubida and Michał Kulik, from filmmaker Paulina Fiejdasz and comedian Tomasz Biskup. Off-stage entertainment included fashion workshops, magicians and live music.

The independent TED survey confirmed that the event was very highly rated by the those who attended.

On the 23rd May 2015, the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków played host to the very first TEDxKazimierz event. The theme for this conference was “Age is no Limit“. On the famous red circle, we had several speakers, among whom were comedian Jim Williams and journalist Edward Lucas. 91-year-old Second World War Veteran Professor Wojciech Narębski received a standing ovation for his account of his survival of a Soviet prison and fighting the Nazis, and the entire conference sang him the Vera Lynn war song “We’ll Meet Again”. Rock star Alex Carlin sang and played his guitar. An array of artists, scientists and business people joined the event. The all-day conference featured talks in Polish and English with simultaneous interpretation. The event was very highly rated by the vast majority of attendees.