TEDx Warwick

Last month, I went to TEDx Warwick, a day of talks about ideas. This event is based on the format by TED, where speakers give a presentation in less than 18 minutes.

The videos are now online, so I would like to share what I thought about them, with the ability for people to watch and make up their own minds! The youtube playlist is here.

They are all worth a watch, but the ones I particularly enjoyed were by David Mackay, Andy Stanford-Clark and Kerry Kirwan.


David Mackay: How the Laws of Physics Constrain Our Sustainable Energy options (link)

David Mackay is something of an idol to me- he wrote the fantastic book "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air", and is a physicist as well! His talk focusses on explaining our energy demand and how to supply it in a sustainable way, with the physical limitations of each sustainable option (our renewables, other people's renewables, nuclear). I really enjoyed this talk, and I think anyone reading this blog would too. He really explains the situation in a simple way, using the numbers involved to give weight to his analysis- a great talk.


Andy Stanford-Clark: Innovation begins at Home (link)

Andy Stanford-Clark is the "Master Inventor" at IBM UK (a very grand title!) and his talk was about the "internet of things"- the idea that many of the objects we use (fridges, alarm systems, mousetraps, heating systems) might one day be connected to the internet, to give some degree of control remotely, over the internet. As Master Inventor, he has taken this to heart and to his home- installing a mousetrap which lets him know over the internet when it has been triggered, or an outdoor light which can be turned on remotely. He extends this thought process to a vision of the world where everything is connected- an interesting idea, and one that certainly has the potential to become reality. For example, it is already possible to use an app to remotely control what to record on Sky+, and it is only a small step to turn on the heating while on your way home or have your fridge let you know that you are out of milk when you walk past a Tesco!


Kerry Kirwan: Lean, Mean and Green (link)
Kerry Kirwan is an Associate Professor of Engineering here at Warwick. His talk concerned the idea of "greening" motorsport. This is not a new idea- cars and races do exist for electric and biofuelled vehicles, but they wanted to go further, and look at the materials the car is made from. They succeeded in making a series of breakthrough materials from sustainable sources (e.g. carrot steering wheel!), in the hope that some of their techniques can be incorporated into current racing or road cars with virtually no change in performance, but a huge reduction in the associated energy cost of manufacture. Great to see someone thinking so practically on how to improve the sustainability of motorsport and potentially normal road cars too.


The other talks were interesting as well, they are all on the youtube playlist- let me know what you think of them!