Joe Downtown: Livestream allows free viewing of TED Conference talks

By Joe Schoenmann

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 | 5:12 p.m.

So a choreographer, serial entrepreneur, nuclear scientist, food engineer, futurist, cancer-detector inventor, multisense designer and violinist all got together one day.

And the punchline?

There isn’t one. This is actually happening and you can watch it all via livestream video in the downtown Construction Zone speakers space, 158 S. Seventh St., through Friday.

It's all part of the TED conferences, which bring together the world's foremost speakers in the areas of technology, entertainment and design. The conferences take place twice a year, on the North American West Coast and in Edinburgh, Scotland

Downtown Project paid $2,500 to purchase a license to broadcast TED talks, currently under way in Long Beach, Calif. Tickets to attend the TED conference live cost $7,500. Anyone interested can see the talks for free downtown.

What are TED talks?

They are 18-minute presentations on subjects that run the gamut of humanity, science, religion, art and everything in between. Two talks Tuesday, for instance, dealt with the questions of the value of smartphone “apps” and other Web-related content versus inventions such as indoor plumbing.

Then the presenters of those opposing views had a mini-debate.

For times and a complete list of speakers go to downtownspeakers.com.

Joe Schoenmann doesn’t just cover downtown, he lives and works there. Schoenmann is Greenspun Media Group’s embedded downtown journalist, working from an office in the Emergency Arts building.