TEDxPhnomPenh

A group from Barcamp Phnom Penh 3 launched Cambodia’s first space ship last Saturday, a home made high altitude balloon carrying cameras and sensors which made it up into the stratosphere about 30km before falling back to earth.

HAB projects have become more common in recent years, but Cambodia’s first faced some unique challenges – project leader Eduardo Jezierski (of InSTEDD fame) says the team had to work extra hard to research and comply with Cambodian regulations, and mitigate the dangers of UXOs and landmines. All the effort payed off in the end as team say the flight was a complete success, and have some pretty cool footage to prove it.

We were able to help out with construction of the spaceship at barcamp. Here’re a few snaps of the team putting it all together.

Join us at The Living Room in Phnom Penh on Saturday 22nd May at 2pm to talk about TEDx Phnom Penh. Any and all help is welcome, so if you want to come and be part of making an awesome TEDx happen here in Cambodia, come on down!



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So the first TEDxPP meeting was great, including almost 20 people (which under TEDx rules is incidentally also 20% of our total attendance allowance) who are all eager to help put together a TEDx event in the ‘Penh.

The guidelines laid out for TEDx events are nothing if not comprehensive, and while we wouldn’t mind finding a way around some of the limitations – a 100 attendee limit here seems a little miserly when the recent PP barcamp attracted over 1000  - others have lent the event some helpful definition. The event will be held late this year over a single day packed with guest speakers, TED video screenings and lively discussions. We’re determined to make audience participation a key aspect of the day, working in structured discussion and question time.

The team has now parceled out most tasks to volunteers, with one notable exception; TEDx Phnom Penh still needs a volunteer who can do ticketing and attendee applications. If you think you can handle the instant celebrity that would probably come with this position, come on down to the next TEDx meeting and help us out.

A couple of other things we’re still in search of are:

• A location – preferably with some A/V equipment set up already
• Anyone who has attended an official TED that would like to help oversee the event. Having this would mean that we could increase the audience size to 300, something we’d dearly love to do.
• Speaker and TED video nominations for the event. We’re in the process of putting together a submission form for this though so hang tight and we’ll be back with an update soon.