TEDxEuston Salon 2014 - 21st June 2014

With the success of last years’ TEDxEuston Salon 2013 at the Eight Club, the TEDxEuston team are delighted to announce that the upcoming TEDxEuston Salon 2014 will take place at the British Museum on the 21st June 2014 from 17.30 – 23.00.

Following on from the TEDxEuston 2013 conference - Ripple Effect, the TEDxEuston Salon 2014 will focus on the theme: “Ripple Effect: Education and the next generation.”  This year’s speakers are passionate about making a real difference through education and engaging with the next generation from their unique perspectives of urbanization, health, empowerment and mentoring.

Speakers include: Naana Otoo-Oyortey MBE, Health Research and Development (FORWARD), Kunle Adeyemi  (NLE Lead Architect/Project Manager of Makoko Floating School) & Precious Simba (Founder and Programs Director of the Girls Development Initiative). All three speakers will surprise you with their unique perspectives on education that will get you thinking and hopefully doing.

We searched long and hard for that ideal venue for TEDxEuston Salon 2014. In the British Museum, we found a spacious and exciting venue with state of the art facilities to stage an inspiring event, as well as the ambiance to reflect, network and share an intimate evening with friends. In addition, guests and delegates will have access to the collection and special exhibitions during gallery hours.

We look forward to welcoming you to TEDxEuston 2014 “Ripple Effect: Education and the next generation”. As many have come to expect, guest and delegates will enjoy an inspiring, motivating and relaxing event that is thought provoking, offers the chance to meet like-minded individuals and network. Go through this link to see the pictures of the TEDxEustonSalon 2013 and then ask yourself if there is really any better way to spend an evening in London this June.

Limited ticket availability! Get your tickets HERE!

The Salon is supported by our partner Shell.

TEDxEuston recommends: AFRICA BUSINESS SUMMIT 2014!

Dear TEDxEuston Community,

We are strongly recommending a conference by our friends and partners; the London Business School Africa Club's 13th annual AFRICA BUSINESS SUMMIT!

Registration  is now open HERE!

Date and venue: Saturday April 26th, 2014 I LBS I London

This year's theme is ‘Beyond the Hype: The Not-for-Tourists Guide to Investing in Africa’. The event features a fantastic line up of distinguished Keynote Speakers from North, South, East and West Africa, including:

• Ben Magara – CEO, Lonmin 
• Colin Coleman – Head of Investment Banking for Sub-Saharan Africa, Goldman Sachs
• James Mwangi – CEO, Equity Bank Kenya
• Rt Hon Justine Greening – UK MP and Secretary of State for International Development
• Okechukwu Enelamah – CEO, African Capital Alliance
• Sanusi Lamido Sanusi – Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria
• Souad Benbachir – CEO, CFG Group Morocco

The Summit will also feature a host of prominent panellists covering Africa from Swiss Re, GlaxoSmithKline, The Carlyle Group, M-Pesa, Maersk, Microsoft, CDC Group, KPMG, Agrekko, Abraaj, IBM, African Infrastructure Investment Managers, and many more. Panel topics include Private Equity, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Creative Industries, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and Leadership.

The Africa Business Summit provides the ultimate networking and learning opportunity for students and professionals focused on business in  Africa, spread across pre-conference activities, the Saturday Summit, and our first ever gala dinner finale introduced by popular demand.

Ticketed attendees have the opportunity to submit their CV for inclusion in the 2014 Africa Business Summit CV book (details available upon ticket purchase), and must do so before the submission deadline of Wednesday (TODAY!) April 16th at 23:59pm!  The CV book will be made available to our Africa focused sponsors, including Swiss Re, GSK, Tullow Oil, Oando, Citi, FCMB, CBO Capital and LADOL.

A JAZZY SATURDAY MORNING

By Paddy Anigbo

One of the features of a TEDxEuston day is the welcome. In 2013, we invited Justin Ajirakor, a Ghanaian Saxophonist that has played in venues all over London to take centre stage in welcoming delegates and opening the event. He graciously accepted and neither ourselves or Justin had an inkling what was in store for him! After all it is not every day you get a music request from the world famous Finance Minister and Co-ordinator of what is now accepted as the biggest economy in Africa!

Even more daunting is the fact that, as we lost Africa’s greatest son, Madiba, the day before, this was a tribute to one of the world’s biggest characters. To Justin’s credit he lived up to the bill and got all of us off our feet to celebrate the great MADIBA.

Many of you have asked....who was that guy. So....we are offering you more about Justin!

“UK’s sensational saxophonist Justin Adjirakor stepped on the music scene in the early part of the new millennium. Growing up in Ghana, Justin’s earliest introduction to music occurred when his dad bought him a recorder and some books to go along and left him to his own devices. He taught himself to read and play the recorder and also messed around with any other musical instrument he could lay his hands on. Justin later drew inspiration from the rich musical influences such as funk, R& B, gospel and eventually jazz.”

Listen to his music and support him. And if you really want to blow your partner away, get the him to play for him/her! Contact him on a1romanticjazz ATyahoo.co.uk

What "Half of a Yellow Sun" means to me, means to us...

By Ike Anya

Nearly two years ago, I sat in a darkened screening room in Soho with an audience of perhaps twenty people, watching the first screening of Biyi Bandele’s film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. As the lights came back on, and the room erupted in applause, I joined the small group of people clustering round the director and the producers, congratulating them. As I approached Biyi’s outstretched hand, I found myself pulling him into a hug and, embarrassedly breaking into deep heaving sobs. There had been many moving scenes in the film, but I hadn’t realized how moved I was by them until that moment, when watched by the bemused cameramen and technical crew, and the executive producer Yewande Sadiku, whose look of awe and bemusement I will never forget, I wet Biyi’s shirt with tears.

A few months later, I watched it again in the same small room, this time sitting behind Chimamanda who was in London to speak at TEDxEuston (Watch the talk again, here) and who had insisted that I accompany her to the screening that had been arranged for her. There were only a handful of us in the room, and when it finished, Chimamanda turned to me and said “Biyi has told our Nigerian story well”. The next day at TEDxEuston, we had the privilege of showing the trailer of the film as a surprise towards the end of the conference, giving our audience the opportunity of being among the first people in the world to see it. They received it with whoops of delight, giving the one and a half minute clip a standing ovation.

That reaction and the association of the film with TEDxEuston, was not unexpected. At TEDxEuston, we have worked over the last 5 years to inspire new ideas about Africa, to create spaces where we can tell own stories, which is what the Half of a Yellow Sun film project has also been about, largely financed by Nigerians and shot on location mostly in Nigeria, it is an important project with symbolic meaning for our continent.

The film’s journey to our screens, I am told has faced the many obstacles that others have faced in trying to tell our own stories in our own way, to our own audiences, within spaces where our perspectives have often been absent or curated in ways unfamiliar to us.

As the film opened in Australia last week, and in the UK and Nigeria this month, questions still continue to pour in from all over the world, asking when will it be released in the US, in Ghana, in Kenya, in South Africa, in India.

It appears that distributors are still not completely convinced that there is a market for the film. Telling our own stories it seems is not enough, we must also develop the channels for distribution and show the world that there is an audience hungry for these stories, these perspectives.

I urge you to go and see this film, and ask your friends, families and colleagues to see it, not least because of the sacrifices that the executive producer and team have made in ensuring that our story is told, but also because as writer Toni Kan said in his review for African Magic: “ if Yewande Sadiku and her co-producers make a success of this, the era of big budget Nollywood movies that would compete well on the international scene would have arrived.”

For dates and details of screenings for the film in your area, including the Lagos and London premieres, please visit the website halfofayellowsunmovie.com, follow on Twitter @HOAYSMovie and Facebook

Put a group together - watch the movie, talk about the story and what it means to you. Tell us what you think @TEDxEuston