I will be sharing with you an activity that I have enjoyed doing for the last three years. An activity that ended me up speaking on the TED stage!!

{ “Bringing people together since 1984”

“Started on 2009”

It all started in early 2010, when me and three of my friends (all of us avid fans of TED), stumbled upon the newly born TEDx program. “

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

ABOUT TED

ABOUT TEDx In the spirit of IDEAS WORTH SPREADING, TED has created a program called TEDx-local, self organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.

We were so excited about this initiative that we decided we should apply to host the first TEDx event in Egypt. We immediately started working on our plans and prepared the required

documents, and on February 2010, we were granted the license to organize TEDxCairo

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We had a clear vision from the first day about what we want to achieve through TEDxCairo. Building the platform wasn’t the end for us, it was just the mean to ´Creating and inspiring a community of young and bright Egyptian minds to inspire others´

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However, we knew that achieving our vision will not be an easy task for the four of us. That´s why we decided to build the “TEDxCairo team”. An amazing team of 40 people, extremely talented and diversified, coming from different walks of life but all united by their passion of spreading knowledge and worthy ideas.

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Together we worked to spread ideas and inspire others. However, we were the ones really most inspired throughout the journey. “

We spent together some of the best and most meaningful times of our lives, everyone of us brought something different to our collective experience. And our relation went beyond being just colleagues to become more than friends.

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We were inspired by each other´s differences and stories.

Amr AbdelAziz, IT Consultant, ITWORX

Betty Tarek, Development Program Office, FHI

Sherifa Ahmed, Senior Economist, Egypt´s Central Bank

Bassem Elhady, CE0, KIJAMII

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We were inspired by the mind blowing conversations that we had together, and by the intellectual growth and personal development that we experienced {

We were inspired by all the great speakers that we have known and worked with

Wael Ghonim Revolutionary and poiltical activist - TEDxCairo 2010

Aly Faramawy VP of Microsoft International TEDxCairo 2011

Bassem Youssef TV Presenter TEDxCairo 2011

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“@TEDxCairo I owe you the energy flooding me today; Laughter, Tears and Hope was not a slogan in vain... I felt nearly in every speech! Bless U”-NarimanMoustafa “RT@Hamzasarawy:It might take you a long time to reach what you want but when you’re there you’ll know it was totally worth it #PostTEDxThoughts #TEDxCairo”-MarwaRashed

And we were inspired by the difference we made in some peoples lives. {

We succeeded together to organize 6 events in less than three years.

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Giving the opportunity to some of Egypt´s most visionary leaders, thinkers

and doers to inspire a live audience of

more than 3,000 people. {

And that´s when I ended up speaking on the TED stage!

An achievement that was recognized and appreciated by TED, who offered us the opportunity

to share our success story with the rest of the TEDx community.

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