TEDxRiga 2017 Inviting you to listen and to hear

On June 16, for the sixth year in a row, TEDxRiga will offer a series of topics and people whose ideas will really be worth listening to. This year the organisers are emphasising listening, because that is a talent that is being ignored more and more skilfully in this day and age. Nature as created us as beings who can close their mouths, but not their ears, but today people have learned to do the opposite – close their ears and their understanding about everything that they do not want to hear. We filter content and friends on social networks, step away from different views, news and tastes, and learn to listen only to that which already conforms to our thinking. It seems that we will never learn enough in terms of how to talk, convince others, present arguments and ideas, etc., but what has happened to the art of just listening? When a person talks, he expresses and repeats only that which he already knows. Listening, however, can tell us something entirely new. That is just the first level of listening. From there, we can feel, think and create something new. In other words, when our ears are open, so are our minds and our hearts.

That is why TEDxRiga this year is offering people who will tell stories that are not just worth listening to, but are also ones that it would be a sin not to hear. First of all, there is Kārlis Bardelis, who has overcome the fears of surrounding people and efforts to dissuade him from doing something totally unimaginable – cross the ocean in a rowboat, for instance. Journalist and writer Mike Collier, veterinarian Ilze Matīsa-Vanhoutana, and political researcher Mārtiņš Hiršs, who tries to make his way through media noise to truly hear and identify Russia’s influence on Latvia and its relationship with the United States. We will hear Līga Ruperts, the originator of the 3x3 camps, and among all unions and languages, she can teach us to hear our internal voices as Latvians. Finally, there is Elza Volonte, who has grown up in two different worlds – the one in which people listen with the heart and speak with their hands, and the one in which people hear with their ears and speak with their mouths. Elza is a sign language interpreter, and she seeks to break down boundaries between the two worlds and to bring them together. In the past, the TEDxRiga conference has presented distinguished people from Latvia and abroad, including Andris Ambainis, Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, Anna Rosling-Ronnlund, Ksenija Sidorova, Klāvs Sedlenieks, Zaiga and Māris Gailis, Valdis Zatlers, Vita Matīss, Ivars Austers, Mārcis Auziņš, Laima Jansone, Pauls Raudseps, Alise Joste, and others.  This year will be no exception. The main thing will be to open your ears, mind and heart to all that is new.

Less than a month remains until the conference, so don’t wait long before visiting eventbrite.com, to reserve your seat in the auditorium, because it is most likely that you will hear stories that will make you sit down in surprise just by listening to those who tell them. June 16 at the Splendid Palace theatre. Perhaps you will hear something that truly will allow you to feel, think and create something new.