To TED and Back (Day Three)

by The Balloon

And - way too soon if you ask us - came the last day. Which went by with all its wonderfulness and left us in full TED withdrawal afterwards.

Here's The Balloon's special selection from the last day.

Thulasiraj Ravilla, director of Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophtalmology, presented his model of McDonald's inspired eye care franchising From the idea that the replication of eye care methodologies in multiple place could cure millions all the way to a system that brought eye care to thousands of people in a more economic and effective way than any other, the story of Mr. Ravilla's hospital is truly inspiring. The optimisation of resources is able to deliver great result (failure percentages are incredibly low) despite a still limited number of doctors.

Eye surgeries made quick, effective, and affordable. Beyond hope: this is reality.

Politician Shashi Taroor drew the attention on India's soft power. Soft power is the ability of a country to attract the sympathy of others, and India has definitely plenty of it. From the culture to the food, from the history to the landscape, from the colours to the movies and to the Bollywood dreams: India's full of soft power.

Mr. Taroor is an amazing speaker, and his talk was just as smooth as you can imagine. We're not really sure if he was saying something really mind blowing but it was certainly “mind blowing-ly” well said. Mr. Taroor showed eloquence at its best. He probably could have gone through his grocery list and we would still have drunk every single word.

Something that we will remember from his talk - Mr. Taroor pointed out India is a country where an Italian origin Christian woman (Sonia Gandhi) won the election and made space for a Sikh Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) who governed during the presidency of a Muslim (Abdul Kalam) and all in a country of Hindu Majority. Take that, "first world".

And then - drum roll - it was Eve Ensler's moment. The author of The Vagina Monologues spoke about "the girl who's inside us", all of us, the feminine part that lives in every human being and that societies have been trying to "kill" for centuries. The loving and emotional part of us, the caring one, what makes us capable of peace is something we need to nurture, and not suppress, in men and women alike.

She closed her talk with a reading from her new book "I'm an emotional creature". It was strong, funny and moving (most men in the audience thought so too), and ended up with a powerful "I love, love, love being a girl", shouted out loud by the entire theatre.

Standing ovation.