Welcome back to Brussels!

Lithuania has Presidency for European Comission this semester and this is the first thing we see when enter Brussels.

Unexpectidily back to Cologne after 8 years!

Kcymaerxthaere in Lithuania

We met Eames Demetrios at TEDActive conference last February. Last week we installed his bronze plaque in Uzupis,  Vilnius!

Back on track... or at least trying...

Here we go!

a bit more than 3 (!) years passed after our first entry to start our journey to U.S. and we're still here: DT-- double trouble or dream team -- whichever is better for you:

Me on the left and Juste on the right... still smiling, still sarcastic, still being stubborn to change the world! So much changed over the past years: will try to keep up with adventure updates: both solo and together!

Good night!

TEDActive 2013 - wooooah!

Finally! Instead of writing tones of useless Facebook posts, e.g. I’m soooo blue, wanna goo backkk… and later iiiiiiiiiiii [happy], don’t be sad it passed, be happy it happened! I will try to put everything into one easy readable (or not so much, pardon) blog post. Plus, it is great way to start writing again after all travels in U.S. and Belgium…

Here we go…  all started 4 months ago when after TEDxVilnius 2012 our and TED patron Vladas Lasas came to us and said: Girls are going to save the world and you two are going to TEDActive! Wooooah! I still remember when 2 years ago at TEDxKids@Brussels we organized social media campaign with prize of the ticket to TEDActive 2012 and how jealous we were that organizers can’t go… and finally this is happening!

After few months of preparations, thoughts that this cannot be real and last minute packing we were on the road! As we were still students, we decided to travel cheaper way and instead of having flight from Vilnius, we started trip from Warsaw which meant 8 hour trip by bus… 1 airBnB night, 2hour flight to London and 11 hour flight to Los Angeles later, we were back in the States!

It was Friday, Feb 22^nd, when we came: we had to be at La Quinta only the  following day, so by the help of our amazing friends we spent a night at Kestutis Daugirdas place – Kestutis is wonderful Lithuanian composer, you should definitely check out his music – and ended up having house warming party with bunch of other composers...

Adventures continued the next day: after changing travel plans because of Aliaksandr's flight delays, being late for the bus, we finally ended up at the same car with 3 other fellow TEDActivators: Andre, Hugo and Tango! What a trip – it was definitely one of the highlights of the week – if we haven’t travelled with you guys, TEDActive experience would definitely be different… a bit more on that later.

So finally we are here!!!!! Before the start of official TED 2013 start we had two amazing days of TEDx workshop and behind the scenes travel to TED’s home in Long Beach. It was really great way to warm the feet before whole week, meet fellow organizers, see TED’s home and get inspired from the first moment. I almost had my TED moment when during TEDx workshop Kara from TEDxSanDiego shared that she programmed event rundown excel sheet, which makes scheduling event so easy, and that it’s available for everybody – how cool is that!!! Could be best birthday gift ever… but, please, don’t start sending me strange spreadsheets in June… Juste almost had hers the following day while visiting The Dream Room aka “media cave”, where everything is organized so perfectly and by color. If we didn’t know there was awesome week ahead, we would just stayed there…

Also learned that what we call “informal networking gathering with other attendees” we can simply call speed dating with TED side, which makes it so much easier for everybody to understand and also more attractive…

I will also dare copying Rives’ quote when having Plan C emergency on the stage: “Sorry guys, TED couldn’t show up, but ED is here…”

 

Ted and Ed

One of the best lessons learnt is that lying might be a solution, but I will keep it to myself. J

Few other funny stories include Walter saying that we look like grown ups now… FINALLY! :DD and while trying Scanadu’s Scout on me after it didn’t work Sam calling me a robot :D or we simple can be called TEDizens as someone from the crowd mentioned. ;)

The rest was AWESOME AWESOME week at La Quinta with fellow TEDActivators and astonishing talks, deep conversations in the morning, between the talks, and around the campfires (one of them led to very funny conversation and clarifying that Ruta in the mix of Latin, English, Hindi, and Chinese languages means “perfect law abiding wife” – don’t know where this one came from…), amazing workshops, running from one activity to another, lack of sleep, bunch of new friends, desire to travel even more and courage to save the word! There’s so much hidden in all these words, the ones who were together know what I mean, the rest will have to ask me, otherwise it would be a long long novel… Or you could read TED Fellow’s Nadin Farsad's wonderful post How TED makes you feel, which perfectly puts all dots in places. From me few pictures and quotes instead. J

Welcome to the Economics of Abundance – Erik Brynjolfsson, Innovation Researcher

We overestimate technology in the short term, but underestimate it in the long run – Rodney Brooks, Roboticist

What you do today, will have an impact for unborn children in the next few generations

Smart simply means that you are ready to learn!

Excellence is never the accident – Freeman Hrabowski, Educator

To achieve something you need a plan and lack of time! – Meg Jay

Build a School in the Cloud – Sugata Mitra: watch entire talk, otherwise I’ll have to rewrite every single word, which I could but believe it or not it will sound better from Sugata!

TED (x) role is to empower spread of ideas and activity but not take control over it – Chris Anderson, TED Curator

 I’m sticking to the alien version – Chris Anderson about Taylor Wilson

Last century was discovering things, this century is making things! – Stewart Brand

World in an interesting place and I need to go and explore it! – About Montessori education

PLANT SOME SHIT! – Ron Finley TEDTalk

Discovery of Dead Duck Day on June 5^th at 17:55 – Kees Moeliker

And these are only the few ones! Some talks are already online; you can check them out on ted.com

We also managed to take part in “How to TEDx…” video production on what it takes to organize TEDxKids event, check it out! Video: http://bit.ly/10gUNXe

Or be called as ACIU GIRLS – thanks to Tango! We promise to do Aciu song next year in Whistler!

TEDActive wasn’t the end to our travel, we spent two amazing days with Honorary Consul of Lithuania for Los Angeles Daiva… it was so great to meet Lithuanians who were born and living in the States… to see how much they love our country and maintain our traditions… This made me love Lithuania even more! More about that next time…

That’s about it… I feel sad, I get attached to people very quickly, I wish we had more days in Palm Springs for more deep conversations, more friendships, more new ideas and projects… But we are back, inspired as never before, having “let’s change the world” mode until next year when we will be refilled again, knowing that we are not alone here, that our people are all over the place – with same motivations and inspirations and that together as a community we will DO STUFF! As naive as it may sound, TED is really changing my life, TEDxBrussels did at first place, and I hope that I can do same for the people around me. J

See you in online, live and next year in Whistler!