TEDxLA Imagine a Better World and Create It as It's up to US not the U.S.

I attended the TEDxLA Imagine conference in December of 2016 and I wasnt going to write about it, but because of the Paris Climate Agreement that the U.S. has opted out of, I felt compelled to write about what I learned. Im lucky that I have a daughter who received a free ticket as a student at the Star Academy and she needed a chaperone so I even got all the wonderful information for the price of parking. Getting up early on a Saturday to sit in a room all day wasnt exactly her idea of a perfect day off from school, but she did put on a collared shirt and brought a notepad to take notes. The event was divided into three sections of speakers on the topic Imagine with breaks in between. The beginning of the day started with the Dolby Theater on Hollywood Boulevard half empty and by the second set of speakers, most of the seats were filled and the energy and vibration multiplied exponentially, which happened to be one of the themes of the day. People working together to solve problems increases success exponentially. Imagine what future we can create together regardless of a few naysayers.

One of the speakers who stood out to me was a chief scientist at Dolby Labs named Poppy Crum. Her speech was about the power of perspective and our world to each of us, is how we choose to see it. We cannot experience empathy unless we are vulnerable. She taught us that what we look at gives us our perspective. She showed us a picture and depending on where exactly we looked, what we saw, changed. Everyone experiences things differently and we need to be aware of that and try to have compassion and understanding and work together and not against each other.

The next few speakers blew my mind as they talked about the future world we will live in. Jeff Dean from Google told us that computers now have only a 3% error when reading a picture where humans have a 5% error and that robots now teach themselves hand-eye coordination. John MacInness and Remington Scott who create games talked about avatars and how in the future, we will live beyond our lifetime by creating our own avatars that will be able to interact with our great-great grandkids like we are still alive. That what we experience in virtual reality will be as real as our lives are today. Peter Diamondis, the founder of XPRIZE, believes that computers will think as fast as humans by 2023. He said a lot of things that I couldnt quite wrap my head around, let alone try to explain to anyone else.

Of course, as a fellow filmmaker, one of my favorite speakers of the day was Louie Schwartzberg, an award-winning cinematographer and director. He showed some films he made about the beauty of the world and he said, Flowers are nature's way of protecting itself, as we protect what we love. He believes that we need to imagine that we live in a better world and we will. His credits include Soarin Around the World at the Disney Parks and if youve experienced that ride, you know his work is amazing and inspiring. Check out his films if you want to see the true beauty of the world we live in, now we just need to do our part to protect it before its too late. Just because one man doesnt believe we are killing our Earth, doesnt mean the rest of us cant work together to save it.

Pablos Holman, Futurist, Inventor and Notorious Hacker was to me, the most inspiring of the speakers at TEDxLA. He talked about all the inventions that his team of scientists and inventors are working on that target helping people who cant help themselves. Pablos urged us to take on problems we dont have, as its our duty, because we are so blessed. He said the cost of one iPhone is the yearly salary of an entire family in some parts of the world. This hacker reminded us that we won the lottery by being born here and we need to give back to those less fortunate who are just trying to survive.

My daughter Amelia is in 6th grade and was honestly a little bored throughout the day, but when Pablos got on stage she sat up and listened more intently and laughed out loud during his speech. He showed a laser that he invented that kills mosquitoes and he said, As long as things are not cute, we can kill them. Pablos made her think a little bit when he said, Robots are taking the jobs and instead of getting angry about that, we need to do what humans do and figure out how to take care of us and our inner life. She heard the words, Humans are taking the jobs, and realized that she needs to think about her future differently, as we all do.

John Paul DeJoria of John Paul Mitchell and my favorite tequila, Patrn, was the last speaker we heard as Amelia couldnt sit still any longer. He said that in business there are 4 Ps: profit, positivity, people and the planet. That as we are trying to make a profit we need to have a positive attitude and help people without expecting anything in return and to remember to replenish the planet for what we take from it. He encouraged us to smile wherever we go and to try to make life better for everyone we meet. Another theme of the day was to give back, work hard, and be grateful for all that we have.

In conclusion, I feel that the TEDxLA Imagine conference made me think of the future with more imagination mixed with love. We all want to live in a better world and if we can imagine it, we can become it and we can achieve it. One person joins others and they become a team, and a team becomes a movement and working together on a problem becomes a solution. The future includes self driving planes and robots doing most of the jobs but our souls and our need for inner fulfillment will never be out of jobs. The speed of technology is exponential and its hard to imagine what our future will look like, but we have the power to live in a positive world where the vibrations of love are stronger than those of hate and misunderstandings. Just imagine that when we do good, we feel good and the world will be good. Its not up to one man to change the world for the better, its up to all of mankind to do their part.