TEDxTehran 2017

These past four years, we have helped a lot of ideas to spread —while embracing the past, present and the future of our community. From Tehran En Route and On the Verge of Breakthrough, to The New Paradigm and Good Morning Tehran, our previous themes tapped into almost forty different angles to examine our collective challenges and address them with emotional as well as rational viewpoints and solutions.

Yet, we are not satisfied with the ratio of problems versus solutions around us. The reason is simple: with the world getting more complex, the challenges we are facing grow more critical than ever. At times like this, the existence of multi-disciplinary solutions is a must. Thus, we have chosen the Crossroads theme to spark our collective creativity this year.

The literal definitions of crossroads include “an intersection or junction” and “a place where two or more roads meet”. However, metaphorical definitions of crossroads include, “a point at which a crucial decision must be made that will have far-reaching consequences”, “convergence”, and “a place of common ground”. For us, cross roads are about choices and mixtures. We believe innovation happens at the crossroads between good and bad, risk and reward, truth and lie, past and future.

So for the TEDxTehran 2017, we will be tapping into the minds of responsible optimist individuals who have the will, knowledge, resources, and most importantly the ideas to foster positive changes in our collective future. We will include critics and point out challenges, but we will also give voice to quiet doers and hidden treasures. And through it all, we will seek an adventurous and insightful road to step in.