Theme: Spring out in unity

Find out further possibilities in every relationship we have.
Enhance the values of as many relationships as the possibilities we found.
This is how TEDxKobe2016 decided its theme “Spring out in unity.”
We may have: Relations taken for granted; Simple, small research objects which are prone to be overlooked; News articles which we took notice of, but ended up pretending indifference to.
These connections between us and these people, things, events may be too flimsy and fleeting that we may not even have an opportunity to try to strengthen them.
However, attempting to enhance, foster, or boost these bonds will be sure to allow us find clues to step forward to the next phase.
Delving into these clues will surely lead us to much stronger and more enriched connections and make us feel like springing out.

KFM Hall "IO"
6 Chome-9 Koyochonaka, Higashinada Ward
Kobe, Hyôgo, 658-0032
Japan

BimBomBam Band

Musicians

Ohyama”B.M.W.”Wataru, a trumpeter, and TESHIMA Daisuke, a top jazz manouche guitarist, formed this music band “BimBomBam Band”. Their numbers composed by the two singer-songwriters and played by the excellent member players produce a totally new, urbane-taste version of “GYPSY JAZZ”. Based on the concept of “a space where food, people, and music are blended together”, BimBomBam play live concerts. Their performance with bold and flamboyant, but fine and exquisite sounds bring new insights to music fans as well as inspire brisk and fresh air to the listeners.

HANAOKA Yoichi and YAMANE Shiboru

Humans

"Ningen" (meaning Human ) was teamed up by HANAOKA Yoichi and YAMANE Shiboru with their motto "always thinking something odd but amazing." Their activities went on after they graduated from school. Just before the end of their 20s, they launched their business as "Ningen Inc." From then on, they have been working as Ningen on weekdays, and relaxing themselves on weekends. Even after they started their business, they continue to create unprofitable products including "nose-hair notification service" and a "Swiss ( su+isu )" which is a ス ( su )-shaped chair ( isu ). Their activities cover a wide range of fields including creating WEB pages and application software, branding business, holding problem-solving events, etc. They keep responding to their clients, who expect to be surprised and entertained by "something hilarious" they create.

SILT-clarte-

Sand Artists

Sand art performance is a visual expression where backlit pictures/videos are expressed only by shades and textures of sand. A metamorphic series of the pictures drawn by hands, fingers, and arms make a story in this performance art. SILT-clarte-, which was founded by its leader, FUNAMOTO Keita in February 2012, as the first group unit of sand art performance in the world. Currently the team consists of 12 members. The group has created their sand art videos for a number of TV commercial advertisements, music promotions, concerts, commemorative ceremonies, etc. The group is engaged in new challenges such as creating picture books, developing apps, and collaboration works with project mappings, etc.

Ai FUJIWARA

Social Entrepreneur

FUJIWARA Ai had been a strong, independent-minded person since her 20s and made her own living by doing what she liked. Her experience of participating volunteer activity after the Great East Japan Earthquake led her to reconsider her lifestyle. She came to have a desire to develop a business system with honesty, integrity and better influence on the society. After she moved her base to Indonesia, she happened to be recommended coconut oil which was produced in a traditional way. It is not simply a coincidence that her encounter with this rare hand-made oil led to a great change in her own life as well as in the life of people in the island of Indonesia. "Conveying ideas will change something greatly" This is what we will find in her talk.

Kana YUKAWA

Social Educator

YUKAWA Kana was deeply committed to establishing Yahoo! Japan during her university days. Through her working experience with unique colleagues such as SON Taizo she realized the importance of team power. Most people think a great team is a pack of superheroes and talents. However, is it really true? After resigning from the growing company, she moved to Kobe as she found a similar atmosphere to a Spanish city where she had spent over 10 years. There she eventually discovered her principle which gives her wisdom and courage to thrive in the rapidly changing society.

Kenich SUZUKI

Computer Developer

The way of communication, which has been greatly changed by the use of the Internet and smartphones, is now going to get influenced by “wearable computers” which people can wear like eyeglasses. Wearable devices may provide you opportunities to make yourself understood just by sharing what you are looking at even when you find difficulty with now-existing communication tools despite your best efforts. Wearable computer is going to make such a world happen. This new technology will bring us not only the convenience to the present world, but also the possibility in the future. In his talk that he will tell us the future is just around the corner.

Naofumi NAKAGAWA

Researcher on Wild Primates

A boy who dreamt of studying behaviors of mammals in African savannah grew up and got a post at the “Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University”, which is a top-ranking institute of this field. Among a bunch of primates, his research subject is Japanese monkeys ( macaca fuscata ), which was and is already a well-researched and thought to be too well-studied that anything unprecedented can be hardly expected to be discovered. Nevertheless, what NAKAGAWA found in some of Japanese monkeys’ behaviors were a sorts of cultures that have something in common with human cultures. It was a new discovery. How could he reach this conclusion? In his talk he will share some clues to make a new discovery.

Naoyoshi MOTOYAMA

World Culinary Explorer

In the world there are a variety of countries, and each of them has its own situation. Even if we may know of other countries’ issues as information, it is not easy to see them as our own problems. However, we may possibly have an insight into issues of far-off contrires through their local “food.” MOTOYAMA Naoyoshi has visited all around the world and learned various types of cuisines. He finally came up with an idea that the act of enjoying each local food provides us with an opportunity to “think about the world. Having discovered a new possibility in the common practice of enjoying food, he continues to cook world’s cuisines praying for world peace.

Osamu TSUKIHASHI

Architect

What makes a town community is a memory. While a cityscape of a town is a concrete world which is composed of architectural structures such as houses, buildings, highway constructions, etc., TSUKIHASHI thinks the quintessence of a town is an aggregation of memories of the residents of the town they live in. Each person sees a town differently. The multiple layers of each person’s inner scenery makes a concept of the community. The tsunami of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 deprived so many communities of their city functions. Where was the beautiful cherry blossom seen? Where was the restaurant that smelled so nice? One may be able to retrieve their “home town” by reproducing their hometown as a diorama. The reason why a lot of architects and students from over Japan have been engaging in TSUKIHASHI’s project, “Lost Homes” is that memory is what happened in the past, however, he looks forward to the future through his memory-recovering project.

Rii NUMATA

Researcher of Music Improvisation

You may have heard of a music method that people on the spot create music on the moment. “Improvisation music” has a number of genres such as jazz and ethnic music. Can this sort of music played exclusively only by professional or skilled musicians? ―The answer is “No.” Teamed up with a variety of persons including those who are challenged, NUMATA Rii has been seeking for some style to enjoy playing sessions together no matter how good or bad at music they are. She firmly believes there should be a way for people, who happen to be sharing the same time and space, to enjoy music together according to the relationships they have made on the moment. Focusing onto the “moment of birth of music”, she keeps trying to strike a new chord of building a music society where sounds and tunes are created beyond gaps between techniques or values among players.

Sándor MÁRKON

Elevator Evangelist

There are more than 700,000 elevators even in Japan alone. This too ordinary a transportation system, however, still has some room for technical improvement. Technicians over the world are making efforts to invent new mechanisms of elevators. MARKON Sandor used be an employee of a Japanese elevator manufacturer for 30 years, and linear motor elevator is one the newest elevator systems he has been working on. The same mechanism as linear motor car is applied to operating this new system, and it is an innovative idea to improve transfer efficiency in the buildings. He and his friends have been looking for a clue to make this system happen, however, what they found was an unexpected, not a technical issue. Could he break it through?