Steve Mann and Brendan Frey, both professors in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, each spoke of his life’s passion to a sold-out audience at TEDxToronto 2013 Thursday.
Mann followed a performance by Canadian hip-hop legend and writer ‘Maestro’ Fresh Wes Williams, who encouraged the audience to “stick to your vision.” Mann then shared his vision of a future in which technology empowers regular people to record the world around them as a means to uphold and spread human rights.
He contrasted the concept of ‘surveillance’—to watch from above, and “the veillance of hypocrisy,” said Mann—with the more democratic ‘sousveillance’—to watch from below, “the veillance of integrity.” “Surveillance says ‘we can watch and record you, but you’re not allowed to watch and record us,'” said Mann. “Sousveillance may actually provide the other side of a more balanced veillance.” He encouraged the enraptured audience to fight abuses of power and all forms of corruption by adopting sousveillance in everyday situations, and sharing that material with the public. “We believe that these are not just ideas worth spreading, but ideals worth spreading.” [Watch Mann’s talk on YouTube]
Frey’s talk confronted our capacity for curiosity and experimentation as we venture into uncharted territories of the human genome. He explained how he and his research group are beginning to discover the genetic instructions, or recipes, that tell cells how to use the information encoded in our genes. These recipes allow very similar stretches of DNA to encode huge diversity—they are responsible for differences between cells, between individuals, between species. Many genetic disorders are caused by errors in these instructions, and not in the gene itself. “Finding the recipes is very difficult,” said Frey. But he anticipates that soon humans will be able to decode them, and then we’ll have to decide how much tinkering to do. “I think that we don’t have a choice,” said Frey. “Because as humans, our curiosity is stronger than our fear.” [Watch Frey’s talk on YouTube]
The fifth annual TEDxToronto event was hosted at Koerner Hall at the Royal Conservatory of Music, where a sold-out audience of more than 900 gathered to take in the day-long program. TEDx events are independently organized programs that build on the central TED concept of sharing ‘ideas worth spreading’.
Joining Mann and Frey on the highly curated speaker list were:
- Ti-Anna Wang, an advocate for Chinese dissident families
- Michael Stone, director of the Centre of Gravity Sangha Toronto
- Rodolphe el-Khoury, director of Urban Design and co-director of RAD Lab at the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty, and a partner at the architecture firm Khoury Levit Fong
- Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Global Public Affairs
- Joel MacCharles, co-founder of wellpreserved.ca, writer and cook
- Gabrielle Scrimshaw, president of the Aboriginal Professional Association of Canada
- Steph Guthrie, a feminist advocate and community manager
- Mark Henick, case manager at the Canadian Mental Health Association
- Debbie Berlin-Romalis, clinical social worker at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)
- Mark Bowden, president of TRUTHPLANE and body language expert.
For more on TEDxToronto 2013, visit its website.
Check out ECE professor Ted Sargent’s 2011 TEDxToronto talk.
More information:
Marit Mitchell
Senior Communications Officer
The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
416-978-7997; marit.mitchell@utoronto.ca