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The Forum

Image for 16/07/2011

Play now 45 mins

16/07/2011

Duration:
45 minutes
First broadcast:
Saturday 16 July 2011

This week's Forum comes from Edinburgh in Scotland where we are part of the TED Global ideas conference.

Four distinguished guests and an audience of risk takers and decision makers from around the word probe fresh ideas for business both in the West and in Asia.

Pakistani film maker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy wants to transform business culture in her native country; British American physicist Geoffrey West applies his radical ideas about scaling to company growth; Canadian green technology designer Ron Dembo has counter-intuitive suggestions for reducing energy consumption and Indian sugar producer Rajshree Pathy wants to transform agriculture. Plus insights from a wide range business innovators in the audience.

Illustration by Emily Kasriel: In business there is bullying as people are limited in how far they can grow while they are doing nothing.

Chapters

4 items

  • Part 1

    Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy: Business compassion charter

  • Geoffrey West

    Geoffrey West: Predicting the life-cycle of companies

  • Part 2

    Ron Dembo: 'Negawatts' for energy efficiency

  • Rajshree Pathy

    Rajshree Pathy: Transforming Indian agriculture

  • SHARMEEN OBAID-CHINOY

    SHARMEEN OBAID-CHINOY

    Emmy Award winning film-maker and journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy advocates a radical overhaul of internal culture within companies in Pakistan and beyond. She is part of a team developing a Business Compassion Assessment which puts openness, tolerance and respect for each individual at the heart of everything a company does. But can you change the way a firm behaves without first altering the ways of society at large?

    Photo © Robert Leslie /TED

  • GEOFFREY WEST

    GEOFFREY WEST

    Former president of the Santa Fe Institute, Professor Geoffrey West asks whether it is possible to apply the idea of basic universal laws to things outside physics: living organisms, cities or large companies. If we know the rules which determine how long an elephant or a mouse lives could we apply them to the life-span of companies?

    Photo © Robert Leslie /TED

  • RON DEMBO

    RON DEMBO

    Data analysis pioneer Ron Dembo runs a green-tech company that, among other things, develops software to help people measure and compare their energy use. His idea turns consumerism on its head: if we pay people for the electricity which they do not use, we can develop a viable market in energy efficiency.

    Photo © Robert Leslie /TED

  • RAJSHREE PATHY

    RAJSHREE PATHY

    Indian entrepreneur Rajshree Pathy has built up a substantial sugar and biotechnology business in southern India. But the current mass migration of rural Indians to cities means that there aren’t enough people to work the land: so what would it take to make farming attractive to the younger Indian generation?

    Photo © Robert Leslie /TED

  • A SPECIAL RECORDING OF THE FORUM AT THE TED GLOBAL CONFERENCE

    A SPECIAL RECORDING OF THE FORUM AT THE TED GLOBAL CONFERENCE

    A special recording of BBC World Service's The Forum at TEDGlobal 2011. Hosted by Bridget Kendall. With guests Geoffrey West, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Ron Dembo and Rajshree Pathy.

    Photo: James Duncan Davidson / TED

  • IN NEXT WEEK'S PROGRAMME

    We are back in our Bush House studios discussing what it might take to wean society from always taking the short-term view with Dominic Barton, managing director of one of the world’s top management consultants, leading civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander and best-selling crime novelist David Baldacci.

  • Bridget Kendall at the TED Conference

    Bridget Kendall at the TED Conference

    Presenter Bridget Kendall at the TED Conference.

    Photo © James Duncan Davidson / TED


    And you can see more photos from the TED conference by clicking on the Flickr link below.

    The Forum at the TED Conference on Flickr

  • TED Conference Backstage

    TED Conference Backstage

    Ron Dembo and Forum Executive producer Emily Kasriel backstage.

    Photo © Robert Leslie / TED

  • Geoffrey West on Stage

    Geoffrey West on Stage

    Photo © James Duncan Davidson / TED

  • Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on Stage

    Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on Stage

    Photo © James Duncan Davidson / TED

  • Rajshree Pathy Backstage

    Rajshree Pathy Backstage

    Photo © Robert Leslie / TED

Broadcasts

See all broadcasts of 16/07/2011 (4)

Free downloads

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