What is a 180 Ideas Talk?
Our 180 Ideas Talks are short 3-minute (180 second) talks from selected participants, inspiring them to share a small idea that would help others change their perspectives — do a mental 180!
This year, we're bringing our 180 Ideas Talks studio to Inventures 2025, ready to record some of the amazing ideas that we anticipate will be emerging from conference participants. Space is limited, so book a slot early if you're going to be there and want to share an idea.
Click to see some examples!
If you're here to book a 180 Ideas Talk as part of Inventures 2025, please read the following details carefully before using the booking calendar. Talks are subject to important terms and conditions listed below.
How it works
When we offer this event interaction, individuals are given an opportunity to sign up for a 15-minute time slot in which they can outline, rehearse, and record their talk with our 180 Ideas video team. The time slots are tightly controlled, so we greatly encourage people to think about and rehearse their idea talk in advance, so that they can give the talk as naturally as possible within the time allowed.
A good guideline is to keep it really simple. You'll only have time to share one idea in a concise format, so be sure that you can address the following key points:
- State the idea up front! For example, "My idea is that everyone should get an extra two holiday days each year, to use for whatever they want" or "I want to share idea X that comes from Person Y, which I think isn't getting enough attention right now." Don't make people wait until the very end to tell them what your idea is.
- Tell people why it's important to you, and why you think it should be important to them. Here, you want to make the idea relate to something that you've been thinking about for a while, a problem you've encountered for which your idea is a potential solution, and why it applies more broadly to society — and Calgary in particular.
- What are some practical examples of how your idea applies to daily life? Make these relatable to the experiences of others. Your idea shouldn't be so narrow or lofty that others can't relate, so take some time to explain how and where people might put the idea to use.
- How can people get involved in your idea? If people want to learn more, or join you in amplifying the idea, where can they go to get additional information, or how can they take the idea and apply it in their own way? Remember that the TED/TEDx motto is "Ideas worth spreading", so encourage people to take your idea further.
Do you get stage fright? Everyone can, so we have a trained facilitator who can ask you a few simple questions to prompt you through talking about your idea. If you're not able to deliver the idea in a single take, this option allows us to edit your talk together in post-production.
What NOT to talk about... Talks that are inherently commercial in nature (including based on selling or promoting personal coaching services, counselling, or products) are not considered, nor are talks that are based on a single religious faith, inherently divisive social viewpoints and opionions, or pseudo-scientific principles. It is a cardinal rule of TEDx talks (even 180 Ideas Talks) that they should be evidence-based, which means that such evidence should be accessible to others and not based on New Age frameworks, personal visions, or conspiracy theories that can't be tested. Such concepts might some day be proven, but we're comfortable taking the stance that we won't promote them from our stage in the interim.
Important terms and conditions
Anyone doing a 180 Ideas Talk must sign our standard speaker release form. Among other things, this asks you:
- to verify that your idea doesn't contain any copyrighted material that you don't have appropriate permissions to redistribute;
- that you understand you won't be financially compensated for the idea or its ongoing distribution via electronic or other means; and,
- that you understand that we have full editorial control over whether the talk will be publicly released and maintained online (meaning we have the right to remove it at our discretion).
The release form will be available for review in full at the interaction, and must be signed before the talk is recorded. As the release is used globally by TED and all TEDx organizing teams, no provisions in the release are waivable or negotiable.
All TED and TEDx talks are shared under a Creative Commons CC BY–NC–ND 4.0 International licence, and have important restrictions around modifications, embedding in other works, and commercial use. Please see the TED Talks Usage Policy for full details.
Sign up for a 180 Ideas Talk at Inventures 2025!
We know that interesting ideas will abound at Inventures 2025, and we'll be there to record a few of them on May 22nd.
IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS INTERACTION IS ONLY OPEN TO TICKETED EVENT PARTICIPANTS AT INVENTURES 2025. This is not an open public event.
Use the booking calendar below to secure your talk slot between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Thursday, May 22nd. Due to anticipated demand, requested appointments will be held for only 15 minutes, pending email verification (see example below).
