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What Makes an Idea Stick? | Singapore | TED Idea Search

TED42:55Added Aug 30, 2026

The TED Idea Search touches down in Singapore, where eight speakers compete for an extraordinary prize. From a diver-turned-ocean-restorer reviving dead coral reefs to a scientist growing sustainable building materials out of fungus and a government insider reimagining public institutions, the ideas are as diverse as the Lion City itself. As TED’s coaches push each speaker to transform their thinking into a powerful narrative, nerves rise, breakthroughs e

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Intro

  2. 00:01I'm actually meeting people who are like me, a little bit out of the box, risktakers. You had people talking about
  3. 00:07government, the environment, all the corals were dead. It was great to feel the heart already started to pump a little bit more.
  4. 00:13I think I got like a little loss there. It relates to the sea shell. No, it doesn't.
  5. 00:20This is pre AI. So, it's true story. Yeah. Visually beautiful. More about empowering more people to do
  6. 00:26good. That's a big idea. That is a huge idea. One, two, three.
  7. 00:32Any one of us could go to the global stage. My brain was like, whoa.
  8. 00:41My name is Reggie Watts and my life changed forever when I got the opportunity to speak at TED.
  9. 00:49Now TED is searching the globe for ideas that could change everything.
  10. 00:55Nine TED X events around the world. giving a global voice to the unknown.
  11. 01:02Six minutes that can inspire, motivate, and change their lives forever.
  12. 01:08But that's not all. Coached by an expert panel, one lucky speaker will be
  13. 01:14surprised with the opportunity of a lifetime. A chance to speak on the TED main stage
  14. 01:20and have their voices heard by millions. This is the TED idea search.
  15. 01:41Singapore, Asia's only city state, a place where commerce thrives and
  16. 01:47cultures collide. And now the TED team are here in the Lion City ready to meet
  17. 01:53an exciting new pride of speakers. Each eager to take to the TEDex stage and
  18. 01:59have their ideas heard. My name is Hortens. I am associate professor at Nanyang Technological
  19. 02:05University in Singapore and I'm coming from France. Today on stage I will be sharing about
  20. 02:12the idea of growing materials to make processes more sustainable.
  21. 02:22Today when we want to make a piece of metal we have to extract the resources from the earth. So if we can fabricate
  22. 02:30equivalent materials but without the need for extracting and all this energy
  23. 02:36intensive processing then uh we could have more sustainable manufacturing.
  24. 02:43With such great ideas to share and 24 hours till showtime, the judges spend
  25. 02:48the day coaching the speakers, honing their storytelling, delivery, and stage presence ahead of tomorrow's main event.
  26. 02:57This is a time for you truly to still work on your talk. So if you see someone else go that is really, you know, super

  27. Rehearsals

  28. 03:04memorized and you're not quite there yet, it's totally okay. Like this is us supporting one another today to help
  29. 03:11everybody just be their best best on the stage tomorrow. You'll stay up here and
  30. 03:16we'll have a little conversation about how it went, things we liked, and maybe um last minute tweaks and some of those
  31. 03:22maybe about delivery and your presence up here and that that sort of thing. And it's all meant to be supportive. And so
  32. 03:27let's have fun. When you think about government, what do you think of? Big, slow, bureaucratic.
  33. 03:35Most of all, you probably think of frustration, a website that didn't work, a form you have to fill in for the third time. My name is Hong. I'm from
  34. 03:41Singapore. I used to work in tech, but now I work in the government. And I run a team of engineers, designers, and product managers which build technology
  35. 03:48for the public good. The idea is that the limit to good
  36. 03:53government is not like money or political will or like all the things we're pushing for is that the fundamental structure of government
  37. 03:59makes it really really hard to do better because ideas get stuck as they come towards the center. And so you really need to restructure government to
  38. 04:06increase its intellectual surface area so we can handle more people solving more problems. We want to do good
  39. 04:12things. We are going to need to figure out a better structure for how we organize ourselves to do these things together.
  40. 04:18I want to speak at TED because I thought it was an important idea to share with people. This is the opposite of command
  41. 04:24and control. So, we need to approach this from the opposite direction. I always find it a lot easier when you're giving a talk to actual people cuz when
  42. 04:31I practice at home, um I just like kind of talk to my kitchen appliances cuz they all kind of look like they have a
  43. 04:36face and so you walk around the kitchen just like doing that. But it seems like no matter how hard we try, we get stuck
  44. 04:42expecting more and more from a system that's already choked by the scale of its responsibilities. When you actually get to do rehearsals with actual people,
  45. 04:49it it it feels a lot more energizing because you're seeing whether or not people receive your idea. You you actually kind of get a feel of like what
  46. 04:55feels right and what doesn't. Thank you.
  47. 05:00The first time I saw the rest of the speakers speak, really good crowd. I'm very honored to be part of this crew.
  48. 05:07Unique ideas and unique speakers and unique stories. Uh but it was of course
  49. 05:12nervous first time going up there and presenting my idea to everybody. When I went back in October, all the corals
  50. 05:18were dead, covered with algae. All the little fish were gone. My name is Leon and I'm from Singapore,
  51. 05:24but I'm actually based in Bali, Indonesia. I've been diving about 20 years and all
  52. 05:32this time I used to see sites that would every year go worse and worse.
  53. 05:38So my project in Bali, what we do is we have a little metal structure and we coat with resin and sand and that's what
  54. 05:45we use to attach the corals to and build that out into a full-on reef.
  55. 05:54We've scaled to about 6,600 m in about 5 years. When people ask me what the challenges
  56. 06:00are in the coral restoration that I do, I always say it's about awareness. So my
  57. 06:05talk is really that it works that we can bring back reefs. We restoration works and it's I think that's an idea worth
  58. 06:11spreading. You can see how much denser the corals are and how much life has come in to
  59. 06:16live there. This idea that you just like say screw it and just manually replant coral reefs
  60. 06:22is I I love that he's just picked himself up and started doing it. And I think that's really great.
  61. 06:27I think if I can do this as just a regular person, what can we all do when
  62. 06:32we all get involved? The rehearsal it was informal but still a little bit more formal than before. So it was great to
  63. 06:40feel the heart already started to pump a little bit more. Put it under the microscope. This is what you will see.
  64. 06:46This is an aligned arrangement of ceramic microparticles.
  65. 06:52I'm used to give conferences to a more scientific audience. We cast this
  66. 06:57suspension onto a porous substrate so that the water get get sucked out from
  67. 07:03the porous substrate leading for the consolidation of the material.
  68. 07:09So although I think I still explain the research um I still show electron
  69. 07:16microraph but I do not present it in that way so that I think anyone can
  70. 07:22still understand without having any background knowledge depending on the orientation of the
  71. 07:28particles we can enhance the mechanical properties enhance the thermal conductivity or enhance the electrical
  72. 07:35conductivity. I think I got like a little loss there. We started with a
  73. 07:41porous biop-olymer scaffold which you can see here.
  74. 07:46I got a little confused when you're talking about biopolymers cuz I was like as someone who like has no idea what
  75. 07:52that is. The biop-olymer is the scaffold the poru thing I show. Yeah. But and it come that comes from
  76. 08:00the the it relates to the sea shell. No. Oh, it doesn't. Okay. Maybe just like a sentence that
  77. 08:06like elaborates a little more. Hortens comes from academia. So it actually it makes sense that she has a
  78. 08:12talk that is sort of coming across like a lecture. She's very much in the science in her head and gave a talk that
  79. 08:19allowed us to stretch a little bit in thinking about the science. But she'll need to remember tomorrow that this is
  80. 08:24not a lecture and you know she she'll have to deliver this in a way that is really connecting with the audience.
  81. 08:31I have areas where I can explain a little bit more. So, I will incorporate this today.
  82. 08:36For us clowns, the failure is a beautiful moment for us. It's a gift.
  83. 08:41The rehearsal is good. It's the first time I've done it in front of a bigger crowd and I quite enjoyed it.
  84. 08:52I'm Chenise Stannislas. I'm from Singapore. I am Singapore's professional
  85. 08:58clown girl. Growing up here, we value a lot of
  86. 09:05success and perfectionism. Sometimes we're not really thought about how to
  87. 09:12fail and how to just show the different sides of ourselves, like our vulnerable
  88. 09:17side or like our silly side. So, today I'm sharing about how clowning
  89. 09:24helps you deal with failure very well. It's helped me a lot to deal with my own
  90. 09:30like setbacks and find a way to be more resilient. So I thought if that helped me then why not share this great idea
  91. 09:37with the rest of the world. Going to a big stage like Vancouver for
  92. 09:44me would be to just have the opportunity to share that idea in a big way. And who
  93. 09:50knows we might have more clowns come out of that talk. Clowning helped me build this emotional
  94. 09:57muscle to help me build the resilience for the bigger versions of flops in my
  95. 10:03life like grief or heartbreak. I mean that is just delightful.
  96. 10:10Delightful. It is so fun. She delivered it and just kind of embodied it in such a beautiful way.
  97. 10:15I did have some things to fix and you know trim and you know make it like nice
  98. 10:21and special. I just I'm dying to know where you went to clown class. Oh, okay. Should I say it then?
  99. 10:28Yeah. So, you're not going to be the clown? Yeah. Just bring it. I don't want to be a gimmick.
  100. 10:33Okay, makes sense. I really want people to see clowning beyond just the gimmick of the red nose
  101. 10:40and the It felt really important, but I kind of
  102. 10:46missed it. There are some places where I think you can pause a little bit and just slow down. Okay, got it.
  103. 10:52showing us that before and after and what's possible in 2 years is just huge. That really is so impactful. Some
  104. 10:59speakers have some homework to do today. There were a couple that ran long. Yeah, there's 20 seconds in.
  105. 11:06They're going to have to go in and do some precision eliminating some paragraphs tonight. A little bit more
  106. 11:12smile. It gets a bit too serious. One, two,
  107. 11:18one, two, one, two, Okay, great. I hear laughter,
  108. 11:24which means our clowns are here.
  109. 11:53The city awakens and so do the speakers. Today, the red circle awaits and so do
  110. 12:02an eager audience hoping to hear ideas that could change everything.
  111. 12:07The stage is set and speakers take their first full run through under the lights, gaining lastminute confidence ahead of
  112. 12:14showtime. I had that moment on that stage and that was my brain was like, wo.
  113. 12:22Standing on that red dot first time, uh, to be honest, it was a bit daunting. Biggest stage I've ever been on. Fair
  114. 12:28amount of nerves there. Well, you realize how bright the lights are if nothing else. Makes it really
  115. 12:33hard to see because it's dark. I don't think we will see the faces. So, it's a lot less intimidating than I picture in my head
  116. 12:40before. I guess the fear of public speaking is
  117. 12:46always there. The fear of seizing up, not knowing what to say, tripping on myself and falling on the stage or, you
  118. 12:52know, just forgetting an important point that I'm supposed to mention. When you're practicing on a big stage,
  119. 12:58the closest seats are like 15 m away or something like that.
  120. 13:03And so you you do feel more alone.
  121. 13:08Let's wake up our bodies. Let's wake up our bodies by tapping our legs. Tap our legs. Tap our bodies. Tap our skin. Tap
  122. 13:15up your left leg. Yes. We all have such different topics. I
  123. 13:20don't really think this is a competition. Any one of us could go to the global stage cuz all our ideas are
  124. 13:25so powerful and so impactful. For me to get the chance to go to
  125. 13:31Vancouver and to stand out, I think I would have to make my talk meaningful
  126. 13:39for a broader audience. 2 3 4 out. 2 3 4.
  127. 13:49What's important is that you put an idea in its best form that you think is worth
  128. 13:54sharing. And all you can do from there is just hope that it's something people want to hear.
  129. 13:59All right. 1 2 3.
  130. 14:07I mean, whoever it is, I think it's a great opportunity. We don't feel any
  131. 14:13pressure.
  132. 14:18Whoever gets to go to Vancouver, I hope you will meet more cool people there. 1
  133. 14:242 3.
  134. 14:42With final adjustments made and the audience filling the theater, nerves and
  135. 14:47excitement converge as the speakers prepare to share their ideas.

  136. The Talks

  137. 14:56Think we're ready, Vivian? Yes, I'm excited. And let's welcome the first speaker. Let's go, Kelly. Let's
  138. 15:02go. He is a diver turned ocean restorer who
  139. 15:09has spent over 15 years rebuilding coral reefs across Southeast Asia. Please join
  140. 15:14me in welcoming Leon Bu. Ready?
  141. 15:21You look real good up there. Oh, thanks. First up, we have Leon, who is restoring
  142. 15:28coral reefs um off the coast of Bali. He has beautiful before and after.
  143. 15:34Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I you know, I I do think this is
  144. 15:40a topic we have heard about before. So, can he today make it feel unique enough
  145. 15:46to make it onto the Vancouver stage? I agree. My story starts in 2010. I was
  146. 15:52diving in this in Pokeet, this island called Kobon. It's a beautiful reef, hundreds of square meters of reef, full
  147. 15:59of life. Lots of little fish swimming around, mantas overhead. Everybody was so happy that we wanted to go back again
  148. 16:05in October. But during the summer months, the water got warm, too warm,
  149. 16:11and all the corals bleached. By the time we got back in October, everything was
  150. 16:16dead. The whole reef was covered with algae. All the little fish were gone. Visually beautiful slides
  151. 16:24made a very deep emotional impact on me. And I knew I wanted to do something about it. So the first thing I did was I
  152. 16:30got back to Singapore. I'm not a marine biologist. I emailed a marine institute
  153. 16:35and I told them I'm a diver. I saw this happen. I want to do something. What can I help with? Until today, 15 years
  154. 16:42later, they still haven't replied me yet. So, I figured I'm going to have to do this myself.
  155. 16:49He's like articulating extremely well today. He sure is. This is in 2019. You can see the seabed
  156. 16:56is littered with the sand and coral rubble. Evidence that there was a reef here. Now, I want you to look at that
  157. 17:02statue and the rock. This is what it looked like in 2021.
  158. 17:14This was 2 years after restoration. We just put in some structures, planted some corals. I don't know where the fish
  159. 17:21came from, but there they are. This was 2 years after restoration. This is what it looked like after 5 years.
  160. 17:31I talk as a mid talk applause. Yeah. And you can see the structures below
  161. 17:37with the corals on top of them. So dense. And this is pre to AI. So it's true story. Yeah.
  162. 17:44These are volunteers, tourists that come and join us to help us plant corals. This greatly accelerates the growth of
  163. 17:52our reef. And with the help of tourists and volunteers, we've managed to build
  164. 17:58this much reef.
  165. 18:07We use this. This is the smallest of the seven structures that we have. And we
  166. 18:12plant corals on these metal bars right here, allowing us to plant 320,000 coral
  167. 18:18fragments so far.
  168. 18:27Now we have a science team working with interns from around the world, collaborations with universities from the US, the UK, and Australia as well.
  169. 18:36We recently had a bunch of interns, eight of them actually, from Lombok and Java, the neighboring islands to Bali.
  170. 18:43And what made me so happy about them coming because this is their country. This is their environment and that's
  171. 18:49what they built. This is our biggest structure yet, 2 1/2 m tall, and the
  172. 18:55fish just love it. And we're only at 6,500 m. Imagine if it's 10,000, 50,000,
  173. 19:03100,000. Cuz that's what the reefs need. We need kilometer scale reefs, right? Cuz the
  174. 19:09ocean is vast. It's what tourists want to see as well. Reefs full of life. Even
  175. 19:15better if they can participate to contribute to it and make it better still. That's what local community
  176. 19:20wants. Sustainable income because they need to eat. Even better if
  177. 19:26that income is coming from restoring reefs. He's really connecting today like really with his his passion for this.
  178. 19:34Ultimately, I think if I can do this as an ordinary guy, what will it be like when we all
  179. 19:41get involved? Thank you so much.
  180. 19:50I wish he dove dove I wish he dove deeper into how the everyday person
  181. 19:56could help restore these reefs, you know, cuz he talks about the tourism and like how people are doing it. But I wish
  182. 20:02there was more of that. The adrenaline, I mean, it was nerve-wracking being out
  183. 20:07there. I've never been in front of so many people before, but once I got started and it kind of just flowed, so I
  184. 20:15think it went okay. Uh, but still the, you know, got the jitters
  185. 20:21when I showed the photos of what we did and all the reef coming back and people
  186. 20:26like, "Wow!" and they gasped and they clapped and that made me really happy.
  187. 20:32Hortens, I loved this talk. you know, she's a scientist and she really does like actually get into the science in a
  188. 20:39pretty deep way here. I'm really curious to see if she can
  189. 20:45bring out the excitement in this. Like yesterday in rehearsal, it was kind of more lecture like and today can she
  190. 20:51like bridge it from lecture to talk. Let's see exactly. A car weights about one to three tons.
  191. 20:59If you want to lift up a car, you will probably need some metallic bars, hydraulic pumps, or even a crane.
  192. 21:07What else weighs about one to three tons? A small elephant.
  193. 21:14If you yourself want to lift up an elephant, you will also need metallic
  194. 21:19bars, hydraulic pumps, or even a crane. But actually, the elephant can lift itself up because its bones are strong
  195. 21:25enough. Nature grows amazing materials using abundant elements, carbon, oxygen,
  196. 21:34nitrogen, hydrogen. That's a great example to start with. Like she really brought us in. So with my students and researchers at
  197. 21:41the university, we are developing sustainable processes to fabricate high
  198. 21:46performance materials by taking inspiration from nature. One first process we have developed grows ceramic
  199. 21:54polymer composites inspired from seashells. This is an aligned arrangement of
  200. 22:00ceramic microparticle. It's pretty academic but I like and and I think that's fine. I think you know like I
  201. 22:07love the learnings. Mhm. I just wish you could explain some of the words. We cast this suspension as
  202. 22:14you see here onto a porous substrate that sucks out the water leading to the
  203. 22:20consolidation from liquid to solid from the bottom to the top imitating a gross
  204. 22:25process. Now if you take that sample, break it, put it under the microscope,
  205. 22:32this is what you will see. It resembles quite a bit the sea shell we've just seen before, but actually it looks a
  206. 22:39little bit more complex. And this complexity is a key advantage we have as
  207. 22:44engineer which is that we can really design the interior microructure of our
  208. 22:50material. Now if you take that material place it between electronic chips you
  209. 22:56can channel the heat away faster and you can prevent interferences between your electronic
  210. 23:03chips. This means that you can put more of these electronic chips in a smaller volume ultimately leading to a smaller
  211. 23:11device. Recently we have been developing another
  212. 23:16process one that really grows a material this time using a fungus. The process
  213. 23:23work as follows. We start with a 3D porous bioplastic scaffold onto which we
  214. 23:31let the fungus grow. This hybridization between the bioplastic and the fungus
  215. 23:37allows to combine the mechanical properties from the bioplastic strength, stiffness, toughness with the
  216. 23:45functional properties from the fungus, water resistance, temperature resistance, and even fire resistance.
  217. 23:53And that material here is entirely biodegradable. We think it could replace the clay
  218. 23:59bricks that we use to build buildings or it could replace the polystyrene foam
  219. 24:05that we have in all of our walls that serve as thermal insulation and that is
  220. 24:10not biompatible. That's a big idea. That is a huge idea. We can now start imagining growing our
  221. 24:16materials when we need them, where we need them. For example, if we have a
  222. 24:23construction site, next to it, we could have a temporary factory that would grow
  223. 24:28the materials to be used on that construction site. And actually, you could even grow it at home.
  224. 24:35Imagine that world. In the future, every building, every object, or every device could tell a
  225. 24:41story not of extraction, but of regeneration. Thank you.
  226. 24:50There were chunks of the talk that did feel like she was using um kind of
  227. 24:55academic language and kind of even academic written word language, you know, and that I feel like some of the
  228. 25:01ways she phrased things, which is a kind of a a trap sometimes in talks is what she would have said in the written word
  229. 25:08versus, you know, how she would have explained it to us sitting down over lunch or something. You know,
  230. 25:14it has the potential to be a worldchanging idea. I just don't know if it's there yet. You know, imagine
  231. 25:20growing the building materials right next to the building site. I just really hope that she and her team were able to
  232. 25:26take this work forward and that we do see this out in the world. I agree. I think they were very
  233. 25:31attentive and curious like my best students.
  234. 25:37Now, we're going to hear from Hong, who is going to talk to us about stuff that's already happening here in
  235. 25:43Singapore, just like rebuilding government from grassroots.
  236. 25:51He was so good yesterday in rehearsal. It would be hard to imagine much improvement from yesterday to today
  237. 25:56because yesterday he was already stellar. The thing we don't know is how the audience is going to respond.
  238. 26:01Mhm. So, that'll be fun to watch. That will be fun to watch. When you think about government, what do you
  239. 26:08think of? Big, slow, bureaucratic. Most of all, you probably think of
  240. 26:14frustration. A website that didn't work, a form you had to fill in for the third time, or some process you got stuck in
  241. 26:20for weeks because some stupid rule that just didn't make sense. Might be a global universal.
  242. 26:26But what if it didn't have to be this way? A few years ago, I started an experimental team in the Singapore
  243. 26:32government. The idea was simple. Rather than the usual top- down decision-making, we will build small
  244. 26:38teams of skilled practitioners and empower them to seek out and solve problems all across the public sector.
  245. 26:43The problem we're trying to solve is that government is traditionally based on a military structure. Top-down
  246. 26:48central decision-m optimized for command and control. It's designed for a small group of people to set direction and for
  247. 26:55everyone else to align quickly and consistently. This is great when you already know what you need to do and just need to execute. It's not so great
  248. 27:03when you need to figure out what needs to be done. I know this is a really simple graph, but I think it does such a perfect job
  249. 27:10in visualizing what he's talking about. Yeah, it does. It's a good example of the power of the
  250. 27:15right graphic. Mhm. This is why government can do billion dollar construction projects but still has to keep asking you for your
  251. 27:21birthday. So many governments are like this. I say majority. Yeah. What if instead of a
  252. 27:28top- down structure, we designed government from the bottom up? Rather than giving orders and ensuring
  253. 27:34compliance, leaders would focus on supporting people to take ownership. This would increase our intellectual
  254. 27:40surface area, giving us more ability to pay attention, build expertise, and solve problems.
  255. 27:48So, that's my theory. How well does it work in practice? Well, one year a team visited a fire
  256. 27:54station and we saw how firefighters had to spend so much time every day just taking inventory of their fire trucks.
  257. 28:01They had these big paper log books they had to carry around, you know, while they check their equipment. And so we built a simple app that let them do this
  258. 28:07more easily on their phones. It's now being used by all the fire stations in Singapore. And it saves
  259. 28:13thousands of man hours every month that would otherwise literally been wasted just ticking things off on paper.
  260. 28:18Real world examples are really powerful. Mhm. Similar government projects normally take years and cost tens of
  261. 28:24millions of dollars. We're able to consistently launch new systems in just 6 months with teams of just five people.
  262. 28:31That's a pretty wild statistic. The kind of specificity that he uses in
  263. 28:37this talk too makes it so impactful. It really does. Yeah. Because this works so well for
  264. 28:42government officers, we decided to open it up to the public. There was no prize money, just some funding to bring
  265. 28:48promising ideas to production. Well, we got hundreds of applicants. Hundreds of ideas. Machine learning to predict the
  266. 28:55best time for beach cleanups. Tools to help senior citizens stay connected with their community. A system to track wildlife populations using audio
  267. 29:01recordings and AI. It's very much rooted in Singapore. And so, I definitely think this audience
  268. 29:07cares a lot about it, but it's something that could be so applicable around the world, which is really nice. Government can be less
  269. 29:13about control and more about empowering more people to do good. We can increase our intellectual surface area by pushing
  270. 29:20for better structures, bringing visibility to problems, and take an action where we can to solve the challenges we can see.
  271. 29:27We can have a society that's not limited by the attention of its leaders, but one that is driven by the
  272. 29:33imagination of its people. Thank you.
  273. 29:40Great closing line, huh? Look at that. Right on time.
  274. 29:46Six minutes. Exactly. He's going to be really tough to beat. To me, this talk is excellent. It's kind of got
  275. 29:52everything. It's a big idea. It's a an important idea. It's an idea that's relevant to everyone
  276. 29:59and it's an idea in practice as well. Yeah. So, he's going to be tough to beat. It's going to be really tough to beat.
  277. 30:05I feel like I was talking like quite serious things. I don't know how much people croc and anchor onto it, but like
  278. 30:10yeah, I think people people liked it. I hope it was a good delivery.
  279. 30:20All right, now we are going to hear from Chenise with lessons on failure from a clown, which I have learned is an
  280. 30:27extremely rare thing to be.
  281. 30:33I walked into my first clown class accidentally one day. It was a mandatory
  282. 30:39class in New York City for a university program. I went straight up to the teacher and said, "I'm not very funny.
  283. 30:45I'm from Singapore. We are a very serious country. So, I'm not going to be good at this
  284. 30:52class. I hope you can understand." The teacher just laughed at me and said, "Just play all the games and your clown
  285. 30:58will arrive." I love that she started with like a joke like that.
  286. 31:04audience. I was a typical straight lace
  287. 31:11Singaporean trained to be good, trained to be correct. But here I was in clown
  288. 31:16class, the only Singaporean, extremely terrified, playing all kinds of silly
  289. 31:22clown games specifically designed for you to fail on purpose. And every time I
  290. 31:28fumbled a game or revealed a silly side of myself, my classmates would laugh at me and my teacher would say, "Shenise,
  291. 31:35your clown is here." She's so engaging on stage. Clowning taught me to fail joyfully. So
  292. 31:43today, I thought instead of you going to clown school to experience this, I'm going to attempt to bring a bit of clown
  293. 31:50school to you. How did that sound? Yeah. Okay. Look people's faces. Everyone's smiling.
  294. 31:56You're going to turn to your friend or you can look at me and you are going to count one and two together and then
  295. 32:04we're all going to go boing and make a silly face. Now, we're going to do this three times and every time we do boing,
  296. 32:11it has to be a different silly face. All right, let's try. One, two, boing. One,
  297. 32:17two, boing. One, two, boing. Great. I
  298. 32:22hear laughter in the crowd, which means our clowns are here. So, when we're
  299. 32:27young, we have this ability as children to run. We fall on our face. We get back
  300. 32:33up again or we say, "Mommy, mommy, look at me. I'm a princess or I'm a pirate." And then we grow up and then we push
  301. 32:40this side of ourselves a little bit behind and perhaps put on various forms
  302. 32:45of mask to fit into society. But that playful side is connected to our clowns.
  303. 32:52And clowns, we are very resilient bunch. Are loving this. I think Singapore needs more clowns.
  304. 32:58I know. So I was on a mission to bring this clowning philosophy to as many people in
  305. 33:05Singapore as I could. So I found myself clowning in all kinds of spaces.
  306. 33:11People are happy about that red nose. I found myself in corporate offices with
  307. 33:17engineers and journalists and scientists. And like me, they came to their first clown class extremely
  308. 33:23terrified. But after doing silly walks or turning a trip into something spectacular or doing nonsensical
  309. 33:30improvisations like, "How do we save a bad client pitch?" We realized that
  310. 33:36their relationship with embarrassment transformed into a space where mistakes were no longer something to hide from,
  311. 33:43but a space to innovate and creatively problem solve. So good with the physical, too.
  312. 33:48She's so good with it. I found myself working with terminally ill children where we would reimagine
  313. 33:55their treatment so that they can reclaim their joy again. injections became
  314. 34:00superhero energy boosters and beeping machines were the backtrack to our music videos. And in that moment, we weren't
  315. 34:09patients, but we were superheroes and for some of us, the fifth member of
  316. 34:14Blackpink. Clowning helped us confront the scary
  317. 34:20and painful conversations, not by avoiding it, but learning to laugh
  318. 34:25through it. I always like to go back to when my teacher said, "Chenice, your clown is here." And I think it's true. I
  319. 34:33think our clowns are here, ready to meet our failures with joy and laughter, but
  320. 34:40only if we let them in.
  321. 34:55Yes. Oh my gosh, she is so iconic.
  322. 35:00Look at her great fun. I love her. I think it went really well. People gave
  323. 35:05me a standing ovation. They were laughing at a lot of my jokes that I didn't think were jokes. Like I
  324. 35:12put my clown nose on and they were all like like clapping for me and laughing which never happened before. So then I
  325. 35:18felt really good. I'm glad that people resonated here and I would love to bring it to the global
  326. 35:25stage. For me, my reservation on it is it's a self-help talk, which
  327. 35:31there's nothing wrong with the self-help talk. They help people and that's that's great. It's just, you know, not as easy
  328. 35:36as some things to imagine for the Vancouver stage. But with that said, I mean,
  329. 35:42she's spectacular. I want to give her her flowers. I know. She's so good.
  330. 35:52From the personal to the visionary, each talk captivates the audience, leaving them intrigued, inspired, and engaged.
  331. 36:04It was fantastic. Yeah, it's my first head event ever. Um, and it was really
  332. 36:10well organized. I think the range of speakers was really diverse. I love it. Everyone was so captivating.
  333. 36:15I thought the show was really good. It project a lot of spirit and passion.
  334. 36:23So the two that really stood out to me were Hongi and Chenise. Hongi I really
  335. 36:28resonated with his new innovative approach towards solving problems within the government.
  336. 36:33Definitely Leon and Chenise. Leon was talking about recovering of the coral reefs and Chenise kind of brings up the
  337. 36:39mood of the whole crowd with clowner. about Leon. It changed the sensibility
  338. 36:44of the world and it talks about the marine life. I understand the environment now is changing. I feel like the last speaker Sh. Yeah.
  339. 36:52When she was talking about the clown stuff. My favorite speaker was um the Shannis
  340. 36:58the clown. She was so confident and in the end she danced like no one was watching and she was just really funny.
  341. 37:04She made me laugh a lot. But now it's the panel's turn to

  342. Deliberation

  343. 37:11deliberate carefully, selecting just one speaker to go on to the TED main stage.
  344. 37:19Okay, y'all. Wow, we did it. The audience was on fire.
  345. 37:25So good. So good. So good. So, I think um we got a lot to talk about here.
  346. 37:30Yes. Let's get into it. Chenise crowd favorite. I mean, her
  347. 37:36energy is just like actually so so so unmatched. So unmatched. You know, embracing failure, embracing
  348. 37:43the flop. It's good. We've had a lot of TED talks about it and it's it's not
  349. 37:49unique. I think she'll do great on YouTube. Like, this is a very viral talk for the internet. Mhm.
  350. 37:54Yeah. With all of that said, the audience absolutely loved her and I think she is
  351. 37:59definitely a contender. Leon. Oh my gosh. The crowd also loved
  352. 38:04Leon today. Like his talk, everyone was clapping in between. Every time he had a good stat, they just like loved it.
  353. 38:10He took every single one of our feedback. And he said, I think one of the latest as well with our coaches
  354. 38:16still finishing up touches like to the script. I think the reservation is he's not the only one doing this.
  355. 38:22Mhm. Yeah. But those before and after pictures sure did make an impact.
  356. 38:27Quartense. I thought she connected today with the audience in the room more than
  357. 38:32she did yesterday in rehearsal and I I loved seeing that her idea is very preliminary. It's still
  358. 38:38very experimental, researchbased and that's why I still come across very technical in the lab kind of story.
  359. 38:45I still worry that it felt a little ley and less like a TED talk.
  360. 38:51H I think that was his best attempt at the talk compared to all his rehearsals.
  361. 38:56Yeah, he smiled a lot today which was good. I mean, I think this is a big idea that is important and I'm curious to know
  362. 39:03where he could take it with maybe a little more than six minutes too. Yeah, this talk feels like it was made
  363. 39:09for the TED stage. Like it's such a big idea and I think it also like really empowers like the regular people in the
  364. 39:16world. Um, and it's something that also like the big head business people should hear in TED as well. This is an idea
  365. 39:23that's born in Singapore, but it can really have a global impact. I think it meets the world where we are now. And
  366. 39:30this idea can be really useful. He definitely feels like a contender to
  367. 39:36me. Decision made and there can be only one.
  368. 39:43One speaker, one moment, one extraordinary chance to take to the TED
  369. 39:49main stage and reach millions.

  370. The Winner Is…

  371. 39:56speakers. First of all, huge, huge, huge
  372. 40:01congratulations to each one of you. Did y'all hear that audience? Like, I mean,
  373. 40:07that was incredible. They were standing. There were whoops and yells and everything. Um, and that's because each
  374. 40:13one of you did such an incredible delivery of your talk and your idea today. What you had to say really
  375. 40:20landed. I think the diversity was off the charts. They were all so different, which obviously makes it so hard to even
  376. 40:26compare them against each other. But I do think that diversity will also help them have really long lives online. But
  377. 40:32we had to choose one winner to go to Vancouver.
  378. 40:39And that winner is
  379. 40:52Hungi,
  380. 41:00Congratulations. I definitely wasn't planning on going to the other side of the world. Um,
  381. 41:09but yeah, I'm pretty excited. I'm not sure what to say, but really thank you guys for the opportunity.
  382. 41:17I I I spent 3 weeks rehearsing for a speech. I'm I'm out of speeches. Ultimately, TED is about making real
  383. 41:23change in the world and this idea just is about that. I'm glad that I got the chance to share
  384. 41:30and that, you know, you guys thought it was worth worth me sharing. I think Lihongi's talk was really
  385. 41:35representative of Singapore, but it does have the capability to go to a global scale. Um, and yeah, I think it's very
  386. 41:42timely. I don't really know what this means yet obviously because as far as I knew I was just signing up to like give
  387. 41:48a 6-minute talk. I will need to digest what that means. I think I just want to enjoy the fact
  388. 41:54that like an idea landed and you know it's it's not the end. It's barely even
  389. 42:00the start of the beginning.
  390. 42:17With Hongi securing a place on the TED main stage and the opportunity to have his idea heard by millions, our time in
  391. 42:24Singapore is up. But the TED idea search continues.
  392. 42:29Next time we touch down in Chicago. The dream come true. of I messed up.
  393. 42:38Bringing tears make me cry. I didn't know it could get better, but I think it just did. You have to try this. Now I'm going to
  394. 42:44kick it.
What Makes an Idea Stick? | Singapore | TED Idea Search — Transcriptly