TEDxManchester

🏛️ Ancient historian and TikToker Dr Jess Venner took us through the last days of Pompeii.

She vividly described people going about their everyday lives oblivious to the impending tragedy.

🌋 Then the eruption of Vesuvius unfolded, starting with a huge column of smoke and pumice falling. Then lightening.
People barricade themselves in thinking it was the end of the world. The sun was blocked out.

Pompeii is a human archive
💀 Hundreds of skeletons have been discovered.
🍞 81 loaves of bread still in ovens
👶 A baby in a cot
💔 Love notes that were left.

🏺 But we can learn lessons from the people of Pompeii directly relevant to today:

They lived within the means they were given.
Made the best of a bad situation.
Were resilient in face of crisis
Embraced loss and renewal.
Learned to adapt with what they had

Places and people can recover.

❤️ We can create meaning and hope in the future just like Pompeii.

🐹 Productivity pro has used himself as a guinea pig to push limits to see what he can achieve mentally and physically. But Chris had a confession - he calls himself one of the laziest people.

🤔 His curiosity about this tension led him to the 12 values - a piece of research by Shalom Schwartz and validated in over 89 countries with 200k participants.

12 Values that drive your motivational core:
❤️ Benevolence
❣️ Self direction
❤️ Stimulation
❣️ Hedonism
❤️ Achievement
❣️ Power
❤️ Face
❣️ Security
❤️ Tradition
❣️ Conformity
❤️ Humility
❣️ Universalism

⚖️ Which are highest and lowest for you?

🏃 Chris said once he understood his values his whole past made sense - like training for a marathon, then not doing it. Values help understand why we do things - and why we stop

So productivity = intentionality, and values are our ultimate intentions

🌟 Know your values
🌟 Love and accept them
🌟 Work with them to shape your life and work
🌟 Align actions with values - that brings meaning.

💛 We are what we value.

🪨 In the next talk Sahara Bahnot, biotechnologist and entrepreneur, reminded us that Precious Metals are everywhere. In everything. We barely notice them.

📱 Rare earth elements are not rare but they are expensive to extract. They are central to modern technology - a Smartphone has over 50 metals in it.

🪦 And there is a growing stockpile. Everyone has a graveyard of old electronics. The Uk sends its electronic waste abroad.

♻️ Together with her cofounders Sahara set up LanthaGen Bio to come up with a better solution - to liberate elements from electronic waste in an environmentally friendly way by using microbes.

🗑️ The new mine will be that stock pile of e waste.

🙌 It’s time to decide if we are letting waste define us or will we let biology re define waste.

🔮 Kicking off the afternoon, physicist turned magician Kevin Quantum took us through how to Fake It to Make It

📺 Kevin let us into his secrets of supercharging personal transformation - lessons learned from his appearance on reality TV.

1️⃣ Firstly change your social environment - hang out with the people you want to become.

✅ Next throw yourself into it. Say yes to every single challenge.

💪 The rate of change is related to the number of reps you put in.

👊 Make the next task or challenge bigger, more difficult.

🙌 Structure and escalation at pace.

In summary - choose your identity, create the right environment, hang out with right people and decide to increase challenges at pace.

👏 And you’re Faking It to Make It

🤩 All you need to decide is: Who do you want to become?

🎼Rounding the morning off
- Computer scientist and Creator of Sonic Pi, demonstrated programming as performance.

💻He talked about how Al is changing computer
coding and music creation.

Sam's top tips for using Al:
✔️Always assume it's gas lighting you.
✔️Use the information but verify it.
✔️Control it carefully.
✔️Use it positively.

Code + music are a powerful combination.

The future is us being human and collaborating.

In the third session took us on her rollercoaster entrepreneurial journey.

On a mission to develop something to help soothe her daughters eczema Joanna founded

From a bootstrapped start up - to being let down at the last hour by an investor (now known as Mr Total Moron!) for 'being too small', - to going viral - to beating giant Johnson & Johnson to become the leading brand in the sector.

By 2022 Childs Farm had over 10million customers worldwide.

Joanna's top tips include:
⭐️Entrepreneurship doesn’t suit everyone
⭐️Grasp the nettle, find solutions
⭐️Work at pace
⭐️Build brilliant relationships
⭐️Wear a pair of Teflon knickers
🩲 don't take things personally!

💡Remember - small ideas solve big problems.

💪The world doesn't change when someone has an idea - it changes when someone refuses to let it go.

🎤 Michael Wooldridge
In the 1980s something big started happening then the Al revolution really began in 2005 - used widely from ultrasounds to self driving cars.

💰In 2012 the Worlds wealthiest companies started paying attention and investing which led to
GPT3 released in 2020 - a step change in Al capability.

🗣️ The launch of Chat GPT in 2022 led to 100m users in a few weeks and all companies started trying to embed the technology in their business.

We now have:
➕Clever Al - fluent in history, maths
🐱Gimmicky Al - we can create fun images

❓But what's next..
The focus is on using Al to enable businesses and indeed countries to boost productivity.

🤔We are living in pivotal time - will Al solve the productivity problem?

Powerful first session from tjpower

We check our phones on average 207 times a day

We're becomes addicted to Dopamine via our phones

🎧One simple thing we can all do to escape DopamineLand - ditch the headphones, get into nature for a walk and embrace a bit of boredom

📣📣📣

🤩 It’s nearly time…!!

We are super stoked to bring you an epic line up for 2026 this Saturday!

🫶We cannot wait to introduce our incredible eleven speakers including…

👍UNILAD and LADBible founder Alex Partridge, on his battle to being a neurodiversity advocate

⚽️Football legend, Jill Scott, on her journey from Sunderland to Wembley, and beyond

☕️Productivity authority, Chris Bailey, on his latest research and tips to get things done

 🤖Oxford Uni AI guru, Michael Wooldridge, on the reality and future of AI

 👂🏼TED Talks viral star, Julian Treasure, on the superpower of conscious listening

 🥷🏽Entrepreneur extraordinaire, Joanna Jensen, on defeating Goliath

 🧠Neuroscientist, Tj Power, on taking back control of your brain chemistry

 🧪Biotechnologist, Sahara Bhanot, on turning e-waste back into gold

 🎼Computer scientist, Sam Aaron, on using electronic dance music to teach coding

 🌋Ancient historian, Jess Venner, on her latest book and lessons on Pompeii

 🔮Physicist  magician, Kevin Quantum, on how his reality TV experience changed him.

💫And there’s still time for you to join us for one incredible idea-inspiring, thought-sharing, connection-making, conversation-starting, creativity-sparking day!

⬇️ There’s only a limited number of tickets left - hope to see you Saturday!!

📆 Saturday 7th March 2026
📍 The Bridgewater Hall
🎟️ www.tedxmanchester.com/tickets