TEDGlobal Finishes with Plenty of Food for Thought

EDINGURGH, Scotland – Inspiring talks, far-sighted thinkers, provocative ideas, light-hearted moments and top-line entertainers. That, in a nutshell, sums up the week that was TEDGlobal 2013.

Held in Edinburgh and with the Renault-Nissan Alliance as a partner, TEDGlobal covered a vast variety of topics, all of which were designed to make every attendee "Think Again."

The topics were seriously diverse – everything from the use of small drones to fly urgent medicines to hard-to-get-to places to the shapes of clouds; from the problems with democracy to the power of credit ratings agencies; from how big business should embrace sustainability to the sex life of the bedbug.

Even the entertainers were diverse: Jamie Cullum played jazz, Natasha Bedingfield played pop and Just A Band from Kenya lit up the hall with their unique blend of African funk and electronica.

The atmosphere was electric, excited and energetic in equal measures.

Those same emotions were experienced by the huge number of attendees who took a little time out of their schedule to take a drive or a tour in one of the fleet of Electric Vehicles that the Alliance took to TEDGlobal. They could choose between a Nissan LEAF, Renault Zoe – which went on sale in the UK as TEDGlobal opened – or a Renault Twizy.

All came back impressed with the way the cars performed and how much sense they made in a busy city environment like Scotland's capital.

A talk from Philippe Schultz, Renault's Expert Leader on the environment, explained why he believes the next revolution in transportation has already begun, and the proof is running quietly around the crowded Edinburgh streets, producing zero emissions and virtually no noise.

As he told TEDGlobal: "If those 100,000 customers all lived in Edinburgh, that would mean one in four cars here would be an EV."

And that statistic certainly made his audience Think Again about how much cleaner the atmosphere would be, and how much quieter and more peaceful the city would become.

That's one thing TEDGlobal is guaranteed to do: set you thinking.

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