About Ralph
I am a…
Artist, Brainstormer, Change Agent, Connector, Consultant, Entrepreneur, Idea generator, Photographer, Producer, World traveler
I'm passionate about
creativity, communication, travel, entrepreneurship, books, cooking, jazz, world music, education, history, oceans, sustainability, still and moving pictures, appropriate technology, change for good
An idea worth spreading
In many places around the World, it is the custom to give flowers at a wedding. That's nice but essentially useless and needlessly expensive. Well, my wife and I asked our guests to bring copy books, pens, backpacks and other school stuff instead and I was heartened to see a veritable mountain of these things at the end of the day - the guests had listened! These items were given to a school with so little money that teachers staple used photocopy paper together to make up exercise books. This is in 21st century Europe! We'd like to make this idea a trend so couples do not end up with mountains of useless flowers that go to the dump immediately, but rather contribute in a simple and direct way to a kid's education in their community. There are too many children out there needing the most basic of things and they do not all live in exotic places you're never likely to visit. They live within 100 km of your home.
Areas of expertise
Communications, Contract Publishing, Event Planning & Organizing, Training & Development, Innovation and creativity, Internet and transmedia, Photography and multimedia, Strategic Design
The TED story
It's a great pleasure to be organising TEDxWarsaw with an amazing team of people (check us out at tedxwarsaw.org) I also organised TEDxWulkan and co-produced TEDxWarsawWomen. We have now grown to also include a regular TEDxWarsawSalon events and are a part of our regional TEDx community, and - by invitation from the President of the Republic of Poland - we put on TEDxWarsawPresidentialPalace in May 2014, to talk about all of the things important to our own individual place that each of us has in society: education, responsibility, progress and technology, social engagement, pursuit of success (whatever that means to each of us) and generally designing our lives for the better.
Things you might not know
cooking. OK. Maybe they do know... :) and playing percussion instruments. OK, maybe they know that too. Damn, They already know everything...