First ever TEDx Salon Event in Pakistan

TEDxRawalLakeSalon was the first ever Salon event held in Pakistan on 20th July, 2012 in SZABIST. Great number of participants showed up which was of remarkable pleasure for the team of TEDxRawalLake.
The event started with registrations where all the participants were asked to write their ideas worth spreading. It was told that the 4 best and worth sharing ideas would be selected among all.
The word “X” was cut in different sizes and pasted all over the floor and on the walls where the event was held in order to make the event more catchy and attractive. Also, red balloons were released on the roof of the hall. Cards titled “X is coming to Islamabad” were given to the participants present there and were asked to write an “Idea Worth Spreading” on it along with their names and email the snapshots to us for which an album would be created on TEDxRawalLake facebook page where all the pictures would be posted and the picture having most “likes” would get a goodie bag from TEDxRawalLake Team.
The show began with the introduction about what TED and TEDx actually is. The main focus was on those who didn’t know about TED and TEDx and the sole purpose of the beginning was to spread the knowledge and awareness of TED and TEDx events among the audience.
The event continued with the controversial TED talk that was shown and further discussion was done about the talk by the audience. The talk was “HIV -- how to fight an epidemic of bad laws” in which issue of AIDS was discussed by the speaker, Shereen El-Feki, and she said that there was a person in Qatar who had AIDS and he was deported from the country for the sake that nobody else gets the disease. Great controversies arose among the audience by the end of the talk. It was pointed that if a person is deported from a county on the bases that the disease would not spread after deporting the person, what if it was happened in our own country, Pakistan? Could the spreading of AIDS stop by this solution? Many reasons were discussed that proved that AIDS can’t be spread by living with the person like:
• People living together in jails
• Students studying in universities
• Office colleagues
• Workers in factories

They all live together so this means that AIDS can be spread easily, nay? But it was pointed wrong by the audience that deporting a person from a country because that will stop spreading AIDS in other people isn’t reasonable at all. Many other reasons were given that resulted in spreading of this disease and the top most was Syringes used in hospitals which aren’t disposed after the use.
The precaution measures were also discussed especially in Islamic point of view that why Islam doesn’t allow certain acts that can lead into spreading incurable diseases.

The main purpose of the discussion was to turn the idea into action and we were successful in achieving it. The idea worth spreading that was shared by the end of discussion was that a conference should be held where great Islamic scholars would be called to discuss the issues regarding unwanted acts in Islam and the reasons of why they are not accepted in order to spread awareness. This was the beauty of ideas worth spreading.

Performance of Usman Riaz in TEDGlobal 2012 was also shared in Salon event and the audience was told that he being the youngest TED fellow will be performing in the TEDxRawalLake.

Before ending, the best 4 ideas among all were selected that were asked on the registration desk and the concerned persons were called upon the stage to discuss those ideas with the audience. Talent Hunt was conducted for the entertainment of the audience and people from two different categories i.e. Poetry and Management Sciences were called and told to share their good thoughts about their field/hobby with the audience.

In the end, refreshment was given and networking session took place where our audience talked about Ideas Worth Spreading.