10 February 2012

TEDxLeeds2012: Money Talks

For over 150 years, Leeds has played a central role at the forefront of Britain’s financial services sector, as the nation’s secondary fiscal hub…

30 national and international banks; 150 accountancy firms including 9 of the top 10 largest UK practices; 10 stockbroking firms; 3 of the UK’s 8 largest building societies; home to Britain’s first telephone banking operation; the only Bank of England note issuing centre outside London.

At TEDxLeeds2012, we’ll be showcasing the most interesting ideas about the future of money and promise that any stories of stockbrokers, building societies, accountants, call centres or bankers will be challenging and provocative!

Humanity has begun to see money as a natural force – like air or gravity – speaking of “market forces” as if they exist outside human agency, yet the constructs and cultures of money are entirely of human invention… and consequently anything we invent, we can innovate and enhance. Wall Street’s “unnovation” of money – thousands of little algorithms… volatile, unpredictable, and impossible for humans to comprehend – brought us a global financial singularity, which still threatens to form a black hole…

However, there are others that are innovating new futures for money – as tools for localism, as exchanges for creative skills and as anti-corruption mechanisms. We’re going to take you on a tour of people currently remixing the meaning of money. Leeds is a city of inventors and TEDxLeeds will return Leeds to its role as an innovator of money.

But this won’t be simply be about talking heads. TEDxLeeds is about activism, and we intend to demonstrate some of the ideas being discussed…

  • a basic clothes swap
  • the creation of a local currency (a Leeds Pound? the Holbuck? the Jimmy? the Loiner? the Ludos?) which will exist for just the evening of 29th February!

Session 0: Registration & Screenings

Session 1: Riots & Coins

  • 5:45 pm – Introduction, Ivor Tymchak
  • 6:00 pm – Riotonomics, Lee Jackson
  • 6:10 pm – Money: the Great Confidence Trick?, Dorron Otter
  • 6:20 pm – Community Currencies and the Brixton Pound, Simon Woolf
  • 6:45 pm – Complimentary Currency Systems, Richard Logie
  • 7:30 pm – Interval, Refreshments & Networking

Session 2: Exchanges & Zeroes