Ben Cameron will talk about the relevance of the arts at TEDxYYC.

If you’re visiting ted.com for the first time, clear your schedule, it’ll be about three days before you can tear yourself away.

TED, which stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design,” is a conference series that brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers. Its list of speakers includes everyone from Jamie Oliver to Stephen Hawking, Al Gore to Eve Ensler and hundreds more. The conference comes with a hefty price tag and a gargantuan waiting list. Lucky for us plebs, all of the talks are available for free online, hence your three-day TED-filled adventure.

The TED Conference has been around since 1984, but a new initiative called “TEDx” has recently exploded onto the scene. TEDx is a series of independently organized TED events; basically, anyone can get a licence and a set of guidelines from TED and put together their own conference. Launched in March 2009, there have already been over 300 TEDx events worldwide. In Calgary alone, we’ve got TEDxCalgary, TEDxUofC and, coming up this week, TEDxYYC (which owes its name to Calgary’s Twitter-popularized airport code).

The theme of TEDxYYC is “Great Minds,” and it aims to deliver. Among the speakers are documentary filmmaker Rick Castiglione; environmental prodigy Eden Full; sociologist John Manzo; Jennifer Martin, the president and CEO of Telus World of Science; singer-songwriter Lorrie Matheson; futurist Ruben Nelson; Garnette Sutherland, a professor in the department of clinical neurosciences at the University of Calgary who gained renown for his work on Project neuroArm; and author and journalist Chris Turner.

“We chose local speakers because we’re boosters of Calgary,” says Alex Middleton, co-chair of TEDxYYC. “There are fantastic things happening in this city and we want to support them. One of the most rewarding things about being involved in TEDxYYC has been learning about some of the amazing people who live right in our backyard.”

The only speaker without any connection to Calgary is Ben Cameron, the program director for arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and one of the world’s leading culture-makers. His talk will tackle the modern relevance of the arts.

“While current audience and funding trends seem to suggest that the arts are increasingly peripheral in our changing world, I hope to argue that the arts are even more important for us than they have ever been,” says Cameron. “As we stand on the brink of an age in which the ability to think and behave creatively will be paramount, the arts have an essential role to play, both in our individual emotional lives and in the larger external world.”

Cameron has given hundreds of talks in his career, but he’s particularly excited to take part in a TED-related event. “While I always love speaking to audiences of arts professionals, I love especially the chance to do more than preach to the proverbial choir,” he says. “I find that audiences like those at TED teach me so much about how the world is changing. Helping people connect with their inner arts-affinity is deeply rewarding.”

The afternoon will also include a performance by Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, a screening of two TED talks from the official website and networking sessions for the attendees. “We hope people will be inspired by what they hear,” says Middleton. “Calgary is full of intelligent people who are involved in their communities, and I hope that TEDxYYC can help them get together to make positive change in the city.”

One of the TED-mandated rules for TEDxYYC is an attendance cap of 100 people, but for those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to make the cut, there’s an alternative: The entire event will be live-streamed at tedxyyc.com from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Friday, February 26. The committee plans to turn TEDxYYC into an annual event.