I have recently done a TEDx talk and now I finally have got some time to write about my experience. In my previous post, I have mentioned that the TEDx talk was going to be in the Slovak National Theatre, Bratislava. I was really happy to return back to my home country after so many years not being there. I have to admit that doing this TEDx talk was one of the most rewarding things I have done in my life…and I have done plenty of crazy stuff already. The talk required lots of preparation just like with everything else worth doing. The presentation style was completely different and focused on getting the main points across to a general and not necessarily technical audience.
Initially, I was going to speak about my research with the iCub humanoid robot and how I applied parallel GPU computing to make him learn actions and language. I prepared my talk and reviewed it multiple times with the TEDx team. The slides were cool and all was good, however, I felt that something was missing. I was thinking: "I have this awesome opportunity to speak to hundreds of people and I should make it worthwhile". I am very passionate about GPU computing and AI but another side of me is very passionate about inspiring and encouraging people that everything is possible with passion, perseverance and hard work. My life story was featured several times and tells why I believe this so strongly. Doing a TEDx talk without being able to express this and try to encourage others through this story would really be a shame. Therefore, couple of hours before the talk, I changed my plan. I decided to improvise and start by talking about my life story of coming to UK with nothing and achieving my dreams step-by-step. It was the best thing I could have done. I felt like I could connect with the audience and transfer my passion of dreaming big and believing that everything is possible if we work hard for it!
The audience was massive, somewhere around 600 people. I kept making people laugh by telling this story. I never thought it that funny but it might have been the way I presented it. I continued the talk and got back to the original plan of talking about the power of human imagination and how it helps creating the future. When it comes to AI, I mentioned that this imagination reflected in many movies but we have still a long way to go to get to that level. The presentation carried on describing classical and new approaches for developing AI. Then the focus slowly shifted to new AI, artificial neural networks and computing power.
I am a great believer in GPU computing and I had to play the Mythbusters video comparing CPUs and GPUs. I love this video despite it being slightly biased towards GPU. The last part of the talk focused on how I used GPUs to develop complex artificial neural network that were able to control the iCub and allow it to acquire complex actions and basic language understanding.
Here are few pictures from the event. Many others are available on the internet, just search for TEDx Bratislava 2014. The videos will be also online very soon so stay tuned!
