TEDxDetroit: How to harness wind energy without blades with Detroit manufacturing

What if we could create wind energy without using windmills?  What if we could do it in Detroit, using the city’s now-underutilized manufacturing base?

That’s exactly what Dawn White and her Ann Arbor-based company, Accio Energy, are trying to do.

“If you can make a fan without blades, why not a wind generator without blades?” White asked the crowd Wednesday at TEDxDetroit, referring to the Dyson Air Multiplier.

TEDxDetroit: Let’s get a bunch of cool people in a room and see what happens

TEDxDetroit founder Charlie Wollborg just wanted to get a bunch of cool people in a room and see what happens.

So he said as he opened up the independtly organized TED event, which aims to share positive ideas for the world from Detroit (well, Lawrence Tech University in Southfield to be precise).

“This is like an incubator of greatness,” Wollberg said as he took in the crowd.

Wollberg, founder of Curve Detroit, said he hopes speakers at the event can help tell a new story about Detroit.

“When people look back at the turn of the century, they’ll see we reinvented.  We got out of the fur trade, and we became a timber powerhouse,” he joked, describing how Detroit has adapted before and can again.

TEDxDetroit: Using art and technology as a catalyst for change in Detroit

“We use what we have to make change,” he said, describing how his group, Public Art Workz, has created murals around the city in attempt to revitalize struggling neighborhoods.

Speaking Wednesday at TEDxDetroit in Southfield, Miller described how he uses local color in his murals so they reflect the life of the city.

When he first returned to Detroit, Miller found work painting houses.  On his drive to work one morning, he saw a striking image on 8 Mile: A black father rushing his kids to their bus stop in the wake of a snow storm.

A short time later, he decided he’d never paint another bathroom, and after teaming up with Motor City Blight Busters, Miller used that image as the central focus of the Guardian Bank mural in Brightmoor, titled “Career Paths.”

What was a bland building in a troubled neighborhood was transformed into an image of hope for the city.

But the local color doesn’t stop there.  Miller allows anyone to participate in the painting process, often encouraging passers by to paint using the color of clothing they’re wearing (literally local color).

TEDxDetroit video: D Blair performs ‘Detroit (while I was away)’

Detroit poet and musician D Blair performed “Detroit (while I was away)” Wednesday at TEDxDetroit, an independently organized offshoot of the TED conference.

Blair said he wrote the poem for the city after spending a length of time on the road touring, and the crowd gave him a standing ovation after he performed.

The video above was captured via FlipCam, but when/if the official TEDxDetroit version goes online, we’ll replace it with the higher quality version.  Enjoy.

Tags: art, detroit, poetry, public art, technology, TEDxDetroit, wind energy