On November 24, the organizers of TEDxKAIST hosted their third annual event titled “Ordinary Miracles” on the first floor at the International Center (W2-1).

TEDxKAIST, under the catchphrase “Ideas Worth Spreading,” is a local counterpart of the internationally renowned and inspiring talks of TED. This year’s event was centered on the mind-boggling and somewhat misleading question of why ordinary, everyday things could not become extraordinary. Nine speakers from around the world were invited to present their accounts on the question and how to make every moment in life count.

One of the speakers was our very own Ph.D. student from the Department of Industrial Design, Heewon Lee, who opened the eyes of the audience and induced a huge applause for his environmentally- and third world-friendly invention Soundspray, which releases noises at a specific frequency to drive away mosquitoes. He not only talked about the reasons for coming up with such an idea, but also shared his personal development during his stay in Kenya and his experiences through the bare reality.

Another speaker was TaeLim Kim, representative of ENJOYment HOWL. He is the manager of the bar Howl Atthe Moon, simply and humbly introducing himself as a bar owner. However, he continued to raise questions for the audience and himself about what other descriptions could best suit him. He concluded with the definition, “a bar owner who would like to do what is fun”. With this definition and his experience of having directed the KAIST Arts and Music Festival held in October, he instilled his central idea that one’s happiness is one’s own responsibility.

Dennis Hong was another speaker that enlightened many minds. As the Associate Professor of Robotics at Virginia Tech, he shared his valuable experiences in building humanoid robots that are compatible with and useful to humans, such as the world’s first car for the blind.

The event also incorporated an ideation session which encouraged members of the audience to share their own thoughts with the speakers face-to-face.