TED Community » Mohammad Tauheed

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Architecture, web design, technology, graphics design, painting, photography... umm a lot of things!

An idea worth spreading

Bad designs are erecting not for the lack of intelligence and creativity of designers, its rather for the lack of effective communication. Lack of information, resources and inspiration.
There should be an open-source platform which would connect the architects of developing nations to the global mainstream movements and resources. If somehow we could connect the architects and designers of the world in a single platform we would be living in a greener and better built environment everywhere.

ArchSociety.com is trying to do it to some extents under least supply of resources and supports, initiated from a developing nation like Bangladesh.

Talk to me about

Architecture, technology, open-source culture, contemporary art and architecture philosophy or anything that makes us a good friend :-)

People don't know that I'm good at

'sms poetry' !!! drawing nearly unrecognizable portraits :-p, 'face reading' ;-) graphics design, photography

My TED Story

Life is never the same after attending the TED 2009 in Long Beach as a Fellow!
TED Talks were virtually changing me from log before and now TED is a part of my everyday life, thoughts and activities.
Undoubtedly TED 2009 is the most memorable, most amazing experience in my life. It gave me a the amazing opportunity to meet so many great people together, it shuffled and blew storm through my brain during the 6 amazing days.
And I got some amazing friends! The friends are the biggest earning from this life changing event.

Now watching TED Talk is of course in my daily routine. And I am a TEDx Licensee and a TED Translator as well.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +2055 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: Would you translate (or spread) a TED talk if you didn't agree with it's topic or the speaker's point of view?

  May 12 2012: I would spread it. However I may not translate it voluntarily. Voluntary translation jobs requires huge motivation that this translation is going to help the people of my community. Now if I do not agree to a certain talk I may not find that motivation to start translating it.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: In a democracy should voting be compulsory

  May 12 2012: I guess one of the largest voting turnouts happens in my country, Bangladesh. In the last national parliament election in 2008 the turnout was 85%. 69,172,649 voted out of a total 81,130,973 voters. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladeshi_general_election,_2008 )
  What I see here is the parliamentary election turns out to be a national festival among people. They love the excitement, noise, neighborhood events before the election. And they find it fun to go for voting. They feel good, they feel important, they meet neighbors and many other people and they have fun.
  
  So you may rather think of turning the voting into a social phenomenon, a festival. Making it compulsory would rather threaten the core intention of voting.

• A comment on Conversation: If you could make a wish on behalf of The City 2.0, what would it be?

  Dec 10 2011: Before thinking of doing something for the cities we firstly need to know the current situation and the planned future, but, do we really have enough information about the present and the (so far planned and drawn) future of the cities? Mostly the answer is no. We don’t have the least idea about what is cooking out there on the tables of planning authorities of the cities for the future. Then how are we at all going to participate?
  
  In an ideal situation the urban planning decision makers are supposed to be a team of planners, urban designers, architects, engineers, environmentalists, sociologists, relevant other multidisciplinary professionals involving public opinions. In typical cases, most of the major urban planning decisions are made and/or manipulated by the politicians and negotiators of real-estates and corporates to benefit themselves. Generally this is how the future of our cities is written.
  
  But these are serious decisions that have direct impact on our daily life and also on our children in a long run. We surely need transparency, openness and opportunity of participation in making these decisions. Firstly we HAVE the basic RIGHT of access to urban planning/design decisions before they get done. It’s not a privilege I am asking it is a very valid right of every citizen. We need full access to all sorts of planning data, drawings, and maps, everything that have been drawn. We clearly need a more democratic and transparent way of urban planning and policy making, involving ‘real’ public and multidisciplinary professionals.
  
  My wish: Firstly spreading this voice “Accessibility to urban planning information is a basic right of citizens”, and to ensure it by making an open platform that will host all the available information and resources we have of the present and the future about cities. Eventually the crowd-sourced multidisciplinary participation of identifying the planning problems and proposing design and strategic solutions will come up naturally.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Too many ideas lead us to lack of focus and too many successful examples leave us rather frustrated (and/or envious!)

  Nov 26 2011: I understand.
  Here the issue of 'stopping the flow of ideas at some point in life' is more of a personal necessity or not. Obviously the global flow of ideas worth spreading must continue. To be clear, this debate is NOT a complaint against the mission of TED's Ideas Worth Spreading.
  
  But I think sometimes we need to pause all our connections and the flows of ideas, to keep our head concentrated to the works of ideas-in-action that already we have. Otherwise it disturbs, makes us feel anxious, impatience, tends to lead us getting things done in a short-cut way and may also lead us to the tendency of quick show-off.

• A reply on Conversation: Too many ideas lead us to lack of focus and too many successful examples leave us rather frustrated (and/or envious!)

  Nov 26 2011: @Rhona Pavis:
  Yes "too many...", at some point too many ideas throw us into the 'paradox of choice'. Personally I constantly feel interested about almost all good ideas :p I immediately start dreaming of a new project, start thinking about possible new people to help me doing that etc. These thoughts have a dual effect. It makes me inspired and enthusiastic about pursuing something new, again, since that very idea may not be very compatible with my expertise or typical interest I give up the thoughts and it leave a lasting bad feeling of 'giving up'.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: How often you talk and share about TED and its value?

  Nov 23 2011: Nowadays, I've reduced the frequency of talking about TED or TEDTalks to the people around me a bit :-p. As recently they've started calling me by a new name 'TED Jee' :-s :-p
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Would society benefit or suffer from volunteering replacing employment?

  Nov 22 2011: It is true, the best things done in the world so far were free from the pressure from a boss or greed/pressure of money.
  However, at some point we also need professionally responsible workers to get the smaller parts of a bigger thing done. Where we need stamina, painstaking devotion and energy along with the happiness of working.
  
  A big part of the most amazing big ideas are absolutely boring manual labor while getting it done in reality. In those cases, when a supporter/ a worker feels like crying out of boredom and stress, when they get tired of the long waiting of the dreamy big result, when the enthusiasm tends to evaporate in the pressure of responsibilities, then at least the money/wage/salary and the professional commitment help to heal the pain. And in most cases a volunteer quits at this point, they lose patience.
  Responsible and ethical employment is thus necessary.

• A reply on Conversation: Occupy U.C. Davis Police Pepper-Spraying: Is it just?

  Nov 22 2011: The law is not the law when the so-called outlaws win and they come up to make the new laws :)
• +3

  A comment on Conversation: Is the current direction of the web Democratic?

  Nov 22 2011: Democracy is always threatened if it falls into the hands of dictators. Apparently it sounds very obvious, but in reality the defining line democracy and dictatorship is very thin.
  
  The web is continuously being occupied by new 'tend to be giant' or 'tend to be dictators', as we can see now the 'web' is becoming synonymous to Facebook and Google.
  
  That's the scary part of keeping the web democratic. These rises of giants will always lead to ill practices and monopoly. We know, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Instead of old age homes and orphanages in separate facilities, the combination of both should be built.

  Nov 22 2011: When I was a kid I realized it is 'fun' to be with my grand parents, but it is amazingly 'inspiring' to spend time with my elder brothers. I saw they are always doing fascinating stuffs, going out to fishing in the river, camping out in an archaeological site with friends, running literary magazines, learning martial arts, I started dreaming of doing all those as soon as I grow up a bit.
  
  I guess, I would miss those 'inspirations' if I'd only spend time with my grandparents, spending time only listening to stories of their experiences and fairy tales.
  
  Why not these 'homes' also host young active enthusiastic people too?! Although I don't know who might be those people, from where they would come from!