At Cas Di Cultura, join TEDXAruba on September 23rd
At a preview meeting on Wednesday, TEDxAruba presented its list of speakers and special offers to a room packed with business community invitees, eager to get a taste of what the event would be like!
I am a fan of the TED App, I play talks all the time on a variety of subjects and the second annual TEDx here thinks globally, but acts locally; the theme of this year’s TEDx is: What if?
What if you would do something unexpected?
What if the world were color blind?
Blanca Peters and Marlon Kock opened the morning at the ATIA facility in Oranjestad and emceed two hours of innovation snippets, with a number of speakers given just 10 minutes to describe their specialty in the TED arena, Technology, Education and Design. We also heard from some sponsors Digicel, ATA, which was interesting anyway.
Brian Monpellier of Digicel raised the issue of Big Data, according to which every word I post on line, every picture, every article, doesn’t belong to me once posted, but to my internet service provider. And this is not a What If, this is a reality. Imagine the complications this creates.
Diane Escalona concluded her talk about the Aruba Tourism Authority by asking, what if Aruba wasn’t there, what would the world be missing? Which was the cue to sing this island’s praises.
Why should you go to TEDx? To sharpen your saw; to meet speakers, experts and influencers; to experience a unique networking event with an event App; to acquire new tools; to break out of your comfort zone; to get new tips and learn new tactics; to gain a greater focus; to absorb the energy of like-minded people; to invest in yourself AND to have fun.
If you buy 10 tickets you get a 20% discount. If you have tickets left over, please donate them to the university, they will send an eager-to-learn student. If you buy a ticket today, free lunch is included!
Smuggling Gasoline Across the Border
I was entertained by a recent story in the local online newspapers reporting on an Awg 1,000 fine imposed on a speed boat returning to Aruba with smuggled gasoline bought cheaply in Venezuela.
Which by the way is a known practice here, making a fast run south of the border, on ‘almost empty,’ and returning fully tanked, so to speak. On a number of occasions the ‘almost empty’ turned into ‘empty’ and major challenges ensued as boats with dead motors drifted, lost, forcing the local Coast Guard and Dutch Marines to mount extensive searches in order to find them. Saving smugglers at the public’s expense of course.
In last week’s case, the boat, Ki-Diaa, registered to the former minister Candelario Booshi Wever, who was a senator in Aruba and a minister for 27 years, was caught red handed. Incidentally, Booshi also served in the government’s legal department for 6 years before becoming a senator. Are you speechless?
The boat left Aruba illegally, without clearance, at around 3am and attempted to sneak in unnoticed at about 6am, with full barrels of gasoline on board. The Coast Guard radar detected the law-breakers and sent BP-2 out to meet them. Customs and the General Prosecutor imposed the fine, relatively low for ‘first offender,’ though according to everyone involved the boat runs the route regularly and is no first offender.
Just to add to your outrage, the former minister, now the owner of a gasoline smuggling boat, was in charge of Immigration here, granting stay and work permits. His most famous brain child, the Swiss Model, introduced in 2002, tortured many good people, for quite a few years, I have no clue what happened to it, as I think it was even written into a law. Notorious for a number of frivolous law suits, the minister was/is incredibly self righteous and pompous. I was upset about the incident the newspaper described, I waited for an explanation or an apology, but nothing published to sooth my discontent with the picture this paints about our officials in retirement.
