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You are warmly invited to join me and countless others around the world for a powerful, first-of-its kind experience.

Gathered in homes, movie theaters and larger venues, we will participate in a remarkable program of films and talks — a kind of super-charged, marathon TED session — celebrating our common humanity. If you think of yourself as something of a global soul, it could be one of the year’s highlights. And in fact you could play an invaluable role in helping it realize its full potential…

18:00-22:00 GMT

If you don’t have time to read this now, please just calendar Pangea Day for Saturday, May 10th Saturday. (11am-3pm US West Coast, 2-6pm US East Coast, 7-11pm in UK, 8pm-midnight in Europe and much of Africa, 9pm-1am in the Mideast, 11.30pm-3.30am India, 2.00am[May 11th Sunday]-6.00am Singapore, etc.)

TO WATCH (FOR SINGAPORE):

Public Place: Sinema Old School @ 11b Mount Sophia Road

Online: www.pangeaday.org live streaming

Mobile Phone: mobile.pangeaday.org

***Update: On TV: Mediacorp has inked an exclusive deal to broadcast Pangea Day HQ!

[Source: Shaun from PangeaDay.sg]

For other countries, please visit:

http://www.pangeaday.org/howToWatch.php

and

http://www.pangeaday.org/attend_map.php

On that day, we invite you to gather around a screen with your family, friends and neighbors, preferably from more than one country. Pangea Day will be available on TV in many areas of the world.

It will be broadcasted live from Los Angeles, London, Kigali, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, and Mumbai.

In the US, the full four-hour program is being carried live on Current TV, available in 41 million homes on the major cable and satellite systems. Current TV pioneered the vision of citizen-empowered media, and we’re delighted to be partnering with them.

We have similar agreements with the massive satellite network Star TV in China/India/Asia, with MGMNetworks in Latin America, with Sky in the UK, several partners in the Mid-East, not to mention Indonesia, Mexico, New Zealand and many more.

Full details will be posted on our website next week.

And thanks to partnerships with Akamai and MSN, we will also be available on a live, full-screen web-stream everywhere with a broadband Internet connection.

The best way to watch Pangea Day is not just as a normal TV show or web-stream. It should be watched as a community event. We want the sense of the great global village gathering around a campfire.

We already know of more than a thousand self-organized screenings taking place in homes, clubs, and movie theaters. We expect thousands more come May 10.

As many of you know, the day is the result of the combined efforts of countless TED supporters around the world, inspired by the TED Prize wish of film-maker Jehane Noujaim. She dreamed of a day when people around the world could share the the same film experience at the same time.

The idea has grown into a giant global project… thanks to you. To get a sense of the scale of ambition, please take a minute to watch this beautiful trailer.

Here’s the state of play:
- Out of thousands of submissions, we have assembled a fantastic line-up of films. There are about 20 in total, ranging in length from 2 to 15 minutes (most of them around 5).

They all tell powerful stories, often without language, of what it is to be human.

They are, by turns, funny, touching, dramatic, inspiring.
- But you won’t just be watching films. You’ll be watching the world watching.

We’re bringing in live audience images from around the world.

Watching a film about reconciliation is one thing.

Watching it while simultaneously witnessing the reactions of people who are supposed to hate each other will be something else altogether.
- The day also features a dozen powerful three-minute talks from scientists, film-makers, story-tellers and global visionaries.

Just as a session at TED takes us on a journey stimulating every part of our brains, so will Pangea Day. Don’t dismiss it as a warm & fuzzy peace-fest.

The project builds on the latest ideas in anthropology, psychology and technology. We’ll be revealing how.
- The whole program is being broadcast in front of a live audience of 1,000 (from more than 50 countries) at a spectacular set being built at a Sony Studios soundstage in Los Angeles.
- It will look and feel like nothing you’ve seen before.

I think we can agree our world is becoming ever smaller/flatter/more inter-connected.

An important consequence of this is that all of the issues that matter — war, terrorism, poverty, disease, human rights, environment, climate change — can only be tackled now from a global perspective.

And yet the people supposedly trying to solve them are almost all serving narrow mandates on behalf of their nation, religion or tribe.

There’s a terrifying mismatch here between the nature of the problems and the means the world is deploying to tackle them. “The world” itself doesn’t even seem to have a seat at the table.

But there’s no reason this should be so.

It is absolutely possible in the 21st century for us to begin a truly global conversation; to start nurturing that identity we share: one humanity.

Some use the language of promoting global citizenship, or reducing cross-cultural suspicion, or expanding our circle of empathy, or eliminating the “us/them” mode of thinking.

I’m convinced today’s media have the power to humanize “the other”. To help people make the mental switch from “them” to “us”.

Telling stories through film is especially powerful in this regard.

At the start of a film, you see someone strange-looking.

At the end you feel kinship.

There’s no moral effort involved here. It’s just a natural mental repositioning. Call me idealistic, but I really believe that that mental shift holds the key to our shared future.

Of course, May 10th won’t lead to an outbreak of world peace. But I do think it will reveal a sense of possibility: the possibility that there are incredible new ways of using technology as a force for good; that peoples’ minds are not locked in a dark place forever; that our global village can start the long journey from “us/them” to “we”.

As the Pangea Day website says: Films can’t change the world. But the people who watch them can.

Huge thanks from me, Jehane and Pangea Day’s executive director Delia Cohen to all who have helped make this project possible, including scores of TEDsters, the amazing Pangea Day and TED teams, TED patrons Shawn and Brook Byers, website-creators Avenue A/Razorfish and our visionary sponsor Nokia.

Please join us for this final, crucial chapter.

Sincerely,

Chris Anderson
TED Curator

To see how you can affect the world: Go to www.PangeaDay.org