I’ve recently become a TED Fellow (http://www.ted.com/fellows) and have been asked to give a talk on stage at the TED India conference next month/week in Mysore.

I’ll come to the bit about my talk shortly, but for those of you who are not yet familiar with what is TED, check it out:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, celebrating the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. It started out (in 1984) as an annual conference that brought together leaders from the Technology, Entertainment, and Design industries – that’s the T, E, and D, of TED. But over the years, the content has become a lot broader and now includes great thinkers and doers, creators and visionaries, from all areas of thought and work and life.

James Nachtwey’s TED talk can be seen here: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_nachtwey_s_searing_pictures_of_war.html

Photographer/filmmaker Jehane Noujaim here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jehane_noujaim_inspires_a_global_day_of_film.html

and Edward Burtynski here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/edward_burtynsky_on_manufactured_landscapes.html

Which brings me to my TED talk. I have been asked to present on the idea of “jugaad” (Hindi: जुगाड़) aka the Indian approach to problem solving that consists in getting things done with the available resources no matter how lacking they are. If you have ever been in India you’ve probably observed how things get done here in a “creative” way, using less to do more, and in many situations, where there seems to be no way, an Indian mind will find a way to make things work with a surprising (and often very funny) solution.

What’s important here is not resources, but resourcefulness. Pop-culture analogy: a MacGyver vs. James Bond approach to saving the day.

This is a concept I have come to love and value as the most important lesson I’ve learned over the course of the past seven years I’ve been on the Indian subcontinent, and I believe that as India approaches its future from the crossroads of western world mainstream and homegrown directions, this approach – if it is preserved, fully embraced, further developed upon, and proudly celebrated – is a lesson we can all take away from India as we approach our collective future on the planet – benefiting globally from the spirit of doing more with less in whatever we do.

As TED at its heart embodies and celebrates the very best of what community can accomplish, I thought it would be appropriate to reach out to my own community here in the same spirit.

I’d really like to showcase some of the best visual examples of this thinking to help illustrate the point during my talk, and so I’m opening the visual content of it up to everyone who would like to help contribute. If you have any visuals depicting this and would like me show them in the course of my talk (fully credited on the picture, of course) please contact me on adam.huggins (at) gmail.com

It would mean a lot to have you all behind me when I get up there to present.