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Build Great Things: Espen Siversten at TEDxLivermore

2,031 views · Published 23 August 2013 · 12:38 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: TEDx Talks · 2013 · Nonprofits & Activism

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Making a great future requires that we make the space and give the tools that our children need to build their own dreams.

Espen Siversten is the COO of Type A Machines, a San Francisco-based startup that manufactures desktop 3D printers. A former teacher at the award-winning international school of entrepreneurship known as the Kaos Pilots, Espen is also co-founder of MemeMaker.com -- the first retailer in Denmark to focus on the Arduino prototyping platform. Espen brings 3D printing and entrepreneurship together, enabling students at schools, universities and public libraries to realize their ideas and capitalize on them in a learning-by-doing and just-in-time development environment.

Espen's vision of great-thing-making includes: Intuition, Beauty, Reliability and Effectiveness, which he defines as low barriers for entry and action, empowerment to say no to our desire to cover 'everything,' time to fail and fail again, and accessibility to tools and knowledge.

If you're not fired up for empowering, he reminds us: "Remember, a single turd can clear the whole swimming pool."  

TEDxLivermore is organized by people from Livermore California who believe in the power of ideas to change the world.  The mutual dependence of education and innovation means schools, industry and the broader community can join together to build an ecosystem where innovation + education can cross-fertilize and thrive.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

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