Why we're launching a Podcast at TEDxNorthernQuarter: TEDx and Talks
Why are you so passionate about Manchester, Simran?
Simran Whitham:It is the greatest city on earth. For me, we just create the best people. And for me, I think we live in a society today where we don't allow for civil conversation to take place, where I believe a lot of problems in society can be solved with simple communication. You don't have to agree with what someone says. A great comment we actually got from last year's conference was
Andy Coley:So we're here at THE CLUB in Manchester about one of our media partners. What's one of the benefits of us adding podcasting into this year?
Simran Whitham:For me, what podcasting allows us to do is it allows us to break free of the limitations of the TEDx Talk. It's about bringing Manchester businesses in together to build the greatest TED event that Manchester has ever seen.
Andy Coley:Because you never know where those conversations might lead. So why are you why are you so passionate about Manchester, Cimmern? Why why why are we doing this podcast, TEDxNorthernQuarter?
Simran Whitham:I'm passionate about Manchester because it is the greatest city on Earth. This is the city where the atom was split. It's the city where IVF was invented, and so many other amazing things that have come out of Manchester. And for me, we just create the best people. There's no city like Manchester.
Simran Whitham:I've been to 34 countries and so many cities in those countries, and I've never met a city where the community comes together to celebrate entrepreneurs, creatives, business minds, academics, professors, and so many other amazing people where we just create such wonderful people worthy of staying onto a TEDx stage.
Andy Coley:It's interesting, isn't it? Because Manchester has seems to have a lot of personality. Like, before we did TEDx last year Yeah. I think I've been I I think when I came to the TEDx or when we were doing the TEDx last year in 2025, that was, like, my fourth or fifth visit to Manchester. And I've been here a lot more in this last year between you, the first one and the second one.
Andy Coley:But each area seems to have a its own sort of personality, doesn't it?
Simran Whitham:It's so it is perfect to describe it. Manchester is so small, but yet so much personality when you walk through the main city center. Like, I was in we were talking about this before we did this with London and how it took me nearly an hour and forty minutes to get from London City Center with you as to walk to Shoreditch. And London has those things. London has different areas, which have all got their own personalities.
Simran Whitham:Yet with Manchester, you can be in Northern 0.25, which is the alternative punk, creative graffiti area of our city. But then within five minutes, you're in Deansgate, which is where the busy bee working, cocktail bars, nightlife element of the city is. And then two seconds after that, you're in Spinning Fields, which is your more affluent, the ivy, London esque skyscraper aesthetic, and posh restaurants. And it's so interesting how within Manchester, you can be within completely demographic and different communities all within just the span of a fifteen minute walk. It's actually insane.
Simran Whitham:I think that what makes the city so special is because it's just a melting pot of so many great people, cultures, aesthetics, vibes, all within just such a short city square effectively.
Andy Coley:And are you from Manchester?
Simran Whitham:Yeah. I'm I'm born and bred in Tameside, my friend. I was born in a place that I'm not proud to say where I'm from. I'm from a place called Ashton Underline or as we like to call it, Trashton Underline. I'm from the council states in Tameside, which is one of the boroughs of Manchester.
Simran Whitham:And it is quite an impoverished area. That is where I'm from because, you know, every city has it. I mean, London has Croydon. Manchester has Mossside and Tameside. Or Rochdale, depending on where you wanna say, depending on your perspective.
Simran Whitham:By the way, no hate to Rochdale because I live in Rochdale. The nice bit, not the shit, but I have to point that out. But Manchester, I I love the city. I was born and bred here. Even though I come from a mixed race family with different heritage across two different countries to me, Manchester is so special because I got to witness the early stages of Manchester now going into more of the urbanized, I will say London gentrification of Manchester because now Manchester is becoming the second London of The UK, but it's also one of the becoming one of the hotspots for tech and creativity in the whole of Europe.
Simran Whitham:Manchester has actually been voted the most creative city in Europe, which I think is insane. But it's unsurprising. Like, on the way here, saw music videos or videos being shot. You see artists painting street art. In the street, you see graffiti artists.
Simran Whitham:You see poets walking around. And you've been to Manchester enough times now that you're adopted Mancuni to realize how if you walk in Northern Quart, we've got arts nights, poetry nights. We've got jazz nights, band nights, and, like, we were just at Bunny Jackson's before, which has live country music while you get 99 p chicken wings.
Andy Coley:Then I missed country music night. That was more.
Simran Whitham:Oh, you did miss country music night. That's a big thing at Bunny Jackson's. And for me, Manchester just melts and creates creativity. And from creativity, you get entrepreneurship, you get science, you get education, which just breeds amazing people, which is why we have never struggled to find amazing people for TEDx.
Andy Coley:No. You you open your little black book and people just appear, you know, when it comes to when it comes to the Manchester continued. And, like, we haven't striven to just put Manchester people on.
Simran Whitham:Of course.
Andy Coley:You know? But and at the same time, we also wanna honor the people from Manchester and give them a voice as well. I mean, yeah, if you take a look at some of the people I had last year, Molly in particular, I mean, they were amazing with what they're doing with Short Supply, the CIC. So to give people a voice and to be able to support charities like The Manchester
Simran Whitham:Mhmm.
Andy Coley:And those kind of things because, you know, for instance, I know you've spoken about this before, you know, you suffered a period of time when you were homeless, and there's a lot of homelessness in Manchester like there are a lot of cities, but, you know, it's it's important I think to be able to use the voices of things like a TEDx platform Mhmm. To better enable people that aren't just celebrities to come on and take part, but also to give people the the opportunity to learn a little bit more about Manchester.
Simran Whitham:Yeah. I mean, you've hit the nail on the head there, Andy, about why I love doing this so much. For me, I love people. Okay. A big part of why I started this is, and it goes back to the fact I mentioned earlier before, I've been to 34 countries.
Simran Whitham:I've been to cultures across all over the world. I've been to all over Europe and seen the wonderful marvels of architecture that European Renaissance created. I've been all across the African continent where I've seen extreme poverty, but I've also seen the wonderful beauty of Africa because, you know, people have misconceptions about what Africa's like. But I've also been all over The Caribbean. I've been all over Asia.
Simran Whitham:And one thing I've realized, no matter where I've been in the world, whether it's been in the poorest villages in India where I've set foot where my family are from, or whether I've been in megalodon, multi million pound Silicon Valley style European cities, is that people are ultimately an amazing species of creatures that all have ideas. And we pass people every single day in the streets that go on to do amazing things. People that change the world. I you you know how passionate I am about this when I say, we live in a society today where the loudest voices get the most attention, but the loudest voices don't always have greatest of intentions, especially now we live in the digital age with TikTok, Twitch, YouTube, where sometimes the people that are on those platforms don't always have the best intentions. And for me, it's the smaller voices that you walk through in society every single day.
Simran Whitham:Like one of our speakers this year, doctor Rajan Bedji, who I met at the Great British Entrepreneurial Awards, who is a literal rocket scientist that helped develop some of the most amazing satellite technology that we've ever seen. And you wouldn't think it because the man's got something like 31 Instagram followers. Like, you won't think that looking at him, but, yeah, I just met him in passing, and that man's doing stuff that changes things. Or Nicola Bach, one of twenty twenty five speakers, you wouldn't think it looking at Nicola, the world's leading UK left way boxing champion. But yet she almost died of a brain tumor.
Simran Whitham:Yeah. And you wouldn't think that.
Andy Coley:And her day job's at HSBC.
Simran Whitham:And yeah, her day yeah. Works at HSBC as a project Yeah. Yet she's a female boxing champion. Imagine working next to her at a desk and going, so what do you do? I box for a living.
Andy Coley:Yeah.
Simran Whitham:And also a Lethwei champion. Yeah.
Andy Coley:You want that that crossover between what people see and what people do and how they are as individuals is so interesting as well, isn't that? Once you really start to get to know people, you can get really curious about the perspectives that they have or the, you know, the points of view, their opinions, the the way they see the world, and I find that really fascinating when it comes to getting to understand, you know, our speakers and the people that we work with. And I mean, like, many times have we been approached with can I be a speaker? Every month.
Simran Whitham:You know? I mean, we had one two days ago, and
Andy Coley:it was Yeah. Like They still keep coming thick and fast. We are, at the moment, like, seventy five days away from the twenty twenty six podcast. We're still being messaged by people going, how do I get to speak on the stage? Like, we chose our speakers last December, and we're sat here right now just coming up to the edge of June.
Andy Coley:And we had, like, a 150, 180 applicants at least.
Simran Whitham:It was 200. Yeah. 200 plus . Yeah. You've hit the nail on the head really there, which is it's just it's insane.
Simran Whitham:I love people. I love people. And he talks about difference of opinions, and that's what TEDx was about. It's about ideas. And for me, I think we live in a society today where we don't allow for civil conversation to take place, where I believe a lot of problems in society can be solved with simple communication.
Simran Whitham:You don't have to agree every great innovation and every great thing that has ever happened in humanity has come from someone who had an idea. And we don't platform conversation where people can discuss different ideas anymore. And that's why we look for such a diverse range of different thoughts and ideas when selecting the speakers, because it might not necessarily be someone you agree with. There might be some controversy surrounding that person. But at the end of day, they have an idea, and that's what it's about.
Simran Whitham:And how can we move forward as a society if we can't have conversations about those ideas? Because ideas are about innovation and innovation is how we move forward as a species, both good and bad. And we need to be able to talk about these things. The TEDx platform is housed people you might not necessarily agree with before, but at the end of the day, they're entitled to their ideas. And ultimately, it's all about ideas worth spreading.
Andy Coley:So we're here at the club in Manchester with our one of our media partners. Yes. And, like, we're taking the stage a bit further. Rather than it just being about the tools, we're bringing the podcast series in. You know, we're speaking to previous speaker.
Andy Coley:We're speaking to, you know, some of
Andy Coley:our current speakers, some of our supporters. Like, for you, what's the what's one of
Andy Coley:the benefits of us adding podcasting into this year?
Simran Whitham:For me, what podcasting allows us to do is it allows us to break free of the limitations of the TED talk. Whilst the TED talks are the main attraction of what we do, and, you know, it's what our speakers spend months preparing for Hours and hours. Hours and hours. But it is only fifteen minutes. And one thing that our coaches really hammer home is that, you know, you've got to convey this passion, this idea, this thought that you have that you might have built your entire career around or your entire identity in fifteen minutes.
Simran Whitham:That is a very hard thing to condense down to. And what I think the podcast allows us to do is have a more prolonged conversation with these individuals about what drives them, what motivates them. Because ultimately, our attendees are coming to see these people because they want to hear what they have to say. And the podcast allows us to give them access to these people in a longer format where they can learn more about them. But also, it allows us to challenge the status quo of what can be possible with a TEDx event as well, and allow us to do something different beyond just the realm of traditional podcasting, which is two people having a conversation right this now.
Simran Whitham:What it allows us to do is allow for more ideas worth sharing to be made accessible to the general public, which I'll allow you to go into a bit more detail how that'll take place as, but also allow us to look at new things that we can do with the podcasting platform to make our whole TEDx event even greater in the future.
Andy Coley:And that's the interesting thing. I I really resonates with wanting to get to understand people a little bit more than their fifteen minutes. One of my friends, professor Kian West, was one of our speakers last year, and he's written a book on the science of racism. Literally, 80 scientific papers that have been published with his name all over them in terms of, you know, delving into the science of racism, and yet he really only touched the surface of his brain and what was underneath that. So this is this is why I love when we were talking about this, I love the idea of doing this podcast series.
Simran Whitham:Yeah. I I can't wait for it. And I think we can proudly also say that we're gonna be taking the podcasting platform with the live production of the podcast present at TEDxNorthernQuarter twenty twenty six, where we'll be giving attendees the chance not only to be part of our podcast journey, but also give our speakers the chance and once they step off that stage to just capture that raw emotion. It's very rare you see what a speaker's like. Like last year, we went up into the mezzanine, and yes, we're all supportive hugging each other.
Simran Whitham:The audience don't see that, and we get to capture that raw authenticity, almost like a boxer coming out of the ring after that big match that they spent a year preparing for in that moment. And we're so happy to be working with a great Manchester brand again, because for me, it's about bringing Manchester businesses in together to build the greatest TED event that Manchester has ever seen. It's amazing to be working with a production company like the club Manchester to really just not only help us tell these stories, but also add a whole new layer to what is possible with podcasting using the TED platform because the TED platform gives you so much freedom for telling stories of amazing individuals. That's what I'm really excited for.
Andy Coley:Yeah. So we're gonna be all over the podcasting. We've got lots of dates lined up coming to the club. We've got the club coming to the TEDx, so they'll be speaking with the speakers and with the audience members. So if you are coming to the TEDx, you will have the opportunity potentially of booking a little bit of time with Stefan, maybe a question or two Mhmm.
Andy Coley:To find out what would be your idea be worth spreading. What is it that you're really passionate about? Like, how do we get to understand you as a member of the audience? Because you never know where those conversations might lead.
Simran Whitham:Exactly. Everyone has ideas. We want to hear from our audience, and what the club Manchester is really gonna allow us to do is for you to have your idea worth spreading be shared as well. It's not just about the speakers. Everyone has an idea worth spreading.
Simran Whitham:It was one of the founding principles that led me want to create this for Manchester, to partner with someone like you who understands this world and the power. You more than anyone, Andy, know the power that a good talk or a good speaker can have on someone's life. It was a good speaker that spoke to me at 20 years old in my university that led me to build the business that led to us to have this conversation today. And that's what I really want to power is enable people to share their idea worth spreading with this partnership.
Andy Coley:Awesome. Thanks, Simran.
Simran Whitham:Thank you, Andy.
