396. Public Speaking and TED Talks with Alina Nikolaou

Feb 26, 2025

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Ever wondered what it takes to bring a TED talk to life? In this episode, Michael Herold has a conversation with Dr. Alina Nikolaou, a passionate TED event curator, who shares her insights about the exciting world of organizing TED and TEDx events.

They discuss the process of selecting speakers, the power of storytelling, and how to balance entertainment with information. Dr. Nikolaou offers valuable tips on public speaking, preparation rituals, and the experience of participating in TEDx.

You’ll also pick up tips on how to pitch a TEDx talk and ways to stay engaged with the TED community.

Listen and Learn:

The difference between TED and TEDx, and how these talks are bringing global ideas to local stages across the world
What it is really like to attend or organize a TEDx event—on stage, behind the scenes, and beyond
How are TEDx speakers chosen, coached, and prepared to deliver talks that leave a lasting impact?
How TEDx organizers curate the perfect lineup and ensure each talk flows
Even the weirdest ideas have a place at TEDx—how organizers craft the perfect lineup of talks
What happens behind the curtain before a TEDx talk?
How can speakers avoid awkwardness when transitioning from rehearsal to the stage?
What’s the secret to delivering a talk naturally—without memorizing every word like a script?
How to enliven a slide deck to captivate any audience
Tips for landing a TEDx talk

Resources:

About Dr. Alina Nikolaou

Dr. Alina Nikolaou is Director and Curator of TEDAI Vienna, the first TED event in Europe dedicated to groundbreaking ideas on Artificial Intelligence. Born to Greek and Austrian parents, Alina grew up during the financial crisis in Athens, Greece. After school, she moved to Vienna, Austria to graduate with degrees in Communication Science and Political Science. After a short and rather disenchanting journey into the world of advertising, Alina returned to academia for her doctoral research where she explored how Virtual Reality can affect how we think and behave toward complex sociopolitical issues. Her co-authored study about the influence of deepfakes on media trust and credibility won the award for Best Student Paper at the annual conference of the International Communication Science Association in 2023. Alina has held several courses at the University of Vienna, ranging from empirical research methods in the Social Sciences to Media History. In October 2023 she presented her research at AWE EU, the leading industry conference on mixed reality.

Constantly fascinated with the hypes, hopes and fears that surround new technologies, Alina has been a Curator at TEDxVienna since 2019. There she specialises on interdisciplinary ideas about tech, philosophy and power, and brings them to life in the form of TEDx Talks.

To deal with how miraculous and ridiculous the world is she constantly experiments with different artforms: A regular on Vienna’s storytelling stages, Alina is known for her criticisms on capitalism, her borderline anarchist stance and her absurdist humor. Her most recent appearance was at the Rote Bar at Volkstheater, Vienna. Alina is also the creator of the (so far unsuccessful) dadaist Bring Back Boredom movement and the far more successful event format “Poetry Society Vienna”.

Alina holds a Bakk.phil, MSc and Dr.phil. in Communication Science as well as a BA in Political Science from the University of Vienna, Austria.

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