Pangea Day- a global experience

Last night...people from 180 countries gathered around huge screens to watch 4 hours of the same programme. The ''event'' was broadcasted live from London, LA, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Rwanda and Egypt- by the pyramids.
The idea was that for one night the people are united to see the world through each other's eyes. In this sense the event had a series of speeches and interviews, music from all over the world, 24 short movies were that were selected out of 2500 made from all over the world,as well as other cool events.
Some highlights were:
- Gilberto Gil- the minister of culture in Brazil performed
- Queen Noor of Jordan had a very heartfelt speech
- Meg Ryan, Cameron Diaz and Goldie Hawn presented
- People laughed together, as part of an Indian practise
- There were interviews with Palestinians and Israelis together, as well as with Lebanese people.
- And we found out of a lot of new very cool organizations who deal with different issues

Over all it was an amazing event and I am so happy to take part in it- it felt unbelievable.
But the true question is what impact did this event actually have? ''How does one measure the impact of a moment of laughter or tears or shock shared between a neighbor, a stranger on the other side of the ocean, a friend in another time zone, an e-pal on the internet? How does one truly evaluate the effect of a film on an audience, on one person versus another? There are so many intervening factors, and yet, at least as I witnessed first-hand tonight in London, Pangea Day heaved opened a new window. A window wide enough for any two people to lean back and forth, to share a story, to whisper a fear, to giggle over a secret - wide enough for communication between three or four...million or more. As Christiane Amanpour and our Middle East friends reminded us tonight, change happens from within. The question remains who of the inspired will take action?''

Do watch the event and the movies at: http://www.pangeaday.org/ and http://www.ted.com/.

These were the people I shared the experience with- some of them total strangers- now potential new friends.