THREE Olympic Games, 3,000 feet, 15 billion steps.The above numbers may well mean nothing in and of themselves, but in the context of TEDx Jamaica, which had its 2013 renewal on Saturday to a packed house at the Courtleigh Auditorium, they are important markers to recent and even future Jamaican success on a global scale.

An arguable highlight of this year’s programme, which combines live presentations with archived videos from the renowned TED conferences, was the live talk from MIT grad, Stanford research fellow and professed free spirit, Joel Sadler. His waist-length hair almost mirroring his every gesture, Sadler spoke of his childhood fascination with the iconic Lego blocks and how that imbued him with the sense that large issues could be effectively tackled through prototyping smaller-scale models.

This ethos took him not only to the aforementioned prominent learning institutions, but to India, where he saw a very big problem — persons who for various reasons had lost one or both legs were having a great difficulty, whether with rough-hewn bamboo canes, or even with the prosthesis that was then available.

With a team of like-minded fellow students, Saddler set about developing a solution and the result, the Jaipur Knee, earned him and the team the attention of Time Magazine, and being named one of the best inventions of 2009. Sadler showed the TEDx audience how the device had actually advanced since that initial creation, holding up a more elegant and sophisticated version as the room burst into applause.

There was also acclaim for Jamaican-born architect Gordon Gill, making his first appearance in Kingston in 39 years. He showed a big part of what has kept him busy in his absence, namely sustainable architecture and city planning that result in buildings becoming net generators rather than demanders of energy. Abu Dhabi’s new Masdar Centre and the forthcoming Kingdom Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on completion, will become the world’s tallest building at just over 3,000 feet.

Winter Olympian Devon Harris closed the proceedings by retracing his challenging but rewarding journey from Kingston’s tough Olympic Gardens neighbourhood to the ice-laden slopes of Calgary, Albertville (France) and Nagano (Japan) as part of Jamaica’s history-making bobsled quartet, a group whose heroic exploits in Calgary 1988 inspired the Disney blockbuster Cool Runnings.

With the accompanying theme of “New Frontiers”, this year’s TEDx also focussed significantly on youth – putting the spotlight on teens who have, among other things, built a nuclear fusion reactor, found better testing for prostate cancer and, in the case of Wolmerian Christopher Roberts, developed an energy use-monitoring system that can potentially save millions of dollars. Another worthy initiative came from former Scientific Research Council Young Scientist of the Year, Charrah Watson, who made a significant breakthrough for the citrus industry by organically diverting the feeding preferences of a species of butterfly known to feed on the leaves of citrus plants.

TEDx Jamaica also made time to peer out into the vastness of space, with visiting Professor Pat Burchat, in a live talk, expounding on the implications of our expanding universe. One of the latter video talks ended poignantly with a well-known image that was popularised by the late cosmologist, Carl Sagan. It was produced by the Voyager unmanned space probe and depicts the earth as seen from the very edge of our solar system. In it, the earth is barely visible as a tiny blue dot against a field of darkness with arched rays of light in various hues.

The event was chaired by Dr Nigel Clarke, who emphasised the importance of encouraging human curiosity. TEDx Jamaica is one of many independently organised but licensed events, outgrown from the TED conferences. It was presented with the support of Sagicor, Island Outpost, KPMG, Cannonball Café, Anbell Media, Productive Business Systems, Marksman & Guardsman, Pear Tree Press, Century 21, Phase Three Productions, Geddes Grant, National Outdoor Advertising and ElectroTech.