Claudia Kessler, who fights for more female astronauts to be trained and flown into space, was particularly convincing. "All twelve Germans who were in space are men," reports Kessler. However, by founding the association "Die Astronautin", she is about to change this. She followed the moon landing in front of the television as a small child and was so fascinated by what she saw that she decided to become an astronaut herself. Every country is proud of its astronauts, Kessler explains. They are a symbol for the realization of a dream, the dream of traveling into the distance and seeing the world from a completely different angle. So far, however, only men have been able to fulfill this dream, and only from them have we been described the impressions of what it feels like to be in space and to look at the Earth. "At the latest when it comes to colonizing a new planet," Kessler concludes with a winking eye, "we must send the first women into outer space because otherwise, the colonization of Mars and Co would not be possible."
But it is not only Claudia Kessler who advocates taking a different view and questioning the present. Olga Miler, marketing and innovation expert, just needs a single sentence to sum up the core message of the entire conference: "Not acting means to agreeing what happens today." With her talk "How your Money can change the World while you sleep," she emphasizes the need to rethink the relationship to one's own money and to invest it sustainably. We should not see money merely as a number on the bank account, but as a resource to do good.
Sebastian Klussmann was also a speaker at this year's TEDxWHU conference. Klussmann became known through the television show "Gefragt-Gejagt", in which he is known by the nickname "the know-it-all". As chairman of the German Quiz Association, he is practically a walking encyclopedia and knows an answer to (almost) every question. In his talk, he revealed the secret of acquiring a lot of knowledge in a short time. According to him, one has to develop a general interest for everything and everyone, using tactics like visualizing things and linking them to already known elements. Only through a broad knowledge, says Klussmann, can one question the present and create a kind of knowledge web that helps one to understand connections and the bigger picture.