The second Ignite! Budapest took place on November 10th. Organised by Steve Nelson, the first event at Treehuger Dan's drew 120 people (and we only really have capacity for 50). I have no idea how everyone fit in, but they just kept on coming. Because of its success and the consequent space issues, this second event was held at the Cotton Club on Jokai u. The 700 forint tickets included a free drink (which for some reason I did not get!), which is a deal in itself because the Cotton Club while grand, is far from cheap. 690 huf for a Soproni? And beware! tip is cheekily included on the bill - of course the bar staff do not mention this as they look at you expectantly.

If you had 5 minutes on stage, what would you say? What if you only had 20 slides, and they rotated automatically every 15 seconds? That’s the essence of Ignite, a series of events already underway in 50 cities around the world, and now in Hungary. The last group included such presentations as "How Electronic Music Will Save the Planet," "The New Roma Parliament Building," "The Rosa Montana Environmental Fight and the Oscar Nominated Film New Eldorado," "The Life of a Professional Slacker,"... This event's group of presenters was very hit or miss, with some excellent ones and some horrible ones.
Geoffrey Thomas - "Consciousness: Easy and Hard"
Gretchen Meddaugh - "Capuchin Monkeys Spending Money"
Mary Murphy - "Lacking Comma Sense"
Mark Andrews - "The Beautiful Bridges of Budapest"
Gábor Bihari - "Believe It or Not: This Crunch is Green!"
Bullet Shih - "The Neo-Naive Movement"
Jacob Doyle - "Operation Blue Med"
Attila Bujdosó - "Complex Geometry Systems in Architecture"
Anikó Kiss - "What is Reality, Really?"
Dániel Farkas - "Play to Learn to Sell Value"

The two best presentations were those of Mary Murphy - "Lacking Comma Sense," and Gretchen Meddaugh - "Capuchin Monkeys Spending Money." The former was hysterically funny, and the latter entertaining and informative. Not surprisingly these two good public speakers are also the organisers of Budapest's newest English-language entertainment, The Gift of the Gab.

Steven introduced a new element to the evening with Presentation Karaoke, in which a brave volunteer, with no preparation, must do a 3 minute presentation using slides they have never seen. Mary Murphy's again was great, and both Wayne Brett and and Geoffrey Thomas did admirably.

The next Ignite! Budapest is tentatively scheduled for March. If you would like to do a presentation, contact Steve Nelson at ignitebudapest@gmail.com