We thought we’d make it clear why we ask you to fill out application forms before we can send you invitations to attend TEDxLahore 2010.

We only have space for a limited number of people at the conference, and we expect more than our capacity to want to attend the event. In fact we’ve received a significant number of applications already.

One of our goals is to make this conference as open and inclusive as possible, and we try our best to make that happen. While the live stream and recordings of the event are available, we want to make sure that the most diverse audience attends TEDxLahore live and get a chance to network, meet the speakers, meet each other and share ideas.

To this aim, we believed that ticketing would be counterproductive. But we had to maintain some way of selecting attendees from a large pool, and our best bets were applications.

If you look at the application, we place a lot of emphasis on what you want to gain from attending this event, and what ideas you can bring to the table for others. These are not restricted to a certain field, or a certain kind of idea, or ideas geared to a certain market. They are simply: ideas worth sharing.

We will do our best to ensure a diverse, able, enthusiastic audience, just like the roster of speakers that we are accumulating.