tedxzurich giveaways

Ideas Worth Giving: How We Put Our Give-Away Bags Together for the Power of 10

“Innovative, sustainable, fair-traded, local…”, those were some of the keywords we anchored on for the give-away  bags filled with goodies for our TEDxZurich audience.

The idea of give-aways wasn’t new, but being a non-profit that is almost solely relying on sponsorships, acquiring items that would align with our values and fits our budget wasn’t an easy task. 

About 5 months before the event day, we, the Audience Experience team, were invited by the Volunteers team to collaborate on this give-aways project for the 10th year anniversary of our annual event. 
From the very beginning, we were incredibly excited about the idea of having a give-away bag on the 10th edition of TEDxZurich. Afterall, it’s the X-th edition, one very special year to our TED”X” community. We were super motivated to bring this project to life, to give our audience a special experience, a memorable one, one that they can take home with them.



The two teams, four of us, gathered on a hot summer evening in the middle of July to kick off this project. We explored so many ideas, we defined the criterias, brainstormed potential items & local brands. We knew it would be challenging as there wasn’t a budget assigned in this and we weren’t sure if it would be possible to get any, but we were determined. 

After the kick off evening, we all started reaching out to brands that we thought would fit well. After exploring local businesses that we felt were aligned to our own personal values, we struck deals with some great companies. Here is a little inside look on each of those inspiring organizations:

“We want to convince people of the values of nature and protect it together with you.

SwissAdvance, founded in 2000, is manufacturing their products exclusively in Switzerland with sustainable practices. Along with contributing 1% of their turnover to counteract climate change every year. 

Urs, SwissAdvance’s Managing Director, explained their vision as a brand and their innovative yet sustainable designs, why they care about nature and what they do to give back in detail. We loved it and their values aligned with what we were looking for. 

The moment we received the message from Urs, that SwissAdvance would join our giveaways project by sponsoring this beautiful and biodegradable bamboo lunch box was such a thrill! And it even comes in their MONYI L Cotton Mesh Bag to shop vegetables & fruits! Have you been using these two items already? 
Find out more about SwissAdvance at: swiss-advance.com

What inspired us most about NIKIN was their awareness of how small steps can contribute to our environment, as we listened to the introduction during our visit at their headquarter in Lenzburg. They told us modestly, that they’re certainly not the most eco-friendly company in the world, but for them it’s important that they are doing it. NIKIN gives back to nature by planting a tree with every product they sell. We’re delighted to have them on board.

“A single tree does not change the world overnight, but we plant tree by tree, making the world a greener place.”

All participants at TEDxZurich 2019, including volunteers, have received a pair of TreeSocks. What does that mean? We, the TEDxZurich community, have planted 700 trees. 
Find out more about NIKIN at: nikin.ch

Can it be any more Swiss? Ricola is one of the most historical brands in Switzerland, founded in the Swiss-Jura region in 1930. All their products include natural herbal ingredients exclusively cultivated on Swiss soil without any use of pesticides, insecticides or herbicides.

“Herbal candies for our audience’s throats on a winter day? YES!

Ricola has long been working with myclimate.org to balance CO2 with each of their products. In 2019, Ricola had just launched their gifting program that would allow customised prints, it was a perfect way to showcase our amazing 10th edition arts created by our in-house graphic designer Francesca, definitely one of the most representative giveaways, limited for TEDxZurich 2019 and nowhere else! 
Find out more about Ricola at: ricola.com

“Books are knowledge, and knowledge is power.”

We’re passionate about sharing power with our community. Orell Füssli, our long term partner, agreed and had promised to sponsor us some books or books related items for our give-away bags project.  

We had another challenge though. How could we put all these exciting giveaways together and give them to our audience on the event day? About 6 weeks before our big day, Orell Füssli reached out to us and asked if we already had an actual bag yet as they would have a lovely tote bag for us if we didn’t. Wow, wasn’t everything just aligning perfectly?



So there it was, we got the deliveries or picked up the items ourselves, transported them to our venue SRF, got 6 wonderful volunteers to help us packing them all one by one on the day before the event. Our ultimate give-away bag was ready, ready for our community who were joining us on this remarkable day in the history of TEDxZurich. As a memory to take home, along with all the inspirational talks and performances.

3 of our 6 volunteers, who packed all the give-away bags one by one before the event!
Gintare & Jovita@ Volunteers Team + Sara & Charizze@ Audience Experience
Your TEDxZurich 2019 Give-away Bags Team on our giveaways project kickoff day
Sarah Ebling

          Sarah Ebling holds a professorship in Accessibility Studies at Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and is a senior researcher at the University of Zurich. Her research focuses on natural language processing in the context of disabilities and special needs, specifically, sign language technology and automatic text simplification. Her groups’ contributions involve artificial intelligence techniques with a strong emphasis on user involvement. She is involved in various international and national projects and leads a large-scale Swiss innovation initiative entitled „Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies“ (2022-2026; https://www.iict.uzh.ch/).