I woke up early on Thursday morning, stinking of whisky and ideas. On Wednesday night The Hub hosted their very first (hopefully of many) TEDx London event, where a series of fascinating speakers came to share their ideas with the world.

And it wasn’t just the speakers who had something to say. In advance, the audience were all given an opportunity to choose a few key words which were printed onto badges. During the breaks we were all encouraged to take these key words and begin a conversation with a stranger.

This led to a whole load of people straining to see what was written on my breasts. Next time I’m going to ask them to make the print smaller…

Anyway, here’s my top idea of the night:

Simon Berry - Cola Life

What really grabbed me about Berry’s idea was his blatant exploitation of the capitalist market. I love it. Recently so many people have been talking about deconstructing our Western ways into some idealistic pipe dream that may or may not bear any more fruit for the suffering masses than our current wasteful economy. Berry says: ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!’

Take a holiday to the remotest, most obscure, hidden corner of the Earth and you can bet your bottom dollar that Coca Cola will have been there first. You can purchase yourself a bottle of the fat man’s favourite from villages where they don’t even have running water.

Berry’s idea is to get Coca Cola to open up their distribution channels to carry ‘social products’, such as oral rehydration salts and medicines, to the people who need them desperately. This could be done by incorporating an ‘aidpod‘ into Coca-Cola crates. The content of the aidpods would be locally determined by health professionals.

The advantages of this are, firstly, that it’s an affordable, simple start to helping those who need it most. It’s well designed, and it makes Coca Cola look really really nice.

But do we really know what we’re dealing with? Can we ensure that the medicine would reach those for whom it was intended? One potential solution is through Frontline SMS, where the person who delivers the Cola bundle is paid through text message upon confirmation of the Aidpod’s arrival. But we still need to ensure that the medicines would distributed and administered properly once they get there.

Similarly, some asked whether one could ever really trust an organization like Coca Cola. A valid point – these are the guys who redressed Santa Claus. Does Berry really know who he’s climbing into bed with?

But Simon Berry is not a stupid man. Check out his blog article ‘Is Wealth Creation the New Philanthropy?‘ In a fascinating, hazy post-TEDx conflab, he argued to me that no man is completely altruistic, but no man is completely evil either. So long as the deal is financially beneficial for both Coca Cola and their independent distributors, there’s absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t lap it up.

On another note, today is Friday and ever since the talk I’ve been gagging for a cool glass bottle of the sugary brown stuff. Make of that what you will…