On Thursday November 2nd, we had our #BRAINCANDIES LIVE SESSION 12, the theme of the evening this time was“Age does not matter”.

So many new people showed up and made themselves protagonists in a very active way. Actions speak louder than words they say, but for this time, we can say, pictures speak louder than words.

To start with, here some beautiful shots of the evening taken by Ruud.

“Age does not matter”. There are so many ways to relate to this phrase. When we first came up this title we were envisioning to have only people above a certain age among the planned speakers of the evening, but then we realized, that if it is really true that “Age does not matter”, then we should let go of such restrictions (this last logical step can come across as a nice paradox, because, why not). The new people that come to visit #BRAINCANIDES LIVE, might have joined the evening based on the theme of the night, or were moved by the word of a friend or by our online effort in always reaching new people. In any case, it was great to see how the first timer at #BRAINCANDIES were able to connect with the returning visitor. Aiman was the energetic host of the evening, who is not afraid to experiment new ways to make people get-out-of their comfort zone, with the ultimate goal, to create a pleasant, safe and human environment.

There are few ingredients that are recurrent in every #BRAINCANDIES SESSIONs. One of those is the activities carried on in between the talks, to make the participants, move around, talk to each other, and make someone sometimes feel slightly more uncomfortable.

During one of them, we ended up with all the participants on the stage side, when I found myself and the cameramen the only ones standing on the audience side. A pretty curious experience I would say. Of course apart from our participants, the host and our crew, another big part of the evening is created by our amazing speakers.

The 5 speakers came in approximately 45 minutes before the beginning of the evening, to make a technical run through and some, supposedly relaxing activities.

After we all relaxed our nerves (I was one of the speaker as well and I must, admit, I was also in need of some relaxation), we were able to welcome the participants and start the evening.

The evening was filled with around 10 experiences, all brought to our attention by the wise Aiman and once some connection was created among the participants, the first speaker of the evening, Lenise, opened up with her talk, on the power of Play. Lenise spoke about the power of play and about the importance of having play as a substation part of our adulthood life. And of course, making people take action on doing handstands.

The second speaker of the evening, Mart, which at 72 years of age inspired the whole audience by sharing his recipe for a happy life, talking about his passion for architecture, his wife and his dog Pleun. Mart gave us some truly magical moments during his #BRAINCANDIES.

Constance was the third speaker of the evening, she shared her experience of her visits to Kobane and Syria and talked about the intergenerational age gap that exists in the city of Eindhoven and in her surroundings. Constance is a very inspiring and strong woman who took with great care her mission to help the underprivileged. At the end of her talk, Constance also talked about a fundraising campaign she is supporting for the Handicapped children of Kobane

Coming on stage with an handful of paper sheets, Jacinto, our fourth speaker, spoke about his life with an open heart, after throwing his papers in the air, with the original text of his #BRAINCANDIES on it. Jacinto inspired the audience with his warm energy and joyful character.

As the final programmed speaker, Cristian, shared a simple recipe to start a project from scratch in order to make people try something different have fun and make people come together. Once in a while there was someone in the audience smiling about the way in which the message was carried out, which hopefully served the purpose of making people remember the message more effectively.

The surprise speaker of the evening, as we always have a surprise speaker at the end of our #BRAINCANDIES, was Sangeetha, that shared part of her life as an expat in Eindhoven together with challenges that she is facing in her new life living in the western world.

At the end of this energetic #BRAINCANDIES LIVE SESSION 12 we got together for some drinks and snacks and to continue making connections and talk to each other.

Till the next one! Thanks again to everybody who was part of this experience.

And here is some of the feedback we manage to gather from our participants with the "one thing" they have learned during the evening.

Age doesn't matter

To think in the shower

Having fun is important part of learning.

Age doesn't matter :)

Showers are best if there is 24h in between

To talk with signs

How to get acquainted quickly

Being a bit more confident

Something li learn over and over: connecting to our creativity is key to feeling alive

Age does not matter!

Confidence to speak in front of other people

how your generation deals with each other, so positive

I must not hesitate to express my opinion in front of an audience

More people associate themselves with elephants than I would have guessed.

Many people in the world want to bring change for better

Listen to each other gave a lot of inspiration

how to design and realize a beautiful plan. but I have to study the video more seriously before I can put it into practice. And I met nice people!