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andspun batik, Twitter and fighting illegal logging were among the disparate topics that shared a stage over six hours at South Jakarta’s first TEDx conference.

“Ideas worth spreading” is the motto of TED and its associated franchise, TEDx. A non-profit whose purpose is an annual lecture series for people who work in technology, entertainment and design, TED aims to coax the world out of  “the trenches we dig for a living, and … see an intricately interconnected whole.”

And TEDxJakSel did just that, offering a well-rounded primer on Indonesia of the moment.

In tight 18-minute segments, speakers presented on how to build two classy modern houses for the price of one Kijang Innova; how bulldozing ancestral forests creates a “9-11” scale identity crisis for indigenous communities in Kalimantan; and the impressive fact that 80 percent of plastic bags on the national market biodegrade in two years, thanks to an additive designed by national chemical company Oxium. (Check for the company’s logo next time you’re at the store.)

The slick talk didn’t stop there either. Australian political advisor Kevin Evans broke down trends in Indonesia’s post-Reformasi election cycle. The founder of Bin House explained how a mental “big bang” led her to pan-Indonesian cloth designs that overlay the batik traditions of Java over ikat-style weaves. And designer and store magnate Leo Theosabrata called for better networking among young Indonesian designers.

Organizer Jason Tedjasukmana intended TEDx to be a venue where, “people [could] listen to those who they might not otherwise have access to.” Some of the speakers had traveled far for the chance to speak to city folks.

For example, most of speaker Kinari Webb’s understanding of Indonesia comes from West Kalimantan, where she started to work in 1993. At that time, she said, “orangutans could cross from the forests of Borneo to its coast without touching the ground.”

Seeing deforestation tear across her new home island, this American physician tried to address the root causes of illegal logging. The solution she found was “trading rainforest protection for things the community wanted,” i.e., good healthcare facilities and training in organic farming, which served as an alternative to traditional slash and burn techniques.

She co-founded two NGOs to address local needs — a model that she advocates as replicable in other regions threatened with deforestation. However, she cautions that this isn’t a flawless cure-all to the trifecta disaster of climate change, population growth and overexploitation of natural resources. “Villages all over the world need custom solutions that arise from within their own communities,” says Webb.

Another speaker, Dharsono Hartono, is bidding to create one of Indonesia’s first for-profit forest restoration projects. Covering an area of Kalimantan three times the size of Singapore, he expects his project will sequester 10 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. Dharsono plans to sell credits for the carbon dioxide he traps in Kalimantan on the carbon market.

Dharsono’s project hinges on securing “restoration licenses”, however, and after four years of work and 350 signatures of support, the process is only halfway done. The long wait is on account of Dharsono’s refusal to pay bribes to Forestry Ministry officials positioned as gatekeepers to the approval process.

“It takes two to tango,” he said, explaining how he has chosen to stonewall officials expecting a pay-off. “If the giver stops, the recipient won’t ask anymore and there is a lot of people in the younger generation who think it’s better not to bribe.”

Judging from the applause Dharsono’s comment garnered, the crowd, most of who were in their mid-30s to 40s, agreed. Split between NGO-affiliates and yuppies, the crowd was slightly less sure about Indonesia’s “revolusi Twitter”, which Al Jazeera reporter Step Vaessen spoke on. “How do you Twitter?” asked some.

But the mix is something that organizer Jason and his sponsors were happy about. The conference theme “Identity and Innovation” accompanied a strong focus on sustainability; five of the nine speakers addressed the challenges of climate change and the roles of forests.

Steve Rhee, a member of the Climate and Land Use Alliance, a sponsor of the event, pointed out that some of the attendees were new to the subjects. “We wanted to speak to a broader audience rather than the usual one that might be drawn for another seminar on REDD [Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation] and conservation or rainforests,” he said. TEDxJakSel was the last in a line of TEDx conferences across Java, said Jason, who hopes the phenomenon will spread to fill the dearth of national public lectures.

When asked why the program was not in Indonesian if the event was supposed to attract more attention and voices to the national dialogue on sustainability, Jason said he wanted the ideas to appear on the TEDx website, thereby introducing new audiences to Indonesia. All of the talks will be uploaded onto YouTube.

For those who regret having missed the event, Jason says he hopes to organize another one next year.