YORK will be the centre of a giant global online brainstorming session when the city’s first TEDx conference hits town tomorrow.

Ideas will be flying as leading figures and innovators in the world of information technology and digital design – including musicians, game and software designers, digital sound and light effects specialists, theatre directors interested in the potential of new technology, and many more – line up to showcase what they are all about.

Among those taking part in the event at the Sir Ron Cooke Hub at the University of York tomorrow will be new media pioneer and journalist Bill Thompson, who writes a weekly column for the technology section of the BBC News website; New York Times best-selling author Julien Smith, who was one of the first people to use Twitter; new media artist Kit Monkman of York-based digital sound and light specialists KMA; and Matt Freckleton of York-based Yatterbox – a website that enables you to follow everything your local MP has been doing or saying online.

There will be a contribution live online from Adelaide by Kristin Alford, a leading expert in predicting social change in the future, and a chance to build and race your own hydrogen-powered Lego car.

At least 20 people and organisations altogether will be taking part in the event – most performing or presenting live in York, but others contributing by using live online links from as far afield as Adelaide, Christchurch in New Zealand, New York and Montreal. Their ideas will be streamed live to a global online audience.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design – and the idea of it and other events like it is to put the arts and creativity back into the worlds of science and technology, said Pilot Theatre artistic director Marcus Romer, who has attended TED conferences in California and whose brainchild the York event is.

He said: “It really will put York at the forefront of the global network of things happening online.”

The event would also stand the city in good stead for its bid to become a UNESCO Creative City Of Media Arts, he said.

The bid, which will be submitted this summer, seeks recognition for York’s world-class “connected community” of digital media and arts, which includes film, TV, software design, fine art, fashion, web-programming, heritage interpretation and graphic design.

Tickets for tomorrow’s event, which runs from 11.30am to 6pm, are sold out.

But you can follow it live online tomorrow, or simply find out more about it, by visiting ted.com/tedx/events/1144