Pakistani Composer Usman Riaz Named TED Senior Fellow

In his TED profile, Riaz said, “I began playing classical piano at the age of six and taught myself to play a variety of instruments using the Internet as a learning tool. I am a composer, filmmaker and visual artist.”

“Creativity and passion needs to be cultivated and harnessed in order to create something unique,” he said.

“I think it is important that people realize that they have the power to do anything,” he said. “People who are no different from us did everything that was accomplished and will be accomplished in this world. They believed in a vision that they had and executed it till it became a reality. Nothing is impossible.”

“After TED Global I have been traveling all over the world sharing my artwork and music with audiences to emphasize how we

can use multimedia around us to further our talents.”

Asked to tell a fun story about himself, he said, ”I once poked a fork into a boy’s posterior while he was climbing a flagpole at a wedding when I was three years old, thinking that he would fly to the top of the pole like they do in cartoons.”

“My father spent the rest of the wedding hiding from the boy’s muscle-bound father, as he searched for him with his angry son.”