Top 7 Places to See Great Minds in Action

[Zholl]

While I definitely agree with you that championships deserves recognition as something where you can see great minds at work, I have to say I don't think that's what they're going for here. I'm not as familiar with the other 6, but I've seen several TED talks videos in the last year, and the rest seem to be quite similar. It looks like they're going more for places that collect a number of innovators and inventors from varying fields and have them speak about whatever they're working on or have done. For example, one of the coolest presentations I've seen with TED have was a demonstration of speakers producing hypersonic sound, which is a focused, directional beam of sound in the same way a laser is for light.
Basically, while FIRST showcases the future engineers, inventors, and innovators, these events showcase people who are already leaders in their fields, and have come up with new ideas, concepts, answers, and inventions and wish to share that knowledge.

By the way, I'm glad you posted this. It's neat to find all these other places that do the same thing as TED. All of the TED talks I've watched have been absolutely fascinating, and a few of them have blown my mind, so it's cool to find even more of these kinds of lectures.