As the TED Conference team departs for Tanzania and TEDGlobal 2007, the TED.com team is beginning the conversation online, with our latest theme: Africa: The Next Chapter. We start with an observation: That while we’re all familiar with Africa’s challenges — famine and disease, conflict and corruption — it’s less known that across the continent, […]
This week we’re posting three of the most-talked-about talks from TED2007 — Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, John Doerr and Blaise Aguera y Arcas’ remarkable demo of Seadragon/Microsoft Photosynth. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister for Nigeria (and the first woman to hold that job), argues for investment — rather than aid — as the means to help […]
Marine biologist Tierney Thys asks the audience to step into the open ocean for a visit to the world of the Mola mola, or giant ocean sunfish. Basking, eating jellyfish, and getting massages, this behemoth offers clues to life in the open ocean — which accounts for 90 percent of the living space on this […]
Jeff Hawkins brought us the indispensable Palm and Treo — now he’s turned his attention to the human brain, looking to our gray matter for clues to the next generation of powerful computers and software. To date, there hasn’t been an overarching theory of how the brain really works, Hawkins argues in this compelling talk […]
Rural villages worldwide are being deserted, as billions of people flock to cities, to live in teeming squatter camps and slums. And Stewart Brand says this is a good thing. Why? It’ll take you 3 minutes to find out. Music: Brian Eno, “Just Another Day on Earth,” from his 2005 album Another Day on Earth […]
Low-key and thoughtful, IDEO founder David Kelley seems the antithesis of the “design star” — and indeed, he says that product design, within the past two decades, has become much less about the design and more about the user who’ll be experiencing it. In this classic 2002 talk, he shares some video of products coming […]
What happens when a black man visits Aspen? Singer/songwriter Stew is about to let you know, with the arch humor and clever asides that characterize all his work (Hint: “It’s a winter wonderland in the belly of the beast.”) Stew is joined on stage by his partner/collaborator Heidi Rodewald (bass) and Jon Spurney (keyboard/guitar). (Recorded […]
Nora York — an adventurous jazz singer and genre-crossing performance artist — lit up the stage at last year’s TED salon with her stunning original song, “What I Want” (watch it now on TED.com). She returns to the New York stage this week with STACKED! : a retrospective evening of her hybrid and recombinant musical […]
Yes, it seems as though we just announced the 2007 wishes (and, in fact, we did), but it’s once again time to start the search for next year’s TED Prize winners. We’re looking for three more remarkable people that can tap into the energy of TED and do something extraordinary that will contribute to the […]