TEDBlog November, 2010 Archive
30 November 2010
The walk from “no” to “yes”: William Ury on TED.com
At TEDxMidwest, William Ury, author of “Getting to Yes,” offers an elegant, simple (but not easy) way to create agreement in even the most difficult situations — from family conflict to, perhaps, the Middle East. (Recorded at TEDxMidwest, June 2010 in Chicago. Duration: 18:45)
Watch William Ury’s talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 800+ TEDTalks.
29 November 2010
What’s wrong with our food system: Birke Baehr on TED.com
11-year-old Birke Baehr presents his take on a major source of our food — far-away and less-than-picturesque industrial farms. Keeping farms out of sight promotes a rosy, unreal picture of big-box agriculture, he argues, as he outlines the case to green and localize food production. (Recorded at TEDxNextGenerationAsheville 2010, August 2010 in Asheville, NC. Duration: 5:15)
Watch Birke Baehr’s talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 800+ TEDTalks.
26 November 2010
Fellows Friday with Yamini Aiyar
Interactive Fellows Friday Feature!
Join the conversation by answering Fellows’ weekly questions via Facebook. This week, Yamini asks:
Do you have any innovative ideas on how to use new technologies, like the Internet and mobile phones, to disseminate information to disparate rural populations?
Click here to respond!
Tell us about the Accountability Initiative.
With economic liberalization and high growth rates, India’s social sector expenditures have increased significantly over the last decade or so. Yet, India continues to perform poorly on every conceivable human development indicator.
With this in mind, we set up the Accountability Initiative in 2008. Our starting point was to try and understand what happens with government money once it leaves the government coffers. Additionally, we do research to study the effectiveness of accountability efforts, like the Right to Information Act, to strengthen the public debate on improving accountability.
About twenty years ago, former Prime Minster Rajiv Gandhi summarized the accountability problem in India by saying that, of every one rupee that is meant to reach a village, only 1/15 of it reaches that village. Since then, every politician has attested to that fact, but nobody has attempted to systematically track this to see what actually happens on the ground.
So we decided to find out: of that one rupee, how much actually reaches the school or the health center? What actually happens to it, and why does spending this money not quite yield results?
22 November 2010
Creating a compassionate world: Roundup of TEDPrize@UN
On Nov. 18, TEDsters gathered at the UN to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Charter for Compassion — Karen Armstrong’s 2008 TED Prize Wish. The event, TEDPrize@UN featured talks on compassion by a number of fascinating speakers.
Watch the archive of the TEDPrize@UN webcast >>
Photos from the event:
Karen Armstrong: “We need to apply the Golden Rule globally. It’s not just a nice thing to do; it’s essential to our survival.”
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf: “Compassion is our mandate. It is, and must be, the purpose for which we all live.”
Chade-Meng Tan talks about how to foster compassion in a corporate setting.
Pakistani musician Salman Ahmad plays “Open Your Eyes.”
Krista Tippett: “What is compassion? Compassion is a spiritual technology. Humanity needs this technology as much as the other technologies that connect us.”
Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell: “Compassion is, at its heart, something deeply personal.”
Fred Luskin: “Compassion comes from the recognition that all of us are vulnerable.”
(All photos credit: Alison Wright)
22 November 2010
Exclusive: Q&A with TED Fellow Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, candidate for president of Nigeria
TEDGlobal 2009 Fellow Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has announced his candidacy for president of Nigeria. In his first North American interview since the announcement, the anti-corruption activist spoke with TED’s Emeka Okafor, keeper of the seminal Africa blog Timbuktu Chronicles.
There is a tremendous amount of interest in your run for presidency. What would you attribute this to?
There is a powerful yearning for accountable and transparent leadership in Nigeria today. I am talking of a leadership that is able to address the ordinary peoples’ pressing problems and also reassure them that they really matter, that this country belongs to them.
It is now 11 years since our country returned to democratic rule, but the expected fruits are not visible; the economy is not generating jobs to match the rapidly growing population. Public education at all levels has collapsed. Cholera and other easily preventable diseases are ravaging the countryside, and infrastructure critical to economic development and social regeneration have been neglected over the years.
These are some of the things Nigerians are complaining about, and they are therefore looking for new political leadership, vigorous and purpose-driven leadership, to change the Nigerian story from pain and penury to prosperity and hope.
But we must be careful not to personalize the story and say the huge interest in my bid for the presidency is Nuhu Ribadu’s doing alone. I am running on the platform of a political party that stands for excellence in public service, a party that puts the needs of ordinary Nigerians first. Yet to talk of party is only, if I may use the expression, a tip of the iceberg. We are working within a broad canvass, a canvass which is indeed a coalition of progressive elements in the country. I also have an able and dedicated team working with me on my campaign. Some of these people are house-hold names in my country; they stand out because of their commitment to justice and the welfare of the ordinary people over the years. Nigerians know this, and they are rallying to our platform because they feel that this is a group whose promises they can rely on; a team that will go to any length to ensure their welfare. Above all, Nigerians are sick and tired of the problem of corruption, a problem that has eaten up their resources to the extent of eating up their future. They know we have proven record to reverse this problem. That is why we are here today, in the hearts and minds of our people.
So I think these are some of the reasons why Nigerians are now standing up to be part of history, to be part of the new movement to make this country work for all again, big and small, poor and rich.
19 November 2010
TEDxYouthDay is on!
TEDxYouthDay events have begun around the world! Watch the TEDxYouthDay Livestream — or sign up for a Meetup Everywhere to watch the stream.
Many events on Nov. 20, including TEDxYouth@Tokyo, TEDxYouth@HongKong, TEDxYouth@Singapore and TEDxYouth@NASA, will be collaborating through the livestream to do shout-outs and program sharing to other TEDxYouthDay events.
Plus! Jim Stolze from TEDxAmsterdam collaborated with Morley (who is also performing at TEDWomen!) to create this TEDxYouthDay song and music video “We Will Change Everything.” The video was crowdsourced from footage sent in from the TED and TEDx community. Watch above — or watch at a local TEDxYouthDay event.
19 November 2010
Fellows Friday with Shereen El Feki
Interactive Fellows Friday Feature!
Join the conversation by answering Fellows’ weekly questions via Facebook. This week, Shereen asks:
Have you or someone you know encountered discrimination because of HIV or related risk-behaviors? Do you know anyone who has been targeted by the police on these grounds? Or denied healthcare? I’d like to hear your experiences–what happened, what were the consequences and what you’d like to see change to improve the lives of those living with HIV/AIDS and those at greatest risk of infection.
Click here to respond!
Tell us about your recent appointment to the Global Commission on HIV and the Law.
In June, the United Nations Development Programme launched the Global Commission on HIV and the Law to look at legal frameworks around the world affecting the welfare of people living with HIV and those at greatest risk of infection.
The Commission has fourteen members from across the globe, comprising the great and the good — present company excluded! It’s chaired by former President Cardoso of Brazil, and it includes legal experts, parliamentarians and human rights advocates. I had the good fortune to be chosen to sit on the Commission. They also very kindly invited me to serve as Vice Chair, which is a tremendous opportunity and an exciting challenge.
The Commission has several elements. One is trying to assemble the evidence base on the interaction between law and HIV. Key to that process is a series of regional dialogues, in which the Commission will be soliciting submissions from NGOs, legal experts, policymakers among others — local and international — to understand how the law plays out on the ground. The Commission is scheduled to produce its final report at the end of next year.
The law might seem like a very technical, niche aspect of dealing with the global HIV epidemic. But the law is both a reflection, and an engine, of social attitudes. There is enormous stigma and discrimination associated with HIV in many parts of the world. Change the law, and you can help to change social attitudes — not overnight, but with time and a lot of effort to translate legal reform from the books into everyday life. So this Commission is a wonderful opportunity to galvanize attention and interest in this important tool of social change.
(more…)
18 November 2010
My green school dream: John Hardy on TED.com
Join John Hardy on a tour of the Green School, his off-the-grid school in Bali that teaches kids how to build, garden, create (and get into college). The centerpiece of campus is the spiraling Heart of School, perhaps the world’s largest freestanding bamboo building. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2010, July 2010 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 13:36)
Watch John Hardy’s talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 800+ TEDTalks.
18 November 2010
Today, watch the TEDPrize@UN webcast
Today, Thursday, Nov. 18, at 11 a.m. ET, join us in celebrating the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Charter for Compassion — Karen Armstrong’s 2008 TED Prize Wish. The event, TEDPrize@UN — hosted by the United Nations — will be streamed live over the web, and feature talks on compassion by a number of fascinating speakers:
- Karen Armstrong (watch her 2008 and 2010 TEDTalks)
- Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell
- Matthieu Ricard (watch his 2007 TEDTalk)
- Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (watch his 2009 talk)
- Chade-Meng Tan
- Krista Tippett
- Fred Luskin
Watch the webcast
The webcast will stream live from 11 a.m. ET to 1 p.m. ET on the Charter for Compassion website.
We encourage you to host a viewing party for family and friends — or get your organization involved. Around the world, groups and organizations are coming together to learn about compassion, celebrate the Charter for Compassion, or engage in compassionate actions. Find an event near you, or create your own.
17 November 2010
TEDWomen lineup announced!
With three weeks to go before the event, we’re proud to present the TEDWomen speaker lineup for the event happening Dec. 7-8, 2010, in Washington, DC. Our theme is “Reshaping the Future” — and the program highlights women as powerful innovators and architects of change.
Along with TED’s curatorial partner The Paley Center for Media, we’ve planned a program that’s wide-ranging and unexpected, introducing people and ideas you haven’t encountered before, along with iconic leaders offering new insight. Some of these include:
Pioneers rethinking national systems, from Icelandic economist Halla Tomasdottir, charged with rebuilding her country’s economy, to India’s pioneering prison supervisor Kiran Bedi, to Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, rebuilding her country after years of war.
Game-changing inventors, from MIT roboticist Cynthia Breazeal, who’s rethinking how machines can act more like humans, to Ugandan farmer Annet Namayanja, who’s bred a new kind of protein-rich bean.
Extraordinary individuals, like Lemeria Ole, a Masai father who has never before left his village in Kenya, but wanted to share his ideas about the value of educating daughters rather than selling them into marriage. Or the “9/11 mothers” Aicha El-Wafi and Phyllis Rodriguez, who forged an unlikely friendship after losing their sons to acts of terrorism.
Creative, collaborative partners like National Geographic filmmakers Beverly and Dereck Joubert and Babble.com founders Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman.
Media magnates like CNN founder Ted Turner … Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg … Sun Television co-owner Yang Lan (known in the US as “China’s Oprah”).
Inspired, purpose-driven artists, like Benin-born musician Angelique Kidjo … Iranian filmmaker/artist Shirin Neshat … playwright Eve Ensler, the founder of V-Day
Powerful forces in politics and diplomacy, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams … former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright … and Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
International thinkers like global health guru Hans Rosling and National Geographic explorer Elizabeth Lindsey
TEDWomen will be held December 7-8, 2010, in Washington, DC. The conference is sold out, but you can still take part in what promises to be the most talked-about TED in years:
Watch the webcast. It’s available for just $100, and allows you to watch the stream with up to 10 friends. Register for the webcast >>
Attend a TEDx for TEDWomen event. More than 75 simultaneous TEDx events are happening worldwide. Find one near you >>
Watch the talks on TED.com. We will be releasing talks from TEDWomen beginning Dec. 7!
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