Live from TED

Announcing the results of TED’s Full Spectrum auditions

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We’re thrilled to announce the results of our Full Spectrum auditions — TED’s first-ever audition for the main stage of TED2012.

Seventeen finalists gave short TEDTalks in the onstage auditions at New York’s Hiro Ballroom on May 24 (you can watch the archived video stream). An audience of 200 friends voted, using a ranking system of 1 to 5. And the results are:

Audience favorite: Reggie Watts! This boundary-breaking comedian will be speaking at TED2012. His reaction: “Wowie!!”

Three more audience favorites will have their talks posted to TED.com in coming weeks:

BeatJazz inventor and controllerist Onyx Ashanti
Bipolar comedian Joshua Walters
iPad storyteller Joe Sabia

And for a few more audience favorites … we’re exploring projects with them that we’ll announce in the coming months. Watch this space for news.

See photos of the show and portraits of the speakers on Flickr >>

Photo: James Duncan Davidson