3 teenage thinkers with big ideas for energyTaylor Wilson has been called “The Boy Who Played With Fusion” by Popular Science magazine. At age 9, Wilson stunned tour guides at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with his complex understanding of rocket science. At 12, he set out to make a “star in a jar.” By 14, Wilson had become […]
“William and the Windmill” wins Grand Jury Award at SXSWLast night at SXSW, William and the Windmill was awarded one of the festival’s top two honors, taking home Grand Jury Award for Documentary Feature. The film tells the story of TED Speaker William Kamkwamba, who has come to be known by the title of his memoir, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. At age […]
The psychology of saving energy: Alex Laskey at TED2013Have you checked your email today? Your finances? What about your energy use? Alex Laskey thinks that with just a shift in attitude toward our energy use, we can all save a lot. Laskey introduces an experiment he ran with his team at Opower. People received one of three different messages on their doors about […]
Good energy comes in small packages: Taylor Wilson at TED2013Taylor Wilson graduated from high school in May. And Popular Science has already dubbed him “The Boy who Played with Fusion” and Forbes has suggested that he may just be “The Bill Gates of Energy.” Wilson first received attention at the age of 14, after building a nuclear fusion reactor he’d dreamed up in his parents’ garage. He spoke at TED2012 […]
Transforming transportation: Elon Musk at TED2013The cofounder of PayPal, Elon Musk has become one of his generation’s most aggressive, not to mention successful, entrepreneurs. As CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors and CEO and CTO of SpaceX, his interests clearly lie in transforming transportation and creating an economy built on sustainable energy. Now he takes the TED stage to tell us more. First, he talks about […]
How about creating a national energy policy?: Jennifer Granholm at TED2013Kicking off the TED conference would be a daunting prospect for most, but Jennifer Granholm has tackled both nastier challenges and less friendly audiences in her time. After all, she is the former governor of Michigan, a state that, as the blurb to her book A Governor’s Story: The Fight for Jobs and America’s Economic Future puts it, was “synonymous with […]
Four very fresh ideas about air conditioningAir conditioning used to be a luxury — but as Doris Kim Sung points out in this talk from TEDxUSC, modernized society has become thoroughly air-conditioning reliant. This is largely a problem of materials, says Sung, a professor at the USC School of Architecture. Many new buildings — especially skyscrapers — are built with floor-to-ceiling […]
Unveiled at TED2009: In this brief talk, Saul Griffith debuts the invention his new company Makani Power has been working on: giant kite turbines that create surprising amounts of clean, renewable energy. (Recorded at TED2009, February 2009, in Long Beach, California. Duration: 05:25.) Watch Saul Griffith’s talk from TED2009 on TED.com, where you can download […]
William Kamkwamba, a young Malawi man who designed and built a windmill for his family when he was 14 — and who spoke so memorably at TEDGlobal Africa this June — is profiled on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal in a story headined “A Young Tinkerer Builds a Windmill, Electrifying a Nation.” […]
Last night in Manhattan, TED hosted its 2007 Salon, called “Hot Science: Radical Ideas to Combat the Climate Crisis.” A detailed roundup is coming later today — but first, a few quotes from last night: The first speaker, Michael Oppenheimer, began by saying: “I’m the depressing, immobilizing part of the talk.” He went on to […]
Bill Stone, the maverick cave explorer and diver — who has invented robots and rebreathing equipment to let him plumb Earth’s deepest abysses — talks about his efforts to build a robot to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. The plan is to send the droid to bore through miles of ice and swim through a liquid […]
