Big discovery for me this year is that the key enabling digital technology in the developing world is probably NOT the computer, but the cell-phone.– TEDster Tom Standage wrote a brilliant cover story in The Economist to this effect.– Iqbal Quadir‘s talk at TEDGLOBAL offered further powerful evidence via the astonishing story of Grameen Phone– […]
Some of the world’s greatest minds are consumed these days with the threat of avian flu. In an effort to better understand the evolution of the virus, scientists recently decoded — and published — the genome of the 1918 flu virus (which also jumped from birds to humans). A grave mistake, according to two eminent […]
Greg Shove introduces me to the intriguing website 43things.com, encouraging people to write down 43 goals and then share progress on meeting them with others. Aristotle would be shocked at how inward looking everyone is. Here is the list of the top personal goals of all time as measured by their readers (who are, in […]
Cameron Sinclair‘s mantra: Design like you give a damn. He’s the co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, a non-profit that seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crises and brings design services to communities in need. This past year has been a busy one for Cameron, with the tsunami, Katrina and the earthquake in Pakistan. He’s become the […]
It’s difficult to resist making a pun around the name Larry Brilliant. Board-certified in preventive medicine and public health, Larry lived in India for 10 years — first at a Himalayan monastery, and later as a diplomat working for the UN. He helped lead the successful WHO smallpox-eradication program and later founded the Seva Foundation, […]
Jehane Noujaim is the gutsy filmmaker behind Control Room, the controversial documentary following events at Al Jazeera — the largest Arab news network — from the onset of the Iraq war. Jehane left for Qatar two weeks before the US invasion and gained access to both Al Jazeera and the US Military’s Central Command. She […]
Continuing the global trend toward museum-as-architectural-showpiece, the new DeYoung opens tomorrow in San Francisco — and stays open for 29 straight hours of welcoming fanfare. Designed by Pritzker-winning architects Herzog & DeMeuron, the boxy copper-faced building was designed to promote meaningful interaction with the landscape, as well as the art. Does it succeed? We await […]
Among the newly minted 2005 MacArthur Fellows: Majora Carter, the charismatic pioneer for urban renewal who will speak at TED2006. Carter, who will receive one of the legendary $500K “genius grants,” founded Sustainable South Bronx, an organization that’s improved air quality, adopted green-roof technology, launched exercise programs, and built parks in a community that’s long […]
When Tom Rielly pointed out the prevalence of hirsute speakers at TEDGlobal (with a wink toward Steven Pinker and Aubrey DeGrey), we didn’t realize there was an organized movement behind it …
TED Prize winner Ed Burtynsky is known for his extraordinary large-format photographs, documenting the impact of humans on Earth. His epic slideshow at TED2005 took us through unorthodox landscapes — mountains of tires, rivers of industrial waste — as eerily beautiful as they are disturbing. You can revisit them (at your own pace) at the […]
At TEDGlobal this summer, Richard Dawkins outlined the limitations of the human mind. We live, he explained, in a middle-sized world, and have difficulty understanding anything very large — like solar systems — or very small, like atoms. So when Dartmouth researchers created the world’s smallest mobile robot, which measures a hundredth of an inch […]
Bowing to extraordinary public pressure, we are pleased to unveil the new TEDBLOG … a little taste of ongoing TEDness for those who feel that once a year just isn’t enough. The plan is to add a few items every week… to titillate, intrigue and delight. Matters scientific, techie, creative, entertaining and… well, anything that […]
Marketing guru Seth Godin, whose “Purple Cow” talk was a hit at TED2003, has launched an ingenious new site called Squidoo. It plans to accumulate content from anyone willing to play where each page (he calls it a lens) is a self-contained piece of expertise on a single topic. Seth believes this will help make […]