Last week, I saw Barbara Walters’ list of “The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2014.” It included interesting thinkers like Elon Musk (watch his TED Talk) and George R.R. Martin (the author of Game of Thrones), along with crowd-pleasers like Taylor Swift and Oprah. But reading this list of almost exclusively marquee names made me think about some of the people […]
The TEDx community lost a beloved member this week. Giorgio Ungania, organizer and curator of TEDxDubai, passed away on Sunday at age 46. Giorgio was a force of life and an instrumental leader in our community, organizing his first event in 2009 and going on to organize many more events, including TEDxYouth@Dubai and TEDxDubaiChange. Giorgio was a […]
Around 39 million people in the world are affected by blindness — 80% of which could be avoided if people had timely access to diagnosis and proper treatment. The problem is that in many developing countries, most eye care providers are in cities, while the majority of patients live in hard-to-reach rural areas. To bridge this gap, London-based opthalmologist Andrew Bastawrous created Peek — an app […]
At the end of every December, we at the office get a little indignant that some of our favorite TED Talks from the year didn’t seem to do as well as we’d hoped. Some amazing talks, for whatever reason — whether they’re too absurd, niche or quirky, or simply were posted at a less than ideal time […]
On the day he was released from his cell, Vincent Cochetel sported a beard “that would be trendy today.” It was not a fashion decision. In 1998, Cochetel, the director of the Bureau for Europe for the UN High Commission on Refugees, was kidnapped in Chechnya and held hostage for 317 days, most of that time […]
We are thrilled to announce the new class of Fellows for TED2015. These 21 game-changing thinkers represent 15 countries—including, for the first time in our program, Vietnam, Romania and Tunisia. They work across disciplines, at the forefront of their fields. They include a South African physicist using lasers to target HIV and cancer; a German/Moroccan […]
By Jenny Groza Habana, Cuba, which was called “the rich man’s playground” before World War II, now evokes an air of mystery—a giant question mark. Are there still midcentury cars roaming the streets? Blighted neighborhoods with broken windows and collapsing roofs? Citizens eking out a living after years of oppression? These, says Andres Levin, the […]
Many unusual things have happened on the TED stage over the years. Our incredible speakers have done everything from perform magic tricks to attempt to set themselves on fire, all in the name of spreading their ideas. Although far from a complete list, here are some of the weirdest TED moments that we still haven’t […]
TEDsters have been busy, as always, during the last two weeks. Below, just a few of the members of our global community with news to share. Innovations poised to make a difference. Our friends over at Mashable created an excellent roundup of “14 innovations that improved the world in 2014.” It includes several innovations shared […]
Picture a spillway gate that doesn’t just release water from an overflowing river, but manipulates sediments to create new streams, islands and wetlands. And imagine that the gate does this autonomously, guided by ecological data and shifting needs — essentially allowing nature to “evolve.” Computational landscape architect Bradley Cantrell is figuring how to do this by applying […]
The biggest billboard in Times Square right now belongs to Google, announcing the new Nexus Player. A hockey puck-size device, it runs Android TV, which plays movies, TV and music — as well as games, apps and, ahem, TED Talks — on your television screen. Hence why, on this massive billboard, you can see our […]
Kid President warms hearts anytime he speaks. So what happens when he gives a “KID Talk”? A great opening line, tiny top hats for dogs and, of course, a dance. This talk gets a standing ovation from us—and we have a feeling it will send you off to the weekend in the right spirit. Watch Kid President’s […]
We all lead lives that move 1,000 miles per minute. In his TED Book, The Art of Stillness, Pico Iyer posits a bold idea: that in our chaotic time, the greatest luxury is actually the ability to go nowhere and do nothing. To Iyer, it’s this time for quiet, inward, still reflection that snaps all […]
The only way to get things done—set your eyes on the goal, tilt forward, start running, and build momentum. That is the wisdom behind the theme for TEDWomen 2015: Momentum. TEDWomen 2015 will be held May 27-29, 2015, in Monterey, California, and will bring together a community of thinkers, doers and dreamers from around the […]
“The world has a new mania — a mania for learning English,” said Jay Walker on the TED stage in 2009. English is accepted as a shared language of science, a language of global business and the language of the Internet, with at least 1.5 billion students learning it worldwide. So the TED Distribution team […]
Before Jackie Hodges arrived for orientation at Tufts University School of Medicine, she got a gift from her soon-to-be med school: a free download of the e-book The Upstream Doctors by Rishi Manchanda. In this book, Manchanda — who has worked for a decade as a doctor in community clinics around South Central Los Angeles […]