The TED Prize was introduced in 2005, and it is unlike any other award. Although the winners receive a prize of $100,000 each, the real prize is that they are granted a WISH. “A wish to change the world.” There are no formal restrictions on the wish. We ask our winners to think big and to be creative. The goal is that it creates an incredible sense of excitement and common purpose. It inspires the TED community, and all those who hear about the wish, to offer their help in making the wish come true.
Three winners are chosen each year. They could be anyone with world-changing potential: inventors or entrepreneurs, designers or artists, visionaries or mavericks, story-tellers or persuaders. But they must be people who the judges believe have the ability to inspire others to do something great for the world.
Our new winners, religious scholar Karen Armstrong, author Dave Eggers and physicist Neil Turok, will announce their wishes at TED2008 in Monterey, on February 28, 2008, and their presentations will be released online to the world shortly afterward.