It’s never easy to push against the current, to experiment with what’s never been done before, challenge uncomfortable truths. But 400 TED Fellows do it every day, all around the world. In the newly released free digital book Swimming Against the Tide: Adventures with the TED Fellows, dive into the wonder, kinship, curiosity, hope and creation that […]
Bodacious beats: Kenyan musician, producer and DJ, “Blinky Bill” Sellanga simultaneously brought the house down and the TED audience to their feet with a lively, genre-bending musical performance. “My, oh my,” he sings: “What a wonderful feeling.” Sexual assault, social media and justice. One night, walking home from London’s Tube, Ione Wells was followed home, grabbed from behind, […]
Do we have the vision and the energy to confront seemingly impossible problems — like predatory corporations, political deadlock, the wasted potential of millions of refugees? Session 5 rounded up people who are jumping right in. A call to action on fossil fuels. Costa Rica, climate advocate Monica Araya’s native country, gets almost 100 percent of […]
This morning’s Session 4 explored the ways we connect — the pathways our money takes, our communication, our trust, even our intelligence(s). Read on: Trust in your neighbor, but maybe not in your bank. Why is it that, despite being told “don’t get into a car with a stranger” for as long as we can remember, […]
What are the tools we’re using to build the future? Session 3 speakers go deep on what’s next in finance, energy, business and the structures we live in. The next generation of trust on the Internet. For many online transactions, we rely on middlemen like banks and government to establish trust — but these systems face growing issues like […]
In Session 2, our speakers debunked received wisdom, looked critically at common knowledge — and restarted conversations we thought were closed. Here, our report: Antique lamps, new sound. Brothers Ryan and Hays Holladay opened Session 2 completely unseen. In near pitch-black darkness, broken antique lamps lit up one by one — each perfectly matched with an electronic musical […]
The TED Fellows program brings together young world-changers from many fields, from art to tech to activism, and encourages them to mix and combine and think big. On Monday morning we heard from a representative sample … Graffiti’s unifying vantage point. Street artist eL Seed shares the story of his most ambitious project yet: a mural […]
TEDSummit is a gathering of TED’s tribes — our speaker community, volunteer translators, TED Fellows, TEDx organizers, partners and more. In Session 1, we shared mainstage talks that sparkled with optimism for humanity — now and deep into our unknown future. Ideas that stand the test of time. TED’s curator, Chris Anderson, opened TEDSummit with a throwback […]
What is a soul? Lesley Hazleton, an “accidental theologist,” prodded the TEDSummit audience with this provocative question, tracing the cultural, religious and societal origins of a remarkably intangible human hallmark. The body and soul used to be considered two equal physical entities — in fact, Descartes theorized the soul was located in the brain’s pineal gland. Meanwhile, […]
In 2006, TED started putting talks online for free, a milestone in democratizing ideas worth spreading. Since then, the world has seen monumental shifts in history, including the rise and fall of revolutions, the roar of a deadly epidemic, the largest-ever leak of government secrets, an astronomical discovery predicted by Einstein and the election of […]
A design competition to reimagine death. 100 percent of the human population will die, and yet, why don’t we design for this inevitable outcome? OpenIDEO, design and innovation firm IDEO’s online innovation platform, has launched a new public design challenge to “reimagine the end of life experience.” BJ Miller is an advisor on the project […]
If you could pursue your most extraordinary passions, what would you do? Be an asteroid hunter out to save planet Earth? A theater director who brings indigenous voices to the stage? Or a news publisher who helps young people protect freedom of speech in Kyrgyzstan? Yes, real people get to do this incredible work. […]
A new way to practice for the SAT. The SAT, a standardized college admissions exam, is a mammoth test, and every minute of practice is invaluable. But SAT practice courses can be expensive — which oftentimes means kids with less money, or from disadvantaged backgrounds, do worse. One year ago, Khan Academy, a free online […]
Abandoned school turned maker space. Theaster Gates turns Chicago’s abandoned buildings into thriving hubs for art and education. His next project? Turning an old elementary school into a maker space. Gates heads Place Lab, a think tank that fuses the brainpower of urban planners, architects, artists and other diverse professionals to create “culture-led neighborhood transformation”. […]
The TED community has been very busy over the past few weeks. Below, some newsy highlights. 121 years of celebrating art. Originally an art exhibition, the Venice Biennale is a tradition stretching back to 1895 and has expanded over the years to include events for music, theater, film, dance and architecture. Opening on May 28, […]
As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights. A real-world test of basic income. Too often, humanitarian aid donations of food and materials, while well-intentioned, aren’t what the recipients actually need. But what about a different approach: giving people a basic income to spend however they like. […]