I'm the head of curation at TED, where I have the joy of getting to work on TED Talks with the world's most incredible thinkers. In a previous life, I was the editor of innovation and design at Bloomberg Businessweek.
Legacy is a delightfully complex concept, and it’s one that the TED@Westpac curators took on with gusto for the daylong event held in Sydney, Australia, on Monday December 11th. Themed around the idea of “The Future Legacy,” the day was packed with speakers who took on topics ranging from education to work-health balance to designer babies.
Acumen founder Jacqueline Novogratz hosts this session of TEDWomen 2017, “Suspension,” featuring speakers including cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky, cellist Helen Gillet and psychiatrist (and former Zimbabwean rockstar) Dixon Chibanda.
Physician and UN High Commissioner Alaa Murabit hosts the second session of TEDWomen 2017, featuring all things design and a rousing performance from writer and activist Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes.
In this first session of TEDWomen, themed “Build,” we find ideas of power, empathy, ingenuity and radical humanity, to name just a few.
Writer Anand Giridharadas has come to TEDSummit to share an open letter to his fellow citizens. Invited by curator Bruno Giussani to address the dismay and confusion many have felt in the week after the Brexit vote result in the UK, the American writer and journalist lays out a vision that is as honest as […]
“I have passionate opinions about gender equality,” says writer Roxane Gay. She takes the TEDWomen stage to tell us how she became known as a bad feminist. Turns out, it was a label she gave herself, almost as a personal joke. After all, she thought, real feminists were “angry, hairy, man-hating, sex-hating women” — and she […]
Oculus VR may have won the headlines today by, you know, being acquired by Facebook for $2 billion. But last week it won the hearts and minds of the TED crowd. First, former NFL punter Chris Kluwe showed footage of a guy wearing an Oculus Rift headset and riding a virtual rollercoaster (video shown, bottom — jump to the […]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR2E9i3g0po&w=560&h=315%5D Predictions are a mug’s game. If they come true, you likely didn’t push your thinking hard enough. If they don’t come true, you risk looking like an idiot. Nonetheless, many speakers at the annual TED conference have taken the plunge and proffered thoughts of what the future might look like. The video above […]
Sarah Jones is an actor and monologuist who comes on stage to explain her own diverse background. “I grew up in a family that was multi-everything, black and white, Caribbean, Irish American, German American, there was Dominican music playing from the stereo, Christians and Jews (that’s a long story).” But then, before we quite know what’s happening, […]
Rick Ledgett is the deputy director of the National Security Agency. He’s here to give a response to Edward Snowden’s onstage/virtual appearance at TED earlier in the week. (See the talk, Here’s how we take back the Internet.) On Tuesday, the former NSA sysadmin made the case for open government and private lives, arguing that “we […]
Armed with an accordion and wearing a fetching chocolate brown pork pie hat, musician Jason Webley is here. Or as he puts it, an “unknown hairy guy who plays the accordion” is here. Having navigated some technical difficulties, Webley brings the audience firmly on side with his self-deprecating humor and folksy blend of charming cod philosophy. With […]
So what went down at TED on day two? Well, a lot, as it happens. As curator Chris Anderson commented rather tiredly later, “that was the most intense day of TED I can remember, ever.” Here, a lightning round-up of some of the day’s key moments. Edward Snowden trundles onto stage The first big surprise […]
Here’s a moment that a certain formerly absurdly hormonal teenage girl had been looking forward to for some time. As had many others in the audience, to judge from the rapturous applause that greets Sting as he takes the TED stage. He plays some songs from his upcoming Broadway musical, The Last Ship. It’s the story […]
Gavin Schmidt is the author of Climate Change: Picturing the Science, described by Popular Mechanics as “the first book anyone seeking a layman’s understanding of the science of global warming should read.” He’s here to talk about the environment and the models we’ve built to understand this astonishingly complex issue. Because, for one thing, you can’t just […]
So here’s a surprise. Chris Anderson takes the stage to introduce a very special guest — who’s not actually here. Beaming in from a remote location in Russia, controlling a bot he can wheel around the stage to see the assembled audience, here’s arguably the most controversial figure in contemporary culture: Edward Snowden. As he […]
It’s time for TED! And first on our *brand-new stage* in Vancouver is the iridescent Kevin Olusola from Pentatonix, who starts the show off in a typically mind-shifting way, playing cello and, well, beatboxing. In honor of the fact that this is, after all, the 30th year of the conference, he takes us on a […]