At the intersections where we meet and collaborate, we can pool our collective wisdom to seek solutions to the world’s greatest problems. But true change begs for more than incremental steps and passive reactions — we need to galvanize transformation to create our collective future. To celebrate the effort of bold thinkers building a better […]
What a week. We’ve heard so much, from dystopian warnings to bold visions for change. Our brains are full. Almost. In this session we pull back to the human stories that underpin everything we are, everything we want. From new ways to set goals and move business forward, to unabashed visions for joy and community, […]
Sketches that speak volumes. When illustrator Christoph Niemann wakes up after falling asleep on an airplane, he says, “I have the most terrible taste in my mouth that cannot be described with words … But it can be drawn.” Then he shows a spot-on sketch of an outstretched tongue with a dead-fish-rat-hybrid creature on it. […]
“It’s my belief that trust is the foundation for everything we do,” says Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei, “and that if we can learn to trust on another more, we can have unprecedented human progress.” What to do, then, when trust is broken? In companies, there are many reasons that a rupture can happen. […]
During the week of TED, it’s tempting to feel like a brain in a jar — to think on a highly abstracted, intellectual, hypertechnical level about every single human issue. But the speakers in this session remind us that we’re still just made of meat. And that our carbon-based life forms aren’t problems to be […]
The seven speakers lived up to the two words in the title of the session. Their talks showcased both our collective insanity — the algorithmically-assembled extremes of the Internet — and our humanity — the values and desires that extremists astutely tap into — along with some speakers combining the two into a glorious salad. […]
What we need sometimes is a little awe, a little wonder. This session of TED Talks was designed to provoke an exquisite human emotion: the sense that the world is bigger and stranger than you’d known. Without further ado, wow. A blueprint for how humans and machines can coexist. American researchers are leading AI discoveries, […]
This beautiful blue marble, our shared earth: On a sunny morning in Vancouver, we pack into the darkened TED theater to learn more about its mysteries, its challenges, and how we might help it thrive. There’s no shiny “nature porn” here (well, maybe a little bit) but a clear-eyed look at what’s going right and […]
Session 5, hosted by TED Curator Chris Anderson and astrophysicist and TED Fellow Jedidah Isler, is called “space to dream.” As Isler points out, we’re not just talking about outer space — it’s also about “the right to take up space, to dream, to do.” Seven dreamers, doers and designers offer a variety of ways […]
For the Session 3 of the conference, TED Head of Curation Helen Walters says, “We’re throwing off all pretense of cool.” Seven speakers are queued up to discuss the latest advances in their fields of technology. And while the gadgets do all different things, they share one crucial function: the power to make jaws drop. […]
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, says TED Curator Chris Anderson as he opens Session 2, “we used to think that democratically-powered capitalism was supposed to take over the world.” Political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously called it the “end of history.” So now what happens? Five TED speakers come to the stage to talk […]
Let it be noted, says co-host Chris Anderson, that this year’s TED started with a roaring cheer and with a scream of anguish. Our job this week is to explore what’s amazing, in every sense of the word, from the jaw-droppingly wonderful to the shocking and urgent. So Chris and co-host Helen Walters have decided […]
To commence TED Fellows Session 2, multi-hyphenate Paul Rucker takes the stage with his cello. (Spoiler alert: you will see him later in this writeup showcasing another artform.) Inspired by his mother, who learned to play the organ through a mail-order course, Rucker taught himself how to play this instrument. But right here on the […]
Forget those miserly folk who hoard their best for the last — TED believes in starting strong. Kicking off TED2018 is Session 1 of the TED Fellows, who count among their ranks artists, activists, scientists, researchers, conservationists, thinkers and changemakers of all kinds. The Fellows program now total 453 individuals from 96 countries. In this […]
Behold, your recap of TED-related news: Remembering Billy Graham. For more than 60 years, pastor Billy Graham inspired countless people around the world with his sermons. On Wednesday, February 21, he passed away at his home in North Carolina after struggling with numerous illnesses over the past few years. He was 99 years old. Raised […]
Behold, your recap of TED-related news: Print your own pharmaceutical factory. As part of an ongoing quest to make pharmaceuticals easier to manufacture, chemist Lee Cronin and his team at the University of Glasgow have designed a way to 3D-print a portable “factory” for the complicated and multi-step chemical reactions needed to create useful drugs. […]