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New initiatives from TED to share ideas, build community and stay hopeful

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(Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Now more than ever is the time for community. The global team at TED is working hard to keep you connected, deliver thoughtful news and insights from world leaders, and offer opportunities to volunteer from the safety of your homes. Here’s a recap of the various resources we’re making immediately accessible while many of us are staying home to help stop the coronavirus.

Join us for TED Connects: Community and Hope

TED is committed to being a reliable source of information with regularly updated talks, interviews and TED-Ed lessons related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The talks are vetted by TED’s curators — experienced journalists from fields including science, business, media and current affairs. 

We’re also announcing TED Connects: Community and Hopea live, daily conversation series with global leaders and experts, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers. TED Connects kicks off Monday, March 23 and is free and open to anyone. To participate, bookmark this page and join us daily at 12pm ET and subscribe for reminders.

This week, we’re featuring experts whose ideas can help us reflect and work through this uncertain time with a sense of responsibility, compassion and wisdom. Here’s the lineup:

  • Monday, March 23, 12pm ET: How to be your best self in times of crisisSusan David, Harvard Medical School psychologist studying emotional agility 
  • Tuesday, March 24, 12pm ET: The healthcare systems we must urgently fix Bill Gates, business leader and philanthropist 
  • Wednesday, March 25, 12pm ET: What we can learn from China’s response to the coronavirus Gary Liu, CEO of the South China Morning Post
  • Thursday, March 26, 12pm ET: The quest for the coronavirus vaccineSeth Berkley, epidemiologist and head of GAVI, the vaccine alliance
  • Friday, March 27, 12pm ET: How to create meaningful connection while apartPriya Parker, author, The Art of Gathering

New from TED-Ed: TED-Ed@Home

TED’s award-winning youth and education initiative, TED-Ed, is focused on providing free, high-quality educational resources to families throughout the world. TED-Ed’s existing library of free, video-based lessons has been built by a network of 500,000 educators, spans all ages and subjects and features interactive lesson plans that complement thousands of TED-Ed Animations, TED Talks and other carefully curated educational videos.

You can have these lesson plans delivered to your inbox daily by signing up for TED-Ed@Home — a new, free newsletter designed for families. The TED-Ed@Home newsletter features interactive, video-based lessons created by expert educators and TED speakers, and each lesson is organized by age group and subject.

And another fun thing: feed your curiosity and stay engaged with the TED-Ed Daily Challenge. Join @tededucation on Instagram Live each weekday at 2pm ET, when TED speakers, educators and experts from around the world will share creative, interactive, family-oriented lessons and challenges you can do together at home.

TED Circles: A resource for community and connection

Meaningful conversations create personal connections that collectively strengthen communities. In September 2019, TED launched TED Circles, an open platform of small, volunteer-led groups that engage in conversations about ideas. In light of the physical limitations many communities currently face, TED Circles is a powerful way to continue connecting and engaging (virtually) face-to-face on a variety of topics. With TED Circles, hosts pick a TED Talk, invite people to join and facilitate a constructive conversation. Circles then share their takeaways online so that the group can gain one another’s perspectives and create global connections.

Learn more about joining a virtual Circle around the monthly themes (March: “Who has power”; April: “A changing world”; May: “Life at its fullest”) and/or special programming featured each month. In the spirit of creating space for conversation, Circles can discuss monthly themes or expert ideas to help communities think through this challenging time.

Circles can be hosted by individuals, schools/universities, organizations/businesses, TEDx organizers and TED-Ed clubs. Sign up to become a host.

Virtual volunteering: Become a TED Translator

Speak another — or many — languages? The TED Translators program is a global volunteer network that subtitles TED Talks and allows ideas to cross languages and borders. For those who are multilingual, being a TED Translator is a unique opportunity to have impact from the safety of your living room — while connecting and collaborating with a global community. Learn more about how to become a TED Translator. 

Gratitude

In this challenging moment, our global community inspires all of us at TED. We want to be here for you and hope these platforms offer connection, information and even inspiration as we work through this time. We must lean on one another for collective insights, learnings, kindness and compassion — as well as our physical health. We are eager to see you soon, and in the interim we hope these opportunities to connect offer meaningful moments of engagement.