In the grand scheme of things, food and water can go a long way. In this session we get back to basics, with talks about what’s in our food, how we grow it, and how we, err, dispose of it. The speakers who’ll appear in this session: Sipho Moyo wants to catalyze investment in and […]
The theme of Session 4 is Field Work — and we’re hearing from people who get outside, who work in the field and hear what’s really going on. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim is a professor at the University of Mauritius, and she’s here this morning to show us five plants unique to where she works and lives: the Mascarene Islands. […]
The speakers in this session can’t be contained in a cubicle or desk chair. These bold thinkers — from an activist surfacing human rights on video to a scientist uncovering the biodiversity of her island nation — do their work out in the world, surfacing fresh insights as they go. The speakers who’ll appear in this session: […]
Session 3 of TEDGlobal 2014 took a look at things thatmove across borders, from identity to violence, from money to music. Below, a recap of these moving talks. Filmmaker José Padilha, director of Elite Squad and the remake of RoboCop, talks about a new project about Friendship Bridge, which connects Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. A hotspot for violence, this slim arch […]
Growing up in a small village in India’s Orissa region, Dilip Ratha dreamed of becoming a poet. With only $20 in his pocket, he crossed two oceans and moved to the United States to study and is now an economist at the World Bank. But he always saved up money to send back to his father and brother. […]
Chief Tashka of the Yawanawá, an indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest, opens with a song, as is traditional of his people’s gatherings. He then begins to tell the story of Brazil’s indigenous rights movement that developed in the ’70s and ’80s, when many young people from the indigenous population (who make up about 1% […]
TED University is the raucous session before “real TED” starts when attendees get up and give their own short talks. (Some of our very favorite TED Talks came from this session, like talks on Lego, sex, and 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do.) This morning at a cheerful 9am, we met the […]
The past two weeks have been busy for the members of the TED community. Some news highlights: Artist JR is bringing the past back to life with his new series “Unframed.” He has taken archival photos of the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital in New York, closed since 1954, and pasted them up so that doctors who […]
TED has traveled to Tanzania, to Canada and to India. We’ve been to Germany, to Qatar and to assorted places throughout the United Kingdom and the state of California in the United States. But in a few weeks, we are headed for the first time to South America. TEDGlobal 2014 kicks off on Monday, October […]
Bhilwara is a city in Rajasthan, India, famous for its textile industry. Textiles dominate the local economy; after agriculture, it’s the leading employer in the city. The city is populated with spinning looms, fabric processing plants and weaving centers, producing huge swaths of yarn and thousands of tons of suiting fabric. But seeing Bhilwara merely […]
TEDGlobal 2014 is themed “South!,” and it will be the first official TED conference held in South America. Focusing on themes emerging around the world, this conference will take a bold look at the ideas flowing from the Global South, discussing innovation as well as social and political issues, art as well as education, resources […]
Most of us will, at some point, face a life crisis — divorce, job loss, illness, eviction. In the United States, 95% of social safety nets are provided by charity organizations and NGOs, so finding help in a crisis situation can be confusing and distressing. Erine Gray is the founder of Aunt Bertha, a free-to-use online platform […]
Bosnian photojournalist Ziyah Gafić photographs the aftermath of conflict. (Watch his TED Talk, “Everyday objects, tragic histories.”) In his most recent book, Quest for Identity, he catalogs the belongings of Bosnia’s genocide victims, everyday objects like keys, books, combs and glasses that were exhumed from mass graves. The objects are still being used to identify the bodies […]
Fisher Stevens produced The Cove, the 2009 Oscar-winning documentary about dubious Japanese dolphin-hunting practices, and his latest film takes him back into familiar waters. Stevens co-directed the newly-released doc Mission Blue, spending the last four years trekking around the world—from the Galapagos Islands to the Chesapeake Bay to the Great Barrier Reef—with unstoppable oceanographer Sylvia […]
Global health expert Alanna Shaikh gave an unexpected and moving talk at TEDGlobal 2012, called “How I’m preparing to get Alzheimer’s.” In it, she told the story of her father’s struggle with the disease, and outlined some strategies she’d devised in case dementia struck her later in life, too. The TED Blog was curious: How is her experiment […]
Sylvia Earle is a fearless 78-year-old woman. In the new documentary Mission Blue, we watch her dive with sharks in the deep blue sea and fearlessly dodge fishing nets as she swims through the middle of a major fishing operation. The film offers a bold new view of the famed oceanographer whose relentless pursuit of […]