Sometimes it seems as if the Internet has created a bold new era of openness. But if there is one place where openness appears to be lagging, it would be scientific research. The scientific community is full of intricate (and often little-known) systems that regulate and control it, sometimes to great purpose, but sometimes to its […]Read more
In her 2013 TEDWomen Talk, entrepreneur (and TED Fellow) Jane Chen noted that “there are 15 million pre-term and underweight babies born every year around the world, and one of the biggest problems they face is staying warm.” Premature babies can’t properly regulate their body temperatures and need an incubator in order for their organs […]
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 […]
Wendy Morales is one of a group of TED-Ed Innovative Educators who got together at our recent TEDSummit conference. She files this report, which we’re cross-posting from her own blog, The Risk-Taking Educator: When asked what I do for a living, sometimes I catch myself saying, “I am just a teacher.” It’s as if I am apologizing […]
TED’s river of ideas is a constant flow — and sometimes vital topics make their way onto our site far before they head into the mainstream. As part of the 10th birthday of TED Talks, we highlight seven Talks that foresaw big trends when they were only ripples in the pond. Wikipedia: Is it really a thing? At […]
In Kingston, Jamaica, 4- to 6-year-olds in early education programs think about questions like, “What does it mean to be selfish?” In a school on the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan, fifth graders research topics like, “What is WordPress?” In rural Colombia, students at local libraries puzzle over prompts like, “Why are yawns contagious?” The School in […]
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, […]
Imagine you’ve been handed the biggest single cache of leaked documents in recent history. Eleven and half million documents to be exact, implicating important figures from around the globe in decades of tax evasion and hidden accounts. But you only have 26 people at your disposal to go through them. What do you do? This […]
This week at TEDSummit, we’re celebrating the creative forces flowing from TEDx events around the world. Check out these stunning video trailers, all of them custom-made for local TEDx events, that capture the regional style, the creativity and craft, the local visions … that represent the imagination of the global TEDx community. “End-beginning,” from TEDxThessaloniki “Taxi drivers,” from TEDxBuenosAires “Thinker,” from […]
Chances are, you probably haven’t heard of Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. But this rule, adopted on Monday by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), brings with it the potential for big global change. Section 1504 requires that all oil, gas and mining companies listed in the […]
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 […]
Who would have thought when you left those high school math problems behind that you would one day be encountering algorithms on a daily basis? Zeynep Tufekci might have guessed; now an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Information, Tufekci’s first job as a teenager was as a computer programmer. So […]
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 […]