As curator Chris Anderson says, politicians don’t generally turn up on the TED stage. This year, there are two in a row, as Alex Salmond is followed by Malte Spitz, a member of the Green Party in Germany. “A mobile phone can change your life and give you individual freedom,” says Spitz. “With a mobile phone you […]
In this taste of TEDGlobal, Massimo Banzi, the inventor of Arduino, offers an inspiring word on open-source creativity: “You don’t need anyone’s permission to create something great.” Watch Massimo’s TEDTalk >>
Brief: Stylistic, symbolic and metaphoric forms creating a visual poem about Radical Openness. Director’s statement: “In our shades of openness introduction, we tried to hint at some of the factors we are culturally faced with today. The ever watching eye of both corporations and government, the secrets behind closed doors, and a continual mistrust of […]
Alex Salmond is interested in the role of small countries in the world. And, “As the leader of a small country that’s had a big impact on the world, it’s something of a specialist subject of mine.” Indeed! Salmond was the First Minister of Scotland. He points to a remarkable moment at the height of the […]
Click to watch this session’s opening animation Too often, we view “openness” as an unmitigated Good Thing. Yet, as we’ve seen up close over the past decade or so, transparency comes with consequences. Reality is neither black nor white, and until we can learn to take a nuanced view of the problems with which we are […]
Natasha Paremski started taking piano lessons at the age of 4. Having moved from her native Russia to the United States in 1995, she made her professional debut with the El Camino Youth Symphony in California. She was 9. Since then, she has played with prestigious orchestras around the world while she was named the Classical […]
Watch Andreas Schleicher’s TED Talk >> “Learning is not a place, it’s an activity,” says Andreas Schleicher. He heads up the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment, also known as PISA, and he’s here to make the case that international comparisons of education systems can help to raise the global bar for students and learning. First, […]
“In System D, this is a store,” says Robert Neuwirth as he shows a photo of a woman sitting on a plank beside a canal in Makoko in Lagos, a booming shantytown built on stilts over the water. It’s a place where “there are no streets where there are stores to shop, and so the shop comes […]
Pankaj Ghemawat is the author of Global 3.0: Global Prosperity and How to Achieve It, and he takes the stage to ask an important question: Just how global are we really? It’s not a new question, of course. It’s one that David Livingstone first floated back in the 1850s, and one that’s been popularized by writers such […]
Jonathan Batiste is back onstage to open the second day of TEDGlobal with a doctored burst of Chopin’s “Funeral March” on the melodica leading into a beautiful rendition of “St. James Infirmary Blues” on the piano. As the song says, Batiste really is the “sharp-dressing piano-playing man” who neatly shifts right back to conclude with an […]
Brief: Extreme sharing by being visually extremely explosive. Director’s statement: “I set out to illustrate the growing ideas by literally showing some images growing in abstract yet organic ways. It’s a give-away materialized in a pictoral explosion.” — Sophie Gateau CREDITS: Direction, Design, Animation: Sophie Gateau http://www.sophiegateau.com/ Sound Design: Michael Kneebone / Toolbox Audio toolboxaudio.com […]
Click to watch the session-opening animation The world is becoming global — that’s an idea that has been around for many years now. But what effects will that have? What does it mean for the small countries? And the large ones? And just how global is it anyway? Session 4 at TEDGlobal explores these questions […]
When you hear the word “innovation,” an image may pop to mind of an intrepid inventor toiling in isolation — Benjamin Franklin flying his kite in a storm, or the Wright Brothers testing their flying machine on the beaches of Kitty Hawk. But during the first day of TEDGlobal 2012, speaker after speaker touted the […]
Those of us of a certain age remember when Macy Gray first rasped her way onto the scene. The 1999 release of her debut album, On How Life Is, together with its insidiously catchy single “I Try,” sparked a multi-award-winning career which has seen Gray sell over 15 million units. A somewhat unlikely pop star, Gray […]
A story of fear In 1819, off the coast of Chile, 20 American sailors watch their whaleship, the Essex, fill with seawater. It had been struck by a sperm whale. They took to their small boats, with limited equipment and little food and water. This story, from Stove by a Whale, the narrative of Owen […]
Eddie Obeng runs Pentacle, an online business school where he teaches “new world management.” He also has more energy than seems quite feasible in one human being. Soon after his arrival onstage, it’s clear why he won the unofficial award in rehearsals for “most words per minute.” Hold tight. This is quite a trip. Obeng starts off […]