Photo: James Duncan Davidson Jason Silva is a “performance philosopher” driven by the concept of awe. Inspired by Buckminster Fuller and Timothy Leary, his background of film and philosophy has given him the tools to create movie trailers for ideas — what he calls “philosophical shots of espresso.” In his eyes: Awe is ecstatic rapture. […]
Photos: James Duncan Davidson “I’m so nervous,” says a very sweet Raghu Dixit as he takes the TEDGlobal stage. The former microbiologist tells us that he quit his career 15 years ago “to become a rockstar.” Whereas one might usually scoff at such half-baked plans, TEDGlobal turns out to be the place where it’s actually paid off. […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson Robyn Meredith is a correspondent for Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong and author of The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What it Means for All of Us. She’s written about China for years, and she starts her talk with a lyrical image of the western dream of […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson Shyam Sankar, a data intelligence agent working at Palantir, leads off his talk with two games of chess. In 1997 Gary Kasparov lost to Deep Blue, a machine. It was an event remembered by many as a pivotal moment in the relationship between humans and computers. “To many, this was the […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson Don Tapscott has written 14 books about the digital, super-connected, hyper-collaborative world, and he has the distinct responsibility of officially kicking off Critical Crossroads, the first session of this year’s TEDGlobal conference. He gets a laugh early on: “Openness is a word denoting opportunity, possibilities, open-ended, open hearts, open source, open bar…” Tapscott […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson A darkened stage, a moment of silence … and a mysterious note of jazz. Opening TEDGlobal 2012 in Edinburgh, Scotland: Jonathan Batiste, a musician who has delighted audiences in more than 40 countries and collaborated with diverse musicians from Prince to Jimmy Buffett to Wynton Marsalis. He’s the co-director and music curator […]
Mission: Take chances, be brave, move ahead past the crossroads and achieve wisdom. From the director: “Crossroads are thresholds of exchange and choice, meeting places and tropes of possibility. The crossroads in our film allow us to explore these ideas and tensions, bringing out a sense that each decision we face can feel momentous and […]
Click above to watch the session-opening animation It’s time for TEDGlobal2012! We’ve gathered in beautiful Edinburgh for what we are quite sure will be a thought-provoking, mind-expanding conference. The overall theme of the event this year? Radical openness. As TEDGlobal2012 co-curator and TED’s European director Bruno Giussani reminded us, this is always a founding principle […]
TED University is our attendee-driven program, and this year’s is the most globally diverse group of attendees — people are here from 71 countries. We think of it as a snapshot and collage of who the TED audience is and what it is they do. And we begin with a meditation on what “radical openness” […]
Photo: Ryan Lash Andrew Nemr, tap dancerAndrew takes the stage again – one built especially for his performance here – to dance in improv based on his time at TED so far. Even as his rhythms – some familiar, some confounding – intensify, he dances as naturally as walking … painting with his body and […]
Photo: Ryan Lash At the Lyceum Theatre today, the TEDGlobal 2012 Fellows brought audiences to their feet with two sessions of astonishing and moving talks before TEDGlobal 2012 mainstage sessions began. Here’s the rundown: Usman Riaz, musician & artist Usman plays guitar like an introverted genius alien from another planet who landed here, happened to […]
Photo: Ryan Lash It was an emotional two sessions at the TED Fellows talks today at the Lyceum Theatre. The audience thrilled to the musical virtuosity of guitarist Usman Riaz and violinist Robert Gupta & Joshua Roman, cheered the political courage of artist Bahia Shehab, marvelled at the ingenuity of Sheref Mansy and Max Little’s […]
At the TEDx Workshop on Sunday, June 24, at TEDGlobal 2012, six TEDx organizers took the stage to address the best practices and lessons learned from organizing a TEDx event: Photo: Bret Hartman Everything is not a democracy, say no when you need to, says Dave Troy of TEDxMidAtlantic, who spoke on creating a resilient […]
Crossposted from the TEDx Tumblr: What do a zombie apocalypse, the spread of cholera, a burger box and toilets all have in common? All of them were mentioned this morning during the City 2.0 pitch sessions, hosted as part of our TEDx Workshop leading up to TED Global 2012 in Edinburgh, Scotland. There were four […]
TED Senior Fellow Robert Gupta thoughtfully captured in a stunning photo by Ryan Lash.
TEDx organizers hike a blustery Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh as photographed by the multitalented Bret Hartman.