As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions — Islam, Judaism, Christianity — have been diverted from the moral purpose they share: to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act […]
Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to engage with their local school. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own volunteer-driven, wildly creative writing labs. But you don’t need to go that far, he reminds us […]
At TED2008 in Monterey, two sketch artists captured the Big Questions live as they happened — watching each speaker, sketching their impressions, and feeding everything into a groundbreaking new system for sharing and connecting ideas. Autodesk‘s BigViz system is an interactive way to record and synthesize big ideas in a collaborative environment — what better […]
From the TED archives: Speaking at TED2 in 1990, the not-yet-legendary architect Frank Gehry takes a whistlestop tour of his work to date, from his Venice Beach house to the under-construction American Center in Paris. Over the course of this 45-minute slideshow (before TED’s 18-minute limit), Gehry explains the site-specific nature of his buildings — […]
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story of recovery […]
[Updated 3/12, 10am] Crusading journalist Andrew Mwenda and think tank leader James Shikwati — both stars of TEDGlobal Africa last summer — as well as TEDGlobal Fellow Paul Van Zyl and architect Cameron Sinclair, winner of the 2006 TED Prize, have all been named Young Global Leaders for 2008 by the World Economic Forum. Each […]
Today we’re throwing open the door to our back archive, beginning with Nicholas Negroponte’s talk from TED 1. Yes, TED 1. 1984. TED’s co-founders, Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks, had the foresight to record every conference he held. And I can’t tell you what a thrill it was to see the full archive for the first […]
Speaking at the first TED Conference, in 1984, Nicholas Negroponte talks about the converging fields of technology, entertainment and design. Years before anyone was using the word “convergence,” Negroponte was thinking about TV screens as the “electronic books of the future,” and computers as the future of education. In excerpts from his 2-hour talk (this […]
“Can we create new life out of our digital universe?” asks Craig Venter. And his answer is, yes, and pretty soon. He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into “fourth-generation fuels” — biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock. His talk covers the details of creating brand-new chromosomes using digital technology, the […]
With all the intensity and brilliance he is known for, Alan Kay gives TEDsters a lesson in lessons. Kay has spent years envisioning better techniques for teaching kids, and in this talk, after reminding us that “the world is not what it seems,” he shows us how good programming can sharpen our picture. His unique […]
Photo: Andrew Heavens/TED As Megan Barnett writes on > + The “Ode to Joy” comes from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Though Zander’s own recording of Beethoven’s 9th, with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, is out of print, it is fascinating to read his thoughts on the way the 9th should be played >> + You can find […]
Photos: Andrew Heavens “Imagine Martin Luther King saying, ‘I have a dream … But I don’t know if the others will buy it.’” – Boston Philharmonic conductor Ben Zander, on the importance of persuasive leadership “Human progress depends on unreasonable people. Reasonable people accept the world as they meet it; unreasonable people persist in trying […]
Photos: Michael Brands/Aspen Institute For the final sessions of TED@Aspen, we packed into the main hall of Doerr-Hosier for the Kids’ Table Collective — Rives, Jill Sobule, Ze Frank and the Raspyni Brothers (special appearance by Jennifer O’Donnell). Thrilling stunts and comedy and a standing ovation from the kids in Monterey capped off a week […]
(Unedited running notes from the TED2008 conference in Monterey, California. Session twelve – closing session.) The session opens with the projection of will.i.am’s "Yes We Can" viral video based on Barack Obama’s speech. The two producers are in the audience. The video has been seen millions of times, a demonstration of the power of individuals […]
(Unedited running notes from the TED2008 conference in Monterey, California. Session eleven.) Ben Kaufman, founder of Kluster, goes on stage to tell what he and his team have been doing — with the help of TED attendees and 1200 people around the world — since the beginning of the conference. Kluster is an online collaboration […]
Photo: Michael Brands/Aspen Institute Friday at TED@Aspen, we hosted live Talks from Walter Isaacson, the head of the Aspen institute, and the wonderful Ze Frank. Between TED sessions via satellite, we heard from David Gallo and William Lange of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Joy Mountford sharing amazing data visualizations, Ron Dembo and his ZeroFootprint […]