It’s a theme that’s emerged throughout the conference: Identifying unmet needs in under-served markets can pay back in spades. And for those willing to take a calculated risk, a perceived danger becomes an unprecedented opportunity. In this session, three case studies of extraordinary individuals pathfinding in emerging markets: For starters, there’s Florence Seriki, who founded […]
To understand Africa’s technological future, TEDGlobal Program Director Emeka Okafor calls Russell Southwood to the stage. Publisher of Balancing Act and respected tech commentator, Southwood envisions a future in which Africa leapfrogs the entire industrial phase of development, and skips straight to a high-tech competitiveness. To achieve this, he identifies several “door-openers” to fundamental change, […]
So much of the new Africa centers around the marketplace, broadly defined: the connection points that enable commerce, community, communication and more generally: Growth. Today’s first session approached these questions of infrastructure from different angles, offering distinct and distinctly optimistic visions for a revitalized Africa. Economist Eleni Gabre-Madhin began the session on an inspiring note, […]
Anand Agarawala presents BumpTop, a fresh user interface that takes the usual desktop metaphor to a glorious, 3D extreme. In this physics-driven universe, important files finally get the weight they deserve via an oddly satisfying resizing feature, and the drudgery of file organization becomes a freewheeling playground full of crumpled documents and clipping-covered “walls.” Worried […]
Before the official start of TEDGlobal 2007, some attendees joined us for preconference tours, to get a visceral experience of the new Africa. Hosted by businesses and NGOs working on the ground in Tanzania, TEDsters visited schools, farms, businesses and other projects. A few reports: ClassV took a tour led by DATA and shot some […]
Aside from posting great coverage of the sessions and speakers at TEDGlobal 2007, the conference’s many bloggers offer a glimpse of conference life — the spark of meeting so many people with so much to share. DNA captures the thrill: “… today is my first day at the TED Global Conference being held here in […]
“We are all Africans. Welcome home.” — Paleontologist Zeray Alemseged, who discovered in Ethiopia the 3.3 million-year-old Salam, a 3-year-old hominid child, whose remains shed light on a key period in human evolution “We need to reframe the challenges facing Africa, from the challenge of soliciting charity to the challenge of creating wealth.” — Journalist/Social […]
“There’s nothing like a little controversy to get the party started. TEDGlobal hasn’t disappointed thus far.” —White African “I’m fascinated to see how the crowd – both regular attendees of the conference and first-timers – react to the program that Emeka Okafor has put together. (…) I suspect that the overall message of the event […]
We began session two looking back to … session one. Bono offered an unscheduled talk, taking on the anti-aid stance of journalist Andrew Mwenda, articulated earlier that day. (A bit of background: Bono’s moving 2005 TED Prize acceptance speech helped ignite within the TED Community a heightened interest in Africa, and led quite directly to […]
After an extraordinary welcoming fanfare by Malian chanteuse Rokia Traore, TEDGlobal 2007 (Africa: The Next Chapter) kicked off this afternoon with a session intended to shift your thinking about the continent. We hear so much about Africa’s problems — disease and poverty, conflict and corruption; here are the counterpoints that open our 4-day conversation here […]
As the TED Conference team departs for Tanzania and TEDGlobal 2007, the TED.com team is beginning the conversation online, with our latest theme: Africa: The Next Chapter. We start with an observation: That while we’re all familiar with Africa’s challenges — famine and disease, conflict and corruption — it’s less known that across the continent, […]
This week we’re posting three of the most-talked-about talks from TED2007 — Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, John Doerr and Blaise Aguera y Arcas’ remarkable demo of Seadragon/Microsoft Photosynth. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister for Nigeria (and the first woman to hold that job), argues for investment — rather than aid — as the means to help […]
Jeff Hawkins brought us the indispensable Palm and Treo — now he’s turned his attention to the human brain, looking to our gray matter for clues to the next generation of powerful computers and software. To date, there hasn’t been an overarching theory of how the brain really works, Hawkins argues in this compelling talk […]
Rural villages worldwide are being deserted, as billions of people flock to cities, to live in teeming squatter camps and slums. And Stewart Brand says this is a good thing. Why? It’ll take you 3 minutes to find out. Music: Brian Eno, “Just Another Day on Earth,” from his 2005 album Another Day on Earth […]
Low-key and thoughtful, IDEO founder David Kelley seems the antithesis of the “design star” — and indeed, he says that product design, within the past two decades, has become much less about the design and more about the user who’ll be experiencing it. In this classic 2002 talk, he shares some video of products coming […]
What happens when a black man visits Aspen? Singer/songwriter Stew is about to let you know, with the arch humor and clever asides that characterize all his work (Hint: “It’s a winter wonderland in the belly of the beast.”) Stew is joined on stage by his partner/collaborator Heidi Rodewald (bass) and Jon Spurney (keyboard/guitar). (Recorded […]