In this passionate talk, legendary spacecraft designer Burt Rutan lambasts the U.S government-funded space program for stagnating (“Houston, we have a problem.”), and calls for space entrepreneurs to pick up where NASA left off. Rutan won the $10M Ansari X-Prize for SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded craft to enter space twice in a 2-week period. […]
Sasa Vucinic, a former editor for Belgrade radio station B92, founded the Prague-based Media Development Loan Fund, which applies venture-capital principles to finance sustainable media companies in nations emerging from repressive regimes. In this quietly persuasive talk, Vucinic explores the power of a free press to reinvigorate struggling democracies, and proposes his vision (since realized) […]
Ashraf Ghani is the former Finance Minister of Afghanistan, and a candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary General of the United Nations. He’s an expert on the economics of developing nations and post-conflict reconstruction. This passionate presentation includes a 10-minute talk, emphasizing the necessity of both economic investment and design ingenuity to rebuild broken […]
Our warmest congratulations go out to Grameen Bank and its founder Muhammed Yunus, honored today with the Nobel Peace Prize. “Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty,” wrote Nobel Committee director Ole Danbolt Mjoes, recognizing the importance of micro-finance pioneer Grameen Bank. “Microcredit is […]
Jacqueline Novogratz is the charismatic founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, a non-profit that takes a business-like approach to improving the lives of the poor. In this talk, she applauds the world’s heightened interest in Africa, but argues persuasively for a new approach to foreign aid: “The question isn’t ‘how do we fix this?’ The […]
Iqbal Quadir is co-founder of GrameenPhone, an innovative wireless company offering services to poor rural villages in Bangladesh. In this talk, he explains the triple impact of cell phone service in rural areas (connecting the village to the world, creating business opportunities, and generating over time a culture of entrepreneurship.) He also relates his personal […]
The TEDTalks Team is expanding and we’re approaching the TED Community first. We’re looking for a FULLTIME MEDIA PRODUCTION ASSISTANT skilled in the following areas: • Web & blog savvy: experienced with blogs and the web, able to troubleshoot HTML, update RSS feeds, manage and organize media assets. • Fluency/Familiarity with: Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, […]
Aubrey de Grey, British biogerontologist and founder of SENS, controversially claims to have created a roadmap to defeat biological aging. In this talk, he argues that aging — like other diseases — can be cured, and that humans can live for centuries, if only we approach the aging process as “an engineering problem.” (Recorded July […]
Eva Vertes is a Princeton student recognized as a teenager for her research on Alzheimer’s, and now embarking on a career focused on new ways of thinking about cancer. In this talk, she explains her theory that stem cells — seeking to initiate repairs in the body — may actually be the root of cancer. […]
Dan Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard, and author of Stumbling on Happiness. In this memorable talk, filmed at TED2004, he demonstrates just how poor we humans are at predicting (or understanding) what will make us happy. (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:02) Get TED delivered: Subscribe to the TEDTalks video […]
Barry Schwartz is a sociology professor at Swarthmore and author of The Paradox of Choice. In this talk, he persuasively explains how and why the abundance of choice in modern society is actually making us miserable. (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 20:22) Get TED delivered: Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via […]
Last week, the list of potential successors to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan – he will step down at the end of his second five-year term, on December 31st – seemed to have narrowed down to two names: South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon and the current Undersecretary-General Shashi Tharoor, from India – a TEDster: he […]
Last week, Apple announced that its complete line of video iPods can finally handle Standard Definition (SD) television resolution of 640×480 pixels. We’re thrilled to announce the first batch of TEDTalks SD – four times the image size of regular TEDTalks – optimized for viewing on your computer – or playing back through your television. […]
Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and best-selling author of The Tipping Point and Blink. In this talk, filmed at TED2004, he explains what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce. (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 18:15) Get TED delivered: Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via RSS […]
Steven Levitt is an economics professor at the University of Chicago and the best-selling author of Freakonomics. In this talk, filmed at TED2004, he studies data from an inner-city gang to examine economic principles at work in the real world. (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:00) Get TED delivered: Subscribe to the […]
Richard Dawkins is Oxford University’s “Professor for the Public Understanding of Science.” Author of the landmark 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, he’s a brilliant (and trenchant) evangelist for Darwin’s ideas. In this talk, titled “Queerer Than We Suppose: The strangeness of science,” he suggests that the true nature of the universe eludes us, because the […]