Everyone knows Detroit is in trouble. The list of problems assaulting the once-mighty Motor City is long and, from a look at national newspapers, incessantly documented. Most recently, the city filed for bankruptcy; its former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was sentenced to 28 years in prison for public corruption. Since the booming 1950s, the city of Detroit […]
No two ways about it: Social psychologist Amy Cuddy’s talk from TEDGlobal 2012 touched a nerve, and sparked a sensation. In the talk, “Your body language shapes who you are,” Cuddy offered a free, low-tech life hack: assume a posture for just two minutes — and change your life. The idea caught on, the talk […]
When Brittany Wenger was a sophomore in high school, her cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer. She saw firsthand how the disease strikes a woman and her family, and she wanted to help. While some of us might offer to bake a casserole or lend a listening ear, Brittany went the extra mile: She created […]
Allan Savory has spent decades studying the devastating effects of “desertification“: healthy land degrading into deserts all around the world and accelerating climate change in the process. On the TED2013 stage, Savory offered a fascinating idea for reclaiming degraded land — using livestock to mimic the behavior of herds that used to roam these lands. The […]
Sally Kohn had a point to make in her TED Talk. During her career as a progressive lesbian talking head at Fox News, she’d get letters from people who really, really didn’t like what she said, or objected to her very existence. To make this attitude crystal-clear, onstage at TED@NYC Kohn read out the kind […]
We each live in the shadow of a personal apocalypse: the knowledge that — someday, somehow — we will die. It’s a terrifying thought, and so we look for a way out. In my talk from TEDxBratislava (and in my book Immortality), I walk through four stories that people have told throughout cultures and time, as a […]
By Robert Fogarty of Dear World When I was 14, my dad wrote me a note. He told me to figure out what I wanted and to go for it, but also that — if I failed and felt disappointed — that he wouldn’t be; that he’d still love me. I kept this note. Periodically, I read it to be reminded. […]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LxlhoemR3A&w=586&h=330] About a decade ago, Blaise Agüera y Arcas and his team started on a not-so-small mission: “To reinvent the whole enterprise of photography for ordinary people.” He revealed the first step back at TED2007. In a viral talk dotted with ooohs and aaahs from the audience (his strategy? “I talked really fast”), Agüera y Arcas […]
Ever wondered where you might see revolutionary graffiti* in Cairo? Or been at a loss to find a Cuban cafe con leche** in New York City? Or really needed a beer in Madrid*** but wanted off the tourist-beaten track? Wonder no more. Our recent series profiling interesting innovators who live and work in cities around […]
Diébédo Francis Kéré grew up in a small village in Gando, Burkina Faso, before heading to Germany to study architecture. And as a student there, he came up with a very ambitious project. “I wanted to open up better opportunities to other kids in Gando. I wanted to use my skills to build a school. […]
Last week, the editors of Time magazine published a list of 30 people under 30 who are changing the world, with the help of a panel of millennials. On the list: six teenagers and twenty-somethings with TED connections. We at TED have had youth on the brain recently. TED2013 was themed “The Young. The Wise. […]
Boyd Varty’s talk brings together many fascinating moments: a tribute to Nelson Mandela (who passed away just hours before Varty took the stage at TEDWomen 2013 last week), incredible footage of animals shot on the Londolozi Game Reserve (which Varty’s family transformed from a hunting ground to a game reserve in 1973, and where Varty […]
Social violence in Guatemala, Mexican and Central American migrant communities in the United States, the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, children with cerebral malaria in Uganda — for the past decade, photographer Jon Lowenstein has been documenting the often violent and traumatic daily lives of individuals and communities living at the edges of society, both […]
New Delhi’s streets are epic — trucks, cars, cows and, especially, bicycle rickshaws, three-wheeled carriers that can zip through traffic, pedaled by a very, very hard-working driver. Growing up in New Delhi, Avani Singh passed them every day on her way to school. And her route also passed the city’s slums. In this city of […]
To explore is human. It’s as basic as cooking and bathing, and as essential as song and dance. It’s not something that needs a lengthy explanation — whether you’re 3 or 103, it’s the tingly feeling you get in the bottom of your stomach when you venture into unknown terrain. Across ages and cultures, there […]
On St. Patrick’s Day in 2008, Chris Downey, an architect, planner and consultant who lives in Piedmont, California, some 10 miles east of San Francisco, reported to the hospital for surgery to remove a brain tumor. The procedure was a success. But two days later, his sight started to fail. On the third day, it […]