In a timely and incisive talk at TEDxWaterloo, Michael Nielsen made the case for open science — the idea that research data and results should be freely available to the public, and that scientists should collaborate more freely with each other and with the public. Since the talk, his book, Reinventing Discovery, has been released, […]
We are saddened by the news that ocean photographer, filmmaker and storyteller Mike deGruy died yesterday in a helicopter crash in Australia. Mike was truly one of the great teachers and advocates for the oceans, as you can see in his TED Talk, filmed aboard Mission Blue in 2010: [ted id=830] In this talk, as […]
Juliette LaMontagne’s Breaker offers millennials a unique, hands-on alternative learning opportunity — working on projects with serious social impact. Breaker teams take on such challenges as illiteracy and feeding the city, while gaining valuable real-world social entrepreneurship skills. Take us through the Breaker process — how does it work? Each three-month Breaker project convenes a […]
Yesterday, TED Fellow William Kamkwamba debuted an illustrated children’s version of his memoir The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, co-written with Bryan Mealer and illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon. Since its publication in 2009, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind has been printed in 17 editions internationally. For this Young Readers edition, for ages 6 and […]
Agriculturalist and social entrepreneur Su Kahumbu created iCow, a mobile app that supports farmers caring for livestock. Soon it will become an information-delivery platform that could help generate a whole new crop of young farmers. What does iCow do? The iCow application essentially reminds small-scale dairy farmers in Kenya of important periods in gestation. This […]
Today, several of our favorite websites are going dark or blacking out their homepages to raise awareness of two bills, in the US House and Senate, that threaten people’s ability to share on the web. In the past week, we’ve pondered what TED.com should be doing to help raise awareness of the PIPA and SOPA […]
As a companion to today’s TEDTalk from Alain de Botton, he sent us this FAQ, a brief introduction to the thinking behind Atheism 2.0: What do you think of the aggressive atheism we have seen in the past few years? I am an atheist, but a gentle one. I don’t feel the need to mock […]
Sonaar Luthra (watch his TED Talk) is packing water-safety analysis and mobile networking into the Water Canary — a handheld, open-source, and easy-to-use gadget accessible to all — hoping to save lives and gather information that will improve global water health. You have a background as a writer, educator and journalist. How did you end […]
Today marks the 2nd anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti. This morning the people of Port au Prince woke up to portraits of their own – locals and members of the Haitian diaspora – plastered around the city. From Cité Soleil to Petion-Ville, over 500 images, taken by Haitian photographers and printed by JR’s […]
Jodie Wu’s Global Cycle Solutions creates bike-run machines mounted on rideable cycles, transforming bikes into mobile business tools for rural Tanzania. How did you get interested in innovating solutions for problems in developing nations? I first went to Tanzania as part of MIT’s D-Lab, a multidisciplinary course on development of appropriate technologies, innovation, and creative […]
Two years ago, inventor Pranav Mistry demoed the SixthSense technology on the TED stage — and talked about open-sourcing the software behind it. SixthSense is a wearable interface that enables interaction between digital information and the physical world through hand gestures. (Watch his TEDTalk to see how it works.) As promised, Pranav and his team […]
All month on the Huffington Post, we’ve been counting down 18 great ideas from 2011 that we think will change the world in 2012 and beyond. Today’s post ends the countdown with a powerful idea: Kids save the world! Watch John Hunter’s TEDTalk on his World Peace Game and read his essay on the Huffington […]
A note from TED Prize winner Jill Tarter… At TED last February, Chris Anderson told the audience that without a White Knight stepping up to support my SETI observing program on the Allen Telescope Array, the antennas would soon be put into a safe hibernation mode in preparation for shutting down the array. That’s because […]
The second day of the INK Conference in Jaipur, India was another eclectic mix of musicians, inventors, designers and visionaries. The conference’s narrative theme, The Power of the Journey, continued as each session attempted to capture the most important moments of every life. Talks are being held from Thursday December 8 to Sunday December 11. Through […]
You and other change agents have been commenting in full force in response to TED and The Huffington Post’s year-end collaboration to bring you 18 ideas that will shape 2012. The ideas are in, and the conversation is hot. Since last Thursday’s launch viewers have been sharing ideas of every variety, from the practical repercussions […]
Artist Jae Rhim Lee (watch her TED Talk) is asking us to rethink our relationship with death and the planet — with the help of flesh-eating mushrooms, she’s making human decomposition clean and green. You’re an artist and designer primarily concerned with how our bodies interact with the world. I’m concerned with finding alternatives that […]