An idea worth spreading doesn’t just magically appear out of thin air. Instead, it needs a long incubation period, a sometimes frustrating — and often exciting — trial and error of creation, failure and innovation. On April 18, TED welcomed its first-ever class of the TED Residency program, an in-house community of 27 bright minds […]
Think of a story from your life that you can’t tell anyone. Not because it reflects badly on you — in fact, you’re proud of the lessons you learned — but because of its effects on someone you love. A new-mom story that you’d never want your kid to hear. A high-stakes mistake on the […]
Doodles are more than just idle scribbles; they can distill complex ideas into useful packets of knowledge. During TED2016, artist Mia W. McNary translated 18-minute talks — on topics like what it means to be a global citizen, the psychology of introverts vs. extroverts and a prosecutor’s case for justice reform — into playful and […]
It was the day of my TED Talk, worried about stumbling on stage. What if my slides don’t work? What if I completely black out on the words that I passionately wanted to share? I was about to step onto that stage, declaring the fullness of my womanhood; my journey as a trans person from the Philippines. […]
The TED community has been very busy over the past few weeks. Below, some newsy highlights. An app for safer email. On March 17, Andy Yen’s company ProtonMail publicly released their mobile app for making secure email accessible, after almost two years of private beta testing. The app is available for iOS and Android. ProtonMail […]
One year ago today, at TED2015, Monica Lewinsky gave a powerful talk about bullying, shaming and becoming a more empathetic society. She sends this note to our community on her TED-iversary… Dear TEDsters: One year ago today, with the hauntingly beautiful TED2015 theme song playing, I nervously walked out to The Red Circle in front of many […]
Shai Reshef’s nonprofit University of the People — which offers nearly tuition-free, accredited degrees online — today launches its first graduate degree, an MBA program in 12 courses. Although there are no tuition or textbook fees, there is a $200 testing fee per course, which means students can expect to pay $2,400 for their MBA (compare this to the average cost […]
TED-Ed Clubs are about to get a lot of visibility in Italian high schools. On Thursday, March 3, in Rome, the Italian Minister of Education, University and Research, Stefania Giannini, and the European Director of TED, Bruno Giussani, signed a 3-year memorandum of understanding on cooperation regarding the spread of the TED-Ed Clubs curriculum across Italian high […]
Day five of TED2016 contained one session filled with big ideas, but also an opportunity to look back at the conference as a whole. Below, the major themes that ran through the course of the week. We’re ready for our moonshot moment. The most-evoked image of the conference? Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. […]
Thought-provoking, silly and sometimes somber, the interstitials shown at TED2016 provide a needed moment for a breath between talks. The videos are meant to “light up different parts of the brain,” says Anyssa Samari, who scours the internet year-round alongside Jonathan Wells to curate this kindling that keeps the intellectual fires burning. “They create balance.” […]
In the final session of TED2016, the themes we’ve been talking about all week — the progress of society, the measure of personal success, the importance of the environment — snap into focus. From the prime minister of the “world’s happiest country” to a pair of speakers who challenge the traditional American Dream, it’s a session that will inspire, make you question […]
Casey Gerald’s story begins in an East Texas church on the night of December 31, 1999, as he joined his congregation to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world. Gerald had turned 12 that year, and he went to church as often as he could, making sure that the Lord […]
If words could dream, they’d dream of being used in TED Talks. These words lived the dream in Vancouver at TED2016. Precrastinator. Adam Grant explained that a precrastinator is someone who hurries to complete work and cross things off to-do lists. You might be interested to know that the crastin part of precrastinator comes from […]
On the fourth day of TED2016, we heard powerful social justice talks and saw tech with big implications. Below, takeaways for you following along at home. All hail the prosecutor. There’s a new sheriff in town in the fight to overhaul our criminal justice system: the prosecutor. In a talk that brought the audience swiftly […]
This session is dedicated to those who weave fantasies and force change. From a speaker on the cusp of virtual reality storytelling to a playwright who appears as a hologram, many surprises are in store. Recaps of the talks in Session 11, in chronological order. The last storytelling medium? Chris Milk’s story begins with music, the […]
We may, as Joan Didion once wrote, tell ourselves stories in order to live—but Uri Hasson is looking for a few more reasons. The neuroscientist based at Princeton University researches the neurological basis of human communication and storytelling, and in session 11 at TED2016, he shows off some surprising findings. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) […]