“We still live in a world where the color of our skin not only gives a first impression, but a lasting one,” says artist Angélica Dass. Dass is from Brazil, and her family is “full of colors.” She describes her father’s skin as “deep chocolate.” He was adopted by her grandmother, whose skin is “porcelain,” […]
The speakers in Session 9, “Outside the Box,” offer surprising perspectives. From a writer who’s a misfit in a true sense of the word to a District Attorney who asks if prosecuting is really the only way, to a “brain hacker” who truly has the ability to eavesdrop on dreams, prepare to have your mind […]
Writer Lidia Yuknavitch has a favorite word: “misfit.” “I love this word because it’s such a literal word,” she says. “It means a person who missed fitting in. A person who fits badly.” Yuknavitch identifies strongly with this. She’s the author of the memoir The Chronology of Water, a book about her life as competitive swimmer. But […]
During day three of TED2016, we felt both wonder and terror. Below, some of the strongest messages cutting through a day of incredible talks. A swarm of autonomous robots, as magical as fireflies. When you hear the word ‘drone,’ you probably think of something either useful or scary. But could they have aesthetic value? Raffaello D’Andrea […]
Not every dream is good. Sometimes dreams terrify you to your core, and you wake up in a cold sweat confused to find yourself safe in bed. In Session 8, we turn our attention to “Nightmare?,” from gun violence to the state of the climate. But it’s not all doom and gloom — the speakers […]
Something huge is coming, and it sounds like an ad for a bag of potato chips. CRISPR, which makes gene editing so cheap and easy a talented high schooler could do it, is the latest technology that promises to radically change the world. But what exactly can it do, and what are the potential dangers? […]
“I was excited to be a part of the ‘Dream’ theme,” says Al Gore as he walks onto the TED2016 stage. “But then I found out I was leading off the nightmare section.” He admits that what we’ve doing to our world is a nightmare, and that the consequences we’re seeing are quite scary: “Every […]
At the annual TED conference, the audience is as packed with big ideas as our speaker program. TED University is a chance for audience members to give short talks about both big ideas and personal experiences. Recaps of the talks at TED University, in chronological order. Travel points are currency. Brian Kelly is known for his site The Points […]
It wouldn’t be a conference about dreams without an ode to John Lennon. In this session, we take a cue from his iconic lyric and imagine a world without borders. Get ready for talks on mega-cities and online museums, as well as on the global movement to end poverty, Islamophobia and climate change. Recaps of the talks in […]
In 2009, six months after a spectacularly failed climate change summit in Copenhagen, Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres was appointed executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Her job: Leading the next round of international climate change negotiations. At that time, no one believed that we could ever get a global climate change agreement. “In fact,” Figueres says, […]
So much of our world is determined by code — be it the code of life or a string of 1s and 0s. In this session, “Code Power,” we hear from Linus Torvalds, who changed how code is written, and from Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, who wants to open up the field dramatically. And after examining the particular code […]
I am not a visionary. I’m an engineer. [As a kid] I was into computers, I was into math, I was into physics. I don’t think I was particularly exceptional. My sister said my biggest exceptional quality was that I would not let go. Q. During the development of Linux itself, that stubbornness brought you […]
At age 33, Reshma Saujani had a moment of bravery: Against all odds of winning, she ran for Congress. It was a serious long shot: People called her crazy, and said there was no way that she would win. And, well, she didn’t. But through her recklessness, the founder of Girls who Code learned an […]
Today at TED2016 in Vancouver, Peter Diamandis of the X Prize joined Dave Kenny of IBM Watson to announce a thrilling new prize in cognitive computing: The IBM Watson AI X Prize presented by TED, a $5 million competition to develop and demonstrate a powerful collaboration between human and artificial intelligence. The winner of this competition […]
The second day of TED2016 brought wisdom for within and discoveries from without. Below, highlights for you following at home. Procrastination works … for some. Session 4 speakers Tim Urban and Adam Grant take two positions on procrastination: The former thinks it can be a huge, crippling problem; the latter realized his “pre-crastination” was getting […]
Session 5 starts with a talk from a 93-year-old television icon. But it goes back so much further in time than that. As astronomer shares the mystery of a star’s light that dimmed 1,500 years ago. A paleontologist walks us back more than 66 millions. And capping it off: the reveal of this year’s TED prize wish, from […]