Shapeshifters: Notes on Session 9 of TED2024

In Session 9 of TED2024, great minds working on world-shifting innovations shared their work, from a biologist who raised mice with two dads to a computer scientist with a more democratic crowdfunding model. Whether at home or on the global stage, these big ideas have the potential to shape what’s possible.

The event: Talks from Session 9 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson

When and where: Thursday, April 18, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Katsuhiko Hayashi, Carole K. Hooven, Chris Duffy, Anima Anandkumar, Kevin Owocki, Gibran Huzaifah

Performance: Writer, musician and comedian Elle Cordova personified the most beloved fonts, including Futura, Times New Roman, Garamond and more. The funny and smart typographical adventure included a nod to TED’s preferred Helvetica, as well as an audition from Comic Sans to represent the org with a new motto: “thinky thoughts are good.”

The talks in brief:

Biologist Katsuhiko Hayashi dives into the science behind how his team used breakthrough assisted reproductive technology to raise healthy young from the skin cells of two male mice. The accomplishment has implications for endangered species — and the shape of all future families.

Evolutionary biologist Dr. Carole K. Hooven delves into how hormones and culture interact to explain sex differences in human behavior — starting with why boys tend to prefer rougher play than girls.

Before he was a comedian and host of the TED podcast How to Be a Better Human, Chris Duffy taught elementary school. He shares what he learned from his fifth graders about nurturing your grown-up sense of humor, proposing that there are perks in seeing the world as a kid does: full of hilarious, amazing and extremely weird things.

Perhaps generative AI can write a competent song lyric, but by itself, it lacks the physical knowledge to build a better airplane. To model physical processes, says AI professor Anima Anandkumar, these systems must grasp the finest details of the real world, from molecular bonds to ocean currents. She shares recent AI projects that demonstrate this ability — forecasting weather, designing medical devices and more.

Gitcoin founder Kevin Owocki introduces quadratic funding, a new kind of crowdfunding model. Unlike Kickstarter or Patreon, quadratic funding uses a mathematical formula to match contributions based on the number of contributors rather than the amount given. The more people who care about a project, the more funding it will get.

When Gibran Huzaifah started an aquaculture farm in Indonesia, he was quickly confronted by the lack of technology in the industry. Farmers had insufficient data insights into murky ponds and spent huge sums on manual feeding. So he launched a start-up to automate feeding, eliminate resource waste and solve supply disadvantages for small farmers.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.