Two hundred years ago, the Luddites rebelled against weaving technology. In 1964, US President Lyndon B. Johnson received “The Triple Revolution” memo that laid out the threat of job displacement due to automation. We’ve been concerned about technology displacing humans for a long time, says futurist Martin Ford. And that’s had a strange effect on us. “Because of […]
by Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Google How will our minds be blown in the next 30 years? Well, that’s quite a long time, given the acceleration in history. Still, I’ll be brave and make six hypotheses. 1. Machine Intelligence I think that just as the Internet has been such a great driver of change across […]
In the developing world, would-be entrepreneurs are easily able to get microloans. But getting access to formal financial institutions — the kind that give large-scale loans — well, that’s much more difficult. Because 70% of those who start small businesses simply don’t have a financial identity. TED Fellow Shivani Siroya has created a tool to […]
Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg focuses on using economic methods and data to prioritize the world’s problems. In 2005, he gave a TED Talk, Global priorities bigger than climate change, in which he challenged the audience to decide how they might spend $50 billion to solve the pressing issues of our time. Now he’s back, with […]
In today’s talk, Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo describes how China’s growing presence in Africa is challenging a centuries-old tenet of Western political thought. For more than 200 years, Moyo argues, liberal democracy has ruled the roost. Particularly in the West, it’s long been considered the political system most likely to deliver economic success and […]
Should the government act like a venture capitalist? It might seem crazy to some, but in today’s eye-opening talk, economist Mariana Mazzucato shows why it might just work — and how it has, in fact, been working for decades. In this talk, Mazzucato flips the script on the image of a big government meddling in […]
In today’s talk, economist Charles Robertson turns up the heat on an idea that’s been simmering for several years: that Africa is seeing rapid economic growth. Looking at statistics and at the precedents set by China and India, Robertson brings this idea to a full boil, saying that economists haven’t been nearly optimistic enough in […]
Their names may both be Michael. They may even both be professors at Harvard. But Michael Porter and Michael Sandel offer up radically different ideas on business and its potential for good in their TED Talks, both released today. While Porter suggests that businesses are in a great position to tackle social problems — because […]
Bjorn Lomborg gave a mind-blowing talk at TED2005 on making big decisions about our global priorities. In it, he asked the question: If you had $50 billion, enough to solve either climate change or AIDS — which would you pick? A redditor who discovered the video just last week commented: “Um… isn’t there any opinion […]
“Economic development is of the people, by the people and for the people,” declared entrepreneur and economist Iqbal Quadir on the TED stage back in 2005. In his talk, he offered a bold vision for bottom-up development and shared a searing critique of foreign aid — that it actually does more harm than good. His […]
[ted id=1638] In December 2012, Planet Money co-host Adam Davidson stopped by the TED office to talk about the fiscal cliff. At the time, the U.S. Congress was weeks away from a deadline to set a course on federal debt, and head-butting was at a fever pitch. As Davidson explained, the disagreement was simple: Democrats […]
Chrystia Freeland writes about the power of money. As a journalist, she examines how money shapes society, impacts politics and essentially makes the world go ‘round. In today’s talk, given at TEDGlobal 2013, Freeland tackles the growing global plutocracy, looking at how 21st century democratic capitalism is making the rich richer while pulling up the […]
In 2005, Bjorn Lomborg bounced onto the TED stage in Monterey to challenge the assembled audience to think about “the biggest problems in the world.” Author of the book The Skeptical Environmentalist and the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, Lomborg promptly advised the somewhat startled audience to forget about global warming. If we really want to make an impact on the serious […]
Forecasting the stock market has a storied past of unfruitful predictions. But in today’s TED Talk, Didier Sornette shares how he and his research team have successfully identified unstable market bubbles and even predicted when they’ll pop. His findings, if accepted, could quite literally change the way we do business, by shifting how banks, traders […]
Could Social Impact Bonds change the way we tackle social problems? In a bold talk at TEDGlobal 2013, Toby Eccles shared how a marriage of private and public funds could be a win-win-win for the government, investors and populations in need of innovative social service programs, like those in prison or in the care of the […]
Charles Robertson, co-author of The Fastest Billion, is the second speaker in the “Forces of Change” session this afternoon at TEDGlobal 2013. His message is loud and clear: Africa’s future is bright. Africa is booming: Per capita income since 2000 has doubled; life expectancy has increased by one year every three years; and HIV infection […]