Every runner has a story. Five years ago, I would never have imagined using the word “marathoner” to describe myself; I could barely run around the block, much less 26.2 miles. But one autumn Sunday, I woke up to the sounds of cheering and live music; the New York City Marathon was passing right outside […]
Yes, a marathon is about running 26.2 miles. But as May El-Khalil describes in today’s talk, a marathon can also be about so much more — a chance for people to come together and celebrate the human spirit. El-Khalil is the founder of the Beirut Marathon and, in this talk, she describes how a personal […]
The founder of the Beirut Marathon, May El-Khalil tells us how personal tragedy led her to create a peaceful haven in her all-too-often war-torn country. When the former long-distance runner was hit by a truck and left unable to perform as she had before her accident, she turned her efforts to organizing races. “I needed […]
“It’s about discarding assumptions about the Middle East, Latin America, and the way you think the world works,” Nassim Assefi described in an interview before we all got to Edinburgh for TEDGlobal 2013. This session, which she co-curated with fellow TED Fellow Gabriella Gomez-Mont, features a host of speakers who’ll be prompting us to think […]
On Sunday, May 26, two rockets soared over Beirut, Lebanon, hitting a Shi’ite Muslim area in the southern part of the city. The rockets raised fears that Beirut could become embroiled in the civil war raging in nearby Syria. And yet, these bombs did not stop women throughout the city from lacing up their running […]
With TEDGlobal 2013 just 17 days in the distance, we in the TED office are getting very excited to “Think Again.” Here, a look at the conference speakers who made the news this week. Education innovator Anant Agarwal is interviewed in The New Yorker article “Laptop U.” The founder of edX, Harvard and MIT’s online […]