Teenagers. They’re not exactly known for their listening skills. But over Thanksgiving weekend of 2015, high school students across the United States sat down with elders and asked them deep, meaningful questions about their lives. More than 50,000 people — most in their teens — took part in the Great Thanksgiving Listen and recorded an […]
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 […]
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) […]
“You’re about to participate in the largest collective VR viewing in history,” said Chris Milk in his talk on virtual reality at TED2016. “We are all going to watch something at the exact same time, together.” A Google Cardboard and pair of Urban Ears headphones sat on every chair in the theater. We assembled the viewer, downloaded a special […]
Host Gerry Garbulsky has a feeling that this may be the session with “the most heavy accents” in TED history. The organizer of TEDxRiodelaPlata in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Garbulsky curated each speaker in his session because they’ve given a TEDx talk he loved. With speakers from Botswana, Brazil and Hungary, these ideas are truly without borders. Recaps of […]
“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 […]