The Audacious Project supports big ideas to foster change around the world’s most urgent challenges. Today, this innovative funding initiative, housed at TED, is announcing its new cohort of projects for 2024, which are as bold as ever — from an idea to repurpose generic drugs en masse to reach the 300 million people globally who lack viable treatments to a new initiative that will evaluate AI systems for dangerous capabilities before release.
The Audacious Project encourages the world’s greatest changemakers to dream bigger than they can imagine — then helps shape their ideas into viable multi-year plans and launch them alongside some of the biggest names in philanthropy. Cumulatively, more than $725M has been raised to support these projects, which now have the resources to begin the work.
The 2024 cohort includes:
- Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense (EAAF), which will build lasting forensic systems to help identify victims of human rights violations, including missing migrants and victims of wars and authoritarian regimes.
- Every Cure, which will use the power of AI to unlock new uses for generic and off-patent drugs, democratizing access to safe and effective treatments for the 300 million people that currently lack them.
- Food4Education, which will help African schoolchildren learn, grow and thrive by providing cost-effective, locally sourced and nutritious meals to one million students daily in Kenya and an additional two million in two other African countries through technical advisory support — while creating jobs for the local communities.
- Global Methane Hub, which will coordinate stakeholders worldwide to lower emissions of this dangerous greenhouse gas by 35% by targeting the three sectors responsible for 95% of human-caused emissions globally: energy, agriculture and waste.
- The Great Barrier Reef Foundation, which will begin large-scale coral restoration across vital reefs in Australia and the Pacific, using new seeding techniques to deploy heat-tolerant corals in oceans more efficiently and with inclusion of Traditional Owners.
- Inkomoko, which will unlock the talent and potential of more than 300,000 forcibly displaced persons by offering them financing, training and connections to the markets they are typically isolated from — demonstrating that entrepreneurship can be a pathway out of poverty for millions of displaced people.
- MapBiomas, which will map and monitor 70% of the world’s tropical forests across 20 countries, helping to stop activities like slash-and-burn farming and illegal logging, which damage forests and release the carbon they store.
- Project Canary, a collaboration between METR and RAND, which will develop and deploy rigorous safety evaluations for frontier AI systems to address potential dangers before release.
- Scaling Safety, a joint venture by the Community Based Public Safety Collective (CBPSC) and the Alliance for Safety and Justice (ASJ), which will provide much-needed support to resident-powered prevention programs that break cycles of violence, demonstrating that these programs are an essential part of public safety.
- Transcend, which will transform schools across the US by supporting school communities to identify, develop and implement new approaches to school — ultimately, leading to extraordinary and equitable outcomes for their students.
“This new cohort will present their ideas and visions onstage at upcoming TED conferences — including TED Next, TED2025 and TED Countdown — with their TED Talks released online thereafter,” said Anna Verghese, Executive Director of The Audacious Project. “They join The Audacious Project’s existing portfolio of 49 projects, where since 2018, more than $5.9 billion dollars has been catalyzed to support these projects’ visions.”
“It’s so exciting to see these inspiring visions achieve funding at this scale,” said Audacious cofounder and head of TED Chris Anderson. “The brilliance and determination of these organizations combined with the generosity, vision and collaboration of our donors is the reason Audacious was created. I can’t wait to see these projects come to life.”