Conversations on the future of vaccines, tech, government and art: Week 5 of TED2020

Week 5 of TED2020 featured wide-ranging discussions on the quest for a coronavirus vaccine, the future of the art world, what it’s like to lead a country during a pandemic and much more. Below, a recap of insights shared.

Jerome Kim, Director General of the International Vaccine Institute

Big idea: There’s a lot of work still to be done, but the world is making progress on developing a COVID-19 vaccine. 

How? A normal vaccine takes five to 10 years to develop and costs about a billion dollars, with a failure rate of 93 percent. Under the pressure of the coronavirus pandemic, however, we’re being asked to speed things up to within a window of 12 to 18 months, says Jerome Kim. How are things going? He updates us on the varied field of vaccine candidates and approaches, from Moderna’s mRNA vaccine to AstraZeneca’s vectored vaccine to whole inactivated vaccines, and how these companies are innovating to develop and manufacture their products in record time. In addition to the challenge of making a sufficient amount of a safe, effective vaccine (at the right price), Kim says we must think about how to distribute it for the whole world — not just rich nations. The question of equity and access is the toughest one of all, he says, but the answer will ultimately lead us out of this pandemic.

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Nir Eyal, Bioethicist

Big idea: Testing vaccine efficacy is normally a slow, years-long process, but we can ethically accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development through human challenge trials.

How? Thousands of people continue to die every day from COVID-19 across the globe, and we risk greater death and displacement if we rely on conventional vaccine trials, says bioethicist Nir Eyal. While typical trials observe experimental and control groups over time until they see meaningful differences between the two, Eyal proposes using human challenge trials in our search for a vaccine — an approach that deliberately exposes test groups to the virus in order to quickly determine efficacy. Human challenge trials might sound ethically ambiguous or even immoral, but Eyal suggests the opposite is true. Patients already take informed risks by participating in drug trials and live organ donations; if we look at statistical risk and use the right bioethical framework, we can potentially hasten vaccine development while maintaining tolerable risks. The key, says Eyal, is the selection criteria: by selecting young participants who are free from risk factors like hypertension, for example, the search for a timely solution to this pandemic is possible. “The dramatic number of people who could be aided by a faster method of testing vaccines matters,” he says. “It’s not the case that we are violating the rights of individuals to maximize utility. We are both maximizing utility and respecting rights, and this marriage is very compelling in defending the use of these accelerated [vaccine trial] designs.”

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Ashraf Ghani, President of Afghanistan

Big Idea: Peacemaking is a discipline that must be practiced daily, both in life and politics. 

How? Having initiated sweeping economic, trade and social reforms, Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani shares key facets of peacemaking that he relies on to navigate politically sensitive relationships and the ongoing health crisis: mutual respect, listening and humanity. Giving us a glimpse of Afghanistan that goes beyond the impoverished, war-torn image painted in the media, he describes the aspirations, entrepreneurship and industry that’s very much alive there, especially in its youth and across all genders. “What I hear from all walks of life, men and women, girls and boys, [is] a quest for normalcy. We’re striving to be normal. It’s not we who are abnormal; it’s the circumstances in which we’ve been caught. And we are attempting to carve a way forward to overcome the types of turbulence that, in interaction with each other, provide an environment of continuous uncertainty. Our goal is to overcome this, and I think with the will of the people, we will be able to,” he says. President Ghani also shares perspective on Afghanistan’s relationship to China, the Taliban and Pakistan — expressing a commitment to his people and long term peace that fuels every conversation. “The ultimate goal is a sovereign, democratic, united Afghanistan at peace with itself in the world,” he says. 

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Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp

Big idea: Tech platforms have a responsibility to provide privacy and security to users.

Why? On WhatsApp, two billion users around the world send more than 100 billion messages every day. All of them are protected by end-to-end encryption, which means that the conversations aren’t stored and no one can access them — not governments, companies or even WhatsApp itself. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more of our conversations with family, friends and coworkers have to occur through digital means. This level of privacy is a fundamental right that has never been more important, says Cathcart. To ensure their encryption services aren’t misused to promote misinformation or conduct crime, WhatsApp has developed tools and protocols that keep users safe without disrupting the privacy of all of its users. “It’s so important that we match the security and privacy you have in-person, and not say, ‘This digital world is totally different: we should change all the ways human beings communicate and completely upend the rules.’ No, we should try to match that as best we can, because there’s something magical about people talking to each other privately.”

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Anne Pasternak, Director of the Brooklyn Museum

Big idea: We need the arts to be able to document and reflect on what we’re living through, express our pain and joy and imagine a better future.

How? Museums are vital community institutions that reflect the memories, knowledge and dreams of a society. Located in a borough of more than 2.5 million people, the Brooklyn Museum is one of the largest and most influential museums in the world, and it serves a community that has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Pasternak calls on museums to take a leading role in manifesting community visions of a better world. In a time defined by dramatic turmoil and global suffering, artists will help ignite the radical imagination that leads to cultural, political and social change, she says. Museums also have a responsibility to uplift a wide variety of narratives, taking special care to highlight communities who have historically been erased from societal remembrance and artmaking. The world has been irreversibly changed and devastated by the pandemic. It’s time to look to art as a medium of collective memorializing, mourning, healing and transformation.

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Honor Harger, Executive Director of the ArtScience Museum

Big Idea: Cultural institutions can care for their communities by listening to and amplifying marginalized voices.

How: The doors of Singapore’s famed ArtScience Museum building are closed — but online, the museum is engaging with its community more deeply than ever. Executive director Honor Harger shares how the museum has moved online with ArtScience at Home, a program offering online talks, streamed performances and family workshops addressing COVID-19 and our future. Reflecting on the original meaning of “curator” (from the Latin curare, or “to care”), Harger shares how ArtScience at Home aims to care for its community by listening to underrepresented groups. The program seeks out marginalized voices and provides a global platform for them to tell their own stories, unmediated and unedited, she says. Notably, the program included a screening of Salary Day by Ramasamy Madhavan, the first film made by a migrant worker in Singapore. The programming will have long-lasting effects on the museum’s curation in the future and on its international audience, Harger says. “Art changes minds, shifts mentalities, changes the behavior of people and the way they think and how they feel,” she says. “We are seeing the power of culture and art to both heal and facilitate dramatic change.”

WHAAAAAT?: Notes from Session 4 of TED2020

For Session 4 of TED2020, experts in biohacking, synthetic biology, psychology and beyond explored topics ranging from discovering the relationship between the spinal cord and asparagus to using tools of science to answer critical questions about racial bias. Below, a recap of the night’s talks and performances.

Andrew Pelling, biomedical researcher

Big idea: Could we use asparagus to repair spinal cords?

How? Andrew Pelling researches how we might use fruits, vegetables and plants to reconstruct damaged or diseased human tissues. (Check out his 2016 talk about making ears out of apples.) His lab strips these organisms of their DNA and cells, leaving just the fibers behind, which are then used as “scaffolds” to reconstruct tissue. Now, they’re busy working with asparagus, experimenting to see if the vegetable’s microchannels can guide the regeneration of cells after a spinal cord injury. There’s evidence in rats that it’s working, the first data of its kind to show that plant tissues might be capable of repairing such a complex injury. Pelling is also the cofounder of Spiderwort, a startup that’s translating these innovative discoveries into real-world applications. “Every scientist can tell you about the time they ignored their doubts and did the experiment that would ‘never’ work,” he says. “And the thing is, every now and then, one of those experiments works out.”

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Christina Agapakis, synthetic designer

Big idea: Synthetic biology isn’t an oxymoron; it investigates the boundary between nature and technology — and it could shape the future.

How? From teaching bacteria how to play sudoku to self-healing concrete, Christina Agapakis introduces us to the wonders of synthetic biology: a multidisciplinary science that seeks to create and sometimes redesign systems found in nature. “We have been promised a future of chrome, but what if the future is fleshy?” asks Agapakis. She delves into the ways biology could expand technology and alter the way we understand ourselves, exposing the surprisingly blurred lines between art, science and society. “It starts by recognizing that we as synthetic biologists are also shaped by a culture that values ‘real’ engineering more than any of the squishy stuff. We get so caught up in circuits and what happens inside of computers that we sometimes lose sight of the magic that’s happening inside of us,” says Agapakis.

Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of indie pop band Lucius provide an enchanting musical break between talks, performing their songs “White Lies” and “Turn It Around.”

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Jennifer L. Eberhardt, psychologist

Big idea: We can use science to break down the societal and personal biases that unfairly target Black people.

How? When Jennifer Eberhardt flew with her five-year-old son one day, he turned to her after looking at the only other Black man on the plane and said, “I hope he doesn’t rob the plane” — showing Eberhardt undeniable evidence that racial bias seeps into every crack of society. For Eberhardt, a MacArthur-winning psychologist specializing in implicit bias, this surfaced a key question at the core of our society: How do we break down the societal and personal biases that target blackness? Just because we’re vulnerable to bias doesn’t mean we need to act on it, Eberhardt says. We can create “friction” points that eliminate impulsive social media posts based on implicit bias, such as when Nextdoor fought back against its “racial profiling problem” that required users to answer a few simple questions before allowing them to raise the alarm on “suspicious” visitors to their neighborhoods. Friction isn’t just a matter of online interaction, either. With the help of similar questions, the Oakland Police Department instituted protocols that reduce traffic stops of African-Americans by 43 percent. “Categorization and the bias that it seeds allow our brains to make judgments more quickly and efficiently,” Eberhardt says. “Just as the categories we create allow us to make quick decisions, they also reinforce bias — so the very things that help us to see the world also can blind us to it. They render our choices effortless, friction-free, yet they exact a heavy toll.”

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Michael Levin, biological programmer

Big idea: DNA isn’t the only builder in the biological world — there’s also an invisible electrical matrix directing cells to change into organs, telling tadpoles to become frogs, and instructing flatworms to regenerate new bodies once sliced in half. If Michael Levin and his colleagues can learn this cellular “machine language,” human beings may be one step closer to curing birth defects, eliminating cancer and evading aging.

How? As cells become organs, systems and bodies, they communicate via an electrical system dictating where the finished parts will go. Guided by this cellular network, organisms grow, transform and even build new limbs (or bodies) after trauma. At Michael Levin’s lab, scientists are cracking this code — and have even succeeded in creating autonomous organisms out of skin cells by altering the cell electrically without genetic manipulation. Mastering this code could not only allow humans to create microscopic biological “xenobots” to rebuild and medicate our bodies from the inside but also let us to grow new organs — and perhaps rejuvenate ourselves as we age. “We are now beginning to crack this morphogenetic code to ask: How is it that these tissues store a map of what to do?” Levin asks. “[How can we] go in and rewrite that map to new outcomes?”

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Ali Kashani, VP of special projects at Postmates

Big idea: Robots are becoming a part of everyday life in urban centers, which means we’ll have to design them to be accessible, communicative and human-friendly.

How? On the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles, delivery robots bustle along neighborhood sidewalks to drop-off packages and food. With potential benefits ranging from environmental responsibility to community-building, these robots offer us an incredible glimpse into the future. The challenge now is ensuring that robots can move out of the lab and fit into our world and among us as well, says Kashani. At Postmates, Kashani designs robots with human reaction in mind. Instead of frightening, dystopian imagery, he wants people to understand robots as familiar and friendly. This is why Postmates’s robots are reminiscent of beloved characters like the Minions and Wall-E; they can use their eyes to communicate with humans and acknowledge obstacles like traffic stops in real-time. There are so many ways robots can help us and our communities: picking up extra food from restaurants for shelters, delivering emergency medication to those in need and more. By designing robots to integrate into our physical and social infrastructures, we can welcome them to the world seamlessly and create a better future for all. “My vision for the future is that when things come to life, they do so with joy,” Kashani says.

Conversations on rebuilding society: Week 4 of TED2020

For week 4 of TED2020, leaders in international development, history, architecture and public policy explored how we might rebuild during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing protests against racial injustice in the United States. Below, a recap of their insights.

Achim Steiner, head of the United National Development Programme

Big idea: The public and private sectors must work together to rebuild communities and economies from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why? When the coronavirus hit, many governments and organizations were unprepared and ill-equipped to respond effectively, says Achim Steiner. He details the ways the UNDP is partnering with both private companies and state governments to help developing countries rebuild, including delivering medicine and supplies, setting up Zoom accounts for governing bodies and building virus tracking systems. Now that countries are beginning to think broadly about life after COVID-19, Steiner says that widespread disenchantment with the state is leading people to question the future of society. They’re rethinking the relationship between the state and its citizens, the role of the private sector and the definition of a public good. He believes that CEOs and business leaders need to step forward and forge alliances with the public sector in order to address societal inequalities and shape the future of economies. “It is not that the state regulates all the problems and the private sector is essentially best off if it can just focus on its own shareholders or entrepreneurial success,” he says. “We need both.”

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Ibram X. Kendi, Author and historian

Big idea: To create a more just society, we need to make antiracism part of our everyday lives.

How? There is no such thing as being “not racist,” says Ibram X. Kendi. He explains that an idea, behavior or policy is either racist (suggesting that any racial group is superior or inferior in any way) or antiracist (suggesting that the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences). In this sense, “racist” isn’t a fixed identity — a bad, evil person — but rather a descriptive term, highlighting what someone is doing in a particular moment. Anyone can be racist or antiracist; the difference is found in how we choose to see ourselves and others. Antiracism is vulnerable work, Kendi says, and it requires persistent self-awareness, self-examination and self-criticism, grounded in a willingness to concede your privileges and admit when you’re wrong. As we learn to more clearly recognize, take responsibility for and reject prejudices in our public policies, workplaces and personal beliefs, we can actively use this awareness to uproot injustice and inequality in the world — and replace it with love. “The heartbeat of racism itself has always been denial,” he says. “The heartbeat of antiracism is confession.” Watch the full discussion on TED.com.

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Aaron Maniam, Poet and policymaker

Big idea: By crafting a range of imaginative, interlocking metaphors, we can better understand COVID-19, its real-time impacts and how the pandemic continues to change our world.

How? As a poet and a policymaker in Singapore, Maniam knows the importance of language to capture and evoke the state of the world — and to envision our future. As people across the world share their stories of the pandemic’s impact, a number of leading metaphors have emerged. In one lens, humanity has “declared war” on COVID-19 — but that angle erases any positive effects of the pandemic, like how many have been able to spend more time with loved ones. In another lens, COVID-19 has been a global “journey” — but that perspective can simplify the way class, race and location severely impact how people move through this time. Maniam offers another lens: that the pandemic has introduced a new, constantly evolving “ecology” to the world, irrevocably changing how we live on local, national and global levels. But even the ecology metaphor doesn’t quite encompass the entirety of this era, he admits. Maniam instead encourages us to examine and reflect on the pandemic across a number of angles, noting that none of these lenses, or any others, are mutually exclusive. Our individual and collective experiences of this unprecedented time deserve to be told and remembered in expansive, robust and inclusive ways. “Each of us is never going to have a monopoly on truth,” he says. “We have to value the diversity that others bring by recognizing their identity diversity … and their competent diversity — the importance of people coming from disciplines like engineering, history, public health, etc. — all contributing to a much richer understanding and totality of the situation we’re in.”

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Vishaan Chakrabarti, Architect

Big idea: Cities are facing a crisis of inequity and a crisis in health. To recover and heal, we need to plan our urban areas around inclusion and equality. 

How? In order to implement a new urban agenda rooted in equity, Vishaan Chakrabarti says that we need to consider three components: affordable housing and accessible health care; sustainable urban mobility; and attainable social and cultural resources. Chakrabarti shatters the false narrative of having to choose between an impoverished city or a prosperous one, instead envisioning one whose urban fabric is diverse with reformed housing policies and budgets. “Housing is health,” he says. “You cannot have a healthy society if people are under housing stress or have homelessness.” With a third of public space dedicated to private cars in many cities, Chakrabarti points to the massive opportunity we have to dedicate more space to socially distanced ways to commute and ecologically conscious modes of transportation, like walking or biking. We will need to go directly to communities and ask what their needs are to build inclusive, eco-friendly and scalable solutions. “We need a new narrative of generosity, not austerity,” he says.

Ways of seeing: Notes from Session 3 of TED2020

Session 3 of TED2020, hosted by TED’s head of curation Helen Walters and writer, activist and comedian Baratunde Thurston, was a night of something different — a night of camaraderie, cleverness and, as Baratunde put it, “a night of just some dope content.” Below, a recap of the night’s talks and performances.

In a heartfelt and candid moment to start the session, Tony- and Emmy-winner Cynthia Erivo performs “A Pledge to Rescue Our Youth,” an iconic 2006 poem by Maya Angelou. “You are the best we have. You are all we have. You are what we have become. We pledge you our whole hearts from this day forward,” Angelou writes.

Shantell Martin, Artist

Big idea: Drawing is more than just a graphic art — it’s a medium of self-discovery that enables anyone to let their hands spin out freestyle lines independent of rules and preconceptions. If we let our minds follow our hands, we can reach mental spaces where new worlds are tangible and art is the property of all – regardless of ethnicity or class.

How? A half-Nigerian, half-English artist growing up in a council estate in southeast London, Martin has firsthand knowledge of the race and class barriers within England’s institutions. Drawing afforded her a way out, taking her first to Tokyo and then to New York, where her large-scale, freestyle black and white drawings (often created live in front of an audience) taught her the power of lines to build new worlds. By using our hands to draw lines that our hearts can follow, she says, we not only find solace, but also can imagine and build worlds where every voice is valued equally. “Drawing has taught me to create my own rules,” Martin says. “It has taught me to open my eyes and see not only what is, but what can be. Where there are broken systems … we can create new ones that actually function and benefit all, instead of just a select few.”

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Swizz Beatz, Music producer, entrepreneur, art enthusiast

Big idea: Art is for everyone. Let’s make it that way.

Why? Creativity heals us — and everybody who harbors love for the arts deserves access to them, says Swizz Beatz. Interweaving a history of his path as a creative in the music industry, Beatz recounts his many successful pursuits in the art of giving back. In creating these spaces at the intersection of education, celebration, inclusion and support — such as The Dean Collection, No Commissions, The Dean’s Choice and Verzuz — he plans to outsmart lopsided industries that exploit creatives and give the power of art back to the people. “If we’re not protecting the arts, we’re not protecting our future, we’re not protecting this world,” he says.

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Jad Abumrad, host of RadioLab and Dolly Parton’s America

Big Idea: Storytellers and journalists are the bridge that spans conflict and difference to reveal a new meaning. 

How: When journalist Jad Abumrad began storytelling in 2002, he crafted each story to culminate the same way: mind-blowing science discoveries, paired with ear-tickling auditory creations, resolved into “moments of wonder.” But after 10 years, he began to wonder himself: Is this the only way to tell a story? Seeking an answer, Abumrad turned to more complex, convoluted stories and used science to sniff out the facts. But these stories often ended without an answer or resolution, instead leading listeners to “moments of struggle,” where truth collided with truth. It wasn’t until Abumrad returned to his home of Tennessee where he met an unlikely teacher in the art of storytelling: Dolly Parton. In listening to the incredible insights she had into her own life, he realized that the best stories can’t be summarized neatly and instead should find revelation — or what he calls “the third.” A term rooted in psychotherapy, the third is the new entity created when two opposing forces meet and reconcile their differences. For Abumrad, Dolly had found resolution in her life, fostered it in her fanbase and showcased it in her music — and revealed to him his new purpose in telling stories. “In this confusing world, we need to be the bridge between differences,” Abumrad says. “You interrogate those differences, you hold them for as long as you can until something happens, something reveals itself.”

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Backed by piano from Greg Phillinganes, singer, songwriter and producer Aloe Blacc provides balm for the soul with a gorgeous rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

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Congressman John Lewis, politician and civil rights leader, interviewed by Bryan Stevenson, public interest lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative — an excerpt from the upcoming TED Legacy Project

Big idea: As a new generation of protesters takes to the streets to fight racial injustice, many have looked to the elders of the Civil Rights Movement — like John Lewis — to study how previous generations have struggled not just to change the world but also to maintain morale in the face of overwhelming opposition.

How? In order to truly effect change and move people into a better world, contemporary protestors must learn tactics that many have forgotten — especially nonviolent engagement and persistence. Fortunately, John Lewis sees an emerging generation of new leaders of conscience, and he urges them to have hope, to be loving and optimistic and, most of all, to keep going tirelessly even in the face of setbacks. As interviewer Bryan Stevenson puts it, “We cannot rest until justice comes.”

The bill has come due for the US’s legacy of racism: Week 3 of TED2020

In response to the historic moment of mourning and anger over the ongoing violence inflicted on Black communities by police in the United States, four leaders in the movement for civil rights — Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, CEO of Center for Policing Equity; Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change; Dr. Bernice Albertine King, CEO of the King Center; and Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union — joined TED2020 to explore how we can dismantle the systems of oppression and racism. Watch the full discussion on TED.com, and read a recap below.

Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, CEO of the Center for Policing Equity

Big idea: The bill has come due for the unpaid debts the United States owes to its Black residents. But we’re not going to get to where we need to go just by reforming police.

How? What we’re seeing now isn’t just the response to one gruesome, cruel, public execution — a lynching. And it’s not just the reaction to three of them: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. What we’re seeing is the bill come due for the unpaid debts that the US owes to its Black residents, says Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, CEO of the Center for Policing Equity (CPE). In addition to the work that CPE is known for — working with police departments to use their own data to improve relationships with the communities they serve — Goff and his team are encouraging departments and cities to take money from police budgets and instead invest it directly in public resources for the community, so people don’t need the police for public safety in the first place. Learn more about how you can support the Center for Policing Equity »

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Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change

Big idea: In the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, people are showing up day after day in support of the Movement for Black Lives and in protest of police brutality against Black communities. We need to channel that presence and energy into power and material change.

How? The presence and visibility of a movement can often lead us to believe that progress is inevitable. But building power and changing the system requires more than conversations and retweets. To create material change in the racist systems that enable and perpetuate violence against Black communities, we need to translate the energy of these global protests into specific demands and actions, says Robinson. We have to pass new laws and hold those in power — from our police chiefs to our city prosecutors to our representatives in Congress — accountable to them. If we want to disentangle these interlocking systems of violence and complicity, Robinson says, we need to get involved in local, tangible organizing and build the power necessary to change the rules. “You can’t sing our songs, use our hashtags and march in our marches if you are on the other end supporting the structures that put us in harm’s way, that literally kill us,” Robinson says. “This is the time for white allies to stand up in new ways, to do the type of allyship that truly dismantles structures, not just provides charity.”

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Dr. Bernice Albertine King, CEO of The King Center

Big idea: To move towards a United States rooted in benevolent coexistence, equity and love, we must destroy and replace systems of oppression and violence towards Black communities. Nonviolence, accountability and love must pave the way.

How? The US needs a course correction that involves both hard work and “heart work” — and no one is exempt from it, says Dr. Bernice Albertine King. King continues to spread and build upon the wisdom of her father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and she believes the US can work towards unity and collective healing. To do so, racism, systemic oppression, militarism and violence must end. She calls for a revolution of values, allies that listen and engage and a world where anger is given space to be rechanneled into creating social and economic change. In this moment, as people have reached a boiling point and are being asked to restructure the nature of freedom, King encourages us to follow her father’s words of nonviolent coexistence, and not continue on the path of violent coannihilation. “You as a person may want to exempt yourself, but every generation is called,” King says. “And so I encourage corporations in America to start doing anti-racism work within corporate America. I encourage every industry to start doing anti-racism work and pick up the banner of understanding nonviolent change personally and from a social change perspective. We can do this. We can make the right choice to ultimately build the beloved community.”

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Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Big idea: No matter how frightened we are by the current turmoil, we must stay positive, listen to and engage with unheard or silenced voices, and help answer what’s become the central question of democracy in the United States: Can we really become an equal people, equally bound by law, when so many of us are beaten down by racist institutions and their enforcers?

How? This is no time for allies to disconnect — it’s time for them to take a long look in the mirror, ponder viewpoints they may not agree with or understand and engage in efforts to dismantle institutional white supremacy, Romero says. Reform is not enough anymore. Among many other changes, the most acute challenge the ACLU is now tackling is how to defund militarized police forces that more often look like more standing armies than civil servants — and bring them under civilian control. “For allies in this struggle, and those of us who don’t live this experience every day, it is time for us to lean in,” Romero says. “You can’t change the channel, you can’t tune out, you can’t say, ‘This is too hard.’ It is not that hard for us to listen and learn and heed.”

Conversations on social progress: Week 3 of TED2020

For week 3 of TED2020, global leaders in technology, vulnerability research and activism gathered for urgent conversations on how to foster connection, channel energy into concrete social action and work to end systemic racism in the United States. Below, a recap of their insights.

Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s digital minister for social innovation

Big idea: Digital innovation rooted in communal trust can create a stronger, more transparent democracy that is fast, fair — and even fun.

How? Taiwan has built a “digital democracy” where digital innovation drives active, inclusive participation from all its citizens. Sharing how she’s helped transform her government, Audrey Tang illustrates the many creative and proven ways technology can be used to foster community. In responding to the coronavirus pandemic, Taiwan created a collective intelligence system that crowdsources information and ideas, which allowed the government to act quickly and avoid a nationwide shutdown. They also generated a publicly accessible map that shows the availability of masks in local pharmacies to help people get supplies, along with a “humor over rumor” campaign that combats harmful disinformation with comedy. In reading her job description, Tang elegantly lays out the ideals of digital citizenship that form the bedrock of this kind of democracy: “When we see the internet of things, let’s make an internet of beings. When we see virtual reality, let’s make it a shared reality. When we see machine learning, let’s make it collaborative learning. When we see user experience, let’s make it about human experience. And whenever we hear the singularity is near, let us always remember the plurality is here.”

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Brené Brown, Vulnerability researcher, storyteller

Big question: The United States is at its most vulnerable right now. Where do we go from here?

Some ideas: As the country reels from the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, along with the protests that have followed, Brené Brown offers insights into how we might find a path forward. Like the rest of us, she’s in the midst of processing this moment, but believes we can harness vulnerability for progress and work together to nurture an era of moral imagination. Accountability must come first, she says: people have to be held responsible for their racist behaviors and violence, and we have to build safe communities where power is shared. Self-awareness will be key to this work: the ability to understand your emotions, behaviors and actions lies at the center of personal and social change and is the basis of empathy. This is hard work, she admits, but our ability to experience love, belonging, joy, intimacy and trust — and to build a society rooted in empathy — depend on it. “In the absence of love and belonging, there’s nothing left,” she says.

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In a time of mourning and anger over the ongoing violence inflicted on Black communities by police in the US and the lack of accountability from national leadership, what is the path forward? In a wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, the CEO of Center for Policing Equity; Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change; Dr. Bernice Albertine King, the CEO of the King Center; and Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, share urgent insights into how we can dismantle the systems of oppression and racism responsible for tragedies like the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and far too many others — and explored how the US can start to live up to its ideals. Watch the discussion on TED.com.

Values reset: Notes from Session 2 of TED2020

There’s a theory that the shock we’re currently experiencing is intense enough to force a radical reset of our values — of how we are and how we act. In an idea-packed session 2 of TED2020, speakers from across disciplines and walks of life looked to this aspiration of a “values reset,” sharing new thinking on topics ranging from corporate responsibility down to our individual responsibilities and the things each of us can right now. Below, a recap of the night’s inspiring talks and performances.

Abigail Disney, Filmmaker, activist

Big idea: Respect, dignity and a guaranteed livable wage are the right of all workers, not the privilege of a select few.

How? As CEO of the Disney Company, Roy Disney believed he had a moral obligation to every person who worked at the company. Though her grandfather wasn’t perfect, Abigail Disney says he believed that workers were worthy of immense respect — and he put that belief into practice by creating jobs with fair wages and benefits. In honor of her grandfather’s legacy, Disney advocates for income equality for all workers — and calls out the company that bears her name, asking them to do better for their workers. Our conscience and empathy should drive us, she says, not profits or economic growth. Disney believes we need a system-wide shift, one that recognizes that all workers deserve the wages, protections and benefits that would enable them to live full, secure and dignified lives.

Quote of the talk: “Nobody works in a vacuum. The men and women who run companies actively cocreate the reality we all have to share. And just like with global warming, we are each of us responsible for the collective consequences of our individual decisions and actions.”

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Adeola Fayehun, Journalist, satirist

Big idea: Africa is overflowing with all the natural resources, intellectual skill and talent it needs. To flourish, its people need to hold corrupt leaders accountable.

Why? On her show Keeping It Real With Adeola, Adeola Fayehun exposes corruption in Africa with sharp, incisive humor. She urges those outside Africa to stop seeing the continent through the lens of their biases, and encourages us all to call out false policies and shatter stereotypes. “Please listen more,” she says. “Listen to your African friends without a preconceived notion of what you think they’re going to say. Read African books, watch African movies, visit Africa or, at the very least, learn some of the names of our 54 beautiful countries.”

Quote of the talk: “Africa is like a sleeping giant. The truth is I am trying to wake up this giant. That’s why I air the dirty laundry of those in charge of the giant.”

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From his home in Los Angeles, songwriter Rufus Wainwright shares intimate versions of his songs “Peaceful Afternoon” and “Going To A Town.” Gorgeous slow pans are courtesy of Jörn Weisbrodt, Wainwright’s husband and videographer for the performances.

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Barry Schwartz, Psychology professor

Big idea: Our society is predicated on the idea that the distribution of opportunity is fair — but, in reality, working hard and playing by the rules is no guarantee of success. Good fortune and luck have far more to do with our opportunities (and therefore our future success) than we’re willing to admit.

How? Just look at the ultra-competitive landscape of college admissions, where a dearth of slots for qualified and capable students has created an epidemic of anxiety and depression among teenage university applicants long before they even make it to the job market. Schwartz suggests that the belief that working hard automatically leads to success blinds us to a core injustice: many of us simply will not get what we want. If our educational institutions — and our nation’s employers — were to emphasize this injustice by picking their students and employees randomly from a pool of those most likely to succeed, we might be forced to recognize the role that fortune plays in our lives.

Quote of the talk: “We hate the idea that really important things in life might happen by luck or by chance, that really important things in our life are not under our control.”

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Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks quarterback

Big idea: “Neutral thinking” can transform your life and help you unlock sustained personal success.

How? Athletes train their bodies to run faster, jump higher, achieve more — so why don’t they train their minds, too? For the past 10 years, Wilson has been doing just that with the assistance of mental conditioning coach Trevor Moawad. By harnessing the technique of “neutral thinking” — a strategy that emphasizes judgment-free acceptance of the present moment — Wilson has been able to maintain focus in high-pressure situations. Positivity can be dangerous and distracting, Wilson says, and negativity is sure to bring you down — but by honing a neutral mental game and executing in the present moment, you set yourself up to succeed.

Quote of the talk: “I have a choice, right now, in the midst of the storm, to decide to overcome.”

Conversations on climate action and contact tracing: Week 2 of TED2020

For week 2 of TED2020, global leaders in climate, health and technology joined the TED community for insightful discussions around the theme “build back better.” Below, a recap of the week’s fascinating and enlightening conversations about how we can move forward, together.

Marcelo Mena, environmentalist and former environment minister of Chile

Big idea: People power is the antidote to climate catastrophe.

How? With a commitment to transition to zero emissions by 2050, Chile is at the forefront of resilient and inclusive climate action. Mena shares the economic benefits instilling green solutions can have on a country: things like job creation and reduced cost of mobility, all the result of sustainability-minded actions (including phasing coal-fired power plants and creating fleets of energy-efficient buses). Speaking to the air of social unrest across South America, Mena traces how climate change fuels citizen action, sharing how protests have led to green policies being enacted. There will always be those who do not see climate change as an imminent threat, he says, and economic goals need to align with climate goals for unified and effective action. “We need to change our relationship to the environment,” Mena says. “We need to protect and conserve our ecosystems so they provide the services that they do today.”

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Nigel Topping, UK High Level Climate Action Champion, COP26

Big idea: The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to break from business as usual and institute foundational changes that will speed the world’s transition to a greener economy. 

How? Although postponed, the importance of COP26 — the UN’s international climate change conference — has not diminished. Instead it’s become nothing less than a forum on whether a post-COVID world should return to old, unsustainable business models, or instead “clean the economy” before restarting it. In Topping’s view, economies that rely on old ways of doing business jeopardize the future of our planet and risk becoming non-competitive as old, dirty jobs are replaced by new, cleaner ones. By examining the benefits of green economics, Topping illuminates the positive transformations happening now and leverages them to inspire businesses, local governments and other economic players to make radical changes to business as usual. “From the bad news alone, no solutions come. You have to turn that into a motivation to act. You have to go from despair to hope, you have to choose to act on the belief that we can avoid the worst of climate change… when you start looking, there is evidence that we’re waking up.”

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Joia Mukherjee, Chief Medical Officer, Partners in Health (PIH)

Big idea: We need to massively scale up contact tracing in order to slow the spread of COVID-19 and safely reopen communities and countries.

How? Contact tracing is the process of identifying people who come into contact with someone who has an infection, so that they can be quarantined, tested and supported until transmission stops. The earlier you start, the better, says Mukherjee — but, since flattening the curve and easing lockdown measures depend on understanding the spread of the disease, it’s never too late to begin. Mukherjee and her team at PIH are currently supporting the state of Massachusetts to scale up contact tracing for the most vulnerable communities. They’re employing 1,700 full-time contact tracers to investigate outbreaks in real-time and, in partnership with resource care coordinators, ensuring infected people receive critical resources like health care, food and unemployment benefits. With support from The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED, PIH plans to disseminate its contact tracing expertise across the US and support public health departments in slowing the spread of COVID-19. “Good health is something that gives us all so much return on our investment,” Mukherjee says. See what you can do for this idea »

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Karen DeSalvo, Chief Health Officer, Google

Big idea: We can harness the power of tech to combat the pandemic — and reshape the future of public health.

How? Google and Apple recently announced an unprecedented partnership on the COVID-19 Exposure Notifications API, a Bluetooth-powered technology that would tell people they may have been exposed to the virus. The technology is designed with privacy at its core, DeSalvo says: it doesn’t use GPS or location tracking and isn’t an app but rather an API that public health agencies can incorporate into their own apps, which users could opt in to — or not. Since smartphones are so ubiquitous, the API promises to augment contact tracing and help governments and health agencies reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Overall, the partnership between tech and public health is a natural one, DeSalvo says; communication and data are pillars of public health, and a tech giant like Google has the resources to distribute those at a global scale. By helping with the critical work of contact tracing, DeSalvo hopes to ease the burden on health workers and give scientists time to create a vaccine. “Having the right information at the right time can make all the difference,” DeSalvo says. “It can literally save lives.”

After the conversation, Karen DeSalvo was joined by Joia Mukherjee to further discuss how public health entities can partner with tech companies. Both DeSalvo and Mukherjee emphasize the importance of knitting together the various aspects of public health systems — from social services to housing — to create a healthier and more just society. They also both emphasize the importance of celebrating community health workers, who provide on-the-ground information and critical connection with people across the world.

Listening to nature: Notes from Session 1 of TED2020

TED looks a little different this year, but much has also stayed the same. The TED2020 mainstage program kicked off Thursday night with a session of talks, performances and visual delights from brilliant, creative individuals who shared ideas that could change the world — and stories of people who already have. But instead of convening in Vancouver, the TED community tuned in to the live, virtual broadcast hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson and Helen Walters from around the world — and joined speakers and fellow community members on an interactive, TED-developed second-screen platform to discuss ideas, ask questions and give real-time feedback. Below, a recap of the night’s inspiring talks, performances and conversations.

Ariel Waldman, Antarctic explorer, NASA advisor

Big idea: Seeing microbes in action helps us more fully understand (and appreciate) the abundance of life that surrounds us. 

How: Even in the coldest, most remote place on earth, our planet teems with life. Explorer Ariel Waldman introduces the thousands of organisms that call Antarctica home — and they’re not all penguins. Leading a five-week expedition, Waldman descended the sea ice and scaled glaciers to investigate and film myriad microscopic, alien-looking creatures. Her footage is nothing short of amazing — like wildlife documentary at the microbial level! From tiny nematodes to “cuddly” water bears, mini sea shrimp to geometric bugs made of glass, her camera lens captures these critters in color and motion, so we can learn more about their world and ours. Isn’t nature brilliant?

Did you know? Tardigrades, also known as water bears, live almost everywhere on earth and can even survive in the vacuum of space. 

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Tracy Edwards, Trailblazing sailor

Big Idea: Despite societal limits, girls and women are capable of creating the future of their dreams. 

How: Though competitive sailing is traditionally dominated by men, women sailors have proven they are uniquely able to navigate the seas. In 1989, Tracy Edwards led the first all-female sailing crew in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. Though hundreds of companies refused to sponsor the team and bystanders warned that an all-female team was destined to fail, Edwards knew she could trust in the ability of the women on her team. Despite the tremendous odds, they completed the trip and finished second in their class. The innovation, kindness and resourcefulness of the women on Edwards’s crew enabled them to succeed together, upending all expectations of women in sailing. Now, Edwards advocates for girls and women to dive into their dream fields and become the role models they seek to find. She believes women should understand themselves as innately capable, that the road to education has infinite routes and that we all have the ability to take control of our present and shape our futures.

Quote of the talk: “This is about teaching girls: you don’t have to look a certain way; you don’t have to feel a certain way; you don’t have to behave a certain way. You can be successful. You can follow your dreams. You can fight for them.”

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Virtuosic cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, whose standout performance at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made waves with music fans across the world, joins his sister, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, for an intimate living room performance of “Muse” by Sergei Rachmaninov and “Spring Song” by Frank Bridge.

And for a visual break, podcaster and design evangelist Debbie Millman shares an animated love letter to her garden — inviting us to remain grateful that we are still able to make things with our hands.

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Dallas Taylor, Host/creator of Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast

Big idea: There is no such thing as true silence.

Why? In a fascinating challenge to our perceptions of sound, Dallas Taylor tells the story of a well-known, highly-debated and perhaps largely misunderstood piece of music penned by composer John Cage. Written in 1952, 4′33″ is more experience than expression, asking the listener to focus on and accept things the way they are, through three movements of rest — or, less technically speaking, silence. In its “silence,” Cage invites us to contemplate the sounds that already exist when we’re ready to listen, effectively making each performance a uniquely meditative encounter with the world around us. “We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to reset our ears,” says Taylor, as he welcomes the audience to settle into the first movement of 4’33” together. “Listen to the texture and rhythm of the sounds around you right now. Listen for the loud and soft, the harmonic and dissonant … enjoy the magnificence of hearing and listening.”

Quote of the talk: “Quietness is not when we turn our minds off to sound, but when we really start to listen and hear the world in all of its sonic beauty.”

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Jane Goodall, Primatologist, conservationist

Big idea: Humanity’s long-term livelihood depends on conservation.

Why? After years in the field reinventing the way the world thinks about chimpanzees, their societies and their similarities to humans, Jane Goodall began to realize that as habitats shrink, humanity loses not only resources and life-sustaining biodiversity but also our core connection to nature. Worse still, as once-sequestered animals are pulled from their environments and sold and killed in markets, the risk of novel diseases like COVID-19 jumping into the human population rises dramatically. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Goodall tells the story of a revelatory scientific conference in 1986, where she awakened to the sorry state of global conservation and transformed from a revered naturalist into a dedicated activist. By empowering communities to take action and save natural habitats around the world, Goodall’s institute now gives communities tools they need to protect their environment. As a result of her work, conservation has become part of the DNA of cultures from China to countries throughout Africa, and is leading to visible transformations of once-endangered forests and habitats.

Quote of the talk: “Every day you live, you make an impact on the planet. You can’t help making an impact … If we all make ethical choices, then we start moving towards a world that will be not quite so desperate to leave for our great-grandchildren.”

Conversations on rebuilding a healthy economy: Week 1 of TED2020

To kick off TED2020, leaders in business, finance and public health joined the TED community for lean-forward conversations to answer the question: “What now?” Below, a recap of the fascinating insights they shared.

Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Big idea: The coronavirus pandemic shattered the global economy. To put the pieces back together, we need to make sure money is going to countries that need it the most — and that we rebuild financial systems that are resilient to shocks.

How? Kristalina Georgieva is encouraging an attitude of determined optimism to lead the world toward recovery and renewal amid the economic fallout of COVID-19. The IMF has one trillion dollars to lend — it’s now deploying these funds to areas hardest hit by the pandemic, particularly in developing countries, and it’s also put a debt moratorium into effect for the poorest countries. Georgieva admits recovery is not going to be quick, but she thinks that countries can emerge from this “great transformation” stronger than before if they build resilient, disciplined financial systems. Within the next ten years, she hopes to see positive shifts towards digital transformation, more equitable social safety nets and green recovery. And as the environment recovers while the world grinds to a halt, she urges leaders to maintain low carbon footprints — particularly since the pandemic foreshadows the devastation of global warming. “If you don’t like the pandemic, you are not going to like the climate crisis,” Georgieva says. Watch the interview on TED.com »

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Dan Schulman, President and CEO of PayPal

Big idea: Employee satisfaction and consumer trust are key to building the economy back better.

How? A company’s biggest competitive advantage is its workforce, says Dan Schulman, explaining how PayPal instituted a massive reorientation of compensation to meet the needs of its employees during the pandemic. The ripple of benefits of this shift have included increased productivity, financial health and more trust. Building further on the concept of trust, Schulman traces how the pandemic has transformed the managing and moving of money — and how it will require consumers to renew their focus on privacy and security. And he shares thoughts on the new roles of corporations and CEOs, the cashless economy and the future of capitalism. “I’m a big believer in capitalism. I think it’s in many ways the best economic system that I know of, but like everything, it needs an upgrade. It needs tuning,” Schulman says. “For vulnerable populations, just because you pay at the market [rate] doesn’t mean that they have financial health or financial wellness. And I think everyone should know whether or not their employees have the wherewithal to be able to save, to withstand financial shocks and then really understand what you can do about it.”

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Uri Alon, Biologist

Big idea: We might be able to get back to work by exploiting one of the coronavirus’s key weaknesses. 

How? By adopting a two-week cycle of four days at work followed by 10 days of lockdown, bringing the virus’s reproductive rate (R₀ or R naught) below one. The approach is built around the virus’s latent period: the three-day delay (on average) between when a person gets infected and when they start spreading the virus to others. So even if a person got sick at work, they’d reach their peak infectious period while in lockdown, limiting the virus’s spread — and helping us avoid another surge. What would this approach mean for productivity? Alon says that by staggering shifts, with groups alternating their four-day work weeks, some industries could maintain (or even exceed) their current output. And having a predictable schedule would give people the ability to maximize the effectiveness of their in-office work days, using the days in lockdown for more focused, individual work. The approach can be adopted at the company, city or regional level, and it’s already catching on, notably in schools in Austria.

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Georges C. Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association

Big Idea: We need to invest in a robust public health care system to lead us out of the coronavirus pandemic and prevent the next outbreak.

How: The coronavirus pandemic has tested the public health systems of every country around the world — and, for many, exposed shortcomings. Georges C. Benjamin details how citizens, businesses and leaders can put public health first and build a better health structure to prevent the next crisis. He envisions a well-staffed and equipped governmental public health entity that runs on up-to-date technology to track and relay information in real time, helping to identify, contain, mitigate and eliminate new diseases. Looking to countries that have successfully lowered infection rates, such as South Korea, he emphasizes the importance of early and rapid testing, contact tracing, self-isolation and quarantining. Our priority, he says, should be testing essential workers and preparing now for a spike of cases during the summer hurricane and fall flu seasons. “The secret sauce here is good, solid public health practice,” Benjamin says. “We should not be looking for any mysticism or anyone to come save us with a special pill … because this one was a bad one, but it’s not the last one.”

“Pindrop,” a TED original podcast hosted by filmmaker Saleem Reshamwala, premieres May 27

TED launches Pindrop — its newest original podcast — on May 27. Hosted by filmmaker Saleem Reshamwala, Pindrop will take listeners on a journey across the globe in search of the world’s most surprising and imaginative ideas. It’s not a travel show, exactly. It’s a deep dive into the ideas that shape a particular spot on the map, brought to you by local journalists and creators. From tiny islands to megacities, each episode is an opportunity to visit a new location — Bangkok, Mantua Township, Nairobi, Mexico City, Oberammergau — to find out: If this place were to give a TED Talk, what would it be about?

With Saleem as your guide, you’ll hear stories of police officers on motorbikes doubling as midwives in Bangkok, discover a groundbreaking paleontology site behind a Lowe’s in New Jersey’s Mantua Township, learn about Nairobi’s Afrobubblegum art movement and more. With the guidance of local journalists and TED Fellows, Pindrop gives listeners a unique lens into a spectrum of fascinating places  — an important global connection during this time of travel restrictions.

“My family is from all over, and I’ve spent a lot of my life moving around,” said Saleem. “I’ve always wanted to work on something that captured the feeling of diving deep into conversation in a place you’ve never been before, where you’re getting hit by new ideas and you just feel more open to the world. Pindrop is a go at recreating that.”

Produced by TED and Magnificent Noise, Pindrop is one of TED’s nine original podcasts, which also include TEDxSHORTS, Checking In with Susan David, WorkLife with Adam Grant, The TED Interview, TED Talks Daily, TED en Español, Sincerely, X and TED Radio Hour.  TED’s podcasts are downloaded more than 420 million times annually.

TED strives to tell partner stories in the form of authentic, story-driven content developed in real time and aligned with the editorial process — finding and exploring brilliant ideas from all over the world. Pindrop is made possible with support from Women Will, a Grow with Google program. Working together, we’re spotlighting women who are finding unique ways of impacting their communities. Active in 48 countries, this Grow with Google program helps inspire, connect and educate millions of women.

Pindrop launches May 27 for a five-episode run, with five additional episodes this fall. New 30-minute episodes air weekly and are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

TED2020 seeks the uncharted

The world has shifted, and so has TED.

We need brilliant ideas and thinkers more than ever. While we can’t convene in person, we will convene. Rather than a one-week conference, TED2020 will be an eight-week virtual experience — all held in the company of the TED community. Each week will offer signature TED programming and activities, as well as new and unique opportunities for connection and interaction. 

We have an opportunity to rebuild our world in a better, fairer and more beautiful way. In line with TED2020’s original theme, Uncharted, the conference will focus on the roles we all have to play in building back better. The eight-week program will offer ways to deepen community relationships and, together, re-imagine what the future can be.

Here’s what the TED2020 weekly program will look like: On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, a series of 45-minute live interviews, talks and debates centered on the theme Build Back Better. TED attendees can help shape the real-time conversation on an interactive, TED-developed virtual platform they can use to discuss ideas, share questions and give feedback to the stage. On Thursday, the community will gather to experience a longer mainstage TED session packed with unexpected moments, performances, visual experiences and provocative talks and interviews. Friday wraps up the week with an all-day, à la carte Community Day featuring an array of interactive choices including Discovery Sessions, speaker meetups and more.

 TED2020 speakers and performers include: 

• JAD ABUMRAD, RadioLab founder 
• CHRISTINA AGAPAKIS, Synthetic biology adventurer
• REFIK ANADOL, Digital arts maestro
• XIYE BASTIDA, Climate justice activist
• SWIZZ BEATZ, Hip-hop artist, producer
• GEORGES C. BENJAMIN, Executive Director, American Public Health Association
• BRENÉ BROWN, Vulnerability researcher, storyteller 
• WILL CATHCART, Head of WhatsApp
• JAMIE DIMON, Global banker
• ABIGAIL DISNEY, Filmmaker, activist
• BILL GATES, Technologist, philanthropist
• KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
• JANE GOODALL, Primatologist, conservationist
• AL GORE, Climate advocate
• TRACY EDWARDS, Trailblazer
• ISATA KANNEH-MASON, Pianist
• SHEKU KANNEH-MASON, Cellist
• NEAL KATYAL, Supreme Court litigator
• EMILY KING, Singer, songwriter
• YANN LECUN, AI pioneer
• MICHAEL LEVIN, Cellular explorer
• PHILIP LUBIN, Physicist
• SHANTELL MARTIN, Artist
• MARIANA MAZZUCATO, Policy influencer
• MARCELO MENA, Environment minister of Chile
• JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ, Moral leader
• DAN SCHULMAN, CEO and President, PayPal
• AUDREY TANG, Taiwan’s digital minister for social innovation
• DALLAS TAYLOR, Sound designer, podcaster
• NIGEL TOPPING, Climate action champion
• RUSSELL WILSON, Quarterback, Seattle Seahawks

The speaker lineup is being unveiled on ted2020.ted.com in waves throughout the eight weeks, as many speakers will be addressing timely and breaking news. Information about accessing the high-definition livestream of the entire conference and TED2020 membership options are also available on ted2020.ted.com.

The TED Fellows class of 2020 will once again be a highlight of the conference, with talks, Discovery Sessions and other special events sprinkled throughout the eight-week program. 

TED2020 members will also receive special access to the TED-Ed Student Talks program, which helps students around the world discover, develop and share their ideas in the form of TED-style talks. TEDsters’ kids and grandkids (ages 8-18) can participate in a series of interactive sessions led by the TED-Ed team and culminating in the delivery of each participant’s very own big idea.

As in the past, TED Talks given during the conference will be made available to the public in the coming weeks. Opening TED up to audiences around the world is foundational to TED’s mission of spreading ideas. Founded in 1984, the first TED conferences were held in Monterey, California. In 2006, TED experimented with putting TED Talk videos online for free — a decision that opened the doors to giving away all of its content. Today there are thousands of TED Talks available on TED.com. What was once a closed-door conference devoted to Technology, Entertainment and Design has become a global platform for sharing talks across a wide variety of disciplines. Thanks to the support of thousands of volunteer translators, TED Talks are available in 116 languages. TEDx, the licensing program that allows communities to produce independently organized TED events, has seen more than 28,000 events held in more than 170 countries. TED-Ed offers close to 1,200 free animated lessons and other learning resources for a youth audience and educators. Collectively, TED content attracts billions of views and listens each year.

TED has partnered with a number of innovative organizations to support its mission and contribute to the idea exchange at TED2020. They are collaborating with the TED team on innovative ways to engage a virtual audience and align their ideas and perspectives with this year’s programming. This year’s partners include: Accenture, BetterUp, Boston Consulting Group, Brightline Initiative, Cognizant, Hilton, Lexus, Project Management Institute, Qatar Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, SAP, Steelcase and Target.

Get the latest information and updates on TED2020 on ted2020.ted.com.

The Audacious Project announces new efforts in response to COVID-19

In response to the unprecedented impact of COVID-19, The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED, will direct support towards solutions tailored to rapid response and long-term recovery. Audacious has catalyzed more than $30 million towards the first three organizations in its COVID-19 rapid response cohort: Partners In Health will rapidly increase the scale, speed and effectiveness of contact tracing in the US; Project ECHO will equip over 350,000 frontline clinicians and public health workers across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America to respond to COVID-19; and World Central Kitchen will demonstrate a new model for food assistance within US cities. Each organization selected is delivering immediate aid to vulnerable populations most affected by the novel coronavirus. 

“Audacious was designed to elevate powerful interventions tackling the world’s most urgent challenges,” said Anna Verghese, Executive Director of The Audacious Project. “In line with that purpose, our philanthropic model was built to flex. In the wake of COVID-19, we’re grateful to be able to funnel rapid support towards Partners in Health, Project ECHO and World Central Kitchen — each spearheading critical work that is actionable now.”

Announcing The Audacious Project’s COVID-19 rapid response cohort 

Partners In Health has been a global leader in disease prevention, treatment and care for more than 30 years. With Audacious support over the next year, Partners In Health will disseminate its contact tracing expertise across the US and work with more than 19 public health departments to not only flatten the curve but bend it downward and help stop the spread of COVID-19. They plan to customize and scale their programs through a combination of direct technical assistance and open source sharing of best practices. This effort will reduce the spread of COVID-19 in cities and states home to an estimated 133 million people.

Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) exists to democratize life-saving medical knowledge — linking experts at centralized institutions with regional, local and community-based workforces. With Audacious investment over the next two years, ECHO will scale this proven virtual learning and telementoring model to equip more than 350,000 frontline clinicians and public health workers to respond to COVID-19. Working across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, the ECHO team will build a global network of health workers who together can permanently improve health systems and save lives in our world’s most vulnerable communities. 

Chef José Andrés‘ World Central Kitchen has provided fresh and nutritious meals to those in need following disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes since 2010. In response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, World Central Kitchen has developed an innovative solution to simultaneously provide fresh meals to those in immediate need and keep small businesses open in the midst of a health and economic crisis. World Central Kitchen will demonstrate this at scale, by expanding to employ 200 local Oakland restaurants (roughly 16 percent of the local restaurant industry) to serve nearly two million meals by the end of July — delivering a powerful proof of concept for a model that could shift food assistance around the world.

The Audacious Coalition

The Audacious Project was formed in partnership with The Bridgespan Group as a springboard for social impact. Using TED’s curatorial expertise to surface ideas, the initiative convenes investors and social entrepreneurs to channel funds towards pressing global issues.

A remarkable group of individuals and organizations have played a key role in facilitating the first edition of this Rapid Response effort. Among them ELMA Philanthropies, Skoll Foundation, Scott Cook and Signe Ostby of the Valhalla Charitable Foundation, Chris Larsen and Lyna Lam, Lyda Hill Philanthropies, The Rick & Nancy Moskovitz Foundation, Stadler Family Charitable Foundation, Inc., Ballmer Group, Mary and Mark Stevens, Crankstart and more.

To learn more about The Audacious Project visit audaciousproject.org/covid-19-response.

“TEDx SHORTS”, a TED original podcast hosted by actress Atossa Leoni, premieres May 18

Launching on Monday, May 18, TED’s new podcast TEDx SHORTS gives listeners a quick and meaningful taste of curiosity, skepticism, inspiration and action drawn from TEDx Talks. In less than 10 minutes, host Atossa Leoni guides listeners through fresh perspectives, inspiring stories and surprising information from some of the most compelling TEDx Talks. 

TEDx events are organized and run by a passionate community of independent volunteers who are at the forefront of giving a platform to global voices and sharing new ideas that spark conversations in their local areas. Since 2009, there have been more than 28,000 independently organized TEDx events in over 170 countries across the world. TEDx organizers have given voice to some of the world’s most recognized speakers, including Brené Brown and Greta Thunberg. 

TEDx SHORTS host and actress Atossa Leoni is known for her roles in the award-winning television series Homeland and the film adaptation of The Kite Runner, based on Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel. Atossa is fluent in five languages and is recognized for her work in promoting international human rights and women’s rights.

“Every day, TEDx Talks surface new ideas, research and perspectives from around the world,” says Jay Herratti, Executive Director of TEDx. “With TEDx SHORTS, we’ve curated short excerpts from some of the most thought-provoking and inspiring TEDx Talks so that listeners can discover them in bite-sized episodes.”

Produced by TED in partnership with PRX, TEDx SHORTS is one of TED’s seven original podcasts, which also include The TED Interview, TED Talks Daily, TED en Español, Sincerely, X, WorkLife with Adam Grant and TED Radio Hour. TED’s podcasts are downloaded more than 420 million times annually.

TEDx SHORTS debuts Monday, May 18 on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

Fragility, resilience and restoration at TED2020: The Prequel

It’s a new, strange, experimental day for TED. In a special Earth Day event, TED2020: The Prequel brought the magic of the TED conference to the virtual stage, inviting TED2020 community members to gather for three sessions of talks and engaging, innovative opportunities to connect. Alongside world-changing ideas from leaders in science, political strategy and environmental activism, attendees also experienced the debut of an interactive, TED-developed second-screen technology that gave them the opportunity to discuss ideas, ask questions of speakers and give real-time (emoji-driven) feedback to the stage. Below, a recap of the day’s inspiring talks, performances and conversations.

Session 1: Fragility

The opening session featured thinking on the fragile state of the present — and some hopes for the future.

Larry Brilliant, epidemiologist

Big idea: Global cooperation is the key to ending the novel coronavirus pandemic.

How? In a live conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, epidemiologist Larry Brilliant reviews the global response to SARS-CoV-2 and reflects on what we can do to end the outbreak. While scientists were able to detect and identify the virus quickly, Brilliant says, political incompetence and fear delayed action. Discussing the deadly combination of a short incubation period with a high transmissibility rate, he explains how social distancing doesn’t stamp out the disease but rather slows its spread, giving us the time needed to execute crucial contact tracing and develop a vaccine. Brilliant shares how scientists are collaborating to speed up the vaccine timeline by running multiple processes (like safety testing and manufacturing) in parallel, rather than in a time-consuming sequential process. And he reminds us that to truly conquer the pandemic, we must work together across national boundaries and political divides. Watch the conversation on TED.com » 

Quote of the talk: “This is what a pandemic forces us to realize: we are all in it together, we need a global solution to a global problem. Anything less than that is unthinkable.”

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Huang Hung, writer, publisher

Big idea: Individual freedom as an abstract concept in a pandemic is meaningless. It’s time for the West to take a step toward the East.

How? By embracing and prizing collective responsibility. In conversation with TED’s head of curation, Helen Walters, writer and publisher Huang Hung discusses how the Chinese people’s inherent trust in their government to fix problems (even when the solutions are disliked) played out with COVID-19, the handling of coronavirus whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang and what, exactly, “wok throwing” is. What seems normal and appropriate to the Chinese, Hung says — things like contact tracing and temperature checks at malls — may seem surprising and unfamiliar to Westerners at first, but these tools can be our best bet to fight a pandemic. What’s most important now is to think about the collective, not the individual. “It is a time to be together rather than to try to pull the world apart and crawl back into our own nationalistic shells,” she says.

Fun fact: There’s a word — 乖, or “guai” — that exists only in Chinese: it means a child who listens to their parents.

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Oliver Jeffers, artist, storyteller

Big idea: In the face of infinite odds, 7.5 billion of us (and counting) find ourselves here, on Earth, and that shared existence is the most important thing we have.

Why? In a poetic effort to introduce life on Earth to someone who’s never been here before, artist Oliver Jeffers wrote his newborn son a letter (which grew into a book, and then a sculpture) full of pearls of wisdom on our shared humanity. Alongside charming, original illustrations, he gives some of his best advice for living on this planet. Jeffers acknowledges that, in the grand scheme of things, we know very little about existence — except that we are experiencing it together. And we should relish that connection. Watch the talk on TED.com »

Quote of the talk: “‘For all we know,’ when said as a statement, means the sum total of all knowledge. But ‘for all we know’ when said another way, means that we do not know at all. This is the beautiful, fragile drama of civilization. We are the actors and spectators of a cosmic play that means the world to us here but means nothing anywhere else.”

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Musical interludes from 14-year old prodigy Lydian Nadhaswaram, who shared an energetic, improvised version of Gershwin’s “Summertime,” and musician, singer and songwriter Sierra Hull, who played her song “Beautifully Out of Place.”

 

Session 2: Resilience

Session 2 focused on The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED that’s unlocking social impact on a grand scale. The session saw the debut of three 2020 Audacious grantees — Crisis Text Line, The Collins Lab and ACEGID — that are spearheading bold and innovative solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Their inspirational work on the front lines is delivering urgent support to help the most vulnerable through this crisis.

Pardis Sabeti and Christian Happi, disease researchers

Big idea: Combining genomics with new information technologies, Sentinel — an early warning system that can detect and respond to emerging viral threats in real-time — aims to radically change how we catch and control outbreaks. With the novel coronavirus pandemic, Sentinel is pivoting to become a frontline responder to COVID-19.

How? From advances in the field of genomics, the team at Sentinel has developed two tools to detect viruses, track outbreaks and watch for mutations. First is Sherlock, a new method to test viruses with simple paper strips — and identify them within hours. The second is Carmen, which enables labs to test hundreds of viruses simultaneously, massively increasing diagnostic ability. By pairing these tools with mobile and cloud-based technologies, Sentinel aims to connect health workers across the world and share critical information to preempt pandemics. As COVID-19 sweeps the globe, the Sentinel team is helping scientists detect the virus quicker and empower health workers to connect and better contain the outbreak. See what you can do for this idea »

Quote of the talk: “The whole idea of Sentinel is that we all stand guard over each other, we all watch. Each one of us is a sentinel.”

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Jim Collins, bioengineer

Big idea: AI is our secret weapon against the novel coronavirus.

How? Bioengineer Jim Collins rightly touts the promise and potential of technology as a tool to discover solutions to humanity’s biggest molecular problems. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, his team combined AI with synthetic biology data, seeking to avoid a similar battle that’s on the horizon: superbugs and antibiotic resistance. But in the shadow of the present global crisis, they pivoted these technologies to help defeat the virus. They have made strides in using machine learning to discover new antiviral compounds and develop a hybrid protective mask-diagnostic test. Thanks to funding from The Audacious Project, Collins’s team will develop seven new antibiotics over seven years, with their immediate focus being treatments to help combat bacterial infections that occur alongside SARS-CoV-2. See what you can do for this idea »

Quote of the talk: “Instead of looking for a needle in a haystack, we can use the giant magnet of computing power to find many needles in multiple haystacks simultaneously.”

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Nancy Lublin, health activist

Big idea: Crisis Text Line, a free 24-hour service that connects with people via text message, delivers crucial mental health support to those who need it. Now they’re going global.

How? Using mobile technology, machine learning and a large distributed network of volunteers, Crisis Text Line helps people in times of crisis, no matter the situation. Here’s how it works: If you’re in the United States or Canada, you can text HOME to 741741 and connect with a live, trained Crisis Counselor, who will provide confidential help via text message. (Numbers vary for the UK and Ireland; find them here.) The not-for-profit launched in August 2013 and within four months had expanded to all 274 area codes in the US. Over the next two-and-a-half years, they’re committing to providing aid to anyone who needs it not only in English but also in Spanish, Portuguese, French and Arabic — covering 32 percent of the globe. Learn how you can join the movement to spread empathy across the world by becoming a Crisis Counselor. See what you can do for this idea »

Quote of the talk: “This will be strangers helping strangers around the world — like a giant global love machine.”

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Music and interludes from Damian Kulash and OK Go, who showed love for frontline pandemic workers with the debut of a special quarantine performance, and David Whyte, who recited his poem “What to Remember When Waking,” inviting us to celebrate that first, hardly-noticed moment when we wake up each day. “What you can plan is too small for you to live,” Whyte says.

 

Session 3: Restoration

The closing session considered ways to restore our planet’s health and work towards a beautiful, clean, carbon-free future.

Tom Rivett-Carnac, political strategist

Big idea: We need stubborn optimism coupled with action to meet our most formidable challenges.

How: Speaking from the woods outside his home in England, political strategist Tom Rivett-Carnac addresses the loss of control and helplessness we may feel as a result of overwhelming threats like climate change. Looking to leaders from history who have blazed the way forward in dark times, he finds that people like Rosa Parks, Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi had something in common: stubborn optimism. This mindset, he says, is not naivety or denial but rather a refusal to be defeated. Stubborn optimism, when paired with action, can infuse our efforts with meaning and help us choose the world we want to create. Watch the talk on TED.com »

Quote of the talk: “This stubborn optimism is a form of applied love … and it is a choice for all of us.”

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Kristine Tompkins, Earth activist, conservationist

Big idea: Earth, humanity and nature are all interconnected. To restore us all back to health, let’s “rewild” the world. 

Why? The disappearance of wildlife from its natural habitat is a problem to be met with action, not nostalgia. Activist and former Patagonia CEO Kristine Tompkins decided she would dedicate the rest of her life to that work. By purchasing privately owned wild habitats, restoring their ecosystems and transforming them into protected national parks, Tompkins shows the transformational power of wildlands philanthropy. She urgently spreads the importance of this kind of “rewilding” work — and shows that we all have a role to play. “The power of the absent can’t help us if it just leads to nostalgia or despair,” she says. “It’s only useful if it motivates us toward working to bring back what’s gone missing.”

Quote of the talk: “Every human life is affected by the actions of every other human life around the globe. And the fate of humanity is tied to the health of the planet. We have a common destiny. We can flourish or we can suffer, but we’re going to be doing it together.”

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Music and interludes from Amanda Palmer, who channels her inner Gonzo with a performance of “I’m Going To Go Back There Someday” from The Muppet Movie; Baratunde Thurston, who took a moment to show gratitude for Earth and reflect on the challenge humanity faces in restoring balance to our lives; singer-songwriter Alice Smith, who gives a hauntingly beautiful vocal performance of her original song “The Meaning,” dedicated of Mother Earth; and author Neil Gaiman, reading an excerpt about the fragile beauty that lies at the heart of life.

TED Talks Daily welcomes inaugural host, Elise Hu

TED Talks Daily, TED’s most-downloaded podcast, welcomes its inaugural host: Elise Hu. After nearly a decade at NPR, Elise’s first episode of TED Talks Daily will be released on April 6. While at NPR, Elise was a regular contributor to All Things Considered and Morning Edition. She filed stories from more than a dozen countries as an international correspondent and opened NPR’s first-ever Seoul bureau. Hu also created the Gracie-award winning video series Elise Tries and helped found The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit digital startup.

“I’m hungry to learn and grow. And now, I get to watch and introduce fresh ideas from the global community of TED speakers … for my job! What a privilege,” says Hu. “During this period of being inside and looking inward I’ve found this opportunity to join the TED team and learn from the vast TED community to be a balm and a salve. I can’t wait to engage further with the worldwide TED audience.”

TED’s podcasts are downloaded more than 420 million times annually. TED Talks Daily, which is downloaded one million times per day, is one of the most downloaded shows, and not just in the US — it’s been featured in Apple Podcasts’ top ten charts in 130 countries around the world (more than any other podcast).

Every weekday, TED Talks Daily features the latest talks in audio. Listeners tune in for thought-provoking talks on every subject imaginable — from artificial intelligence to zoology, and everything in between — given by the world’s leading thinkers and creators. TED Talks Daily aims to inspire listeners to change their perspectives, ignite their curiosity and learn something new. As host, Elise brings an inquiring mind and journalistic background to guide audiences and lay the foundation for each episode.

“TED Talks Daily has long been a favorite way for audiences to engage with TED Talks, so we’re looking forward to adding onto the format,” said Colin Helms, head of media at TED. “What listeners have come to know and love about TED Talks Daily will continue, but with Elise as our host, we can build a richer backdrop for our talks.”

Michelle Quint, editorial director of format development at TED, added: “Elise embodies the very spirit of TED Talks Daily — smart, joyful and deeply curious about the world around her. We feel so lucky to have her at the helm.”

Partners play a crucial role in bringing TED’s content to the public. TED Talks Daily is sponsored by some of the most innovative and interesting organizations in the world today. TED strives to tell their stories in the form of authentic, story-driven content developed in real-time and aligned with our editorial process — finding and exploring brilliant ideas from unlikely places.

New episodes of TED Talks Daily air every weekday and are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the TED Android app or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

5 ways to live (and thrive) while social distancing

The novel coronavirus has dramatically changed how we spend time and share physical and virtual space with each other. On Friday, March 27, conflict mediator and author Priya Parker joined head of TED Chris Anderson and current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers on TED Connects to discuss what we all can do to stay connected and sustain relationships while apart during the pandemic. Here’s some advice to help you get through this uncertain time:

Bring intention to planning a virtual gathering

As platforms like Zoom, Slack and email become more integrated into our lives, it’s clear that technology will play an important role in helping us keep in touch. Whether you’re organizing a Zoom dinner party or Facetiming a friend, Parker invites us to consider how we can elevate the conversation beyond just check-ins. In planning a virtual gathering, ask:

• Who’s joining and why?
• What are your community’s needs?
• What’s the reason you’re coming together?

As the pandemic evolves, these needs will likely shift. Stay attuned to the kinds of connections your communities are seeking.

Include fun themes to elevate your digital get-togethers

Parker suggests centering your gatherings around themes or activities to encourage more meaningful and purposeful conversations. Incorporate elements of the physical world to create a shared experience, like asking everyone to wear a funny costume or making the same recipe together. Though screens don’t quite replace the energy of in-person gatherings, we can still strengthen community bonds by reminding ourselves that there are real people on the other end of our devices.

Set healthy boundaries to maintain wellbeing

As we’re figuring out the best way to exist in the digital world, it’s also crucial we put in the effort to meaningfully connect with those we’re quarantining with. The distinctions between time to work, socialize and rest can grow blurrier by the day, so be sure to set boundaries and ground rules with those you live with. In having this conversation with your roommates, family or partner, reflect on these prompts:

• How do you want to distinguish time spent together versus apart?
• How do you want to share time together?
• Since we look at screens most of the day, could it be helpful to set no-screen times or brainstorm new, non-digital ways to hang out?

Allow yourself to reflect on the unknown

It’s important to acknowledge that this is not a normal time, Parker says. The coronavirus pandemic has transformed the world, and as a global society we’ll experience the reverberations of this period as they ripple across every sector of human life. Make sure to create space for those conversations, too.

Take time to wander through the unknown, to talk about how we are being changed — individually and collectively — by this shared experience. It’s perfectly normal to feel worried, vulnerable, even existential, and this may be a great time to lean into those feelings and think about what really matters to you.

Recognize the power and feeling community brings — no matter the size

While the coronavirus pandemic has physically isolated many of us from each other, our ingenuity and resilience ensures that we can still build and forge community together. Across the world, people are gathering in new and amazing ways to set up “care-mongering” support groups, sing with their neighbors, take ceramics classes, knit together and break bread.

Now is the time to discover (or rediscover) the value and power of community. We are all members of many different communities: our neighborhoods, families, countries, faith circles and so on. Though we’re living in unprecedented times of social isolation, we can forge stronger bonds by gathering in ways that reflect our best values and principles. In the United Kingdom, a recent campaign asked people across the country to go outside at a synchronized time and collectively applaud health workers on the frontlines of the crisis; a similar effort was made across India to ring bells in honor of the ill and those caring for them. During this crisis and beyond, we can use thoughtful ritual-making to transform our unease and isolation into community bonding.

“Gathering is contagious,” Parker says. “These small, simple ideas allow people to feel like we can shape some amount — even a small amount — of our collective reality together.”

Looking for more tips, advice and wisdom? Watch the full conversation with Priya below:

How TED-Ed is helping families, students and teachers navigate the COVID-19 pandemic

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s unprecedented impact on education systems worldwide, TED’s award-winning youth and education initiative TED-Ed is focused on providing free, high-quality educational resources to millions of families around the globe. TED-Ed’s existing library of free, video-based lessons has been built by a network of 500,000 educators, spans all ages and subjects and features interactive lesson plans that complement thousands of TED-Ed Animations, TED Talks and other carefully curated educational videos.

By providing a variety of educational resources and engaging learning experiences, our hope is to help students, teachers and families replace feelings of anxiety, isolation, chaos and exhaustion with healthier and more sustainable feelings like curiosity, connectivity, predictability and rejuvenation. Here’s how you can follow along:

Announcing TED-Ed@Home

Launched last week, TED-Ed@Home is a daily newsletter that’s leveraging the collective expertise of thousands of TED speakers, TED-Ed educators and animators, and TED Translators to provide high-quality, online learning experiences for students, teachers and families everywhere — for free.

To get free daily lesson plans delivered to your inbox — organized by age group and spanning all subjects — sign up for the TED-Ed@Home newsletter. The newsletter features interactive, curiosity-invoking, video-based lessons around subjects commonly taught in school. The lessons are tagged to the appropriate grade levels, and subjects cover the arts, literature, language, math, science, technology and more. Most featured videos will offer translated subtitles in dozens of languages, and each lesson will include interactive questions, discussion prompts and materials to dig deeper. Teachers and parents can use the lessons as-is or easily customize them to meet their learners’ needs.

… and the TED-Ed Daily Challenge!

School closings don’t just keep students away from the classroom; they also keep students away from each other. While it’s critical that young people stay at home right now, it’s equally vital for students to see and hear from other young people — and for them to experience play in safe and meaningful ways.

On Instagram, we’re creating a fun way for students and their families to use their brains and common household items to creatively respond to educational challenges issued by TED speakers throughout the world. Each weekday at 2pm, head over to @tededucation for a brief educational talk and challenge from a new TED speaker. We’ll be handing over our account to TED speakers of all ages, who will use Instagram Stories and Instagram Live to deliver brief educational talks and issue creative, interactive, family-oriented challenges to Instagram users around the world. Viewers can respond using their own Instagram accounts, and TED-Ed will feature the most creative responses on our channel.

New initiatives from TED to share ideas, build community and stay hopeful

Now more than ever is the time for community. The global team at TED is working hard to keep you connected, deliver thoughtful news and insights from world leaders, and offer opportunities to volunteer from the safety of your homes. Here’s a recap of the various resources we’re making immediately accessible while many of us are staying home to help stop the coronavirus.

Join us for TED Connects: Community and Hope

TED is committed to being a reliable source of information with regularly updated talks, interviews and TED-Ed lessons related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The talks are vetted by TED’s curators — experienced journalists from fields including science, business, media and current affairs. 

We’re also announcing TED Connects: Community and Hope — a live, daily conversation series with global leaders and experts, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers. TED Connects kicks off Monday, March 23 and is free and open to anyone. To participate, bookmark this page and join us daily at 12pm ET and subscribe for reminders.

This week, we’re featuring experts whose ideas can help us reflect and work through this uncertain time with a sense of responsibility, compassion and wisdom. Here’s the lineup:

• Monday, March 23, 12pm ET: How to be your best self in times of crisis — Susan David, Harvard Medical School psychologist studying emotional agility 
• Tuesday, March 24, 12pm ET: The healthcare systems we must urgently fix — Bill Gates, business leader and philanthropist 
• Wednesday, March 25, 12pm ET: What we can learn from China’s response to the coronavirus — Gary Liu, CEO of the South China Morning Post
• Thursday, March 26, 12pm ET: The quest for the coronavirus vaccine — Seth Berkley, epidemiologist and head of GAVI, the vaccine alliance
• Friday, March 27, 12pm ET: How to create meaningful connection while apart — Priya Parker, author, The Art of Gathering

New from TED-Ed: TED-Ed@Home

TED’s award-winning youth and education initiative, TED-Ed, is focused on providing free, high-quality educational resources to families throughout the world. TED-Ed’s existing library of free, video-based lessons has been built by a network of 500,000 educators, spans all ages and subjects and features interactive lesson plans that complement thousands of TED-Ed Animations, TED Talks and other carefully curated educational videos.

You can have these lesson plans delivered to your inbox daily by signing up for TED-Ed@Home — a new, free newsletter designed for families. The TED-Ed@Home newsletter features interactive, video-based lessons created by expert educators and TED speakers, and each lesson is organized by age group and subject.

And another fun thing: feed your curiosity and stay engaged with the TED-Ed Daily Challenge. Join @tededucation on Instagram Live each weekday at 2pm ET, when TED speakers, educators and experts from around the world will share creative, interactive, family-oriented lessons and challenges you can do together at home.

TED Circles: A resource for community and connection

Meaningful conversations create personal connections that collectively strengthen communities. In September 2019, TED launched TED Circles, an open platform of small, volunteer-led groups that engage in conversations about ideas. In light of the physical limitations many communities currently face, TED Circles is a powerful way to continue connecting and engaging (virtually) face-to-face on a variety of topics. With TED Circles, hosts pick a TED Talk, invite people to join and facilitate a constructive conversation. Circles then share their takeaways online so that the group can gain one another’s perspectives and create global connections.

Learn more about joining a virtual Circle around the monthly themes (March: “Who has power”; April: “A changing world”; May: “Life at its fullest”) and/or special programming featured each month. In the spirit of creating space for conversation, Circles can discuss monthly themes or expert ideas to help communities think through this challenging time.

Circles can be hosted by individuals, schools/universities, organizations/businesses, TEDx organizers and TED-Ed clubs. Sign up to become a host.

Virtual volunteering: Become a TED Translator

Speak another — or many — languages? The TED Translators program is a global volunteer network that subtitles TED Talks and allows ideas to cross languages and borders. For those who are multilingual, being a TED Translator is a unique opportunity to have impact from the safety of your living room — while connecting and collaborating with a global community. Learn more about how to become a TED Translator. 

Gratitude

In this challenging moment, our global community inspires all of us at TED. We want to be here for you and hope these platforms offer connection, information and even inspiration as we work through this time. We must lean on one another for collective insights, learnings, kindness and compassion — as well as our physical health. We are eager to see you soon, and in the interim we hope these opportunities to connect offer meaningful moments of engagement.

Join us for TED Connects: live, daily conversations from TED

On Monday, March 23, TED kicks off a free, live and daily conversation series, TED Connects: Community and Hope. As COVID-19 continues to sweep the globe, it’s hard to know where to turn or what to think. Hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers, this new program will feature experts whose ideas can help us reflect and work through this time with a sense of responsibility, compassion and wisdom. Watch our first livestream here on Monday at 12pm ET.

This week, we’ll be joined in conversation with a wide-ranging group of TED speakers. Here’s the lineup:

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Monday, March 23, 12pm ET

Susan David
Psychologist studying emotional agility
How to be your best self in times of crisis

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Tuesday, March 24, 12pm ET

Bill Gates
Business leader and philanthropist
The healthcare systems we must urgently fix

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Wednesday, March 25, 12pm ET

Gary Liu
CEO of the South China Morning Post
What we can learn from China’s response to the coronavirus

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Thursday, March 26, 12pm ET

Seth Berkley
Epidemiologist and head of GAVI, the vaccine alliance
The quest for the coronavirus vaccine

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Friday, March 27, 12pm ET

Priya Parker
Author, The Art of Gathering
How to create meaningful connections while apart

What to watch from TED on the coronavirus outbreak

As people across the world face the coronavirus outbreak, TED is committed to being a resource for information, inspiration and hope. We’ve curated talks, interviews, TED-Ed lessons and more to help provide some perspective during the pandemic. Here’s where to start:

• On Monday, March 23, TED kicked off a free, live and daily conversation series, TED Connects: Community and Hope. Watch the conversations here, and subscribe to get reminders before we go live.
• TED Fellow Alanna Shaikh shares why COVID-19 is hitting us now — and what we’ll learn from it.
• TED-Ed’s round-up of animations to help you understand the outbreak of a virus.
• Infectious disease expert Adam Kucharski discusses how we can control the pandemic. (Listen to his full episode on The TED Interview.)
• Public health expert David Heymann answers 11 questions about the novel coronavirus.
• This playlist draws from our archive of talks on infectious diseases, vaccines and pandemics.
• Kids at home? Keep busy with hundreds of free animated lessons from TED-Ed (which you can filter by education level). If you’re an educator, learn more about how to create your own TED-Ed lessons.
• Watch Bill Gates (kind of) predict this whole thing at TED2015.
• And these talks on self-care offer simple ways to stay healthy, both physically and emotionally.

Keep your eye on the homepage — we’re continuing to share new TED Talks every weekday on TED.com.

TED2020 postponed

Update 5/18/20: TED2020 will not be held in Vancouver, BC. Starting May 18, 2020, the conference is being convened as an eight-week virtual experience.

Based on a community-wide decision, TED2020 will move from April 20-24 to July 26-30 — and will still be held in Vancouver, BC.

With the COVID-19 virus spreading across the planet, we’re facing many challenges and uncertainties, which is why we feel passionately that TED2020 matters more than ever. Knowing our original April dates would no longer work, we sought counsel and guidance from our vast community. Amidst our network of artists, entrepreneurs, innovators, creators, scientists and more, we also count experts in health and medicine among our ranks. After vetting all of the options, we offered registered attendees the choice to either postpone the event or hold a virtual version. The majority expressed a preference for a summer TED, so that’s the official plan.

We’ve spent the past year putting together a spectacular program designed to chart the future. Our speakers are extraordinary. You, our beloved community, are also incredible. Somehow, despite the global health crisis, we will use this moment to share insights, spark action and host meaningful discussions of the ideas that matter most in the world.

As head of TED Chris Anderson noted in his letter to attendees: “Our north star in making decisions has been your health and safety. This is a moment when community matters like never before. I believe passionately in the power, wisdom and collective spirit of this community. We’re stronger together.”

Learn more about TED2020: Uncharted

TED original podcast “WorkLife with Adam Grant” returns with Season 3

The breakaway hit returns March 10, exploring the burnout myth, why we procrastinate, loneliness at work and beyond.

Organizational psychologist, best-selling author and TED speaker Adam Grant returns Tuesday, March 10 with Season 3 of WorkLife with Adam Grant, a TED original podcast series that takes you inside the minds of some of the world’s most interesting professionals to explore the science of making work not suck. Listen to Seasons 1 and 2 now.

On the heels of Season 2, which reached millions of people and was a regular feature on the New York Times Smarter Living blog, Season 3 promises to continue bringing Adam’s unique observations to life. The upcoming season features eight new episodes plus a bonus live-recorded episode spanning timely work-related topics like the burnout myth, why we procrastinate, loneliness at work, whether professional decline is inevitable, the perils of authenticity, redesigning the interview and more. Special guests will include author Margaret Atwood, psychotherapist and author Esther Perel and restaurateur David Chang. 

“It might be surprising, but I’ve actually had fun exploring some of the experiences that make work suck most — like procrastinating, being lonely and burning out,” Adam says. “WorkLife Season 3 probably won’t eradicate those ills, but we’re going to shed light on the causes and some of the cures with bold ideas, fiery debates and fresh evidence.”

Want to learn more about how you can apply Adam’s tips to your own work life? Look out for the WorkLife Podcast Club, Adam’s weekly newsletter on LinkedIn where he’ll share excerpts from the show and pose questions for discussion.

Produced by TED and Transmitter Media, WorkLife is one of TED’s six original podcasts, which also include The TED Interview, TED Talks Daily, TED en Español, Sincerely, X and TED Radio Hour. Stay tuned for more podcasts from TED later this year. You can also check out Adam’s TED Talks — “Are you a giver or a taker?” and “The surprising habits of original thinkers” — which have together been viewed more than 22 million times.

TED strives to tell partner stories in the form of authentic, story-driven content developed in real-time and aligned with the editorial process — finding and exploring brilliant ideas from all over the world. The third season of WorkLife with Adam Grant is made possible with the support of Accenture, BetterUp, Hilton and SAP. New 30-minute episodes air weekly on Tuesdays and are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the TED Android app or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The bold and brilliant conference shorts from TEDWomen 2019

TEDWomen 2019 explored topics ranging from immigration to climate change, from menopause to sexism and beyond. To interweave dazzling talks and introduce sessions, curators CC Hutten and Jonathan Wells handpicked a series of short videos that complemented the themes and narratives that ran throughout the conference. Their selections highlighted the ideas shared, offered viewers a fresh perspective or provided levity and humor following a somber moment. But what these videos all had in common? Top notch art.

Enjoy the 17 short films presented at TEDWomen 2019, curated to embolden and invite brilliance even in the darkest of times.

The short: “Strength.” A meditation on the wonders and power of the female body and mind.
The creators: Hedvig Ahlberg and Agathe Barbier
Shown during: Session 1, Truth Tellers

 

The short: “Still I Rise.” What do you get when you mix Maya Angelou reciting her poem “Still I Rise” with a message raising awareness of rural women’s fight to end global hunger? A lasting message of hope.
The creator: United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development
Shown during: Session 1, Truth Tellers

 

The short: “Wide Awake.” An entrancing animated story about chasing something until it consumes you. TED worked with Wendy McNaughton and her global database of female illustrators, Women Who Draw, to showcase artist Min Liu and display the impact of inclusiveness in art.
The creator: Min Liu
Shown during: Session 2, Pattern Makers

 

The short: “Procrastinators.” The perfectionist, cleaner, foodie, napper, avoider, worrier, five-minute liar or “oh sh*t” — which one are you? We hope you get around to figuring it out …
The creator: Nas Alhusain
Shown during: Session 2, Pattern Makers

 

The short: “ANIMALIA.” Set to funky music, this film will make you want to write Valentine’s Cards to all the animals at the zoo.
The creator: MINDFRUIT
Shown during: Session 3, Planet Protectors

 

The short: “Maestro.” Once upon a time, in an enchanted forest under the light of a full moon, a bird begins to sing opera, which inspires squirrel to conduct its fellow woodland creatures in a passionate symphonic performance.
The creator: Bloom Pictures
Shown during: Session 3, Planet Protectors

 

The short: “The Last of the Korean Mermaids.” Can you imagine diving 50 feet in a single breath to the ocean floor? Follow an elderly Haenyeo who has dedicated her life to the centuries-old Korean tradition of diving that will likely end with her generation.
The creator: Borderland
Shown during: Session 3, Planet Protectors

 

The short: “Da Da Ding.” A celebration of Indian female athletes and a rallying cry to urge the next generation to continue breaking conventions through sports.
The creator: François Rousselet
Shown during: Session 4, Taboo Breakers

 

The short: “Plaisir Sucré.” A man comes face-to-face with his circular nemesis: a pink-frosted donut.
The creator: MegaComputeur
Shown during: Session 4, Taboo Breakers

 

The short: “I Dare You.” A four-piece female-fronted punk rock band bops around in an ethereal set, wearing color-blocked outfits.
The creator: The Regrettes
Shown during: Session 5, Meaning Seekers

 

The short: “Never Standing Still.” Neon-clad ballet dancers perform choreographed dance around Hong Kong to a remix of Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro.”
The creator: Dean Alexander
Shown during: Session 5, Meaning Seekers

 

The short: “Robot & The Robots.” Personality-filled pastel robots play themselves!
The creator: Ricard Badia
Shown during: Session 5, Meaning Seekers

 

The short: “The Opposites Game.” A classroom erupts into a war of words as students grapple with a seemingly simple prompt: what is the opposite of a gun?
The creator: TED-Ed
Shown during: Session 5, Meaning Seekers

 

The short: “Back in Pocket.” An adorable boy and girl dance in their neighborhood and playground.
The creator: TED-Ed
Shown during: Session 6, Wayfinders

 

The short: “Dumpling Time!!” A heartwarming animation about a cat and dog sharing dumplings and making sure the other is happy.
The creator: A day of us
Shown during: Session 6, Wayfinders

 

The short: “Katelyn Ohashi.” Gymnast Katelyn Ohashi’s viral floor routine in Anaheim is a perfect ten.
The creator: UCLA Athletics
Shown during: Session 6, Wayfinders

 

The short: “#SingItKitty.” A girl and her kitten lip-synch Starship’s “We Built This City” while pedaling a pink tricycle through a suburban cul-de-sac.
The creator: Three UK
Shown during: Session 6, Wayfinders

Ignite: The talks of TED@WellsFargo

World-changing ideas that unearth solutions and ignite progress can come from anywhere. With that spirit in mind at TED@WellsFargo, thirteen speakers showcased how human empathy and problem-solving can combine with technology to transform lives (and banking) for the better.

The event: TED@WellsFargo, a day of thought-provoking talks on topics including how to handle challenging situations at work, the value of giving back and why differences can be strengths. It’s the first time TED and Wells Fargo have partnered to create inspiring talks from Wells Fargo Team Members.

When and where: Wednesday, February 5, 2020, at the Knight Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina

Opening and closing remarks: David Galloreese, Wells Fargo Head of Human Resources, and Jamie Moldafsky, Wells Fargo Chief Marketing Officer

Performances by: Dancer Simone Cooper and singer/songwriter Jason Jet and his band

The talks in brief:

Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez, sales and trading analyst

Big idea: As an immigrant, learning to thrive in America while watching other immigrants struggle oddly echoes what flight attendants instruct us to do when the oxygen masks drop in an emergency landing: if you want to help others put on their masks, you must put on your own mask first.

How? At age 15, Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez found herself alone in the US when her parents were forced to return to Mexico, taking her eight-year-old brother with them. For eight years, she diligently completed her education — and grappled with guilt, believing she wasn’t doing enough to aid fellow immigrants. Now working as a sales and trading analyst while guiding her brother through school in New York, she’s learned a valuable truth: in an emergency, you can’t save others until you save yourself.

Quote of the talk: “Immigrants [can’t] and will never be able to fit into any one narrative, because most of us are actually just traveling along a spectrum, trying to survive.”

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Matt Trombley, customer remediation supervisor

Big idea: Agonism — “taking a warlike stance in contexts that are not literally war” — plagues many aspects of modern-day life, from the way we look at our neighbors to the way we talk about politics. Can we work our way out of this divisive mindset?

How: Often we think that those we disagree with are our enemies, or that we must approve of everything our loved ones say or believe. Not surprisingly, this is disastrous for relationships. Matt Trombley shows us how to fight agonism by cultivating common ground (working to find just a single shared thread with someone) and by forgiving others for the slights that we believe their values cause us. If we do this, our relationships will truly come to life.

Quote of the talk: “When you can find even the smallest bit of common ground with somebody, it allows you to understand just the beautiful wonder and complexity and majesty of the other person.”

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Dorothy Walker, project manager

Big idea: Anybody can help resolve a conflict — between friends, coworkers, strangers, your children — with three simple steps.

How? Step one: prepare. Whenever possible, set a future date and time to work through a conflict, when emotions aren’t running as high. Step two: defuse and move forward. When you do begin mediating the conflict, start off by observing, listening and asking neutral questions; this will cause both parties to stop and think, and give you a chance to shift positive energy into the conversation. Finally, step three: make an agreement. Once the energy of the conflict has settled, it’s time to get an agreement (either written or verbal) so everybody can walk away with a peaceful resolution.

Quote of the talk: “There is a resolution to all conflicts. It just takes your willingness to try.”

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Charles Smith, branch manager

Big idea: The high rate of veteran suicide is intolerable — and potentially avoidable. By prioritizing the mental health of military service members both during and after active duty, we can save lives.

How? There are actionable solutions to end the devastating epidemic of military suicide, says Charles Smith. First, by implementing a standard mental health evaluation to military applicants, we can better gauge the preliminary markers of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression. Data is a vital part of the solution: if we keep better track of mental health data on service members, we can also predict where support is most needed and create those structures proactively. By identifying those with a higher risk early on in their military careers, we can ensure they have appropriate care during their service and connect them to the resources they need once they are discharged, enabling veterans to securely and safely rejoin civilian life.

Quote of the talk: “If we put our minds and resources together, and we openly talk and try to find solutions for this epidemic, hopefully, we can save a life.”

Rob Cooke, premier banker

Big idea: Work-related stress costs us a lot, in our lives and the economy. We need to reframe the way we manage stress — both in our workplaces and in our minds.

How? “We tend to think of [stress] as a consequence, but I see it as a culture,” says Rob Cooke. Despite massive global investments in the wellness industry, we are still losing trillions of dollars due to a stress-related decrease in employee productivity and illness. Cooke shares a multifaceted approach to shifting the way stress is managed, internally and culturally. It starts with corporations prioritizing the well-being of employees, governments incentivizing high standards for workplace wellness and individually nurturing our relationship with our own mental health.

Quote of the talk: “We all know retirement is all about saving more now, for later. What if we treated our mental health and overall well-being in the same capacity? Develop and save more of you now, for later in life.”

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Aeris Nguyen, learning and development facilitator

Big idea: What would our world be like if we could use DNA to verify our identity?

Why? Every year, millions of people have their identities stolen or misused. This fact got Aeris Nguyen thinking about how to safeguard our information for good. She shares an ambitious thought experiment, asking: Can we use our own bodies to verify our selves? While biometric data such as facial or palm print recognition have their own pitfalls (they can be easily fooled by, say, wearing a specially lighted hat or using a wax hand), what if we could use our DNA — our blood, hair or earwax? Nguyen acknowledges the ethical dilemmas and logistical nightmares that would come with collecting and storing more than seven billion files of DNA, but she can’t help but wonder if someday, in the far future, this will become the norm.

Quote of the talk: “Don’t you find it strange that we carry around these arbitrary, government assigned numbers or pieces of paper with our picture on it and some made-up passwords to prove we are who we say we are?  When, in fact, the most rock-solid proof of our identity is something we carry around in our cells — our DNA.”

France Villarta, communications consultant

Big idea: Modern ideas of gender are much older than we may think.

How? In many cultures around the world, the social construct of gender is binary — man or woman, assigned certain characteristics and traits, all designated by biological sex. But that’s not the case for every culture. France Villarta details the gender-fluid history of his native Philippines and how the influence of colonial rule forced narrow-minded beliefs onto its people. In a talk that’s part cultural love letter, part history lesson, Villarta emphasizes the beauty and need in reclaiming gender identities. “Oftentimes, we think of something as strange only because we’re not familiar with it or haven’t taken enough time to try and understand,” he says. “The good thing about social constructs is that they can be reconstructed — to fit a time and age.”

Quote of the talk: “To anyone reeling from forces trying to knock you down and cram you into these neat little boxes people have decided for you — don’t break. I see you. My ancestors see you. Their blood runs through me as they run through so many of us. You are valid. And you deserve rights and recognition. Just like everyone else.”

Dean Furness, analytic consultant

Big idea: You can overcome personal challenges by focusing on yourself, instead of making comparisons to others.

How? After a farming accident paralyzed Dean Furness below the waist, he began the process of adjusting to life in a wheelchair. He realized he’d have to nurture and focus on this new version of himself, rather than fixate on his former height, strength and mobility. With several years of rehabilitation and encouragement from his physical therapist, Furness began competing in the Chicago and Boston marathons as a wheelchair athlete. By learning how to own each day, he says, we can all work to get better, little by little.

Quote of the talk: “Take some time and focus on you, instead of others. I bet you can win those challenges and really start accomplishing great things.”

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John Puthenveetil, financial advisor

Big idea: Because of the uncertain world we live in, many seek solace from “certainty merchants” — like physicians, priests and financial advisors. Given the complex, chaotic mechanisms of our economy, we’re better off discarding “certainty” for better planning.

How? We must embrace adaptable plans that address all probable contingencies, not just the most obvious ones. This is a crucial component of “scenario-based planning,” says John Puthenveetil. We should always aim for being approximately right rather than precisely wrong. But this only works if we pay attention, heed portents of possible change and act decisively — even when that’s uncomfortable.

Quote of the talk: “It is up to us to use [scenario-based planning] wisely: Not out of a sense of weakness or fear, but out of the strength and conviction that comes from knowing that we are prepared to play the hand that is dealt.”

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Johanna Figueira, digital marketing consultant

Big idea: The world is more connected than ever, but some communities are still being cut off from vital resources. The solution? Digitally matching professional expertise with locals who know what their communities really need.

How? Johanna Figueira is one of millions who has left Venezuela due to economic crisis, crumbling infrastructure and decline in health care — but she hasn’t left these issues behind. With the help of those still living in the country, Figueira helped organize Code for Venezuela — a platform that matches experts with communities in need to create simple, effective tools to improve quality of life. She shares two of their most successful projects: MediTweet, an intelligent Twitter bot that helps Venezuelans find medicinal supplies, and Blackout Tracker, a tool that helps pinpoint power cuts in Venezuela that the government won’t report. Her organization shows the massive difference made when locals participate in their own solutions.

Quote of the talk: “Some people in Silicon Valley may look at these projects and say that they’re not major technological innovations. But that’s the point. These projects are not insanely advanced — but it’s what the people of Venezuela need, and they can have a tremendous impact.”

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Jeanne Goldie, branch sales manager

Big idea: We’re looking for dynamic hotbeds of innovation in all the wrong places.

How? Often, society looks to the young for the next big thing, leaving older generations to languish in their shadow until being shuffled out altogether, taking their brain power and productivity with them. Instead of discarding today’s senior workforce, Jeanne Goldie suggests we tap into their years of experience and retrain them, just as space flight has moved from the disposable rockets of NASA’s moon launches to today’s reusable Space X models.

Quote of the talk: “If we look at data and technology as the tools they are … but not as the answer, we can come up with better solutions to our most challenging problems.”

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Rebecca Knill, business systems consultant

Big idea: By shifting our cultural understanding of ability and using technology to connect, we can build a more inclusive and human world.

How? The medical advances of modern technology have improved accessibility for disabled communities. Rebecca Knill, a self-described cyborg who has a cochlear implant, believes the next step to a more connected world is changing our perspectives. For example, being deaf isn’t shameful or pitiful, says Knill — it’s just a different way of navigating the world. To take full advantage of the fantastic opportunities new technology offers us, we must drop our assumptions and meet differences with empathy.

Quote of the talk: “Technology has come so far. Our mindset just needs to catch up.”

Anastasia Penright, business consultant

Big idea: No workplace is immune to drama, but there are steps we can follow to remove ourselves from the chatter and focus on what’s really important.

How? No matter your industry, chances are you’ve experienced workplace drama. In a funny and relatable talk, Anastasia Penright shares a better way to coexist with our coworkers using five simple steps she’s taken to leave drama behind and excel in her career. First, we must honestly evaluate our own role in creating and perpetuating conflicts; then evaluate our thoughts and stop thinking about every possible scenario. Next, it’s important to release our negative energy to a trusted confidant (a “venting buddy”) while trying to understand and accept the unique communication styles and work languages of our colleagues. Finally, she says, we need to recognize when we’re about to step into drama and protect our energy by simply walking away.

Quote of the talk: “We have to learn to accept where people are and adjust ourselves to handle those situations … to recognize when it is time to professionally walk away from someone.”

Meet the 2020 class of TED Fellows and Senior Fellows

The TED Fellows program is excited to announce the new group of TED2020 Fellows and Senior Fellows! This year’s class represents 13 countries across four continents, and they’re making strides in an impressive range of fields — from astrobiology and ethnomusicology to maternal healthcare and beyond. This group is taking a hard look at the world’s most pressing issues and offering bold, fresh ideas to create meaningful impact.

The TED Fellows program supports extraordinary, iconoclastic individuals at work on world-changing projects, providing them with access to the global TED platform and community, as well as new tools and resources to amplify their remarkable vision. The TED Fellows program now includes 492 Fellows who work across 99 countries, forming a powerful, far-reaching network of artists, scientists, activists, architects, entrepreneurs, journalists and more, each dedicated to making our world better and more equitable.

Below, meet the group of Fellows and Senior Fellows who will join us at TED2020, April 20-24, in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Zahra Al-Mahdi
Multimedia artist (Kuwait)
Artist using satire, dark humor and tactile collage techniques to reveal the unintended impacts humans have on their societies and ecosystems.

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Feras Fayyad
Documentary filmmaker (Syria | Germany | Denmark)
Filmmaker documenting the lives of his fellow Syrian citizens as they struggle to survive and save their neighbors.

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Madame Gandhi
Activist (US)
Electronic musician and gender-rights advocate blurring the boundaries between art, performance and activism.

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Kathy Hannun
Geothermal entrepreneur (US)
Cofounder of Dandelion, a green energy startup pioneering novel drilling techniques to make geothermal installations less expensive and intrusive.

Aparna Hegde
Maternal health innovator (India)
Urogynecologist and founder of ARMMAN, an organization leveraging mobile technology to empower, inform and serve the more than 14 million Indian women and children plagued by gaps in healthcare infrastructure.

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Daniel Alexander Jones
Theater artist (US)
Performance artist creating unique and ritualistic dramatic experiences through music, monologue and improvisation by channeling Jomama Jones, a mystical alter ego.

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Katie Mack
Cosmologist (US)
Theoretical cosmologist and scientific storyteller unraveling connections between the smallest particles, largest interstellar objects and various ways the universe might end.

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Itamar Mann
Human rights lawyer (Israel)
Author and litigator defending the rights of refugees who flee their countries and cross violent borders.

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Barbara Maseda
Data transparency advocate (Cuba)
Data journalist exploring and creating ways to collect and share data in places where information is often manipulated and restricted, especially in Cuba.

Matthew Mazzotta
Artist + activist (US | Canada)
Artist and activist creating unexpected built environments in order to engage communities in public dialogue.

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Aaron Morris
Immunoengineer (US)
Scientist developing implantable technology to create an early-warning system for autoimmune disorders, organ transplant rejection and cancer.

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Naomi Mwaura
Transportation activist (Kenya)
Transport entrepreneur working to end sexual harassment on Kenyan public transit by advocating for a gender-balanced workforce and training transit workers.

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Rohan Pavuluri
Legal aid entrepreneur (US)
Founder of Upsolve, an organization helping low-income Americans file bankruptcy for free and navigate an increasingly complex and expensive legal system.

Gowri Shankar
King cobra conservationist (India)
Ecologist studying the king cobra and educating the people of India on the importance of this feared, maligned and now threatened reptile species.

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Khalil Ramadi
Medical hacker (US)
Biomedical researcher developing hair-thin brain probes, ingestible medical devices and other innovative technologies to help us better understand how the gut and brain are interconnected.

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Sarah Rugheimer
Astrophysicist (UK | US)
Astrophysicist studying the telltale chemical signatures on distant planets that could someday reveal the presence of extraterrestrial life.

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Peter Schwartzstein
Climate journalist (UK | US | Greece)
Journalist reporting on the immediate, present-day violence and disruption caused by climate-related environmental change.

Almudena Toral
Visual journalist (US | Spain)
Journalist reporting stories about migration, violence and trauma through documentary films. Currently tracking the difficulties and exploitation faced by immigrants and asylum seekers in the US and Latin America.

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Bianca Tylek
Criminal justice advocate (US)
Criminal justice advocate and founder of Worth Rises, a national nonprofit working to dismantle the prison industry through policy advocacy, corporate activism and community organizing.

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Brittany Young
STEM educator (US)
Engineer-turned-teacher creating pathways for young people to careers in science, technology, engineering and extreme sports — all around a shared passion for dirt bikes.

 

TED2020 Senior Fellows

Senior Fellows embody the spirit of the TED Fellows program. They attend four additional TED events, mentor new Fellows and continue to share their remarkable work with the TED community.

Kyra Gaunt
Ethnomusicologist (US)
Digital ethnomusicologist illuminating the prevalence of gender-based exploitation and violence against marginalized girls in digital spaces.

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Alison Killing
Architect + technologist (UK | Netherlands)
Architect and open source investigator using journalism and mapping tools to help people better understand the impacts of surveillance and the built environment on human rights.

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Adam Kucharski
Epidemiologist (UK)
Infectious disease scientist creating new mathematical and computational models to understand how epidemics like Zika and Ebola spread — and how they can be controlled.

Jae Rhim Lee
Designer + entrepreneur (US | South Korea)
Designer developing new rituals and objects around death to point us toward a more sustainable future, including a mushroom burial suit that converts our unused bodies efficiently into clean compost.

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Sonaar Luthra
Water risk forcaster (US | India)
Environmentalist measuring climate-related water risk and implementing solutions for organizations and communities facing 21st-century water security challenges.

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Majala Mlagui
Politician (Kenya)
Elected Deputy Governor of one of Kenya’s counties, championing the socioeconomic advancement of women, youth in government, ethical mineral value chains and environmental conservation.

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Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil
Astrophysicist (Turkey | US)
Astrophysicist studying extreme objects — including a rare double-ringed elliptical galaxy she discovered — to help us understand how galaxies form and evolve.

Paul Rucker
Multidisciplinary artist (US)
Multidisciplinary artist exploring issues related to mass incarceration, racially motivated violence and the continued impact of policies that sustain inequity.

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Edsel Salvana
Molecular biologist (Philippines)
Physician studying the genetics of HIV, developing an affordable test for HIV drug resistance and fighting the spread of misinformation around vaccines and immunization.

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Kibwe Tavares
Filmmaker + architect (UK)
Filmmaker and cofounder of Factory Fifteen, a studio collective using dance and live performance to help understand design and our built environment.

A dangerous woman: Pat Mitchell speaks at TEDWomen 2019

Pat Mitchell has nothing left to prove and much less to lose. Now more than ever, she cares less about what others say, speaks her mind freely — and she’s angry, too. She’s become a dangerous woman, through and through.

Not dangerous, as in feared, but fearless; a force to be reckoned with.

On the TEDWomen stage, she invites all women, men and allies to join her in embracing the risks necessary to create a world where safety, respect and truth burn brighter than the darkness of our current times.

“This is all possible because we’re ready for this. We’re better prepared than any generation ever before us,” she says. “Better resourced, better connected, and in many parts of the world we’re living longer than ever.”

On the cusp of 77 years old, Mitchell would know what it takes to make possibilities reality from her own career blazing an award-winning trail across media and television. Before she launched TEDWomen, she produced and hosted breakthrough television for women, and presided over CNN Productions, PBS and the Paley Center for Media, taking risks all along the way.

“I became a risk-taker early in my life’s journey. I had to, or have my life defined by the limitations for girls growing up in the rural South, especially … with no money, influence or connections,” she says. “But what wasn’t limited was my curiosity about the world beyond my small town.”

She acknowledges her trajectory was colored with gendered advice — become blonde (she did), drop your voice (she tried), lower your necklines (she didn’t) — that sometimes made it difficult to strike a balance between her leadership and womanhood. But now, declaring her pride as a woman leader, activist, advocate and feminist, she couldn’t care less what others say.

Even further, Mitchell states that women shouldn’t wait to be empowered — they must wield the power they already hold. What’s needed are more opportunities to claim, use and share it; for those who’ve forged their paths to reach back and help change the nature of power by dismantling some of the barriers that remain for those who follow.

Iconic playwright George Bernard Shaw, she shares, once wrote: “Life is not a brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

Pat Mitchell believes we’re more than equipped to move our communities forward, together. We have the funds, the technology and the media platforms to elevate each other’s stories and ideas for a better livelihood, a better planet.

And for Mitchell there’s no question that she walks in the same footsteps as Shaw’s, looking forward to a near future where we are willing to take more risks, to be more fearless, to speak up, speak out and show up for one another.

“At this point in my life’s journey, I am not passing my torch,” she says. “I am holding my splendid torch higher than ever, boldly and brilliantly — inviting you to join me in its dangerous light.”

Wayfinders: Notes from Session 6 of TEDWomen 2019

The final session of TEDWomen 2019 is here! We can’t believe it; we won’t believe. But, if we must close out these three incredible days, it’s good we did it by hearing from a diverse range of “wayfinders” — incredible women who are using their wisdom and insight to light the way forward, tackle global problems and find the right balance of fear and courage to do so.

The event: TEDWomen 2019, Session 6: Wayfinders, hosted by Pat Mitchell, Helen Walters and Kelly Stoetzel

When and where: Friday, December 6, 2019, 9am PT, at La Quinta Resort & Club in La Quinta, California

Speakers: Valorie Kondos Field, Noeline Kirabo, Martha Minow, Agnes Binagwaho, Mary Ellen Hannibal, Jasmine Crowe, Cara E. Yar Khan, Pat Mitchell

Music: Singer-songwriter Butterscotch performs a virtuosic set, mixing beatboxing with her powerful voice to sing about love, life and everything in between.

The talks in brief:

Valorie Kondos Field, gymnastics coach

Big idea: Victory does not always equal success. Leaders need to consider the cost of winning to those under our care and redefine success in empathetic and positive terms.

How? Across the world, a pervasive “win at all costs” culture is creating emotional and physical crises. When Valorie Kondos Field first started working with the UCLA women’s gymnastics team, she mimicked other “winning” coaches by being relentless, unsympathetic and outright mean. One day, her team sat her down and made a firm case against her top-down, bullying approach. The years that followed — and her deeply personal, trust-based work with champion athletes like Katelyn Ohashi and Kyla Ross — were a lesson in the importance of an empathetic approach. True champions, she says, derive joy from their pursuits — win or lose.

Quote of the talk: “Instead of focusing maniacally on winning, we need to have the courage to develop champions through empathy, positivity, and accountability.”

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Noeline Kirabo, social entrepreneur

Big idea: Almost everyone dreams of turning their passion into a successful career — but to do so, you must first identify what your passion is.

How? Passion isn’t only for the rich or the retired, says Noeline Kirabo. When she dropped out of school because she couldn’t afford the tuition, she didn’t settle for a job she didn’t love — instead, she decided to follow her passion. She founded Kyusa, a nonprofit dedicated to addressing youth unemployment in Uganda by helping young people turn their interests into careers and profitable businesses. Her organization provides the necessary support for them to build the future of their dreams, including soft skills and entrepreneurial training. But how do you discover your passion? She poses two questions to help you find the answer: If you had all the money and time in the world, what would you spend your time doing; and what truly makes you happy or gives you a deep sense of fulfillment? To find these answers, she says, we must look inward — not outward. 

Quote of the talk: “We need to look inward to identify the things that give us a deep sense of fulfillment, the things that give us the deepest joy, and then weave them into the patterns of our daily routines. In so doing, we cease to work, and we start to live.”

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Martha Minow, law professor

Big idea: Our laws and legal system are focused on punishment, but they should make more room for forgiveness.

Why?: In her 40 years of teaching law, Martha Minow has found that law students are not taught much about forgiveness. While the law itself does contain tools like pardons, commutations and bankruptcy for debt, they are not adequately used. Or, when they are used, they reinforce existing social inequities along the lines of race and class. Yet the benefits of mercy have been widely shown, not just for our own individual health, but also for the health of communities affected by criminal activity. Restorative justice, which emphasizes accountability and service rather than punishment, can disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline that has become a prominent issue in parts of the US, Minow says. Although placing more of an emphasis on forgiveness comes with the risk of bias, it also comes with the promise of creating a fairer future.

Quote of the talk: “To ask how law may forgive is not to deny the fact of wrongdoing. Rather, it’s to widen the lens to enable glimpses of the larger patterns.”

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Agnes Binagwaho, pediatrician, former Minister of Health of Rwanda

Big idea: Educating women creates female leaders and establishes gender equity — which improves society in countless ways.

How? In 1996, Agnes Binagwaho returned to her home country of Rwanda to practice medicine in the aftermath of the country’s horrific genocide. The devastation was so pervasive she considered leaving, but resilient Rwandan women motivated her to stay and help rebuild. And she is glad she did. Today, Rwanda has the highest proportion of women in parliament — nearly 62 percent — and the most successful HPV vaccination campaign for children. More recently, Binagwaho helped open a medical school in Rwanda called University of Global Health Equity, which maintains gender parity and is free of charge, as long as students commit to working with vulnerable communities around the world.

Quote of the talk: “I have learned that if we focus on women’s education, we improve their lives positively, as well as the wellbeing of their community.”

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Mary Ellen Hannibal, science writer

Big idea: Around the world, insect species (including the monarch butterfly) are dying at an alarming rate. The looming demise of important pollinators (like bees and butterflies) will have dire consequences for human civilization. Citizen scientists could help save these insects — and the planet.

How? Citizen scientists — people without PhDs who leverage technology to collect data and organize initiatives to protect the natural world — are a crucial force for understanding complex natural phenomena. The same citizen scientists who documented plummeting monarch butterfly populations now work to save them (and other endangered species) through food-source cultivation, habitat preservation and efforts like the City Nature Challenge — a scalable data-gathering initiative supporting threatened species that cohabit our cities.

Quote of the talk: “Insect life is at the very foundation of our life-support systems. We can’t lose these insects.”

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Jasmine Crowe, social entrepreneur, hunger hero

Big idea: We’re doing hunger wrong in America. We can eliminate hunger, reduce food waste and give families their dignity back through innovative technology, instead of charity. 

How? While Food banks are beloved community institutions, they aren’t solving hunger, says Jasmine Crowe. They keep families dependent on their services and rarely offer a full meal. Scarcity isn’t the problem, Crowe reminds us: globally, one in nine people go hungry each day, yet food waste has increased by 50 percent since the 1970s. Crowe — who has spent her life giving back to the Atlanta community — is reengineering how cities handle hunger through Goodr, a tech-enabled sustainable food waste company. Their app gathers unused food from local businesses and distributes it to food deserts through nonprofits and popup grocery stores. Each of us has the power to join the movement to bring real food and dignity back to families.

Quote of the talk: “We wanted to change the way we think and approached the hunger fight, get people to believe that we could solve hunger — not as a charity, not as a food bank, but as a social enterprise with a goal of ending hunger and food waste.”

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Cara E. Yar Khan, humanitarian, disability activist

Big Idea: Courage is never instantaneous or easy. It’s a careful balance of bravery and fear. 

How? After being diagnosed with Hereditary Inclusion Body Myopathy, a genetic condition that deteriorates muscle, Cara E. Yar Khan heard repeatedly that she had to limit her career ambitions and quiet her dreams. Instead, she actively pursued and accomplished her goals, working as a humanitarian in Angola with the UN and as a disability advocate in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. She decided to descend to the base of the Grand Canyon, embarking on a harrowing 12-day trip: four days descending the canyon via horseback, and eight days of white water rafting through the Colorado River. Though terrifying, the trip showed her how powerful her courage could be, she says. Courage isn’t just a burst of bravery that appears when needed — it arises when we’re willing to take risks, acknowledge and prepare for our fears and become devoted to bringing our dreams to life. 

Quote of the talk: “Without fear, you’ll do foolish things. Without courage, you’ll never step into the unknown. The balance of the two is where the magic lies, and it’s a balance we all deal with everyday.”

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Pat Mitchell, TEDWomen curator, self-proclaimed “dangerous woman”

Big idea: It’s time to embrace risk, speak out and live dangerously.

Why? We live in dangerous times, with nothing left to prove and much more to lose, says Pat Mitchell. The rise in sexism, racism and violence against women and girls, alongside the dire state of our planet, demands that we live dangerously. “I don’t mean being feared,” says Mitchell. “But I do mean being more fearless.” Mitchell knows this best from her own life blazing a path across media and television. On the TEDWomen stage, she shares how her own experiences informed her leadership decisions and vision of a future where women wield the power they already hold. (Read a full recap here.)

Quote of the talk: “At this point in my life’s journey, I am holding my splendid torch higher than ever, boldly and brilliantly — inviting you to join me in its dangerous light.”

Meaning Seekers: Notes from Session 5 of TEDWomen 2019

Session 5 of TEDWomen 2019 is all about seeking meaning: in our political lives, creative lives, healthcare systems, criminal justice and beyond.

The event: TEDWomen 2019, Session 5: Meaning Seekers, hosted by Helen Walters and Anna Verghese

When and where: Thursday, December 5, 2019, 5pm PT, at La Quinta Resort & Club in La Quinta, California

Speakers: Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Priti Krishtel, Robin Steinberg, Manoush Zomorodi, Denise Ho, Denise Zmekhol, Smruti Jukur, Debbie Millman

The talks in brief:

Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone

Big idea: We can catalyze positive change by channeling feelings of dissatisfaction into collaboration and action.

How? After learning of the devastating rebel invasion of Sierra Leone in 1999, and the details of the 2014 Ebola epidemic, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr was struck by profound feelings of anger and discontent. But instead of becoming frozen and overwhelmed by those feelings, she decided to act. This movement from dissatisfaction to action is the key to creating dramatic change, Aki-Sawyerr says. In 1999, she cofounded the Sierra Leone War Trust for Children, supporting and advocating for refugees of Sierra Leone’s rebel invasion. During the Ebola epidemic, Aki-Sawyerr designed the Western Area Surge Plan, which prioritized collaborating with community members to stop the spread of the virus. Now, as mayor of Freetown, she’s bringing together the city to translate their frustrations into actionable solutions.

Quote of the talk: “The steps to address that deep sense of anger and frustration I felt didn’t unfold magically or clearly. That’s not how the power of dissatisfaction works. It works when you know that things can be better, and it works when you decide to take the risks to bring about that change.”

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Priti Krishtel, pharmaceutical reformer

Big idea: High drug prices are fueling crushing debt, causing families immense hardship, including loss of life. These prices, in turn, are made possible by an outdated patent system that’s easily exploited by the pharmaceutical industry to perpetuate drug monopolies that extend for years beyond their original patents.

How? Between 2006 and 2016, drug patents doubled. But consider this: the vast majority of medicines associated with new drug patents are not new, with nearly eight out of ten being for existing medicines, like insulin or aspirin. Priti Krishtel believes that US patent reforms would dramatically reduce medical costs. We can start by banning new patents for trivially modified drugs, removing financial incentives for the Patent Office (which currently gets paid based on granted patents), increasing the transparency of the patent process, empowering the public to challenge patents in court, and introducing robust patent oversight mechanisms.

Quote of the talk: “The higher a patent wall a company builds, the longer they hold on to their monopoly. And with no one to compete with, they can set prices at whim — and because these are medicines and not designer watches, we have no choice but to pay.”

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Robin Steinberg, public defender, activist, CEO of The Bail Project

Big idea: We need to end the injustice of cash bail in the United States criminal justice system.

Why? In conversation with journalist Manoush Zomorodi (the new host of the TED Radio Hour), Robin Steinberg gives an update on her 2018 TED Talk about the work of her nonprofit The Bail Project. Here’s the problem: on any given night, more than 450,000 people in the US are locked up in jail simply because they don’t have enough money to pay bail. The sums in question are often around $500: easy for some to pay, impossible for others. This has real human consequences: people lose jobs, homes and lives, and it drives racial disparities in the legal system. Now, with support from the The Audacious Project, Steinberg’s nonprofit is scaling up their efforts — growing their revolving bail fund, expanding the on-the-ground presence of their bail disruptors and rolling out a community-based model that gives local support to people before they are convicted of a crime.

Quote of the talk: “Each and every one of us is implicated in what our criminal legal system looks like. There is no escaping that.”

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Denise Ho, singer and democracy activist

Big idea: In a stirring talk and performance, banned Cantopop superstar Denise Ho gives the TED audience a taste of a dissident’s life in 2019 Hong Kong — and a glimpse into a protest movement that persists in the face of constant oppression by the Hong Kong government and their allies on the mainland.

How? As an activist in the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement, Denise Ho joined her fellow citizens on the streets of Hong Kong for 79 days. Although she was ultimately arrested, censored and banned, she moved her career underground. She remains a crucial voice for democracy and a dedicated fighter in a leaderless movement battling to preserve autonomy for Hong Kong through spontaneous actions that the authorities are unable to predict or control.

Quote of the talk: “Creativity is what the tyrants cannot control, nor repress. WIth their very powerful but slow machine, it takes time for them to react to new ideas. Whether it is the protest on the streets that is taking a new fluidity, or the way that people reinvent themselves, the system needs time to counter it to find solutions. … When they do, we would have already moved on to the next idea.”

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Denise Zmekhol, filmmaker

Big idea: The memory of Pele de Vidro, the iconic São Paulo tower, continues to be a poignant reflection of Brazil’s past, present and future.

Why? The Pele de Vidro (which translates to “Skin of Glass”) has been a symbol of modernity in Latin America since the early-1960s, when Denise Zmekhol’s father designed the São Paulo landmark. Yet, it wasn’t until many years after his death that she learned what went on behind its closed doors. As she reconnected with her late father’s memory and filmed a documentary in 2017, she discovered that “the glass walls of this building became a mirror reflecting the glory and turmoil of our beloved Brazil.” But before she could set foot inside, the unimaginable happened: a massive fire swallowed the iconic building. Zmekhol grieved for the city and her father. But today, she is hopeful. Architects are planning to build a cultural lab at the site of the Pele de Vidro to pay tribute to her father and the landmark that meant so much for so many.

Quote of the talk: “Ironically, only after the building was gone could I understand the role it played in so many lives.”

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Smruti Jukur, urban planner

Big idea: What if those in poverty were a part of the city planning process?

Why? Within many cities there exists another city — informal communities, hundreds of thousands of people strong. 881 million people across the world who live in these settlements and slums — some as large as townships (Kibera, Nairobi; Dharavi, Mumbai; and Khayelitsha, South Africa, to name a few) — are under threat of being displaced at any time in the name of real estate development. Smruti Jukur urges governments and those in power to work in tandem with these settlements, instead of choosing what they think is right for their citizens. Jukur offers a real-world example, happening right now in Mukuru, Nairobi, where respect, empowerment and collaboration is helping leaders and their residents build a more inclusive city for tomorrow.

Quote of the talk: “Poverty only changes affordability. It does not change aspirations.”

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Debbie Millman, designer

Big idea: The ability to create meaning through symbols and logos doesn’t just belong to big corporations. It belongs to all of us. 

Why? Since the early days of human society, we have created community through shared symbols. In fact, some of the first religious symbols were not created by any church or leader, but by communities themselves, explains Debbie Millman. Unique marks and logos have come to indicate ownership or belonging in a variety of ways, from branding cattle to the first trademarked brand in the United States: a beer. But for the last few hundred years, this ability has largely belonged to companies with the means to trademark and advertise something as recognizable as the Nike swoosh. Now, online culture is changing things, Millman says. Social media can amplify messages, and branding has reverted to something created by and for people. The creation of the pussy hat for the 2017 Women’s March is just one example of how the internet grants us the democratic capacity to make shared meaning.

Quote of the talk: “Branding is not just a tool of capitalism. Branding is the profound manifestation of the human spirit.” 

Taboo Breakers: Notes from Session 4 of TEDWomen 2019

In Session 4 of TEDWomen 2019, we tackled some big taboos — divorce, menopause, political dissent — and met the extraordinary people on the front lines of breaking them.

The event: TEDWomen 2019, Session 4: Taboo Breakers, hosted by Corey Hajim and Shoham Arad

When and where: Thursday, December 5, 2019, 2:30pm PT, at La Quinta Resort & Club in La Quinta, California

Speakers: Jeannie Suk Gersen, Joel Leon, Jen Gunter, Lisa Mosconi, Rayma Suprani

Music: Filling the room with her unmistakable rasp, the legendary Macy Gray brought Session 4 to a joyous close.

The talks in brief:

Jeannie Suk Gersen, legal scholar, writer

Big idea: To understand how marriage works, we need to talk about how marriages end.

Why? It may sound counterintuitive, but talking early in a relationship about what happens when two people break up may be one of the best ways to learn how to stay together, says Jeannie Suk Gersen. Too often in marriages, we make and demand sacrifices without reckoning their costs. There is wisdom in looking at the price of our marital decisions — in the same way that divorce law teaches us to do. Where to begin? Gerson lays out three ideas we should discuss with our partners from the get-go: how sacrifice can be a fair exchange; how childcare will impact the relationship; and which assets will be shared and which will be kept separate. If we take the time to have these divorce-conscious and difficult conversations, she says, we can better navigate togetherness.

Quote of the talk: “Divorce makes it incredibly explicit who owes what to whom. Whether you’re married or divorced, those are debts of love that will need to be paid.”

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Joel Leon, performer, author and storyteller

Big idea: Parenting inevitably involves sacrifice, but those burdens should be shared. Co-parenting challenges partners to ask: How can I show up for you in a way that benefits our family?

How?  “Co-parenting” might sound like a buzzword invented by well-to-do families and modern sitcoms, says Joel Leon, but it actually refers to a parenting style that challenges fathers and mothers to show up for each other in a world that often assumes fathers to be absent. Connecting his participation as a co-parent to his own experiences as a child — when his mother was the sole source of love, warmth and shelter in his life — Leon asks parents to reject the stigmas associated with fatherhood and the stereotypes of motherhood. Create space for compassion and communication in the home, he says: being a parent is an opportunity, not a responsibility. 

Quote of the talk: “It is work, beautifully hard work, dismantling the systems that would have us believe a women’s role is in the kitchen tending to all things domestic, while the hapless dad fumbles over himself whenever he has to spend a weekend alone with the kids. It is work that needs to happen. Now.”

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Jen Gunter, gynecologist

Big idea: Menstruation has historically been a topic connected with shame, used as a tool of repression against women — but knowledge about the female body is the key to ending “menstrual shame.”

How? For centuries, women and girls have been told that their menstrual pain isn’t real, that their bodies when bleeding are gross (or dangerous, or even evil) and they shouldn’t talk about their periods. These messages silence women, causing a lack of information that perpetuates profound shame in many societies, says Jen Gunter. She explains how not knowing what is happening to our bodies is disempowering — and gives a quick lesson on the internal processes of the uterus, from ovulation to menstruation. When we know how our bodies work, we can end the menstrual taboo, and when we know what kind of pain is typical, we can begin addressing it. 

Quote of the talk: “It shouldn’t be an act of feminism to know how your body works. It shouldn’t be an act of feminism to ask for help when you’re suffering.”

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Lisa Mosconi, neuroscientist

Big idea: Women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and we need to pay closer attention to the connection between hormones, menopause and brain health.

Why? While there is no such thing as a “gendered brain,” our hormones are actually more closely connected to our brain health than we might realize. In her work, Lisa Mosconi has noted that many of the symptoms we associate with menopause — hot flashes, night sweats, memory lapses, anxiety — are neurological symptoms. They start in the brain because of its relationship with estrogen, the hormone that decreases when women go through the menopause. Estrogen plays a vital role in energy production, giving our brain the fuel it needs. Once estrogen levels decline, our neurons slow and begin to age faster. This puts women at a higher risk of developing the brain plaques associated with Alzheimer’s. While this research is still in its early stages, Mosconi notes, it suggests that women’s brains in mid-life are more sensitive to hormonal aging than to aging itself. If we break the taboos around speaking about menopause, we can do more for women’s health — and women’s brain health in particular.

Quote of the talk: “So many women are worried that they might be losing their minds, but the truth is that your brain is going through a transition, and it needs time and support.”

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Rayma Suprani, political cartoonist and activist

Big Idea: Political cartoonists are vital to a healthy and free society. As the right to free speech faces rising threats, we need to ensure that cartoonists have the freedom to express their ideas.

Why? In 2014, Rayma Suprani submitted a cartoon to her editor at El Universal, a major Venezuelan newspaper, that criticized the health care system. The next day, she was fired. Many suspect the government was involved, and the subsequent threats she received were so terrifying she eventually left the country. Political cartoonists provide an important perspective in society, says Suprani, translating complex social and political issues into a single image. They introduce new ways of looking at the world and government, sparking discussion and raising awareness. When cartoonists aren’t able to express their ideas without fear of backlash, we lose an essential voice in the political and cultural dialogue. By ensuring cartoonists can freely share their ideas and criticisms, we can better speak truth to power and cultivate a more free world.

Quote of the talk: “A drawing can be a synthesis of a place: a universe, a country or a society. It can also represent the inner workings of someone’s mind. For me, drawing cartoons is a form of resistance.”

Strike for the climate: Jane Fonda speaks at TEDWomen 2019

At age 81, actor and activist Jane Fonda is putting herself on the line for the planet, literally. In a video interview with TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, Fonda speaks about Fire Drill Fridays, the weekly demonstrations on Capitol Hill she leads in partnership with Greenpeace.

Since moving to Washington D.C. in September 2019, Fonda has staged a sit-in at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill every Friday to protest the extraction of fossil fuels. She’s been arrested multiple times and spent a night in jail, and her actions are inspiring people around the world to host their own Fire Drill Fridays. She believes protest is becoming a new normal — at least until we see the changes we need. But, she says, we don’t all need to get arrested to raise awareness. She details some of the ways we can pressure our lawmakers and hold governments accountable.

Here are highlights from the interview.

Pat Michell: Talk to us about the origin of Fire Drill Fridays.

Jane Fonda: “I was very inspired by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish student, and by the young school climate strikers. Greta says: we have to get out of our comfort zone, we have to behave like our house is burning — because it is. She really struck a chord in me. … It’s an enormous challenge. We have eleven years, many say, a decade. And I thought, ‘Oh, I’m so lucky that I am healthy and living in a decade where we, who are alive, can actually make the difference — we can make the difference as to whether there is a livable future or not.’ What a glorious responsibility we have. We have to step up to the plate. …

“So, I decided, like Greta, I was going to put my body on the line and move to the center of American power, Washington, DC, and have a rally every Friday like the students do. And we work with the students — they speak at my rallies and I speak at their rallies — and then after we speak, we engage in civil disobedience and risk getting arrested.”

PM: Do you have any concerns about putting your body on the line and your life on hold?

JF: “I realize that not everybody can leave work and go do what I’m doing. But I must say that requests are pouring in, and not only from the United States but from other countries, people who want to start Fire Drill Fridays. And the people who are coming and getting arrested with me and engaging in civil disobedience, many of them have never done it before. And they find it transformative.

“But the fact is that there are so many things people can do, starting with talking about it, expressing how you feel about it … even when it’s uncomfortable. … Of course voting is very, very important, and we have to vote for the people that are the bravest, the boldest of our elected officials.”

PM: What would success for Fire Drill Fridays look like to you?

JF: “Success would look like every state stops all new fossil fuel expansion. Because if they keep drilling, fracking and mining, the problem will just get worse. So that no matter what we do with windmills and solar collectors and so forth, we’ll never be able to catch up. We have to stop all new expansion.”

PM: Will Fire Drill Fridays continue?

JF: “There has been such an interest in it … from all around the country, people asking if they can start one … we’re thinking about maybe doing it in Los Angeles.

“But I want to correct one thing: I’m not leading. It’s the young people, it’s the students, that are leading. It’s always the young people that step up with the courage. And it’s pretty amazing, because they’re risking a lot. It’s pretty brave to take a Friday off from school … but they’re doing it anyway. There have been millions of them … all around the world, and they’re saying, ‘Don’t let us have to deal with this by ourselves, we didn’t create this problem. Come and help us.’ So, Grandmas unite!”

PM: Do you leave this experience with a new level of hope or optimism?

JF: “Yes, I am optimistic. … [People] want to do something but no one has asked them. We have to ask them. We have to get organized. … This coming year is the critical year. What happens is going to be so important. Especially someone who is healthy, who feels relatively young, who has a platform — we have to use it in every possible way we can.”

Planet Protectors: Notes from Session 3 of TEDWomen 2019

The world is experiencing the consequences of climate change and the urgency couldn’t be more clear. In Session 3 of TEDWomen 2019, we dug deep into some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time — exploring solutions and the many ways people across the globe are fighting for change.

The event: TEDWomen 2019, Session 3: Planet Protectors, hosted by Whitney Pennington Rodgers and Chee Pearlman

When and where: Thursday, December 5, 2019, 11am PT, at La Quinta Resort & Club in La Quinta, California

Speakers: Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Kelsey Leonard, Shawnee, Colette Pichon Battle, Renee Lertzman, Jane Fonda

Music: Singer-songwriter Shawnee brings their undeniable stage presence and music of empowerment to the stage, performing two songs: “Way Home” and “Warrior Heart.”

The talks in brief:

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, environmental activist

Big idea: To combat climate change, we must combine our current efforts with those of indigenous people. Their rich, extensive knowledge base and long-standing relationship with the earth are the keys to our collective survival.

Why? Modern science and technology date back only a few hundred years, but indigenous knowledge spans thousands, says Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim. As she puts it: “For us, nature is our supermarket … our pharmacy … our school.” But climate change threatens indigenous people’s — and all of humanity’s — way of life; in her nomadic community, some of their social fabric is unraveling under the strain of its effects. To ensure resilience in the face of these developments, she suggests a marriage of new and old learnings to map and share crucial information for global survival. “We have 10 years to change it. 10 years is nothing,” she says. “So we need to act all together and we need to act right now.”

Quote of the talk: “I think if we put together all the knowledge systems that we have — science, technology, traditional knowledge — we can give the best of us to protect our peoples, to protect the planet, to restore the ecosystems that we are losing.”

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Kelsey Leonard, indigenous legal scholar and scientist

Big idea: Granting bodies of water legal personhood is the first step to addressing both our water crises and injustices —  especially those endured by indigenous people. 

Why? Water is essential to life. Yet in the eyes of the law, it remains largely unprotected — and our most vulnerable communities lack access to it, says Kelsey Leonard. As a representative of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, she shares the wisdom of her nokomis, or grandmother, on how we should honor this precious resource. We must start by asking like: What if we asked who water is, in the same way that we might ask who is our mother? This perspective shift transforms the way we fundamentally think about water, she says — prompting us to grant water the same legal rights held by corporations. In this way, and by looking to indigenous laws, we can reconnect with the lakes, oceans and seas around us.

Quote of the talk: “We are facing a global water crisis. And if we want to address these crises in our lifetime, we need to change. We need to fundamentally transform the way in which we value water.”

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Colette Pichon Battle, attorney and climate equity advocate

Big idea: Climate migration — the mass displacement of communities due to climate change — will escalate rapidly in coming years. We need to prepare by radically shifting both policies and mindsets.

Why? Scientists predict climate change will displace more than 180 million people by 2100. Colette Pichon Battle believes the world is not prepared for these population shifts. As a generational native of southern Louisiana and an attorney who has worked on post-Hurricane Katrina disaster recovery, Pichon Battle urges us to plan before it’s too late. How? By first acknowledging that climate change is a symptom of exploitative economic systems that privilege the few over the many and then working to transform them. We need to develop collective resilience by preparing communities to receive climate migrants, allocating resources and changing social attitudes. Lastly, she says, we must re-indigenize ourselves — committing to ecological equity and human rights as foundational tenets of a new climate-resilient society.

Quote of the talk: “All of this requires us to recognize a power greater than ourselves and a life longer than the one we will live. We must transform from a disposable, short-sighted reality of the individual to one that values the long-term life cycle of our collective humanity. Even the best of us are entangled in an unjust system. To survive, we will have to find our way to a shared liberation.”

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Renee Lertzman, climate psychologist 

Big idea: We need to make our emotional well-being a fundamental part of the fight against climate change.

How? What’s happening to our planet seems overwhelming. And while we have tons of information on the science of climate change, we know much less about its emotional impact. Renee Lertzman has interviewed hundreds of people about how climate change makes them feel, and she wants to equip us with a toolkit to handle our climate grief and still be able to take action. Patience, compassion and kindness are qualities we need to deploy more often in our conversations about the crisis, she says. As climate events push us outside our “window of tolerance” — the stresses we can withstand without becoming overwhelmed — numbness and apathy are natural responses. Many people tell her: “I don’t know where to start.” She recommends practicing attunement: listening to our own feelings and those of others, accepting them without judgement and meeting our experiences with curiosity. Whether we’re with a few friends or at a larger climate action gathering, remembering that we are human is a key ingredient in the fight for our world.

Quote of the talk: “These are hard issues. This is a hard moment to be a human being. We’re waking up.”

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Jane Fonda, actor, author and activist

Big idea: In the wake of climate change, protest is becoming a new normal — at least until we see the changes we need.

Why? In a video interview with TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, Fonda discussed Fire Drill Fridays, the weekly demonstrations on Capitol Hill she leads in partnership with Greenpeace. Since moving to Washington D.C. in September, Fonda has staged a sit-in at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill every Friday to protest the extraction of fossil fuels. At age 81, she has been arrested multiple times and spent a night in jail — and her actions are inspiring people around the world to host their own Fire Drill Fridays. But, she says, we don’t need to get arrested to raise awareness; there are many other ways to put pressure on lawmakers and hold governments accountable. Read a full recap of her interview here.

Quote of the talk: “I’m not leading. It’s the young people, it’s the students, that are leading. It’s always the young people that step up with the courage.”

Pattern Makers: Notes from Session 2 of TEDWomen 2019

In Session 2 of TEDWomen 2019, we met some extraordinary pattern makers: people helping us predict the future, improve our relationship to technology and unearth powerful discoveries.

The event: TEDWomen 2019, Session 2: Pattern Makers, hosted by Pat Mitchell and Cloe Shasha

When and where: Thursday, December 5, 2019, 8:30AM PT, at La Quinta Resort & Club in La Quinta, California

Speakers: Lucy King, Jennifer Zhu Scott, Angie Murimirwa, Jiabao Li, Eva Galperin, Charlie Jane Anders

The talks in brief:

Lucy King, elephant advocate

Big idea: As their foraging territories shrink, African elephants encroach on agricultural lands, upsetting a delicate balance between them and their human neighbors. Amid an increase in wrecked crops and houses, Lucy King developed a method to bar elephants from cultivated fields without needing to erect huge (and often ineffective) electric fences.

How? Through research inspired by local folklore, King discovered that elephants avoid beehives, because they don’t want to get stung. As a result, she developed “beehive fences” that release insects when elephants attempt to breach them — and send these pachyderms packing. In tandem with these fences, King’s “Human-Elephant Co-Existence” program encourages farmers to plant crops that pollinators love and elephants hate, which could help farmers establish new livelihoods.

Quote of the talk: “Can you imagine the terror of an elephant literally ripping the roof off your mud hut in the middle of the night and having to hold your children away as the trunk reaches in looking for food in the pitch dark?”

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Jennifer Zhu Scott, entrepreneur and technologist

Big idea: Our personal data is a valuable asset — but we’re not getting paid for it. Giving individuals pricing power over their own data could reduce inequality by empowering people, instead of businesses.

Why? The most successful companies in the world profit from the data produced by the everyday people who use their services. So why aren’t we getting a paycheck? Data ownership is a personal and economic issue, says Jennifer Zhu Scott, yet too often our conversations fixate on data privacy and regulation rather than the potential prosperity that data ownership could bring. For some, it might even be a path out of poverty. Take China — a society that saw its poverty rate plunge from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent by 2015 as businesses went from being state-owned to privately owned. It wasn’t a perfect transition by any means, she says, but it’s a case study for how personal ownership can improve people’s lives. We can create an economic model for individuals to control and barter their own information, instead of letting Facebook or Tencent do it, and startups are already creating tools to make this a reality.

Quote of the talk: “Whoever owns the data owns the future.”

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Angie Murimirwa, education activist, executive director of the Campaign for Female Education for Africa

Big idea: “Social interest,” or paying back interest on a loan through service rather than currency, can promote economic prosperity in communities across Africa — helping girls stay in school, get job training and obtain and pay off loans.

How? Young women in sub-Saharan Africa often can’t afford school and have difficulty finding consistent wages and loans, keeping them trapped in a cycle of poverty and inequality. Angie Murimirwa believes that one solution lies in empowering young people through “social interest” — a kind of loan that can be paid off by service, such as mentorship and teaching, and not by currency. Not only has social interest facilitated Murimirwa’s own success, but she has also watched it benefit thousands of others. In fact, nearly 6,300 young women have borrowed close to three million dollars — with a repayment rate above 95 percent. 

Quote of the talk: “We are building a powerful force gaining ever greater momentum, as we open the door for more and more girls to go to school, succeed, lead and, in turn, support thousands more.”

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Jiabao Li, artist and engineer

Big idea: Technology affects the way we perceive reality, creating a hyper-fragmented humanity vulnerable to seemingly “mental” allergies. But as with many cures, the problem is also the solution.

How? To emphasize this human-made phenomenon, Jiabao Li created a series of perceptual machines to help question the ways we experience the world in the age of digital media. Her conceptual designs include a bulbous helmet that mimics the amplification effect of social media and two web browser plug-ins — one that helps us notice things we’d usually ignore and another that dilutes algorithmic influence. Technology is designed to change what we see and what we think, and in many ways it’s separated us from each other. But we could use it to make the world connected again.

Quote of the talk: “By exploring how we interface with these technologies, I hope we could step out of our habitual, almost machine-like behaviors, and finally find common ground between each other.”

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Eva Galperin, cybersecurity expert and technical advisor

Big idea: Stalkerware is on the rise. We need to educate the public on how to protect themselves and convince antivirus companies to begin detecting it.

How? Eva Galperin was shocked to discover that an alarming number of people are being hacked by their current or former partners. A common and particularly insidious form of this abuse is “stalkerware,” software designed to track or spy on someone without their knowledge. Stalkers buy a program, install it on their victim’s devices and gain remote access, allowing them see their victim’s every movement, text message or email. When Galperin discovered that most antivirus softwares do not detect these programs, she launched the Coalition Against Stalkerware to raise awareness and advocate for antivirus companies to detect it. She hopes that by next year, antivirus software will be able to offer stalkerware detection to discourage abusers and protect victims. 

Quote of the talk: “Full access to a person’s phone is the next best thing to full access to a person’s mind.”

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Charlie Jane Anders, author and futurist

Big Idea: Dreaming about our collective future is the first step toward creating a better one.

How: The world is changing so fast that no one — not even futurists like Charlie Jane Anders — can predict what it will look like in a few years. Now, instead of trying to predict it, she vaccinates herself against the acute onset of future shock by imagining it in all its wild possibilities. In a process that’s part fever dream and part research-based extrapolation, she constructs future worlds by living them through the characters in her work and speculating about the delights and challenges that could arise. It’s by engaging in such directed flights of fancy, Anders suggests, that we can begin constructing a better world of tomorrow. 

Quote of the talk: “You don’t predict the future; you imagine the future.”

Truth Tellers: Notes from Session 1 of TEDWomen 2019

The stage is set for TEDWomen 2019: Bold + Brilliant! In the opening session, we heard from an extraordinary lineup of truth tellers. Six speakers and two performers shined a light on issues ranging from immigration to leadership and inclusion — and how we can shatter the glass ceiling once and for all — sharing new ways to look at old problems.

The event: TEDWomen 2019, Session 1: Truth Tellers, hosted by Pat Mitchell, Helen Walters and Kelly Stoetzel

When and where: Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 5pm PT, at La Quinta Resort & Club in La Quinta, California

Speakers: H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Sister Norma Pimentel, Yifat Susskind, Gina Brillon, Heather C. McGhee, Eve Ensler

Opening: Reid D. Milanovich, Vice Chair of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, welcomes TEDWomen attendees to the Cahuilla Valley, which has been his tribe’s ancestral homeland for thousands of years.

The talks in brief:

H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nobel laureate, former President of Liberia

Big idea: A nation needs women leaders to prosper. We must work together to remove the barriers that have kept them from achieving full equality and political representation.

How? When H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf began her 12-year presidency of Liberia in 2006, she inherited the challenges of a country harmed by years of conflict: economic collapse, infrastructure destruction and institutional dysfunction. Most challenging of all was the damage women and children endured during the civil war, she says. Though Sirleaf helped steward financial growth and the reconstruction of the nation’s infrastructure, there’s still work to be done. On the TEDWomen stage, she announced the recent launch of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development, which aims to elevate women into strategic government positions and break through the structural barriers that allow inequality thrive. Only by working towards full gender equity can we ensure peace and prosperity for all, she says.

Quote of the talk: “I was the first woman president of an African nation, and I do believe more countries ought to try that.”

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Sister Norma Pimentel, religious leader, sister with the Missionaries of Jesus, licensed professional counselor

Big idea: We must see that immigrants are a part of the same human family as the rest of us. If not, we stand to lose our own humanity.

Why? In her work at detention facilities at the US-Mexico border, Sister Norma Pimentel has learned that the people there simply want what all of us desire: safer, better lives for themselves and their families. While the humanitarian response has been impressive and supported by many dedicated volunteers, the policies and procedures in place cause great suffering — particularly for separated children and parents. We need to put aside our prejudices and fears and treat migrants in a respectful and compassionate manner.

Quote of the talk: “It’s important to be able to see [migrants] as people, to be able to have a personal encounter when we can feel what they feel, when we can understand what they’re hurting. … It is then that we are present to them and we can make their humanity a part of our own humanity.”

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Yifat Susskind, human rights activist

Big idea: In a time of global strife and uncertainty, we can secure a brighter future by “thinking like a mother” — with optimism and empathy.

Why? When you think like a mother, you imagine a better world and act to make it possible, says Yifat Susskind. Because mothers are versed in a vital language: the language of love. When love drives our actions, we feel empowered to repair the world and protect those in need. Empathy and optimism are powerful tools, she says, both in our own lives and across public policy. By thinking like mothers and acting with care, we can prioritize the most vulnerable and forge a luminous, resilient path forward.

Quote of the talk: “Love isn’t just an emotion, it’s a capacity. A verb. An endlessly renewable resource.”

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A comedic interlude: Comedian Gina Brillon commanded the stage with an uproarious stand-up performance, poking fun at everyday annoyances and interactions. “Have you ever had somebody say something wrong with such confidence that it made you question how you’ve been saying it your whole life?” she joked.

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Heather C. McGhee, writer, advocate

Big idea: Racism is bad for everyone — even the people set up to benefit from privilege.

Why? Heather C. McGhee is a self-proclaimed “public policy wonk.” She investigates problems in the American economy: rising household debt, declining wages and shortfalls in infrastructure investment. Through her research and travels across the US, she’s come to a chilling conclusion: racism is making our economy worse — and not just in ways that disadvantage people of color. “It turns out it’s not a zero sum,” she says. “Racism is bad for white people, too.” Take, for example, the subprime mortgages that precipitated the 2008 recession. African Americans and Latinos were three times as likely as white people to be sold these toxic loans, even if their credit was as good. Stereotypes blinded many policymakers to this reality, keeping them from stopping the crisis even when there was still time. McGhee says the way forward is to hold accountable the people selling racist ideas for profit — and start recognizing that we’re all on the same team.

Quote of the talk: “It’s time to reject that old paradigm and realize that our fates are linked. An injury to one is an injury to all.”

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A special performance: Artistic director Alice Sheppard speaks about the work of her dance company Kinetic Light, which creates movement that challenges conventional understandings of disabled and dancing bodies. As she puts it: disability is the spark for artistry, aesthetic and innovation. She’s joined onstage by her choreographic collaborator Laurel Lawson, in a stunning performance.

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Eve Ensler, author, playwright

Big idea: After calling abusers out, we now have to call them in. We need to invite them to take responsibility for their actions, to apologize and change. 

How? Eve Ensler waited most of her life for an apology. As a child, she was sexually and physically abused by her father. Nearly 31 years after his death, she sat down to write the apology that he never gave her — expressing, from his perspective, the words she needed to hear. Now, in the wake of the Me Too and Times Up movements, she shares how the incredible power of apologies could offer us a way forward. It boils down to abusers taking four crucial steps: admit your wrongdoing in detail; ask yourself why you did it; sit with the suffering and hurt you’ve caused; and take responsibility and make amends. An apology, she says, is the only way for both the victim and the abuser to be free. Let’s create a better process that invites abusers to repent and become someone different along the way.

Quote of the talk: “We don’t want men to be destroyed, we don’t want them to only be punished. We want them to see us, the victims that they have harmed, and we want them to repent and change.”

Crossover: A night of talks in partnership with Brightline

To crossover is to fully embrace what complements us, to find insight and illumination from a style or field adjacent to our own. When fully achieved, it allows us to become greater than the sum of our parts. In this evening of talks, five speakers and one musician shared their own experiences of crossing over to achieve heightened levels of success.

The event: TEDSalon: Crossover, hosted by TED’s Crawford Hunt and Alex Moura

When and where: Thursday, November 14, 2019, at the TED World Theater in New York City

The partner: Brightline, with Brightline executive director Ricardo Vargas warming up the audience with opening remarks

Music: Meg Myers, blending confessional lyrics with emotional rock

The talks in brief:

Erin Sullivan, photographer

Big idea: Taking photos as a social obligation — in order to share them on Facebook or Instagram — stands in the way of how we relate to nature and other cultures.

Why? We’ve all vacationed to places overrun by camera-toting tourists, and we’ve probably all wondered: Does taking — and, of course, sharing — photos of stunning scenery change our experience? In our fever for documentation, are we missing out on a deeper relationship with our environment? Although at least one study has shown that taking photos solely for ourselves can enhance a traveler’s experience, Erin Sullivan believes questioning our true purpose every time we pull out a phone or a camera might lead us to put it away — and experience singular, beautiful moments as they happen.

Quote of the talk: “Photography can be part of a beautiful experience. Just don’t let it be a block between you and reality. Be intentional. And don’t lose a beautiful, irreplaceable memory because you were too focused on getting the shot.”

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Jinha Lee, reality designer

Big idea: An augmented-reality meeting platform that helps coworkers around the world brainstorm and build together in a shared virtual “office.”

How? Remote working has become an everyday reality, yet most distant coworkers still find themselves stuck in front of a confining screen. With Spatial, Jinha Lee’s augmented-reality meeting platform, a headset-wearing user creates a digital avatar that mimics their every movement, from the direction of their gaze to the motion of their mouse. They then “teleport” these digital avatars into a shared AR space, where fellow users can share their screens, create notes from spoken phrases, organize them and play with them — resulting in a meeting experience blending elements of virtual and physical spaces.

Quote of the talk: “Reducing distance between computers and us can reduce the physical distance between people — and I hope it eventually shortens the distance between people’s minds and dreams.”

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Cornelia Geppert, artist and video game maker

Big idea: A video game that shows us we’re not alone in our loneliness — and how we can overcome our biggest monsters.

How: When artist Cornelia Geppert felt the overwhelming crush of loneliness, she channeled her emotions to create a new video game called Sea of Solitude. An adventure brimming with stunning visuals, gamers play as Kay, a young woman in danger of drowning in a world quickly flooding with her own tears. To turn the tide, you must navigate Kay’s feelings of loneliness by managing her relationships and overcoming her monsters, Self-Doubt and Self-Destruction. As you guide her, you just may learn how to face your own struggles and embrace your own difficult emotions.

Quote: “Our monsters appear huge and scary, but if you overcome your reluctance and approach them you soon see that they are no monsters at all, but fragile beings that are simply overwhelmed by what life throws at them.”

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Lisa Nakamura, digital culturist

Big idea: The internet is a trash fire. Let’s work together to make it better.

How? We need to acknowledge that the internet is real life, not a place removed from our day-to-day. It’s where people make money, communicate with one another and can learn anything — including toxic behavior, says Lisa Nakamura. She offers a set of solutions that all citizens of the internet and gaming communities can be a part of, in order to right the wrongs we’ve lived with for too long: catcalling, racism, cruelty, personal attacks. She suggests we reacquaint ourselves with the flagging and reporting tools available now, stop letting the internet raise our children, cultivate a culture of compassion around past egregious behavior and ultimately insist on alternative platforms that allow us to start fresh. By taking these steps in earnest, Nakamura believes we may have a fighting chance to heal some parts of our digital world.

Quote of the talk: “The internet’s been run by the wrong kind of people for a long time. If we envision a different future, if we work together to include everybody, we can create a new kind of internet.”

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Guy Winch, psychologist, author

Big Idea: Endlessly thinking about work during your downtime is stressful, unproductive and leads to burn out. If you avoid these ruminations, you’ll be happier in your personal life and more fulfilled at work.

How? Stressing about work doesn’t just happen when you’re working — it happens when you’re trying to relax and recharge too, says Guy Winch. And this type of rumination can be harmful: the more you worry about a deadline or an email draft, for instance, the more likely you are to sleep badly, eat unhealthy foods and have worse moods. Fortunately, by following a few rules, Winch shows how you can vanquish intrusive post-work anxieties for good. First, set clear and strict boundaries: when your workday is over, commit to turning off work reminders and actively participate in whatever you’re doing next. Next, when ruminative thoughts do appear, translate them into resolvable problems. (For example, “I have so much work to do” can become “What can I move in my schedule to finish that task?”) If you can stop ruminating on your job, you’ll be more engaged and motivated at work — and able to more fully enjoy your time off, too.

Quote of the talk: “Ground zero for creating a healthy work-life balance is not in the real world — it’s in our head. If you want to reduce your stress and improve your quality of life, you don’t necessarily have to change your hours or your job. You just have to change how you think.” 

Catalyze: The talks from TED@NAS

Science catalyzes progress. It allows us to explore our biggest questions, generate new ideas and seek out solutions. At TED@NAS, 19 speakers and performers explored how science is igniting change and fueling our way forward — through radical collaboration, quantum leaps and bold thinking.

The event: TED@NAS, for which The National Academy of Sciences, The Kavli Foundation and the Simons Foundation partnered with TED to offer an exciting day of original TED Talks, hosted by TED’s David Biello and Briar Goldberg

When and where: Friday, November 1, 2019, at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC

Special performance: A poetry reading by Marilyn Nelson

Opening and closing remarks: Courtesy of Marcia McNutt, President of the National Academy of Sciences; Robert Conn, President of Kavli Foundation; and Marilyn Simons and Jim Simons, cofounders of the Simons Foundation

The talks in brief:

Jim Hudspeth, ear enthusiast

Big idea: Meet “hair cells”: the beautiful and mysterious cells in your inner ear, which allow you to hear the world around you.

Why: Jim Hudspeth has spent the last 45 years studying hair cells, the tiny biological powerhouses that make hearing possible (and that, despite their name, have nothing to do with the kind of hair that grows on your head). On top of each hair cell are “stereocilia”: microscopic rods that twitch back and forth in response to sound, turning vibrations into electrical signals that your brain can interpret. The louder the sound, the more they tremble — with a response time that’s fully a thousand times faster than our other senses. Hudspeth and his team are working to decipher the molecular strategy of hair cells in the hopes of finding a way to reverse hearing problems.

Fun fact: In a very quiet environment, such as a sound chamber, 70 percent of normally hearing people emit sound from their ears!

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Paul McEuen and Marc Miskin, micro-roboticists

Big idea: Paul McEuen, Marc Miskin and their colleagues create tiny robots to navigate microscopic worlds. Someday scientists hope to “train” these robots to study (and potentially battle) crop diseases, cancer cells and a host of other microbial menaces.

How: McEuen and Miskin enlist existing semiconductor components and new, innovative materials to create laser-programmable, remotely piloted “robots” with folding platinum legs and brains 1/10,000th the size of a smartphone. These robots could someday revolutionize our understanding of an unseen universe.

Quote of the talk: “Instead of just watching the micro-world, we as humans can now build technology to shape it, to interact with it, to engineer it. In 30 years, when my son is my age, what will we do with that ability?”

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Amanda Schochet, ecologist, micro-museum maven

Big Idea: Many large-scale solutions to the world’s problems are simply too slow. To help speed things up, we need to think small.

How? As an ecologist in Southern California, Amanda Schochet studied how bumblebees interacted with “habitat fragments,” small patches of native plants thriving in barren landscapes. Taken together, these fragments made up a vast network of resources, helping bumblebees adapt to environmental change. This gave Schochet an idea: to create “social habitat fragments” for humans in order to cultivate stronger communities and solve our own problems. Thus, the MICRO museum was born: tiny, dense information hubs that can be installed anywhere, from hospital lobbies to libraries, helping people in underprivileged spaces connect and grow. Schochet offers four tips for designing your own micro-solution: zoom in to see how systems interact; look for resources gaps; collaborate with other habitat fragments; and transform your fragment. By building tiny pockets of opportunity, we can knit together community networks that are resilient and expansive.

Quote of the talk: “There are habitat fragments everywhere: passionate individuals and groups of all sizes building toward a system with more equal access … One by one, together, we are filling gaps, strengthening systems that we all depend on.”

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Bethanie Edwards, oceanographer

Big idea: By studying oxylipin — a chemical “language” spoken by both phytoplankton in the ocean and the immune cells in our bodies — we can gain a deeper understanding of the planet and ourselves.

How? Chemicals speak several “dialects,” such as those spoken by hormones, pheromones and toxins. Oxylipin is another such dialect, spoken when fatty acids break down. In the ocean, phytoplankton cells that speak oxylipin have powerful effects on their predators — warding off hungry mouths or even causing devastating mutations in their offspring. Amazingly, cells in the human immune system speak oxylipin, too — communicating with each other to recognize bacteria and heal infected areas. By continuing to investigate how this language works, Edwards hopes we can gain new insight into how our bodies heal.

Quote: “We can think about oxylipins like death cries — they are the last words of phytoplankton.”

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Karin Öberg, space chemist

Big idea: The chemical cocktail for a living planet is simple — just add water! (and hydrogen cyanide) — and now easier than ever to identify from light-years away.  

How? Rather than looking for these molecules in planets that already exist, it’s better practice to observe the material before it becomes one, explains Öberg. With the help of ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter and sub-millimeter Array), a telescope comprised of 66 satellite dishes working in unison, Öberg searches for and identifies hotbeds of molecular activity where planets eventually form. By mapping these intergalactically fertile locations, it may be possible to pinpoint life-sustaining planets like Earth.

Fun fact: Hydrogen cyanide, while an extremely deadly poison, is also a fundamental ingredient for newly forming planets.

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Mike Brown, planetary astronomer

Big idea: There’s an unknown planet in our solar system — and we’re on the verge of finding it.

How? Our telescopes aren’t powerful enough to identify unknown objects in the far reaches of our solar system, but they are powerful enough to track the rings of icy bodies that orbit known planets. Mike Brown and his research group discovered one such icy body, called Sedna, in 2004 — it was the most distant known object in the solar system at the time. By studying Sedna’s unusual, elongated orbit, Brown and his team deduced the existence of a distant, unknown, giant planet, which they’re calling Planet 9. At six times the mass of Earth, Planet 9 would become the fifth largest in the entire solar system. It could take years to identify Planet 9’s location with our telescopes, but Brown thinks it’s already hiding in the data. Now, he’s combing through old data for unrecognized images that may show a faint, moving planet — and finally give us a glimpse of Planet 9.

Quote of the talk: “Within the next couple years, some astronomer somewhere will find a faint point of light slowly moving across the sky and triumphantly announce the discovery of a new — and quite possibly, not the last — real planet of our solar system.”

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SPHERES, a live VR experience created by writer/director Eliza McNitt

Big idea: For millennia, humans have been drawn to worlds beyond our own. Could cutting-edge VR technology help us translate the invisible waves coming from deep space into sights and sounds we can actually perceive?

How: Performed by Eliza McNitt with Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein (soundtrack artists of Stranger Things), SPHERES blends 360-degree video with live sound (and the voices of Jessica Chastain, Millie Bobby Brown and Patti Smith) to map the unseeable mysteries of interstellar space — from the songs of black holes to the whistles of comets. 

Quote of the performance: “Space is not silent: in fact, it’s full of sounds.”

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Kelsey Johnson, astronomer

Big Idea: Light pollution is a serious threat for virtually all species, including humans. Kelsey Johnson has a plan for preserving the dark night sky.

Why? Have you ever laid on your back at night, staring up at the star-studded sky? That experience is at risk of disappearing, says Kelsey Johnson. The threat comes from light pollution, or excessive artificial light at night time, which creates a “smog of light” and cloaks our view of space. This affects species in a range of ways: for instance, dog whelks — a type of sea snail — are almost twice as likely to hang out below the water level with a predator in the presence of artificial light. Our own health is at risk, too, Johnson says: by disrupting our circadian rhythms, we may be at a greater risk of breast cancer and obesity. So what can we do? Johnson lays out a series of steps you can take every day: limit your light usage (or don’t use any at all, if you don’t need it); keep light pointed away from the sky; choose warm lights, when possible; and speak up, advocating for the wellbeing of your window to the galaxy, both in your community and on a federal level.

Quote of the talk: “If you have never seen a truly dark night sky, I want you to go out and experience one for yourself because, if you don’t, you don’t know what you’re missing and what humanity is losing.”

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Risa Wechsler, physicist, dark matter researcher

Big idea: Dark matter is the most mysterious and massive feature of our universe — and we’re just starting to learn about it. 

How? Everything we see can with telescopes — galaxies, planets, stars, dust, gas, us — makes up 15 percent of the total mass of the universe. The other 85 percent is dark matter — which doesn’t emit or absorb light, and can’t be seen with eyes or detected with radio waves. The only reason we know it exists is because we can detect its influence on stars and galaxies. So what exactly is dark matter, and what does it have to do with our existence? Risa Wechsler and teams of physicists are getting creative to figure that out, creating model universes in computers to see what life would look like in the absence of dark matter; building detectors deep underground to try to catch a trace of its passage; and smashing particles together to try and make it in the lab. We’re still far from understanding dark matter, Wechsler says, but studying it could unlock a whole new understanding of physics and our place in the universe.

Fun fact: Dark matter is probably on your body right now. It doesn’t bump into you — it goes right through you.

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Nadya Mason, experimentalist

Big Idea: By doing hands-on experiments that help us better understand how our everyday devices work, we can reconnect to the physical world.

How? Our everyday devices are shrouded in mystery — most of us don’t know how a touchscreen works, and few of us are compelled to find out. Nadya Mason thinks that we lose understanding and connection to the world when we don’t try to figure out how things work. Experimenting is intuitive to us: babies learn about the world by interacting with it. At some point, though, we’re taught to simply accept the information given to us — but by experimenting, we can rediscover that instinct of curiosity. Hands-on experimentation and testing allows us to use our senses to learn, encouraging us to make new connections and discoveries, Mason says. The research backs this up: hands-on learning improves retention, understanding and well-being. By pursuing that tingle of curiosity and experimenting, we can demystify our surroundings, regain agency over our devices — and have fun.   

Quote of the talk: “Think about how something works, then take it apart to test it. Manipulate something and prove some physical principle to yourself. Put the human back in the technology. You’ll be surprised at the connections you make.”

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Molly Webster, sex chromosome editor

Big Idea: It’s time to let go of the belief that the X and Y chromosomes define biological sex as a binary — and start celebrating the nuances of science and the diversity of our bodies.

How? While the X and Y chromosomes do determine some part of biological sex, the genes they carry have many other functions, says Molly Webster. For instance, only four percent of the nearly 1,100 genes on the X chromosome have to do with sex determination. The simplistic definition of the X and Y chromosomes misrepresents the actual science of what they do in our bodies, an impact that can ripple across society and pave the way for discrimination. In major sports and in the justice system, for example, people have used these ideas to justify mistreatment against people who have different chromosome orders. Webster calls for us to make room for more inclusive and informed science by incorporating a broader understanding of the X and Y chromosomes in our classrooms and research labs.

Quote of the talk: “We’re at this point where we’re thinking: How do we want to teach science? How do we want to fund science? Who do we want to be as a society? Shouldn’t we allow ourselves to think about the X and Y chromosomes a little more broadly … and if we do, what insights would we gain?”

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Kay Tye, neuroscientist

Big idea: It’s common knowledge that physical processes within the brain determine our state of mind: depression, anxiety and a host of other conditions are fundamentally linked to brain activity. Studying the link between the brain and the mind (or emotions) could help uncover effective treatments for mental disorders at their source.

How: By studying neural pathways, Kay Tye is shedding light on how neurons give rise to mental states. Her lab discovered that a region called the amygdala represents a “fork in the road” determining negative or positive emotional outcomes — and as their research continues, they’re identifying regions linked to overeating, anxiety and other negative behaviors. Tye believes that treatments targeting specific neural circuits could lead to a mental health revolution.

Quote of the talk: “When we truly understand exactly how the mind comes from the brain, we will improve the lives of everyone who will have a mental illness in their lifetime … as well as everyone else with whom they share the world.”

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Angelicque White, biological oceanographer

Big idea: Angelicque White studies the base of the Pacific Ocean’s food web: microbes. This “forest of the sea” is composed of the most important organisms on the planet, whose health is directly linked to the health of the oceans.

How: Ocean microbes provide food for many of the ocean’s larger inhabitants and are a crucial barometer of marine chemistry. Rising marine temperatures are throwing this microbial ecosystem out of balance, leading to toxic algal blooms that ruin shellfish harvests and impact the lives of fish and marine mammals. By tracking the composition of our oceans over time, White and her colleagues hope to understand both marine health and how we might rejuvenate it.

Quote of the talk: “I personally believe that sustained observation of our oceans and our planet is the moral imperative for our generation of scientists. We are bearing witness to the changes that are being inflicted upon our natural communities, and by doing so, it provides us the opportunity to adapt and enact global change — if we’re willing.”

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Victoria Gill, science journalist

Big idea: Science alone can’t save the world. To make big breakthroughs, we also need collaboration between scientists and local experts.

How? To save the axolotl — an exotic (and adorable) salamander found in the freshwater lakes of Mexico — scientists teamed up with the people who know this wonderfully weird amphibian best: the Sisters of the Immaculate Health. For centuries, these nuns have concocted a special axolotl medicine, gathering crucial information and building up wisdom about this rare species. Gill reminds us that unusual collaboration between traditional scientists and knowledgeable locals often results in a deeper, fuller understanding of our ecosystems and the creatures that live in them — leading to more successful solutions for all.

Quote: “How do you save one special, weird species from going extinct? … You find people who know all about this animal, and you ask them, and you listen to them.”

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Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, astrophysicist, stellar storyteller (and certified stellar mortician)

Big idea: We are all — fundamentally, universally, atomically — connected.

How? We’re connected by the birth, death and rebirth of stars: the iron in your blood, the oxygen you breathe and the silicon in your phone relies on the interstellar life cycle, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz says. Atomic-grade supernovas transform lighter elements (hydrogen and helium, for example) into heavier ones (like iron) — one of the most important being oxygen. This continuous elemental recycle explains everything from the Big Bang to the air we breathe, inextricably intertwining cosmic and human history. Essentially, we are life forms evolved to inhale the waste products of plants but also supernova explosions — which means it’s technically accurate to say that you’ve shared oxygen molecules with the world’s greatest minds.

Quote of the talk: “Our atoms participated in an epic odyssey with time-spans from billions of years to mere centuries — all leading to you.”

Announcing TED Masterclass: TED’s official public speaking course

We’re excited to announce the release of TED Masterclass — TED’s official public speaking course. Delivered via mobile app, the course is guided by TED’s Head Curator, Chris Anderson, and is designed to help you identify, develop and share your best ideas as a TED-style talk.

Based on Anderson’s book TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking, the TED Masterclass app features 11 animated lessons that break down the techniques that speakers use to present their ideas from TED’s main stage. The lessons are taught using vivid animations, handpicked clips from celebrated TED Talks and exclusive insights from TED’s speaker coaches.

Developed by TED-Ed, the new app teaches people how to connect with an audience, explain complex ideas and give more persuasive presentations. The app also features a library of full-length TED Talks, including talks from Brené Brown, Bryan Stevenson, Susan Cain and many other TED speakers. Each talk featured in the app exemplifies and reinforces concepts introduced within the course.

You can complete the course at your own pace and can revisit each lesson as future public speaking opportunities arise. The app is free to download from both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, and full access to the course is available as an in-app purchase.

Film beyond borders: The shorts of TEDSummit 2019

TEDSummit gathers members of our global community for brainstorms, performances, workshops, outdoor activities, future-focused discussions. In addition to a diverse array of talks and performances, TEDSummit 2019 in Edinburgh featured a selection of short films that delighted the vibrant TED community and set the tone for sessions. Here’s the lineup of conference shorts screened at TEDSummit 2019.

“All That We Share”
In this unexpectedly unifying ad, strangers learn that familiarity is just one question away.

The creator: Asger Leth. Agency: &Co./NoA Copenhagen.

Shown during: Session 1, Weaving Community

“MIRROR”
This extra-short film is full of delightful and oddly satisfying symmetry.

The creators: Grazia Pompeo & Fulvio Pucciarelli (Tanello Films)

Shown during: Session 1, Weaving Community

“In a Nutshell”
This features exquisite sound design — a calming and surprising feast for the senses.

The creator: Fabio Friedli

Shown during: Session 2, Anthropo Impact

“Writer’s Block”
In this frustrating supercut of archetypal writers, well-known characters experience the purgatory of writer’s block.

The creators: Ivan Kander & Ben Watts

Shown during: Session 3, The Big Rethink

“Accents”
A righteous and vibrant animated poem written by Denice Frohman and created by our own team at TED-Ed. 

The creator: Robertino Zambrano

Shown during: Session 3, The Big Rethink

“Stems”
This decorated feature showcases the raw and melancholy life of a stop-motion puppet. 

The creator: Ainslie Henderson

Shown during: Session 3, The Big Rethink

“Pass the Salt”
An extremely unnecessary way to pass salt at the dinner table.

The creator: Joseph Herscher

Shown during: Session 4, Business Unusual

“Becoming”

An unsettling, mesmerizing timelapse of a newt embryo.

The creator: Jan van IJken

Shown during: Session 5, Stages of Life

“Saturn in Progress”
Featuring real footage of Saturn, this grand short film makes viewers feel humbled by the vastness of our universe.

The creator: Rémi Forte

Shown during:  Session 5, Stages of Life

“Beethoven’s Line Riders”
Ride along with these animated sledders in this pleasing and minimalist Fantasia-esque short.

The creator: Mark Robbins

Shown during: Session 6, Not All Is Broken

The TED Interview podcast kicks off season 3

The TED Interview launches its newest season on October 9, 2019. Last season notably featured Bill Gates, Monica Lewinsky and Susan Cain — and you can expect another thoughtful lineup of scientists, thinkers and artists for the new season.

Season 3 features eight episodes, during which head of TED Chris Anderson will continue to inspire curiosity with in-depth conversations on our consciousness, the ways we navigate community and the power of embracing paradox.

During Season 3, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert expands on his TED Talk concerning the science of happiness; Turkish-British author Elif Shafak deconstructs storytelling and global community; and Michael Tubbs, one of the world’s youngest mayors, makes a case for universal basic income.

Listen to the first episode with happiness expert Dan Gilbert on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

With a diverse lineup of global thought leaders, TED’s podcasts are downloaded in more than 190 countries (nearly every place on Earth!). “Just like the ideas we explore, The TED Interview continues to grow with even more thoughtful and challenging conversations this season,” says Chris Anderson. “We’ve hit our stride and will be delving deeper into the minds of some of TED’s most remarkable speakers.”

More speakers will be unveiled throughout the season, and you can listen to them on The TED Interview for free on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. New hour-long episodes air every Wednesday. 

TED’s content programming extends beyond its signature TED Talk format with six original podcasts. In August 2019, TED was ranked among Podtrac’s Top 10 Publishers in the US.

The TED Interview is proudly sponsored by Lexus, whose passion for brave design, imaginative technology and exhilarating performance enables the luxury lifestyle brand to create amazing experiences for its customers.

Helping learners of English find their own voice

Since its inception, TED has been zealous in its mission of spreading ideas that inspire. It was out of this passion that a partnership between National Geographic Learning emerged to create materials for the English language learning classroom — and help English learners to find their own voice.

National Geographic Learning’s goal is to bring the world to the classroom and the classroom to life. They create English programs that are inspiring, real and relevant. Students learn about their world by experiencing it through the stories, ideas, photography and video of both National Geographic and TED.

The language learning classroom is meant to be a safe place where learners can make mistakes and build confidence before going out into the world. But it can also be a place where learners can struggle to see a connection between the real world and the language they’re learning.

National Geographic Learning believes that if we want learners to understand the value of learning English — a language that connects them to the world — then we need to bring the real world into the classroom and show them the opportunity learning a language brings. The teaching and learning programs created by National Geographic Learning with TED Talks give learners of English (and their teachers) a way to talk about ideas that are relevant to them and help them develop a voice of their own in English.

This partnership has resulted in five textbook programs for the English language learning classroom so far. National Geographic Learning and TED have also collaborated to create a unique classroom supplement, Learn English with TED Talks — a language learning app with a difference.

For more information about all of the English language learning materials made with TED Talks please visit ELTNGL.com/TED.

Happy learning!

The terrifying now of big data and surveillance: A conversation with Jennifer Granick

Concerns are growing around privacy and government surveillance in today’s hyper-connected world. Technology is smarter and faster than ever — and so are government strategies for listening in. As a lawyer for the ACLU, Jennifer Granick (TED Talk: How the US government spies on people who protest — including you) works to demystify the murky legal landscape of privacy civil rights, protecting our freedom of privacy against government and private interests. We spoke with her about the battle against government surveillance, how you can keep your data safe and why legal transparency — and legal action — is vital. 

In your talk at TEDxStanford, you detail some of the history and methods of government surveillance in the United States. Can you elaborate on how these methods have evolved as technology has advanced?

As Supreme Court Justice John Roberts put it, it’s the difference between “a ride on horseback [and] a flight to the moon.” The amount of information that’s available about us is exponentially more; the ease of accessing it and analyzing it, because of big data tools, storage and machine searching, is categorically different. At the same time, the laws that are intended to protect our privacy have been downgraded repeatedly, most recently in the name of the War on Terror. Everything is bigger; there’s just so much more out there.

In your talk, you mentioned that Section 702 of the FISA amendments (which allows US government agencies to surveil “foreign terrorist threats”) expired in 2017. What kind of impact will that have on the landscape of surveillance?

There was a long political battle about 702 and trying to amend it. What ended up happening is that Congress just reauthorized it, and passed it as part of a larger bill with no real reform. The movement to try to do something about it utterly failed. What it means is that right now, with more confidence than ever before, the intelligence community and [its] agencies can gather information in the name of targeting foreigners and store all of that information. So, they can search through conversations we’re having with people overseas. The news that’s happened since then shows that there are still mistakes and problems with the way these intelligence agencies are handling the information, and that they’re regularly breaking the rules. There was a recent story about the FBI violating the 702 rules. There’s no accountability to comply with the law; weak as it is, it’s basically not a concern.

What role do tech companies like Amazon and Facebook play in perpetuating these surveillance efforts?

Companies don’t want to comply with a whole bunch of legal processes, but when they do, they want it to be clear what they’re supposed to do, and they don’t want any liability for it. The companies have had some comments about wanting to restrain government surveillance to legitimate purposes to reassure their non-American users, and they’ve pushed for some sort of clarity and regularity in how surveillance is going to happen. They came out in favor of a more controlled exercise of 702, but no real reform. They also supported the Cloud Act which is a recent law that basically enables foreign governments to access information stored here in the US without meeting the higher standard of US legal process. They’re not consistently civil libertarians or privacy advocates.

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If you care about any political issue — whether it’s tax reform or Black Lives Matter — we need to ensure these people can operate freely in the political world.

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Facial recognition technology like Amazon’s “Rekognition” is being used by law enforcement across the country. What are the concerns and possible consequences around the use of this technology? 

Face identification connected to surveillance cameras is particular dystopian, but the ACLU of Northern California’s test of Rekognition shows that even the more pedestrian uses of the technology are dangerous. In tests, the software incorrectly identified 28 members of Congress as people who have been arrested for a crime and disproportionately flagged members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The problem is both that the tool is inaccurate and discriminatory, and also that it gives unprecedented power to police.

In an always-connected world with smart tech in our homes, cars and  pockets, how can we prepare for and avoid intrusive surveillance? 

Number one: use encryption. Encrypting your data is getting easier and easier, and there are communications services out there that protect your communications. iMessage is one for iPhone users. There’s WhatsApp, too. I use Signal, which is a text messaging program. Encrypting your data is easier and easier. For many of us, one of the biggest challenges isn’t necessarily the government — it’s hackers, too, so always turn on multi-factor authentication. This is so that it’s not like somebody can bust into your account with a password; they will also need to have some other kind of hardware token. That’s a good thing to do, and it’s actually very little additional work.

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This idea that you can be manipulated into seeing, believing, buying and thinking things that aren’t what you normally would do — and nobody knows about it because nobody knows what I see is different from what you see — is scary.

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Don’t use technology that doesn’t need to be connected to the internet. If you don’t need that internet-connected baby thermometer, don’t buy it. It’s going to send your data to some company, and that company is going to sell it to marketers, and it’ll be a source of access for law enforcement. In particular, I don’t like those home assistants like the Alexa or Google Home because I think that eventually, those machines can be used to eavesdrop on people. Why would we invite a ready-made surveillance device into our home?

Everybody likes new, fun stuff — I know lots of people who have those in-home assistants. I have a cell phone, I love the internet and I use Facebook. I think one of the things people really should do is push for better laws. That’s what the law is there for. It’s supposed to protect us and allow us to participate in the modern economy.

At the end of your talk, you close by saying we need to demand transparency. What does transparency mean to you, and how we can reach it?

There’s so much we don’t know about surveillance right now. In the criminal context, we don’t know how many particular surveillance orders are issued. We don’t know what kind of information they’re getting with them. We don’t know what they’re forcing companies to do. We don’t know if they’re potentially subverting security measures in order to facilitate spying on us. It’s much worse in the intelligence context where we have this FISA court that operates and issues opinions behind closed doors. They’re supposed to be publishing these opinions, but we very rarely see them. Any new and novel interpretations of law are meant to be published, but ever since that edict went into law, we haven’t had any FISA court opinions declassified. We find out way after the fact about things, like the FBI’s most recent violation of Section 702 rules, which meant agents had access to data and information they weren’t supposed to see. We find out about these problems years later. There’s just so much that we don’t know. 

Transparency is the first step, but it’s not an end unto itself. There’s a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and that board has only recently confirmed members, and now there’s a quorum again. For a long time, that oversight board, which is expected to provide some narrow review of intelligence programs, wasn’t even in operation. We’re behind. Only a few senators and representatives care because the population isn’t coming forward and saying, “This is really important to us.” But they should be. 

There’s no more obvious reason why you should care about surveillance than the Trump administration. In the past, people who have been blasé about surveillance had an assumption that if you weren’t doing anything wrong then you didn’t have anything to worry about — police would follow the rule of law, and everybody was operating with good faith. But today, you have the extremity of the immigration situation; today, you have the way that the Trump administration is punishing people who are coming to this country by kidnapping their children. There’s rampant sexism and anti-Semitism and racism, and this idea that people are “Black identity extremists” who should be surveilled — which just means the government is surveilling civil rights activists and communities of color. And so there’s this situation where this immense amount of technical power is in the hands of people who are operating in bad faith, based on the most base of motives.

What does it mean that all this information has been gathered and can be accessed, manipulated and sold? And how do you speak to those who aren’t concerned and believe they have nothing to hide?

There’s two things. One is that everybody has committed crimes. The amount of behavior that’s covered by criminal laws is huge — whether it’s smoking pot or lying on your taxes, there’s just so many ways that you can transgress the law. Nobody is 100 percent clean. If somebody wanted to go after you and they knew everything about you, there would be ample information to do that. It’s not just criminal stuff; it’s foolish things you’ve said in the past or people you were friends with who turned out to be crooked. There’s all kinds of things that can be used to tarnish your reputation with your employer or your friends or your spouse. 

The second thing I tell people is that it’s not about you. You may be of no interest, but there are people out there who are challenging the status quo, and these people stick out in order to try to make change. And the powers that be don’t necessarily want change. They like the way things are because they’re the ones in control. So if you care about any political issue — whether it’s tax reform or Black Lives Matter — we need to ensure these people can operate freely in the political world. The ability to do that is greatly reduced if someone has to be afraid that the police are going to come after their undocumented relatives. People need to be concerned about information gathering on the private side because that’s one of the main avenues that information gets to law enforcement. There’s so much incentive on the private side to collect it. That incentive is based on the advertising model: the more that companies know about us, the more targeted the advertising can be and the more money they make. 

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The real thing to start worrying about is what we’re seeing in China, where they’re using face-surveillance to identify people, follow them out on the street and assign them a social score.

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Once you have that much information, people can be manipulated against their best interest. [Social media] sites are designed to be addictive, and in order to keep people clicking, they keep showing you more and more outrageous stuff. This totally skews your sense of the world and skews your facts so you don’t know what’s actually going on in the world. It makes you associate only with like-minded people and puts you into this filter bubble. This idea that you can be manipulated into seeing, believing, buying and thinking things that aren’t what you normally would do — and nobody knows about it because nobody knows that what I see is different from what you see — is scary.

Once you have that data, there’s sociological or systemic problems, because there are certain decisions made based on that data about things, like who’s going to qualify for welfare benefits, what housing ads are shown to me based on my race, what job listings are shown to me based on my gender. These are other kinds of ways in which data can instantiate prejudice or discrimination. It’s not like there wasn’t prejudice or discrimination before big data — the fear is that it’s less obvious that it’s happening, and that makes it much more powerful.

What does the future of surveillance and privacy look like? Is something like Google’s Smart City neighborhood in Toronto going to be the norm?

I think that’s one possible outcome — that not just our communications data but data about our bodies, homes, relationships, shopping and more will be collected and will interact with each other far more than they are now. I think that’s definitely a trend. The real thing to start worrying about is what we’re seeing in China, where they’re using face-surveillance to identify people, follow them out on the street and assign them a social score, which is made up of factors like their law-abidingness, their job and their financials. This score that apparently dictates whether or not they’re good citizens follows them everywhere, enabling government and private entities to discriminate and make decisions about these people based on their rankings. That’s a really terrifying situation to have people be labeled and treated accordingly. That’s very Brave New World.

We the Future 2019: Talks from TED, the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation

At “We the Future,” a day of talks from TED, the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation at the TED World Theater in New York City, 18 speakers and performers shared daring ideas, deep analysis, cautionary tales and behavior-changing strategies aimed at meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the global goals created in partnership with individuals around the world and adopted at the United Nations in 2015.

The event: We the Future, presented by TED, the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation to share ingenious efforts of people from every corner of the globe

When and where: Tuesday, September 24, 2019, at the TED World Theater in New York, NY

Music: Queen Esther with Hilliard Greene and Jeff McGlaughlin, performing the jazzy “Blow Blossoms” and the protest song “All That We Are”

The talks in brief:

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David Wallace-Wells, journalist

Big idea: The climate crisis is too vast and complicated to solve with a silver bullet. We need a shift in how we live: a whole new politics, economics and relationship to technology and nature.

Why? The climate crisis isn’t the legacy of our ancestors, but the work of a single generation — ours, says Wallace-Wells. Half of all the emissions from the burning of fossil fuels in the history of humanity were produced in the last 30 years. We clearly have immense power over the climate, and it’s put us on the brink of catastrophe — but it also means we’re the ones writing the story of our planet’s future. If we are to survive, we’ll need to reshape society as we know it — from building entirely new electric grids, planes and infrastructures to rethinking the way the global community comes together to support those hit hardest by climate change. In we do that, we just might build a new world that’s livable, prosperous and green.

Quote of the talk: “We won’t be able to beat climate change — only live with it and limit it.”

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Kristen Wenz, legal identity expert

Big idea: More than one billion people — mostly children — don’t have legal identities or birth certificates, which means they can’t get vital government services like health care and schooling. It’s a massive human rights violation we need to fix.

How? There are five key approaches to ensuring children are registered and protected — reduce distance, reduce cost, simplify the process, remove discrimination and increase demand. In Tanzania, the government helped make it easier for new parents to register their child by creating an online registration system and opening up registration hubs in communities. The results were dramatic: the number of children with birth certificates went from 16 to 83 percent in just a few years. By designing solutions with these approaches in mind, we can provide better protection and brighter opportunities for children across the world.

Quote of the talk: “When the cost of inaction is that innocent children are left unprotected, unvaccinated, unable to go to school … trapped in a cycle of poverty, exclusion and invisibility, it’s on us to take this issue out of darkness and into the light.”

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Don Gips, CEO of the Skoll Foundation, in conversation with TEDWomen curator and author Pat Michell

Big idea: Don Gips turned away from careers in both government and business and became CEO of the Skoll Foundation for one reason: the opportunity to take charge of investing in solutions to the most urgent issues humanity faces. Now, it’s the foundation’s mission to identify the investments that will spark the greatest changes.

How?

By reaching deeper into communities and discovering and investing in social entrepreneurs and other changemakers, the Skoll Foundation supports promising solutions to urgent global problems. As their investments yield positive results, Gips hopes to inspire the rest of the philanthropic community to find better ways to direct their resources.

Quote of the interview: “We don’t tell the changemaker what the solution is. We invest in their solution, and go along on the journey with them.”

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Alejandro Durán, artist

Big Idea: Art can spotlight the environmental atrocities happening to our oceans — leaving viewers both mesmerized and shocked.

Why? From prosthetic legs to bottle caps, artist Alejandro Durán makes ephemeral environmental artworks out of objects he finds polluting the waters of his native region of Sian Ka’an, Mexico. He meticulously organizes materials by color and curates them into site-specific work. Durán put on his first “Museo de La Basura or Museum of Garbage“ exhibition in 2015, which spoke to the horrors of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and he’s still making art that speaks to the problem of ocean trash. By endlessly reusing objects in his art, Durán creates new works that engage communities in environmental art-making, attempting to depict the reality of our current environmental predicament and make the invisible visible.

Quote of the talk: “By making aesthetic, some might say beautiful, arrangements out of the world’s waste, I hope to hook the viewer, to draw in those that are numb to the horrors of the world, and give them a different way to understand what is happening.”

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Andrew Forrest, entrepreneur, in conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson

Big idea: The true — and achievable! — business case for investing in plastic recycling.

How? Since earning his PhD in marine ecology, Forrest has dedicated his time and money to solving the global plastic problem, which is choking our waterways and oceans with toxic material that never biodegrades. “I learned a lot about marine life,” he says of his academic experience. “But it taught me more about marine death.” To save ourselves and our underwater neighbors from death by nanoplastics, Forrest says we need the big corporations of the world to fund a massive environmental transition that includes increasing the price of plastic and turning the tide on the recycling industry.

Quote of the talk: “[Plastic] is an incredible substance designed for the economy. It’s the worst substance possible for the environment.”

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Raj Panjabi, cofounder of medical NGO Last Mile Health

Big idea: Community health workers armed with training and technology are our first line of defense against deadly viral surges. If we are to fully protect the world from killer diseases, we must ensure that people living in the most remote areas of the planet are never far from a community health worker trained to throttle epidemics at their outset.

How? In December 2013, Ebola broke out in West Africa and began a transborder spread that threatened to wipe out millions of people. Disease fighters across Africa joined the battle to stop it — including Liberian health workers trained by Last Mile Health and armed with the technology, knowledge and support necessary to serve their communities. With their help, Ebola was stopped (for now), after killing 11,000 people. Panjabi believes that if we train and pay more community health workers, their presence in underserved areas will not only stop epidemics but also save the lives of the millions of people threatened by diseases like malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea.

Quote of the talk: “We dream of a future when millions of people … can gain dignified jobs as community health workers, so they can serve their neighbors in the forest communities of West Africa to the fishing villages of the Amazon; from the hilltops of Appalachia to the mountains of Afghanistan.”

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Tashka and Laura Yawanawá, leaders of the Yawanawá in Acre, Brazil

Big idea: To save the Amazon rainforest, let’s empower indigenous people who have been coexisting with the rainforest for centuries.

Why? Tashka Yawanawá is chief of the Yawanawá people in Acre, Brazil, leading 900 people who steward 400,000 acres of Brazilian Amazon rainforest. As footage of the Amazon burning shocks the world’s consciousness, Tashka and his wife, Laura, call for us to transform this moment into an opportunity to support indigenous people who have the experience, knowledge and tools to protect the land.

Quote of the talk: “Indigenous people have the answer. If we want to save the Amazon, we have to act now.”

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Alasdair Harris, ocean conservationist

Big idea: To the impoverished fishers that rely on the sea for their food, and who comprise 90 percent of the world’s fishing fleet, outside interference by scientists and marine managers can seem like just another barrier to their survival. Could the world rejuvenate its marine life and replenish its fish stocks by inspiring coastal communities rather than simply regulating them?

How? When he first went to Madagascar, marine biologist Alasdair Harris failed to convince local leaders to agree to a years-long plan to close their threatened coral reefs to fishing. But when a contained plan to preserve a breeding ground for an important local species of octopus led to rapid growth in catches six months later, the same elders banded together with leaders across Madagascar to spearhead a conservation revolution. Today, Harris’s organization Blue Ventures works to help coastal communities worldwide take control of their own ecosystems.

Quote of the talk: “When we design it right, marine conservation reaps dividends that go far beyond protecting nature — improving catches, driving waves of social change along entire coastlines, strengthening confidence, cooperation and the resilience of communities to face the injustice of poverty and climate change.”

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Bright Simons, social entrepreneur and product security expert

Big idea: A global breakdown of the trustworthiness of markets and regulatory institutions has led to a flurry of counterfeit drugs, mislabeled food and defective parts. Africa has been dealing with counterfeit goods for years, and entrepreneurs like Bright Simons have developed myriad ways consumers can confirm that their food and drug purchases are genuine. Why are these methods ignored in the rest of the world?

How? Bright Simons demonstrates some of the innovative solutions Africans use to restore trust in their life-giving staples, such as text hotlines to confirm medications are real and seed databases to certify the authenticity of crops. Yet in the developed world, these solutions are often overlooked because they “don’t scale” — an attitude Simons calls “mental latitude imperialism.” It’s time to champion “intellectual justice” — and look at these supposedly non-scalable innovations with new respect.

Quote of the talk: “It just so happens that today, the most advanced and most progressive solutions to these problems are being innovated in the developing world.”

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LaToya Ruby Frazier, artist 

Big Idea: LaToya Ruby Frazier’s powerful portraits of women in Flint, Michigan document the reality of the Flint water crisis, bringing awareness to the ongoing issue and creating real, positive change.

How? Frazier’s portraits of the daily lives of women affected by the Flint water crisis are striking reminders that, after all the news crews were gone, the people of Flint still did not have clean water. For one photo series, she closely followed the lives of Amber Hasan and Shea Cobb — two activists, poets and best friends — who were working to educate the public about the water crisis. Frazier has continued collaborating with Hasan and Cobb to seek justice and relief for those suffering in Flint. In 2019, they helped raise funds for an atmospheric water generator that provided 120,000 gallons of water to Flint residents. 

Quote of the talk: “Water is life. It is the spirit that binds us from sickness, death and destruction. Imagine how many millions of lives we could save if [the atmospheric water generator] were in places like Newark, New Jersey, South Africa and India — with compassion instead of profit motives.”

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Cassie Flynn, global climate change advisor

Big idea: We need a new way to get citizen consensus on climate change and connect them with governments and global leaders.

How? The United Nations is taking on an entirely new model of reaching the masses: mobile phone games. Flynn shares how their game “Mission 1.5” can help people learn about their policy choices on climate change by allowing them to play as heads of state. From there, the outcomes of their gameplay will be compiled and shared with their national leaders and the public. Flynn foresees this as a fresh, feasible way to meet citizens where they are, to educate them about climate change and to better connect them to the people who are making those tough decisions.

Quote of the talk: “Right now, world leaders are faced with the biggest and most impactful decisions of their entire lives. What they decide to do on climate change will either lead to a riskier, more unstable planet or a future that is more prosperous and sustainable for us all.”

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Wanjira Mathai, entrepreneur

Big Idea: Corruption is a constant threat in Kenya. To defeat it there and anywhere, we need to steer youth towards integrity through education and help them understand the power of the individual.

Why? In 1989, the Karura Forest, a green public oasis in Nairobi, Kenya, was almost taken away by a corrupt government until political activist Wangari Maathai, Nobel Prize recipient and founder of the Greenbelt Movement, fought back fiercely and won. Continuing Maathai’s legacy, her daughter Wanjira explains how corruption is still very much alive in Kenya — a country that loses a third of its state budget to corruption every year. “Human beings are not born corrupt. At some point these behaviors are fostered by a culture that promotes individual gain over collective progress,” she says. She shares a three-pronged strategy for fighting corruption before it takes root by addressing why it happens, modeling integrity and teaching leadership skills.

Quote of the talk: “We cannot complain forever. We either decide that we are going to live with it, or we are going to change it. And if we are going to change it, we know that today, most of the world’s problems are caused by corruption and greed and selfishness.”

Unlock: The talks of TED@BCG 2019

To succeed in the next decade and beyond, we can’t just optimize what we know. We need to keep learning, imagining, inventing. In a day of talks and performances, 16 speakers and performers explored how we can unlock our full potential — human, technological and natural — to accomplish things we never thought possible.

The event: TED@BCG, the eighth time TED and BCG have partnered to bring leaders, innovators and changemakers to the stage to share ideas for solving society’s biggest challenges. Hosted by TED’s Corey Hajim and BCG’s Seema Bansal.

When and where: Tuesday, September 24, 2019, at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai, India

Music: Performances by Gingger Shankar and Dee MC

Open and closing remarks: Rich Lesser, CEO of BCG

The talks in brief:

Ipsita Dasgupta, co-conspirator

Big idea: The world needs “co-conspirators”: people willing to bend or break the rules and challenge the status quo and societal norms.

Why? In the face of constant change and complexity, we need unconventional people making decisions at the table. These co-conspirators — which Dasgupta shares through three exemplary stories, including a mother insistent on forgoing some traditional gender roles — can help create new ways of thinking, acting and questioning why we do and how we do it.

Quote of the talk: “To achieve great heights or change the world, no matter how smart we are, we all need people.”

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Jean-Manuel Izaret, pricing strategist

Big idea: Because of their huge per-patient cost, medications that could drastically reduce rates of deadly diseases like hepatitis C are often reserved for only the sickest patients, while many others go untreated. Is there a way to pay for these drugs so that every patient can get them, and drug companies can still finance their development?

How? The pricing model for pharmaceuticals is typically based on the cost per patient treated — and it’s a broken model, says Izaret. He explains that a subscription-like payment system (similar to the one pioneered by Netflix) could distribute costs over time and across an entire population of patient subscribers. By combining the savings of early treatment with the lower costs of a larger patient pool, healthcare providers could improve outcomes and remain profitable.

Quote of the talk: “I think we don’t really have a price point problem — I think we have a pricing model problem. I think the problem is not the number, but the unit by which we price.”

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Sougwen Chung, artist and researcher

Big Idea: The future of creative collaboration between humans and machines is limitless — with beauty latent in our shared imperfections.

Why? As the world strives towards precision and perfection, Chung creates collaborative art with robots that explores what automation means for the future of human creativity. Through machine learning, Chung “taught” her own artistic style to her nonhuman collaborator, a robot called Drawing Operations Unit: Generation (DOUG). DOUG’s initial goal was to mimic her line as she drew, but they made an unexpected discovery along the way: robots make mistakes too. “Our imperfections became what was beautiful about the interaction,” Chung says. “Maybe part of the beauty of human and machine systems is their inherent, shared fallibility.” Chung recently launched a lab called Scilicet, where artists and researchers are welcome to join her in contributing to the future of human and AI creativity.

Quote of the talk: “By teaching machines to do the work traditionally done by humans, we can explore and evolve our criteria of what’s made possible by the human hand — and part of that journey is embracing the imperfections, recognizing the fallibility of both human and machine, in order to expand the potential of both.”

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Kavita Gupta, currency globalist

Big idea: The world should share one stable, decentralized currency.

How, and why? Blockchain and cryptocurrencies could provide better data privacy than anything we use today. They would be immune to global disruptions incited by local unrest or inefficient politicians while offering a global marketplace that “would not just be a way for the elite to diversify their portfolio, but also for the average person to increase sustainable wealth,” Gupta says. With real-world examples that root her perspective in the possible and achievable, she weaves a framework for a united future.

Quote of the talk: “All of this inches us toward a more stable, secure place — to true financial and economic inclusivity, where every citizen in this world has the same choice, same dignity and same opportunity.”

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Markus Mutz, supply chain hacker

Big idea: We need clarity on how consumer products are made and where they come from in order to make ethical and informed decisions before purchase.

How? Over the past two years, Mutz and his team founded OpenSC (SC = supply chain) and partnered with the World Wide Fund for Nature to bring transparency and traceability to the supply chain process. Together, Mutz believes their efforts will help revolutionize the way we buy and create products. It’ll happen with three straightforward steps: by verifying production claims, tracing products throughout their supply chains and sharing information that will allow consumers to make decisions more aligned with their values — all with the aid of blockchain.

Quote of the talk: “If we have reliable and trustworthy information, and the right systems that make use of it, consumers will support those who are doing the right thing by producing products in a sustainable and ethical way.”

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Abhishek Gopalka, public sector strategist

Big Idea: How do we motivate people working in public sectors like healthcare to feel accountable for providing quality care? With transparency.

Why? Internal, data-driven reviews aren’t enough to keep people accountable, says Gopalka. Instead, we need to move people to do better by sparking their competitive sides — making actions transparent so they either shine or fail in the public eye. In Rajasthan, a state in India that’s home to more than 80 million people, Gopalka has helped to significantly improve the public health system in just two years. How? Public health centers now publicly promise to provide citizens with free care, medicine and diagnosis, resulting in an increase in doctor availability, readily available drugs and, ultimately, patient visits. If applied elsewhere, transparency could benefit many broken systems. Because the first step to solving any complex issue is motivation.

Quote of the talk: “Motivation is a tricky thing. If you’ve led a team, raised a child or tried to change a personal habit, you know that motivation doesn’t just appear. Something needs to change to make you care. And if there’s one thing that all of us humans care about, it’s an inherent desire to shine in front of society.”

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Gaby Barrios, marketing expert

Big Idea: By focusing less on gender when marketing products to consumers, we can build better brands — and a better world.

How? Companies often advertise to consumers by appealing to gender stereotypes, but this kind of shortcut isn’t just bad for society — it’s bad for business, says Barrios. Research shows that gender doesn’t drive choice nearly as much as companies assume, yet many still rely on outdated, condescending stereotypes to reach consumers. By looking at variables outside of gender, like location and financial status, companies can develop more nuanced campaigns, grow their brands and reach the customers they want.

Quote of the talk: “Growth is not going to come from using an outdated lens like gender. Let’s stop doing what’s easy and go for what’s right. At this point, it’s not just for your business — it’s for society.”

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Sylvain Duranton, AI bureaucracy buster

Big idea: Artificial intelligence can streamline businesses, but it can also miss human nuances in disastrous ways. To avoid this, we need to use AI systems alongside humans, not instead of them. 

How? For companies, deploying AI alongside human teams can be harder and more expensive than relying on AI alone. But this dynamic is necessary to ensure that business decisions take human needs and ethics into account, says Duranton. AI bases decisions on data sets and strict rules, but it can’t quite tell the difference between “right” and “wrong” — which means that AI mistakes can be severe, even fatal. By pairing AI with human teams, we can use AI’s efficiency and human knowledge to create business strategies that are successful, smart and ethical.

Quote of the talk: “Winning organizations will invest in human knowledge, not just AI and data.”

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Akiko Busch, author

Big idea: In a world where transparency and self-promotion are glorified, let’s not forget the power and beauty of invisibility.

Why? Invisible cloaks, invisible ink, invisible friends — from the time we’re kids, invisibility gives us a sense of protection, knowledge and security. Akiko Busch thinks it’s time for us to reconsider the power of invisibility. When we disappear into nature, listen without responding, lose ourselves in the primal collectivity of concerts — in all cases, we become more creative and feel more connected to each other and ourselves. In an age where “visibility rules the day,” she says, there is beauty in stepping out of the spotlight, disappearing and existing — if only briefly — invisibly. 

Quote of the talk: “Being unseen takes us from self-interest to a larger sense of inclusion in the human family.”

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Toby Kiers, evolutionary biologist

Big idea: By studying fungi networks and relationships, we can learn more about how human economies work and how extreme inequalities grow.

How? Extreme inequality is one of humanity’s greatest challenges — but it’s not a uniquely human phenomenon. Like us, fungi can “strategically” trade, steal and withhold resources (though they do all this without cognitive thought, of course). Whereas human systems are built with an understanding of morals, fungi networks have evolved to be ruthless and solely opportunistic. The parallels are remarkable: for example, Kiers found that supply-and-demand economics still held true in fungi relationships. Examining these relationships gives us the chance to better diagnose problems within our own systems and even borrow solutions from the fungi. Kiers’s team is now studying the parallels between fungal network flow patterns and computer algorithms — and there’s even more ahead.

Quote of the talk: “The [fungal] trade system provides us with a benchmark to study what an economy looks like when it’s been shaped by natural selection for hundreds of millions of years, in the absence of morality, when strategies are just based on the gathering and processing of information.”

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Chris Kutarna, writer and philosopher

Big idea: Facebook, Twitter and their disruptive cousins have upended our notions of truth. Social media’s assault on simple veracity has led many to cry for its regulation — but philosopher Chris Kutarna believes that we should “let social media run wild, because the truths it breaks … need to be broken.”

How? Kutarna argues that it was the age of mass media that birthed the notion that truth exists in concise, marketable chunks — and this idea does not mirror reality. Promoting a concept like “globalization” as an unassailable axiom rather than as a complex idea with many conflicting currents is reductive and dangerous. If we were to embrace social media’s multiplicity of voices and perspectives rather than enforce a single standard for truth, we could initiate a search for truths too complex for a single perspective to contain. 

Quote of the talk: “What is truth? I don’t know. I can’t know because truth is supposed to be the reality that is bigger than ourselves. To find truth, we need to get together and go and search for it together. Without that search … we’re trapped in our own perspective.”

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Fang Ruan, management consultant

Big idea: Influenced by ancient Chinese philosophy, Chinese businesses are shifting towards management techniques that foster more collaborative, spontaneous environments.

How? Enjoying a delicious plate of dumplings one night, Fang Ruan was intrigued as she watched how the business was run. To her surprise, she found a “two hat” strategy: front-line managers were given new responsibilities beyond their current scope, and ideas were welcomed from people at all steps of the career ladder. This approach varies from China’s dominant, Confucianism-influenced business strategy, which values authority and seniority and has served as a time-tested formula for precise execution at a large scale. Now, as tech companies disrupt traditional industries and millennials make up a larger share of the workforce, new ways of management have emerged, Ruan says. Unconventional management is on the rise — characterized by more collaborative, innovative strategies that resemble the philosophy of Taoism, which believes things work to perfection when their natural state is supported rather than controlled.

Quote of the talk: “Leaders should not impose their will; leaders should act by shaping the context rather than control.”

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Amane Dannouni, digital business strategist

Big idea: Disruptive startups like Uber, Amazon and Airbnb have reinvented entire industries. Their digital disruption of existing services has provided game-changing benefits for their users and affiliates — but it’s also led to big losses for those whose livelihoods depended on the old, physical business models. Amane Dannouni believes that digital marketplaces in the developing world can teach us valuable lessons about how to preserve jobs and local economies.

How? Companies like Gojek in Indonesia, Jumia in Nigeria and Grab in Singapore have reinvigorated the economic landscapes that spawned them, and in the process energized their surrounding communities. They did this not by ignoring their competitors but by integrating community businesses into their own platforms, and by giving their users support — like insurance and online education — that go above and beyond simply linking providers to their patrons. 

Quote of the talk: “What all these [online marketplaces] have in common is that they transition this basic functionality of matching sellers and buyers from the physical world to the digital world and, by doing so, they can find better matches, do it faster, and ultimately unlock more value for everyone.”

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Lorna Davis, business leader

Big idea: We need to break our obsession with heroes. Real change can only happen when we work together.

How? “In a world as complex and interconnected as the one we live in, the idea that one person has the answer is ludicrous,” says Davis. What we really need is “radical interdependence,” shaped by leaders who set different goals and ask others to help them solve big problems. Here’s the difference: whereas “hero” leaders see everyone else as a competitor or a follower, interdependent leaders understand that they need others and genuinely want input. Likewise, heroes set goals that can be delivered through individual results, while interdependent leaders set goals that one person or organization cannot possibly achieve alone. At TED@BCG, Davis sets an “interdependent” goal of her own — calling on the world to help her in her work to end rhino poaching.

Quote of the talk: “We don’t need heroes. We need radical interdependence — which is just another way of saying: we need each other.”

Is geoengineering a good idea? A brief Q&A with Kelly Wanser and Tim Flannery

As we recklessly warm the planet by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, some industrial emissions also produce particles that reflect sunshine back into space, putting a check on global warming that we’re only starting to understand. In her talk at TEDSummit 2019, “Emergency medicine for our climate fever,” climate activist Kelly Wanser asked: Can we engineer ways to harness this effect and reduce the effects global warming?

This idea, known as “cloud brightening,” is seen as controversial. After her talk, Wanser was joined onstage by environmentalist Tim Flannery — who gave a talk just moments earlier about the epic carbon-capturing abilities of seaweed — to discuss cloud brightening and how it could help restore our climate to health. Check out their exchange below.