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À partir d’avant-hierTED Blog

Open: The talks of TED@DestinationCanada

TED senior curator Cyndi Stivers hosts TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City on February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

When we come together with open hearts and open minds, anything is possible. It was in this spirit that TED partnered with Destination Canada for a day of talks and performances featuring new ideas on living, seeing the world and reimagining our shared future.

The event: TED@DestinationCanada: Open is the first event TED and Destination Canada have co-hosted to spotlight leading minds who embody the incredible breadth and depth of Canadian culture. The event was hosted by TED senior curator Cyndi Stivers.

When and where: Thursday, February 23, 2023, at the TED Theater in New York City

Opening and closing remarks: From the Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance for Canada, and Gloria Loree, chief marketing officer of Destination Canada

Speakers: Alysa McCall, Azim Shariff, Normand Voyer, Matricia Bauer, Lori McCarthy, Paul Bloom, Cohen Bradley, Alona Fyshe, Rebecca Darwent, Michael Green, Cameron Davis, Jiaying Zhao, Kevin Smith and Kris Alexander

Throat singers Silla perform at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED World Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Music: In the verbal version of a dance-off, the Inuit duo Silla (made up of Charlotte Qamaniq and Cynthia Pitsiulak) perform the ancient art form of katajjaq, a type of Inuit throat singing found only in the Canadian Arctic. Later in the show, singer-songwriter Mélissa Laveaux delivers a musical treat, performing two mesmerizing songs alongside bassist Sébastien Richelieu.

The talks in brief:

Biologist and conservationist Alysa McCall speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

As Arctic sea ice melts, polar bears are being forced on land – and they’re hungry. Biologist and conservationist Alysa McCall shares what to do when you find a polar bear digging through your trash and offers inspiring solutions for protecting both the bear’s shrinking habitat and their human neighbors.

Social psychologist Azim Shariff speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Why do we think people who work hard are “good” — even if they produce little to no results? Social psychologist Azim Shariff calls this “effort moralization”: the intuitive connection we make between hard work and moral worth, regardless of what the work produces. He explores how this mindset plays out in our work environments — leading to things like workaholism — and encourages a shift towards effort that produces something meaningful, rather than just work for work’s sake.

Chemist Normand Voyer speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Take a trip to Canada’s Arctic as natural product chemist Normand Voyer explores the mysterious molecular treasures hidden in plants thriving in frigid environments. These scarcely investigated organisms could hold the key to the world’s next wonder drug, he says — so long as we work quickly enough to discover them before their ecosystems are altered by climate change.

Indigenous artist and entrepreneur Matricia Bauer speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Adopted by a white family as a child, Indigenous artist and entrepreneur Matricia Bauer, or Isko-achitaw waciy / ᐃᐢᑯ ᐃᐦᒋᑕ ᐘᒋᕀ (she who moves mountains), lost touch with her Cree heritage. Beat by beat and bead by bead, Bauer reconciled lost parts of herself by exploring the songs, stories and crafts of her culture. On a decades-long journey of re-Indigenizing herself, Bauer recites a moving poem on the ways of eagles and hawks — and illustrates the power of embracing one’s true self.

Cultural storyteller Lori McCarthy speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

In a love letter to her native Newfoundland and Labrador, cultural storyteller Lori McCarthy shares the secret magic of this Canadian province: the rich connection between the people, the land and the food. Sharing a glimpse of the tastes, sights and generations-old stories that thrive there, McCarthy invites you to become a part of wherever you go — which could start with something as simple as sitting with a local for a cup of tea.

Psychologist Paul Bloom speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Have you ever done something just because you knew it was wrong? In an invitation to examine your contrarian streak, psychologist Paul Bloom shares findings from “The Perversity Project”: stories he gathered from the public of harmless (but intentional) everyday misdeeds. From sticking a finger in your friend’s ice cream to a urinal that sparked the birth of conceptual art, Bloom makes the case that, sometimes, freeing yourself from the constraints of rationality and morality can be clever, creative and even beautiful.

Haida storyteller Cohen Bradley speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Haida storyteller Cohen Bradley, who holds the names of Taaydal (“coming in big”) and Gidin Kuns (“powerful eagle”) in his clan and nation, shares his culture’s perspective on legacy, weaving together stories passed on by his ancestors with his own recent story of raising a memorial pole in his ancestral village. He demonstrates the resilience of his people’s legacy despite the devastating impact of colonialism.

AI researcher Alona Fyshe speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Is AI really as smart as people give it credit for? Researcher Alona Fyshe delves into the inner workings of AI and the human brain, breaking down how talkative tech (like ChatGPT) learns to communicate so convincingly — or not.

Philanthropic adviser Rebecca Darwent speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Boxhand. Susu. Tontine. Potlatch. These are just some of the names from around the world for philanthropy centered on formal and informal ways of giving back. Philanthropic adviser Rebecca Darwent shares how community-led practices can revolutionize and overcome the systemic racism of the financial industry — and offers lessons from collective giving that could change the ways good is done.

Architect Michael Green speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Architect Michael Green — a mass timber pioneer who helped spark a renaissance in constructing tall buildings out of wood — introduces a new material called “FIVE,” which is derived from natural materials and based on the structure of trees and vascular plants. FIVE could revolutionize the way we build buildings, providing a strong and organic alternative to the traditional materials of concrete, steel, masonry and wood.

Youth leader Cameron Davis speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

In a quick, inspiring talk, youth activist Cameron Davis explains why his generation — Gen Z, with its exposure to differing viewpoints online from an early age — is uniquely positioned to create meaningful change in the world by using their voices to challenge systemic biases, advocate for inclusivity and promote justice.

Behavioral scientist Jiaying Zhao speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Is it possible for climate action to make you feel happy? Behavioral scientist Jiaying Zhao believes that’s the only way we’ll create lasting, sustainable change. From treat meals to feng shui fridges, she offers eight tricks to lower your carbon emissions while increasing your happiness.

Coastal explorer Kevin Smith speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Coastal explorer Kevin Smith tells the story of how a group of eco-tourism businesses in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia collaborated to create one of the biggest marine debris cleanups in history. The initiative was born during the COVID-19 pandemic, when tours were temporarily shut down, resulting in these once-competitive businesses coming together to propose a solution to clean up the coast and protect their livelihoods.

Professor of video game design Kris Alexander speaks at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City. February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Where academia fails, video games often succeed, says professor of game design Kris Alexander. With high-quality audio, text and video focused with clear objectives, video games swiftly captivate minds and drive motivation — unlike a lecture hall. In an engaging display of the merits of digital play, Alexander calls for us to rethink the foundations of education and embrace the qualities of video games that can level up our learning.

Mélissa Laveaux performs at TED@DestinationCanada at the TED Theater in New York City on February 23, 2023. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

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Dare to discover: TEDinArabic hosts third regional event in Ben Guerir, Morocco

Par : TED Staff

TEDinArabic’s third regional event in Ben Guerir, Morocco. (Photo: Hmida Amouddah)

TEDinArabic brought together some of the world’s brightest minds to share ideas on the importance of outside-the-box thinking to change minds, embrace our shared humanity and shape the future.

The event: TEDinArabic, hosted by Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Errammach, included four talks centered on the theme “Dare to Discover,” a series of interactive workshops curated by partners at afikra, a performance by students of the Joudour Sahara music school and a series of interstitials by Arab artists. The event was attended by a number of dignitaries from Qatar, Morocco and Saudi Arabia, 50 students from across the region and more than 900 participants from Morocco. It was the third in a series of TEDinArabic regional events organized in the lead-up to the TEDinArabic Summit in March, 2023 in Doha, Qatar. The summit will feature 16 speakers from the Arabic-speaking world sharing their ideas for the first time with a global audience — all in Arabic.

When and where: Thursday, October 13, 2022 at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Ben Guerir, Morocco

Opening remarks: Moza Al-Hajri, a student at Georgetown University in Qatar and a youth advocate for the Education Above All Foundation, emphasized the importance of the Arabic language to Arab identity and upholding cultural heritage.

The talks in brief:

Charles Mouhannad Malek speaks at TEDinArabic’s third regional event in Ben Guerir, Morocco. (Photo: Qatar Foundation)

Charles Mouhannad Malek, molecular and cellular biologist 

Big idea: We can build bridges and increase empathy through science.

How? Dr. Charles Malek thinks the only way for the Arabic-speaking world to transition from a consumer to a producer market is through investing in scientific research and technology here at home. Many students decide to work abroad because their home countries don’t provide them with the necessary tools and infrastructure to pursue their scientific research. The key to solve this problem is to teach with the scientific method – which relies on empirical observation, information gathering, analysis, conclusion and critical thinking – as opposed to lectures and rote memorization. Malek emphasizes the need to develop and promote scientific content in the Arabic language as a vehicle to build knowledge across the region. “If we decide to prioritize science education and make that the compass of the north, change will come,” he says.


Aziza Chaouni speaks at TEDinArabic’s third regional event in Ben Guerir, Morocco. (Photo: Qatar Foundation)

Aziza Chaouni, civil engineer, architect, professor 

Big idea: A model for sustainable living and preserving cultural heritage lies in the desert.

How? The creation of oases, through careful land and building management, has made desert living possible for centuries. Increased tourism and climate change, however, are forcing local communities to leave, abandoning their cultural heritage as the desert creeps in. Aziza Chaouni is focused on reversing the damage by designing a new approach to sustainability and cultural heritage preservation. In her hometown of Fez, Morocco, the oasis of M’hamid Al Ghizlan was on its way to extinction until Chaouni established Joudour Sahara, a music school built with sustainable, local materials – such as rammed earth, stone, wood and bamboo – and powered by an autonomous, photovoltaic energy system. Thanks to the project, the desert has stopped trying to eat M’hamid, residents are staying in their homes and their cultural heritage is now thriving. She concludes her talk with a live performance by the students of Joudour Sahara.


Suzanne Talhouk speaks at TEDinArabic’s third regional event in Ben Guerir, Morocco. (Photo: Qatar Foundation)

Suzanne Talhouk, author, poet

Big idea: Embrace the vibration of the Arabic language to shape your life and the life of those around you.

How? Words carry a vibration that can affect your other senses, says Suzanne Talhouk. She makes an impassioned case to get in touch with your inner voice and to embrace a world that stays away from using inflammatory, charged words. “If you want to improve your life and the life of those around you, start by using words that express love, harmony and forgiveness,” she says. She concludes by exploring the power of the Arabic language, saying that words shape the way we think and act. Arabic is one of the many languages that has a myriad of words that carry vibrations and high energy – so why are we abandoning our mother tongue so easily?


Hayat Sindi speaks at TEDinArabic’s third regional event in Ben Guerir, Morocco. (Photo: Qatar Foundation)

Hayat Sindi, biotechnologist 

Big idea: A new model to foster innovation, address social challenges and build a bridge between possibility and hope.

How? Dr. Hayat Sindi has established a social entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem for scientists and innovators to address pressing issues in their communities in the Middle East and beyond. The i2 Institute – launched in partnership with Harvard Innovation Lab, MIT, National Geographic, Pop Tech, PWC and McKinsey – was the beginning of Sindi’s journey to bring tangible solutions to the most vulnerable. Through its flagship program “Transform,” Sindi and her team worked with a group of innovators around the globe to launch a number of projects: battery-powered refrigerators that use solar energy in the borders of Uganda and Mozambique to store and preserve produce (and, later, COVID-19 vaccines); solar-powered houses in refugee camps in Bangladesh; and an electronic medical platform that employs 60,000 female doctors in Pakistan, providing dignified medical assistance to 100 million women and children in the outskirts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq. “We can come up with amazing and visionary ideas,” she says. “However, they will become real and stronger only when they are connected to society.”

This piece was written by Lobna Hassairi and Doha Summaqah.

Hayat Sindi

TEDWomen Presents: Women leading the future, with Heidi Hammel and Nadia Drake

Heidi Hammel in conversation with Nadia Drake at TEDWomen Presents. October 24-28, 2022. Photo Courtesy of TED.

Nothing says “future” quite like humanity’s quest to understand our cosmic surroundings.

The fourth day of TEDWomen Presents — an online festival featuring interviews with leading women, interactive workshops, specially curated film screenings and more — focused on science and the future, with a conversation between astronomer Heidi Hammel and science journalist Nadia Drake.

Big idea: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the most powerful ever built by humanity, has transformed the field of astronomy — and our search for life beyond Earth.

How? JWST has been orbiting Earth since late 2021; its highly sensitive, innovative instruments allow us to see new wavelengths of infrared light with incredible clarity. Beyond the beautiful photography it creates, this breakthrough telescope means we can learn more about the very origins of the universe. “Different wavelengths of light tell you different parts of the story,” says Heidi Hammel, an interdisciplinary scientist working on JWST. In conversation with science journalist Nadia Drake, she discussed the telescope’s construction and how scientists use tools called spectrographs to analyze the colors in the light it captures. Since certain molecules light up differently, they can use these colors to see which molecules are present in a far-off object — molecules like H2O, which could be a sign of circumstances suitable for life. More than this, “We don’t just have a static picture,” says Hammel. Studying the imagery can reveal the molecules’ temperature, pressure and movement, too. “That’s where the real deep science takes place,” she says. All this information will help us fill in gaps in the knowledge of the universe’s history, how our solar system formed and where else life may have evolved. For example, we’ve learned that one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, has more water inside it than Earth does on the surface, and that the dust, gas and existing stars of nearby galaxies interact to create new stars. “It touches us as humans. How did we come to be?” asks Hammel.

Q&A: Following the interview, the TEDWomen Presents audience had the opportunity to ask Hammel questions during a live Q&A, hosted by TED Current Affairs Curator Whitney Pennington-Rodgers. In her day-to-day work, Hammel says she experiences both the mundane and the awesome. While sometimes she can be so deep in analysis that she loses sight of the awe she’s experiencing, other times she’ll get to observe an image that shocks or amazes her. While working on the Hubble Space Telescope, she watched a comet crash into Jupiter, exploding into massive black clouds. And when JWST first launched, she saw Neptune (and its rings) glowing in the infrared. Looking towards the future, Hammel says scientists are already thinking about the next generation telescope — one even larger than JWST — to find another planet able to sustain life. Wherever it may be, Hammel says we might be able to answer the question of whether life exists beyond our planet within this lifetime.

Hammel also spoke on the evolution of gender equity in her field since she first began her career in the 1980s. At that time, there were less than ten women in her field. Now she attends conferences filled with women. “It makes me joyful,” she says, because the attention they’ve put towards including women has created a younger, more diverse generation of astronomers. Today, Hammel does outreach with a broad range of communities, working to change everyone’s understanding of what an astronomer looks like. Yes, a scientist can look “like an ordinary mom!”

Heidi Hammel in conversation with Nadia Drake at TEDWomen Presents. October 24-28, 2022. Photo Courtesy of TED.

Join the TEDWomen Community newsletter list to be the first to hear updates from the community and announcements about TEDWomen 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia — October 11-13, 2023.

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What’s next for climate action? The talks from the TED Countdown New York Session 2022

TED Global Curator Bruno Giussani and Countdown co-founder Logan McClure Davda host the TED Countdown New York Session on June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Countdown, TED’s climate action initiative founded in partnership with Future Stewards, launched three years ago with a focus on accelerating solutions to climate change. The goal: to highlight possible pathways forward and weave a story of how we can help build a safer, cleaner, fairer and net-zero future for all.

After creating more than 100 climate-focused TED Talks, supporting over 1,000 TEDxCountdown events and attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in climate investments, Countdown returned to New York City to explore some of the innovative solutions bringing us closer to achieving a zero-carbon world. Eight speakers (and two performers) shared exciting developments, the challenges that lay ahead and how everything from decarbonization and biochemicals to TikTok and hip-hop can be vehicles for climate action.

The event: Talks from TED Countdown New York Session 2022, hosted by TED’s Bruno Giussani and Logan McClure Davda

When and where: Tuesday, June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York City

Speakers: Zahra Biabani, James Irungu Mwangi, Olivia Lazard, Samir Ibrahim, MyVerse, Kristen Warren, Patricia Villarrubia-Gomez, Miguel A. Modestino, Yuval Noah Harari, Peggy Shepard

The talks in brief:

Zahra Biabani speaks at the TED Countdown New York Session on June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Zahra Biabani, climate activist

Big idea: Using the power of social media, we can promote climate optimism and avoid the hopelessness that leads to climate inaction.

How? When Zahra Biabani learned that 56 percent of Gen Zers believe humanity is doomed, she began posting “Weekly Earth Wins” videos that combine feel-good TikTok dances with positive climate news. Her goal? To combat “climate doom-ism,” an obstacle she says now rivals climate denialism in the fight to save Earth’s climate. Her comments section quickly filled up with grateful messages from young people who were losing hope. Today, Biabani is part of EcoTok, an online activist collective that uses social media to break the cycle of doom and gloom. Climate optimism, Biabani says, isn’t about ignoring the existential threat the climate crisis poses to life on Earth. It’s a way to cultivate hope so people continue fighting for change and don’t give in to “the very entities that have gotten us into this mess.”


James Irungu Mwangi speaks at the TED Countdown New York Session on June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

James Irungu Mwangi, strategist, social entrepreneur 

Big question: By themselves, cuts in emissions will not mitigate the looming disaster of climate change — and while we might be able to accelerate Mother Nature’s innate abilities to scrub greenhouse gasses, that alone won’t save us either. As the climate clock ticks, James Irungu Mwangi sees increased investments in carbon sequestering technologies like DAC (direct air capture), BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) and BiCRS (biomass carbon removal and storage). But will these investments be enough to save us?

An answer: To date, carbon-sequestering tech has removed only 100,000 tons of CO2 from our atmosphere, a far cry from the billions of tons we must remove to reduce global warming. And scaling these technologies in places that already have a huge fossil fuel footprint will have no impact without a difficult transition to fully renewable energy. But there are places where we can sequester carbon and build a renewable power grid at the same time — places like Kenya, with plenty of forest and basalt rock, plenty of renewable energy potential and no current emissions that would need to be displaced. As humanity embarks on its biggest energy transition ever, Mwangi calls on the world to recognize and prioritize Africa’s climate action potential.


Olivia Lazard speaks at the TED Countdown New York Session on June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Olivia Lazard, environmental peacemaking expert

Big idea: A fossil-fuel-free future is crucial to world peace and the resolution of future conflict, and renewables are the path to this future. But they require materials — minerals such as lithium, which must be mined. The countries controlling these resources and their processing (such as China) will find themselves at the center of the global stage.

How? The nations sitting on the natural resources crucial to renewable development are at the epicenter of a new geopolitical reality, as the recent invasion of mineral-rich Ukraine highlights. And while countries in Central Asia, Latin America and Africa could reap great economic benefits from their resources, these resources also put them at risk for exploitation. To avoid this, we must extract resources safely, fight corruption and invest in sustainable economic models. Our ticket to green growth is hidden deep within the environment, Lazard says — this time, let’s make sure we don’t make the same mistakes that got us here.


Kristen Warren and MyVerse perform at the TED Countdown New York Session on June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Samir Ibrahim, climate entrepreneur, with artists MyVerse and Kristen Warren

Big idea: Hip-hop can make climate action mainstream.

How? The climate crisis is urgent, says Samir Ibrahim, but talking about climate change is generally boring — not to mention depressing. As a climate-positive CEO and a lifelong hip-hop lover, Ibrahim’s got an off-beat idea for inspiring climate action through hip-hop. In 1993, Snoop Dogg’s hit “Gin and Juice” led to a 20 percent increase in sales of Seagram’s Gin (the brand named in the song). Ibrahim believes that future hip-hop artists can do for the climate crisis what Snoop Dogg did for his song’s eponymous mixed drink. He points to the long history of hip-hop artists leveraging their cultural capital to influence society’s views and engagement with topics like mental health and suicide. He says hip-hop can also bring climate vernacular to the masses. As a proof of concept, he invites MyVerse and Kristen Warren onstage to perform their original climate-focused rap.


Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez speaks at the TED Countdown New York Session on June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Patricia Villarrubia-Gomez, plastic pollution researcher

Big idea: Swapping plastic grocery bags for canvas totes won’t solve our plastic problem. If we want to address the climate consequences of producing and consuming plastic, we need to consider plastic as more than a waste management issue.

How? Plastic now touches even the most remote areas of the planet — from the snowy caps of Mount Everest to the deepest sea trenches to unborn babies in the womb. According to Patricia Villarrubia Gomez, the total mass of plastics is now double the total mass of all living animals on the planet. And all of this plastic spells trouble for our planet’s future. Villarrubia Gomez breaks down the consequences of plastic production at every stage, from fossil fuel extraction to the disposal of single-use plastics in landfills, incinerators and our planet’s precious waterways. Even after it’s thrown away, plastic continues to wreak havoc, releasing greenhouse gasses and other toxins. To deal with this staggeringly complex problem, Villarrubia Gomez says, we need to address plastic’s entire lifecycle, including its production, design and disposal.


Miguel A. Modestino speaks at the TED Countdown New York Session on June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Miguel A. Modestino, sustainable engineering researcher 

Big question: Modern industry is the foundation of not only the world’s economies but also of the human way of life. Yet without crucial reforms to chemical manufacturing, global industry could be central to society’s downfall. Its massive carbon footprint (and that of the fossil fuels that lie at its heart) has already contributed to the loss of natural wonders such as the tropical glaciers in Miguel A. Modestino’s native Venezuela. How might industry contribute to a sustainable future?

An answer: Modestino’s research team at New York University studies electrochemical engineering — chemical reactions that source their energy directly from electricity, as opposed to fossil fuels. They’re working to develop new reactions that aim to increase efficiency and decrease the emissions impact of chemical manufacturing, supply chains and transportation. These innovations, in tandem with retrofitting chemical plants to run on renewables and sequestering carbon before it hits the atmosphere, could transform not only the chemical industry but also the face of the planet.


Yuval Noah Harari speaks at the TED Countdown New York Session on June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Yuval Noah Harari, historian, scholar 

Big idea: Nobody really knows how much it will cost to dodge the worst impacts of climate change. Yet Yuval Noah Harari’s research indicates that humanity might avert catastrophe by investing only two percent of global GDP into climate solutions. In other words, solving climate change will not require major disruption — we just need to change our priorities.

How? Researchers may quibble about the exact number, but the truth is simple — only a small amount of global GDP would be required to avoid the most apocalyptic climate change scenarios. And this money will not be sacrificed, but rather directed towards investments in new infrastructure and energy sources that will not only save the planet but also establish new (and sustainable) vectors of global posterity. A slight shift of political priorities spearheaded by citizens and politicians is all we need to redirect our resources. “As the climate crisis worsens, too many people are swinging from denial straight to despair,” Harari says. “But we should not lose hope. Humanity has enormous resources under its command, and by applying them wisely, we can still prevent ecological cataclysm.”


Peggy Shepard speaks at the TED Countdown New York Session on June 14, 2022, at the TED World Theater in New York. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Peggy Shepard, environmental justice leader

Big idea: To achieve environmental justice, we must address the disproportionate impact of pollution and environmental hazards on Black and brown communities.

Why? Everyone has the right to live in a clean environment, says Peggy Shepard. But in the United States, the complex legacy of racism, housing segregation and zoning laws have long determined where people of color can live. As a result, many Black and brown families often reside in what Shepard calls “sacrifice zones”: communities on the frontlines of pollution and environmental hazards like landfills, incinerators or petrochemical plants. By raising awareness about the health consequences of contamination and mobilizing those most affected, Shepard explains, the environmental justice movement aims to turn high-risk areas into some of the world’s first “green zones.”

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Watch new TED Talks from the Audacious Project

Par : TED Staff

The Audacious Project is TED’s collaborative funding initiative to put ideas for social change into action. Today, we launched eight new talks from this year’s cohort, featuring some of the world’s boldest changemakers and their ideas to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges. Collectively this group has secured more than $900 million in funding from the Audacious Project, matching their transformative ideas with catalytic resources. Learn more at AudaciousProject.org, and watch the talks at TED.com/AudaciousProject.

Watch the talks from the Audacious Project’s 2021-22 cohort:

A safe pathway to resettlement for migrants and refugees
Becca Heller, International Refugee Assistance Project

Why Indigenous forest guardianship is crucial to climate action
Nonette Royo, Tenure Facility

How ancient Arctic carbon threatens everyone on the planet
Sue Natali, Woodwell Climate Research Center

Mental health care that disrupts cycles of violence
Celina De Sola, Glasswing International

An election redesign to restore trust in US democracy
Tiana Epps-Johnson, Center for Tech and Civic Life

A transparent, easy way for smallholder farmers to save
Anushka Ratnayake, myAgro

A bold plan for transforming access to the US social safety net
Amanda Renteria, Code for America

The most powerful untapped resource in health care
Edith Elliott and Shahed Alam, Noora Health

The billion-dollar campaign to electrify transport
Monica Araya, ClimateWorks: Drive Electric

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Play: Notes from Session 7 of TED2022

Head of TED Chris Anderson and actress Meg Ryan host Session 7 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Session 7 of TED2022 focused on play, with talks on the science behind what it really means to “have fun”, finding your personal groove through dance, the next era of video games, foraging for food in your backyard and more.

The event: Talks from Session 7 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson and vintage TEDster and actress Meg Ryan

When and where: Tuesday, April 12, 2022, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Catherine Price, Agnes Larsson, James Hodge, Noah Raford, Ryan Heffington, Alexis Nikole Nelson

Music: Joined by vocalist KAZU, drumming virtuoso Ian Chang thumped through a set of songs he dreamed up in his living room, creating fully realized music using the physicality of drums.

Ian Chang performs at Session 7 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada.. Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED

The talk in brief:

Catherine Price speaks at Session 7 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED)

Catherine Price, recovering science journalist

Big idea: We use the word “fun” to describe all kinds of activities that are frivolous and optional — but only a few of these activities truly trigger joy and create memories. Far from being frivolous, fun is the secret to feeling alive.

How can we have more fun? We tend to describe fun in terms of activities rather than the actual enjoyment we derive from them — but according to Catherine Price, these activities have little to do with what really matters when we have fun. Leisure activities, despite our best efforts to cram more of them in, aren’t a sure prescription for fun. Rather, fun consists of playfulness (i.e., not taking ourselves too seriously), connection (a shared experience with loved ones) and flow (a sense of engagement that leads to a loss of a sense of time). If we can cultivate these spontaneous mental states, Price believes we can drop our guard and learn how to truly thrive within each moment.


Agnes Larsson speaks at Session 7 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Agnes Larsson, game director

Big idea: We’re entering the era of the metaverse. As people spend more of their time online in 3D digital landscapes, we should ensure that we design and build metaverses for fun, creativity and inclusivity.

How? For the gaming world, the metaverse is nothing new. Every day, millions of people log into games like Minecraft and use virtual building blocks to create remarkable metaverses, like big cities or castles or underwater playgrounds for fish. As game director at Minecraft, Agnes Larsson has seen how these digital spaces allow people to spend time together online in a fun and meaningful way. She describes a dad who created a Minecraft server specifically for children on the autism spectrum and an organization that uses metaverses as a neutral playground to foster dialogue, friendship and trust between young people in conflict zones. In a future where we’ll spend more time in the metaverse, Larsson advises developers to design for delight and longevity, not for quick profits. She also encourages us to build online spaces that are equitable and accessible to everyone. Because what we create online can have a profound impact on the real world.


James Hodge speaks at Session 7 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED)

James Hodge, data-driven technologist

Big idea: Technology is closing the gap between esports and in-person sports, making elite competition more accessible than ever before

How? At age 16, Rudy van Buren won a high-profile Dutch racing championship, but his dreams of going pro slipped away because the sport was too expensive. Fast forward 15 years: Rudy won a worldwide gaming competition and scored a contract as a simulation driver — and then he did something even more amazing. He made the jump from “world’s fastest gamer” to pro racing in the physical world. According to data strategist James Hodge, Rudy’s story is emblematic of how new gaming technology is revolutionizing our understanding of sports, closing the gap between virtual and real-world competition — and making elite competition more accessible than ever. These days, you don’t need a racecar to be a Formula 1 driver, Hodge says. All you need is a video game console and a gaming steering wheel.


Noah Raford speaks at Session 7 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED)

Noah Raford, futurist

Big idea: People on the internet believe weird things — and, if the rise of QAnon and the uprisings of January 6, 2020 are any indication, bizarre beliefs will begin to bleed into everyday reality more and more as we move further into the metaverse. Futurist Noah Raford sees this not as a cause for despair nor a sign of impending apocalypse, but rather as a reason to hold out hope for humanity.

How? Virtual worlds lend “a sense of meaning and purpose” when the real world becomes unstable, confusing and seemingly hostile — and this is the reason internet forums descend into fantasy and fanaticism. Video games, with their immersive realities (and the immediate satisfaction they provide for our deepest psychological needs), are potential powder kegs for generating escapist realities. Many kids already live primarily in virtual worlds — and it’s only a matter of time before they’re mobilized by virtual leaders promising a simpler, better reality. And while social change driven from within these virtual worlds may seem ominous, Raford thinks that they also could lead to greater justice in the real world.


Ryan Heffington speaks at Session 7 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED)

Ryan Heffington, dancer, choreographer

Big idea: By turning off our critical minds and tuning into our most basic daily movements, we can all become our own choreographers and find joy in dance.

How? Each of us has our own unique way of moving, according to choreographer Ryan Heffington, but in order to unlock our “dance magic,” we have to set aside our preconceived notions about what “good” dance is. The most unlikely experiences can offer inspiration — tying a shoe, rocking a baby, cleaning your mustache or whisking up some mac-n-cheese. “Once you have the perspective that life is dance,” Heffington says, “you’ll begin to see dance everywhere around you.” Guided by this philosophy, Heffington started an online dance party during the first COVID lockdown, helping people find joy and release in anxious times. After Heffington’s talk, in a dazzling proof of concept, dancers Nico Lonetree and Ryan Spencer perform a routine infused with the humor and beauty of our daily movements.


Alexis Nikole Nelson speaks at Session 7 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Alexis Nikole Nelson, foraging enthusiast

Big idea: You can find your next healthy — and planet-friendly — snack growing on your neighbor’s lawn or in between cracks in the sidewalk.

Why? As a self-proclaimed “dirty vegan” and a forager, Alexis Nikole Nelson takes pride in identifying, collecting, preparing and eating wild foods. On her popular TikTok, she shows her followers how she can turn foraged puffballs into pizza bagels or make a sweet syrup with wisteria petals. But the veggies, fruits and fungi Nikole Nelson forages aren’t just tasty; they’re often healthier than produce in the grocery store and better for our planet because they require no watering, fertilizer, labor or long-distance transportation. Now Nelson wants to get more people in on the wild food game — even if convincing others isn’t always easy. “Tell an omni to try something vegan, and you might get some hesitation already. But tell them it’s vegan and you pulled half of it out of the ground?” While preparing sweet and salty kelp chips (Dasima Twigak) live on the TED stage with local Vancouver bull kelp, she shares her often-hilarious tips for introducing foraged food to skeptical mouths.

The TED Theater at TED2022: A New Era in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED)

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Introducing The Audacious Project’s new cohort

Par : TED Staff

Audacious Project executive director Anna Verghese and head of TED Chris Anderson onstage at TED2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The 2021-22 cohort features nine audacious responses to some of the world’s biggest challenges. (Photo: Dian Lofton / TED)

Communities around the globe are grappling with division and uncertainty. Lasting and transformative change on the world’s most pressing challenges will require us to work together and find common ground. At The Audacious Project, we aspire to be a lever for courageous collaboration, supporting those who are reimagining and rebuilding our systems to better meet the demands of this moment. 

This past year, the Audacious community has come together to catalyze more than $900 million for nine bold projects. Sourced from our global network, and supported by our team over the past 12 months, these projects hope to create clear pathways to a better future.

The 2021-22 Audacious Project grantees are: 

These projects reflect continued collaboration between a group of global partners, philanthropic organizations and determined individuals who believe in the power of pooling significant, long-term resources in service of impact. Our hope is that this inspires others to engage in the work too.

This new cohort joins an existing Audacious portfolio of 29 projects, with over $3.1 billion of philanthropic dollars catalyzed since 2015. Four cycles into this program, the Audacious projects together reveal a powerful truth: the problems we face are not intractable, and the status quo is not inevitable.

We look forward to sharing these new projects with you next week at TED2022 during the Audacious session co-hosted by Academy Award nominee and Emmy, BAFTA and Peabody Award winner Ava DuVernay, and we very much hope you’ll join us in supporting and amplifying their work far and wide. 

With gratitude and determined hope,
Anna Verghese, executive director of The Audacious Project
Chris Anderson, head of TED

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Free to Dream: TED Talks in partnership with American Family Insurance

Resistance Revival Chorus performs at TED Salon: Free to Dream, presented in partnership with American Family Insurance at the TED World Theater in New York on November 17, 2021. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

We all deserve the right to dream and to pursue better, richer and fuller lives. In fact, this ideal is often referred to as the American Dream. And yet, the country’s criminal justice system denies many people the freedom to truly dream — even after they have been technically “freed” from incarceration. In an evening of talks, four speakers and a performer challenged the definition of the word “freedom” and laid out new ideas for how to engage in systems change, close equity gaps and reimagine what it means to be free to dream.

The event: TED Salon: Free to Dream, curated and hosted by Whitney Pennington Rodgers, in partnership with American Family Insurance

Opening remarks: Bill Westrate, president and CEO-elect of American Family Insurance, welcomes the audience to the salon.

Music: A soaring musical interlude from The Resistance Revival Chorus, a collective of women artists and activists who use their voices to amplify freedom, justice reform and the power of dreaming.

Reuben Jonathan Miller speaks at TED Salon: Free to Dream, presented in partnership with American Family Insurance at the TED World Theater in New York on November 17, 2021. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Reuben Jonathan Miller, sociologist, writer

Big idea: For the nearly 20 million Americans with a felony record, punishment doesn’t end with a prison sentence. We need to embrace the politics of radical hospitality, where we make a place in society for all people, even those who’ve done harm.

How? When a previously incarcerated person comes home, they return to a hostile world — what Reuben Jonathan Miller calls an alternate legal reality. In the United States, more than 44,000 laws and policies dictate where a person with a felony record can live, what jobs they can hold, how they can spend their time and whether or not they can vote or see their kids. As a sociologist, Miller has spent more than two decades “following the people we’ve learned to be afraid of.” For people like a man Miller calls Jimmy, who was released from prison into Detroit, punishment never ends. Miller explains how the terms of Jimmy’s release required that he find housing, report to his parole officer for weekly drug screenings, complete a workforce development program and get a job — without providing him with any resources or support. His mother wanted him to come home, but he couldn’t even sleep on her couch because landlords can evict families for housing relatives with criminal records. What’s the solution? How do we end perpetual punishment? We need to change the laws, Miller says, but we also need to change our commitments. He points to Ronald Simpson Bey as someone who models the politics of radical hospitality. Bey spent 27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and since he’s come home has become one of the nation’s leading advocates for justice. When a 14-year-old boy murdered his son, Bey even advocated on behalf of the boy to ensure that he would be tried as a minor, giving the boy a second chance in life. As Miller says, people like Bey help us imagine alternatives for the formerly incarcerated; they invite us “to help remake the world, so we all belong, simply because we’re fully human participants in a human community.”


Nyra Jordan speaks at TED Salon: Free to Dream, presented in partnership with American Family Insurance at the TED World Theater in New York on November 17, 2021. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Nyra Jordan, social impact investor

Big idea: Corporations can engage in justice reform by making it easier to hire someone with a criminal record.

How? Corporate commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) often leave out people impacted by the criminal justice system, even though employment is one of the best ways to prevent someone from returning to prison. As social impact investment director for American Family Insurance, Nyra Jordan has pioneered fair chance hiring for people with a criminal record. Under her leadership, the company eliminated any “check here if you have a criminal record” boxes from their job applications and started including programs that train incarcerated individuals in their talent pipeline. Now, she shares four steps to implement fair chance hiring at your company.  First, she says, hire based on skills. If a person has the skills they need for the job, then a gap in their resume for time spent in prison shouldn’t matter. Second, make sure there’s a clear path for promotion for justice-impacted individuals. Third, help justice-impacted employees adjust to your corporate culture. And last, include criminal justice education and anti-bias training as part of your company’s DEI strategy to ensure a positive work environment for all fair chance hires. Someone who’s been involved in the criminal justice system can very much be a qualified candidate. “For many reasons, they might end up being your most motivated, most dedicated, most hard-working employees because their stakes are so much higher,” Jordan says.


Brittany K. Barnett speaks at TED Salon: Free to Dream, presented in partnership with American Family Insurance at the TED World Theater in New York on November 17, 2021. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Brittany K. Barnett, attorney, entrepreneur, author

Big idea: The freedom journey doesn’t end when someone is released from prison. In many ways, it begins. True liberation must include a vision for restoring, investing in and nurturing the creative ingenuity of justice-impacted people.

How? Brittany K. Barnett realizes that we cannot rely on the glacially slow legislative process, or on lawmakers indifferent to those suffering behind bars. Instead, she champions “sustainable liberation” — a concept by which economic freedom, equity and access to resources and capital opens doors for incarcerated creatives to impact their communities both inside and outside of prison walls. In addition to numerous initiatives investing in the businesses of the formerly incarcerated, Barnett and her clients cofounded the Buried Alive project — a joint effort fighting to free those snared by outdated drug laws. Through these programs, Barnett helps restore the dreams of those whose lives have been shattered by prison. “When we lose sight of the humanity of those we unjustly sentence, we lose sight of all of the brilliance they might bring into the world,” she says.


Nick Turner speaks with TED curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers at TED Salon: Free to Dream, presented in partnership with American Family Insurance at the TED World Theater in New York on November 17, 2021. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Nick Turner, president and director of Vera Institute of Justice, interviewed by TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers

Big idea: With the Vera Institute, Nick Turner seeks to transform the “criminal legal system” — referred to as such because the so-called “criminal justice system” does not dispense justice. Instead, this system feeds America’s oppressive legacy of racial injustice, established through centuries of slavery and “Black Codes.” Disguised by euphemisms such as “War on Crime,” rather than fixing social problems, our current legal system preserves racial divides and economic inequities. 

How? Democracy can do better than this, Turner says. We must shrink the system, make it less brutal and ensure that there is “some modicum of justice that is provided.” Among other initiatives, the Vera Institute helped overturn the congressionally imposed ban on Pell grants for incarcerated students, which extended to 20,000 students the opportunity to earn a degree. There’s a lot of work to do to build a just justice system, Turner says, but it’s crucial that we recognize the humanity of those caught in it, rather than bow to our fear of violent crime (which police and prisons do relatively little to minimize).

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Protecting: Notes from Session 6 of Countdown Summit

Hosts Bruno Giussani and Christiana Figueres open Session 6 of Countdown Summit on October 15, 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

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It’s the last morning of Countdown Summit, and we have a better sense of the exciting climate initiatives that are scaling up — but also of the size of the mountain we’re climbing.

In Session 6, eight speakers take it all on — from forests and soil, to markets and law, to arts and communication.

The event: Countdown Summit: Session 6, hosted by Paris Climate Agreement architect Christiana Figueres and TED’s Bruno Giussani, at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland on Friday, October 15, 2021

Speakers: Farwiza Farhan, Jane Zelikova, Sathya Raghu Mokkapati, Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Solitaire Townsend, Lucas Joppa, James K. Thornton, Naima Penniman

Performance: Poet and “freedom-forging futurist” Naima Penniman delivers a stunning spoken word poem — an evocative, moving tribute to the natural world and our connection to it.

The talks in brief:

TED Fellow Farwiza Farhan talks about our greatest untapped environmental resource at Session 6 of Countdown Summit on October 15, 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Farwiza Farhan, TED Fellow and forest conservationist

Big idea: Farwiza Farhan is well-known for her fight to preserve the Leseur ecosystem, one of the last places on Earth where orangutans, rhinos, elephants and tigers still roam the wilderness together. But for Farhan, the true warriors are the women on the ground fighting day-to-day conservation battles.

How? Farhan is inspired by women like Sumini, an Indonesian conservationist helming the first woman-led ranger team at the front lines of forest preservation. Working within a patriarchal tribe where women are typically subservient, Sumini led the efforts to map her native forest, a crucial first step for both government recognition of her homeland and for saving its crucial environmental and economic resources. In a country where forestry initiatives usually benefit male elders (and strengthen existing inequalities), social and environmental justice requires nurturing women like Sumini in every local community, Farhan says.


Jane Zelikova, climate change scientist

Big Idea: From growing crops to storing carbon, healthy soil matters more now than ever — and we need to protect it.

Why? Under your feet, soil is teeming with hardworking and diverse microbial life that has the potential to stop global warming in its tracks, says climate change scientist Jane Zelikova. The “wee beasties” (or microbes, as described by Dutch scientist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek centuries ago) help accumulate and store massive amounts of carbon, clean water, nourish crops and reduce pollution — but ​​over the last 12,000 years, we have lost billions of tons of that carbon in our soils. Zelikova urges us to rethink agricultural practices to protect our soils and the carbon they hold; to get more carbon in the ground by growing diverse, climate-adapted crops; and to leave the microbes alone to do what they do best. “Soils are the literal foundation of life on this planet — the reason that we eat and the climate solution just waiting to be unlocked,” says Zelikova. “Let’s build back our soils and help our planet by looking down to the ground.”


TED Fellow Sathya Raghu Mokkapati presents his work on a greenhouse-in-a-box that can help raise small farmers out of poverty. He speaks at Session 6 of Countdown Summit on October 15, 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Sathya Raghu Mokkapati, TED Fellow and green farming innovator

Big idea: Small-scale farmers need a dependable, regular income to avoid poverty. “Greenhouse-in-a-box” technology can help.

How? For small-scale farmers in India, farming has long been an unreliable source of income, as crops that flourish one season can fail the next. Climate risk is now making the profession nearly impossible. According to TED Fellow and green farming innovator Sathya Raghu Mokkapati, one farmer in India dies by suicide every 51 minutes. The Indian entrepreneur is determined to improve the plight of small farmers and provide them with dependable income even amidst the ongoing threat of climate change. That’s why he and his team developed what they call a greenhouse-in-a-box. The small, easy-to-build structure is covered with netting to cut off heat, prevent bugs and increase crop yields using less water. Raghu Mokkapati estimates that this low-cost technology can bring a farmer an extra $100 per month in profits. So far, nearly 2,000 farmers in South India have joined Raghu Mokkapati in his movement — he hopes to reach 100,000 farmers in the next five years.


Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of the Club of Rome

Big idea: In the 50 years since The Limits to Growth report was published by the Club of Rome, the alarming climate trends that it warned about have drastically increased.

What have we learned since then? Updated models of humanity’s growth continue to show that the business-as-usual scenario isn’t working, demonstrating that we must shift our growth patterns, says Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of the Club of Rome. With the launch of the EarthforAll initiative, Dixson-Declève and the Club of Rome have identified five turnarounds that will enable us to thrive: energy, food, inequality, poverty and population (including health and education). Previewing the Club’s next report, Dixson-Declève explains that now is the time to do things differently, transitioning new and existing capital towards solutions. She estimates that the cost of shifting to sustainable growth will be around five percent of global GDP each year — an achievable, single-digit number. The cost of inaction is much greater. “We have too much bad news for complacency, but we have too much good news for despair,” says Dixson-Declève, quoting The Limits to Growth coauthor Donella Meadows. “Let’s kick complacency out the door.”


Solitaire Townsend, sustainability solution seeker

Big idea: The industry of “professional services” — such as advertising and PR firms, big management consultancies and finance companies, corporate law firms and lobbyists — have a massive but largely unnoticed influence on climate.

How? Solitaire Townsend calls it the “X-industry,” where “X” stands for influence. Even though the direct carbon footprint of this sector is relatively small, the “brainprint” of the X-industry is felt everywhere — they’re the storytellers and problem-solvers who act as “the grease in the wheels of all businesses on Earth,” Townsend says. For instance: big consulting groups provide financial modeling for new oil and gas exploration; lobbyists fight for less regulation of those projects; and PR firms protect the reputations of companies that do the drilling. In this sense, the greenhouse gas impact of the industry is enormous — if uncalculated. Building off the three groups of carbon emission measurement (referred to as Scopes 1, 2 and 3), Townsend believes we need a new “Scope X” — a way to calculate the “emissions of influence” of the X-industry and hold it to account. Armed with this data, the X-industry could move from being an abettor in environmental destruction to part of the solution.


Can we “code” the program for net-zero emissions? Lucas Joppa, Chief Environmental Officer at Microsoft, shares his answer at Session 6 of Countdown Summit on October 15, 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Lucas Joppa, Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Officer

Big idea: By treating the plan to achieve net-zero carbon emissions as a coding challenge, we can identify and resolve “bugs” in the system.

How? The developers of any net-zero carbon program face the same challenge as software engineers, says Lucas Joppa, Chief Environmental Officer at Microsoft. Issues with the program are bugs in the code. Joppa identifies three of these “bugs” in our plan to achieve net-zero and explains how to fix them. First, we need a common definition for the term net-zero. Without one, our progress as a planet remains difficult to track. Second, we struggle to define the impact or benefit of different carbon offsets on the climate because we lack a universal unit of measurement for carbon offsets. We need to standardize both how we record carbon outputs and how we measure carbon offsets. Third, we should support the fledgling market for carbon removal and ensure that it’s as robust as the market for carbon offsets. Although we’re working against the clock, Joppa believes we will rise to what has become the greatest challenge of our time: recoding our current course on climate change.


James K. Thornton, eco-lawyer and author

Big idea: There are signs that China is becoming a global environmental leader.

How? James K. Thornton is the founder of ClientEarth, a nonprofit law firm working to address the climate crisis. He tells the story of his team’s work in China, where they’ve been training judges and prosecutors on climate law and litigation in a growing effort to use the power of the legal system to create positive environmental impact. He estimates that their cooperation with China’s environment ministry, judiciary and federal prosecutors has initiated some 80,000 environmental cases — ranging from environmental NGOs suing polluting companies to large financial institutions ending their investments in coal. More needs to be done, Thornton says, but the current, systematic commitment to change is a sign of hope.

Mark your calendar: Tune in to the Countdown Global Livestream on October 30, 2021. This virtual event will lay out a credible and realistic pathway to a zero-carbon future. Save the date.

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Reducing: Notes from Session 4 of Countdown Summit

Future Stewards cofounder Lindsay Levin and David Lammy, Member of Parliament for Tottenham, England, speak at Session 4 of the TED Countdown Summit on October 14, 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

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How will we get the 55 gigatons of global greenhouse emissions produced each year down to zero? By rapidly scaling up proven green technologies, finding innovative and brilliant ways to trap carbon and ending destructive practices.

In Session 4 of Countdown Summit, 10 speakers shared the actions we need to take to attack climate change at its source — and end the 400-year-old legacy of extraction that began with colonialism and stretches to today.

The event: Countdown Summit: Session 4, hosted by Future Stewards cofounder Lindsay Levin and David Lammy, Member of Parliament for Tottenham, England, at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland on Thursday, October 14, 2021

Speakers: John Doerr, Ryan Panchadsaram, Ilissa Ocko, Ermias Kebreab, Rainn Wilson, Nat Keohane, Gabrielle Walker, Ben van Beurden, Chris James and Lauren MacDonald

The talks in brief:

Lindsay Levin, John Doerr and Ryan Panchadsaram speak at Session 4 of the TED Countdown Summit on October 14, 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

John Doerr, engineer and investor, and Ryan Panchadsaram, systems innovator

Big idea: The action plan to solve the world’s climate crisis is here.

How? John Doerr and Ryan Panchadsaram have teamed up to map out what concerted global action on climate could look like using Doerr’s proven system for setting up and tracking goals and success known as OKRs: objectives and key results. Together, they’ve broken down the road to climate action into six big parts: electrifying transportation; decarbonizing the grid with alternatives like wind, solar and nuclear; fixing the food industry; protecting nature; cleaning up business; and removing carbon. As Panchadsaram underscores, all six must be enacted at once — and quickly — alongside winning at politics and policy, so that climate commitments have follow-through. This can be achieved by turning movements into real action, innovating to drive down the cost of clean tech and investing in research, deployment and philanthropy. While these needs are both practical and ambitious, leaders and business executives are underestimating the economic opportunity — and the human cost — if we don’t act fast. Doerr and Panchadsaram call for investment now, scaling up what we already know works as well as finding new solutions. Their plan requires the United States and Europe to lead the way by showing that decarbonizing can be done and that a clean green economy is possible in order to lower the costs for everyone — especially those who have suffered the most but contributed the least to the climate problem. “How much more damage do we have to endure before we realize it’s cheaper to save this planet than to ruin it?” Doerr asks.


Ilissa Ocko speaks at Session 4 of the TED Countdown Summit on October 14, 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Ilissa Ocko, atmospheric scientist

Big idea: Cutting methane emissions is the single most effective way to slow the rate of climate change.

How? Methane gas emissions could cause a greater short-term increase in global warming than CO2 emissions, says atmospheric scientist Ilissa Ocko. Fortunately, we can use available technologies to halve methane emissions from human activities like fossil fuel production, waste management and agriculture. Methane gas is a significant byproduct of oil, coal and gas extraction, but with sensor technology, we can detect and quantify emissions with unprecedented precision, eliminating the majority of accidental emissions at no net cost. Waste management also produces methane when bacteria decompose garbage and sludge in wastewater. Ocko proposes we vacuum up the methane emitted from landfills and use this gas for electricity. (Although burning methane does emit CO2, CO2 traps a lot less heat than methane). Finally, Ocko says we need to tackle the number one methane polluter: raising livestock. Some solutions include using higher quality feed for cows and covering manure lagoons. If we implement rapid, full-scale efforts in each sector, Ocko is confident we will reap the climate benefits in our lifetimes. “We could slow down the rate of warming by as much as 30 percent before mid-century,” she says.


Ermias Kebreab, animal scientist

Big idea: Feeding cattle seaweed could drastically reduce global methane emissions, cutting into one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gasses.

How? Scientists have long known that cows are a huge source of greenhouse gasses, contributing up to four percent of emissions globally each year. And since humanity doesn’t seem to be willing to adopt a plant-based diet on anything near the global scale required to ameliorate these emissions, we need to find ways to make cattle less — ahem — gassy. Animal scientist Ermias Kebreab is developing a green solution, sourced from just below the surface of our oceans: seaweed. Inspired by research showing that feeding cattle seaweed could drastically reduce the methane produced by burping, he’s devised ways to feed it to dairy animals in a scalable way. Eventually, Kebreab and his colleagues discovered they could cut methane emissions from cattle up to a staggering 98 percent with the proper combination of feed and seaweed.


Rainn Wilson, actor and activist

Big idea: Surely there must be something funny about climate change.

Right? Not really, says actor and activist Rainn Wilson, in a comedic interlude between talks. Backed up by an ensemble of famous friends like Maria Bamford, Larry Wilmore, Weird Al Yankovic and many more, Wilson searches for the comedic light in humanity’s greatest challenge and comes up with — well, basically nothing. (Although in a dark, twisted way, not finding any humor at all can be kind of funny in itself.) “Maybe there’s nothing funny about climate change,” says Al Madrigal. “Let’s fix it.”


Nat Keohane speaks at Session 4 of the TED Countdown Summit on October 14, 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Nat Keohane, climate policy advocate

Big idea: We can’t solve climate change without tropical forests.

Why? Deforestation means carbon pollution, as eliminating tropical forests means losing one of the world’s most important carbon sinks, responsible for absorbing over one-fifth of emissions made from burning fossil fuels. And right now, instead of protecting rainforests, we’re cutting them down at alarming rates, pushing us closer to a tipping point. The heart of the problem is economic, says climate policy advocate Nat Keohane. That so long as it’s profitable to chop down forests for timber or clear them for agriculture, we’ll continue to lose them unless incentives are worth more to keep these important places alive. He proposes a way forward, successfully happening in Brazil’s Mato Grosso within the Amazon, where the state is now a model of economic development and forest protection — down 85 percent in deforestation since making the leap toward sustainable growth for beef and soy. How did they do it? Using the three key building blocks for any credible green market, which is also upheld by his coalition, LEAF: precision carbon measurements, standardizing buyer quality and creating a transaction platform for companies looking to make good on their climate commitments. “If we can expand LEAF globally, we can stop tropical deforestation, protect some of the largest carbon sinks on the planet and enable forest nations and local populations to thrive and grow, Keohane says. “All because we harness the power of the market to reflect the full value of standing forest.”


Gabrielle Walker, writer, carbon removal thinker

Big idea: We can harness the power of nature, human ingenuity and technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stop climate change from getting worse.

How? What do wooly pigs have to do with the future of our planet? According to writer Gabrielle Walker, this relative of the Scottish wild boar is one example of a new approach to addressing climate change through carbon removal. Walker says reducing carbon emissions isn’t enough to slow global warming; we also need to take billions of tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere in the next few decades. On the Isle of Mule in Scotland, wooly pigs root out the undergrowth leftover from sheep grazing, allowing native trees to grow back and, eventually, suck carbon from the air. Other carbon removal solutions are equally ingenious and surprising. For instance, basalt rock formed from volcanic lava naturally traps carbon, but we can accelerate the carbon capture process by grinding the rock and spreading it across agricultural fields. Walker also says we can use technology to speed up carbon removal. She points to a giant fan in Texas that strips CO2 from the air and buries it underground as well as construction projects that use wood (natural carbon stores) to build skyscrapers instead of high-emitting materials like concrete.


Chris James, cofounder of the activist fund Engine No. 1; Lauren MacDonald, climate justice activist; and Ben van Beurden, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell

Big idea: The path to decarbonizing fossil fuels.

How? Session 4 closed with a conversation between Chris James, cofounder of Engine No. 1, the activist fund that successfully installed three new directors on the board of the US’s largest oil firm, ExxonMobil; Lauren MacDonald, Scottish climate activist and a member of the Stop Cambo campaign, fighting against a proposed offshore oil field west of the Shetlands; and Ben van Beurden, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, the largest Europe-based oil and gas company. The discussion was moderated by Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who steered the global effort that culminated in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The difficult and at moments emotional onstage panel covered fossil fuels and accelerating the trajectory of decarbonization. Read more about it here.

Mark your calendar: Tune in to the Countdown Global Livestream on October 30, 2021. This virtual event will lay out a credible and realistic pathway to a zero-carbon future. Save the date.

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Recalibrate: The talks of TED@BCG 2021

Lisa Choi Owens, TED’s Head of Partnerships, welcomes the audience to TED@BCG: Recalibrate 2021, held at the TED World Theater in New York City. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

As the world opens up and we move out of crisis mode, the most important lesson might be that change and disruption will continue to happen frequently and dramatically. So the question becomes: How can we adapt? In a day of talks and performances, a range of speakers explore how to harness creativity and imagination to redefine tech, business, government and society for the better.

The event: TED@BCG: Recalibrate is the eleventh event TED and Boston Consulting Group have co-hosted to spotlight leading thinkers from around the globe. Hosted by TED’s Head of Partnerships Lisa Choi Owens, with opening remarks from Rich Lesser, Global Chair of BCG.

Music: A serene, smoldering performance from the French band Kimberose along with the East-African retro-pop sound of singer-songwriter Alsarah.

The talks in brief:

Warren Valdmanis, private equity investor

Big idea: Good jobs make for committed employees, profitable companies and interested investors. 

How? Oftentimes, investors pride themselves on leaning out a company to boost its profit — but Warren Valdmanis believes that there is another way. By shifting the focus to creating good jobs, rather than cutting labor costs, companies have the opportunity to create a thriving environment that attracts employees, customers and investors. But what is a “good job”? Valdmanis breaks it down to four parts: Fair treatment, a promising future, psychological safety and a sense of purpose. When all these elements come together, mission-driven companies take care of the people bringing that vision to life and, in turn, they get creative, profitable returns. “Good jobs aren’t just good for society,” Valdmanis says. “They are good business.” 

What will the next generation of smart digital assistants look and sounds like? Karen Lellouche Tordjman offers answers at TED@BCG: Recalibrate 2021. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Karen Lellouche Tordjman, customer experience professional

Big idea: There are two key challenges to crack in order to usher in the age of smart digital assistants.

How? From Siri to Alexa, digital assistants already permeate our lives. But, according to Karen Lellouche Tordjman, engineers must still overcome two crucial obstacles before digital assistants start to feel like a truly indispensable part of our lives. Obstacle one: voice. Currently, digital assistants have a relatively limited level of fluency, struggling with such things as accent, background noise and the different meanings of words within different contexts. But, with 10,000 Amazon employees working on Alexa’s voice technology alone, we could soon see leaps in the performance of voice interfaces. Which brings us to obstacle two: breadth of recommendations. Right now, most recommendation algorithms stay in one lane, specifically recommending things like videos, music, clothing items and the like. The next generation will be able to do everything, Lellouche Tordjman says, offering an integrated and wide range of recommendations across product categories. Once that happens, smart assistants may soon feel as necessary as our smart phones.

Massimo Russo, data cooperation expert

Big Idea: Sharing data can help us solve climate change. Here are three research-backed ways for companies to actually do it. 

How: We are in a dilemma, says Massimo Russo. If we want to defeat climate change, we need to optimize our cities and systems — and that requires sharing data. (In researching the most effective climate change solutions, Russo and his team found that 85 percent of the best plans require more data sharing.) But the companies that have this crucial data are often reluctant to share it, falling susceptible to what he calls “FOMA”: fear of missing out on competitive advantage. But there is a ray of hope — companies are more likely to share their data when it serves a greater common goal, like solving climate change. Russo offers three ways for companies to jumpstart an altruistic cycle of innovative data sharing: first, companies should look for new, unexpected sources of and partners for data. For example, farmers could look to satellite information systems to help them decide when and what to plant. Second, companies should quickly develop new sustainability solutions, which includes hiring climate scientists to use data and digital innovations together to create effective solutions. Finally, companies should act together for change. In cities, this could look like transportation hubs and utility companies sharing data so each can optimize their operations. We need data to find our way out of climate change — and the quickest way is to share.

Richard Thompson Ford takes a fascinating historical walk through the rise and power of fashion at TED@BCG: Recalibrate 2021. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Richard Thompson Ford, civil rights and gender equity lawyer

Big idea: Let’s try to check our biases before calling the fashion police.

Why? The fashion police are real — or, at least, the laws and policies that empowered them, which still echo and influence modern biases everywhere from school to the workplace. Richard Thompson Ford takes a fascinating historical walk through the rise and power of fashion, and how it’s more about status than statement when what’s considered appropriate is often clouded by stereotypes, snap judgements and limited experiences. But dismissing dress codes doesn’t instantly dissolve the tensions around who should wear what, Ford explains. There’s nuance to be understood when it comes to culture, self-expression and archaic beliefs of what constitutes professional dress. And while no tailor-made solution exists to divest society of such haute judgment, he encourages everyone to outfit themself to think twice about clothing and the people in them.

Zoe Karl-Waithaka, development visionary

Big Idea: Marketing can dramatically improve the lives of African farmers.

How? The development community (NGOs, philanthropies and international development agencies) traditionally focuses on helping African farmers grow their foods — but they should help them grow their markets, too. Zoe Karl-Waithaka points to the success of avocado and milk campaigns in the United States as examples of how marketing created a whole generation of guacamole eaters and milk drinkers. She says there are three ways marketing can help African farmers grow a market for their products. First, the development community can fund world-class marketing campaigns to promote African foods, both in domestic and international markets. Second, as a large procurer of food, African governments can provide a consistent market for farmers’ goods. And finally, farmers should band together to promote their crops, like jointly funding marketing campaigns through cooperatives. By pooling their resources together, farmers would be able to make a bigger marketing splash. These principles of marketing don’t just apply to African farmers, says Karl-Waithaka. They could be used to promote healthier and more climate-friendly foods, too!

Dustin Burke, supply chain expert

Big idea: We’re overdue for a true streamlining of supply chains to create real resiliency in the face of major crises.

How? Supply chain challenges are real, but they’re not new, says Dustin Burke. Some chains are simple — like buying strawberries from a local farm — but others are complicated, such as the approximately thirty thousand parts from numerous separate manufacturers that it takes to build a car. Even in light of disruptions ranging from natural disasters to pandemics and political instability, Burke asks why companies have yet to make their supply chains more resilient. The answer is straightforward: steep competition and clashing priorities always win when there’s no apparent crisis. Burke suggests developing better ideas that could potentially beat out those constant pressures, which boil down to sharing risk, radical transparency and automated recommendations. He believes that with the assistance of AI and machine learning today, companies (paired by need) could share resource costs and help create a more resilient, efficient tomorrow.

Charlotte Degot, green technologist

Big Idea: To reduce emissions, companies need to measure them accurately — and AI can help.

How? Colorless, scentless and invisible — greenhouse gases are hard to measure, explains Charlotte Degot. But getting an accurate estimate of pollution is vital to setting meaningful goals to reducing it. Enter: artificial intelligence. AI can help process and optimize massive amounts of data to help wean out misinformation and turn the data into useful patterns. For example, Degot points to an international wine and spirits company — from the glass that makes up their bottles to the liquid inside them, they have countless processes to track. Without AI, most of the information is inaccessible to the corporation. But, by having more reliable figures instead of rough estimates, corporations can set meaningful climate targets, identify concrete initiatives and recalculate emissions over time. To put it simply: “You cannot reduce what you cannot measure,” Degot says. 

James Rhee shows the value of not only investing dollars in your business, but also time and heart. He speaks at TED@BCG: Recalibrate 2021. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

James Rhee, goodwill strategist

Big idea: Goodwill and kindness can reshape a business for the better. 

How? Lots of people are demanding that we rethink capitalism — how we treat our employees and one another. But are we focused on the right things? What really creates value? James Rhee, the former CEO of the fashion brand Ashley Stewart, shares the story of how he pulled the company back from the brink of bankruptcy by cultivating the transformative power of kindness at work. By creating a culture of goodwill, inviting customers into marketing and creative efforts and centering people over profits across all operations, Rhee shows the true value of not only investing dollars, but also time and heart. 

Martin Reeves, business strategist

Big idea: Play isn’t just about fun. It’s also a helpful and advantageous business exercise in imagining what could be. 

How? Martin Reeves shows how in business, play is not only possible but urgently essential in a world that demands companies reinvent themselves in order to stay afloat. He invites the audience to play a series of games that he uses to get executives to stretch their thinking. These thought experiments inspire a fresh look at business-as-usual by flipping it on its head in ways that both humble and motivate the thinker in the direction of new possibilities. Failures to imagine in business are really failures in leadership, Reeves says. By unlocking and harnessing the innate creativity within, companies have the opportunity to uncover new disruptive strategies and keep a foothold on the future.

Larry Irvin, TED Fellow and education innovator

Big idea: Representation and diversity in teaching is vital to a student’s education. In the US, Black men make up less than three percent of teachers in schools — and this needs to change.

How? While teaching a summer program, Larry Irvin wanted to gain a better understanding of his students. So he asked them the age-old question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The answers he heard from his young students of color existed within the confines of outdated narratives that Irvin is committed to changing by working to increase teacher diversity. He created a program called Brothers Empowered to Teach that provides education, opportunity and job placement through a holistic, people-centered approach. By recruiting and training more Black teachers, educators provide a mirror to their students — and vice versa. “Just one Black male teacher in third, fourth or fifth grade for a low-income Black boy substantially reduces his chances of dropping out of high school by almost 40 percent,” Irvin says. 

How should we reimagine work coming out of the pandemic? Debbie Lovich says we must do three key things. She speaks at TED@BCG: Recalibrate 2021. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Debbie Lovich, work futurist

Big idea: We have an opportunity to create a future of work that is more engaging, productive and humane.

How? Over the past 18 months of the pandemic, there’s been no shortage of conversations about the future of work. To Debbie Lovich, it’s abundantly clear that going back to a work life dictated by a fixed time, place and job description doesn’t make any sense. Employees have enjoyed unprecedented autonomy during the pandemic, and they’ve developed great work practices along the way. Now’s the time to bottle those practices and do away with the rigid, sluggish, bureaucratic ways of the past. To get the future of work right, Lovich says we must do three things: first, trust your people (they’ve proven they deserve it); second, be data-driven (survey people to see what they like about the new way of working, and experiment based on that feedback); and third, think beyond the schedule (reimagining, or even eliminating, things like long commutes, recurring meetings and silo work). If we do all this, we can stop contorting our lives around work — and instead reshape work to better fit our lives.

Axel Reinaud, biochar entrepreneur

Big Idea: Biochar is an exciting climate, agricultural and a renewable energy solution that can help farmers increase crop yields while reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. 

How? Photosynthesis is the most effective form of carbon sequestration … but what happens when plants and trees are burned? All the carbon that was captured by the plants is released back into the atmosphere. Enter: biochar. Biochar is a form of carbon made when organic ingredients are superheated without oxygen. It remains stable for hundreds of years and when sown into soil, its porous structure helps plants retain the important water, nutrients and microbes they need to thrive. Moreover, the production of biochar produces an abundant renewable source of energy. So why isn’t biochar more popular? Axel Reinaud explains that the price of biochar is too high — but things are changing. He outlines three ways to bring biochar to scale: first, improve access to the biomass needed to produce biochar; second, develop more efficient production systems that can create biochar and power a renewable energy grid 24/7; and third, encourage farmers to use biochar more, which would help reduce the amount of damaging fertilizers used and increase crop yields. 

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Bring it on: Notes from Session 1 of TEDWomen 2020

In this moment of great uncertainty, it’s time to be fearless. TEDWomen 2020, a day-long event hosted on TED’s virtual event platform, is all about fearlessness — in the way we think, act, participate — and how this collective mentality can empower us to take a global step forward, together. The day kicked off with an inspiring session of talks and performances, all designed to take us on a journey of curiosity, wonder and learning. Hosted by TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell and TEDx learning specialist Bianca DeJesus, seven speakers and performers showed us how to find the strength and clarity needed to navigate an ever-changing, ever-challenging world. 

Music: The group Kolinga performs “Nguya na ngai,” an original song that’s equal parts music, poetry and dance.

Special appearance: Grace Yang, organizer of TEDxMontrealWomen, joins the event to represent the global TEDx community, through which more than 140 TEDx teams in 51 countries are organizing TEDxWomen events alongside the main show.

The session in brief:

To open the session, activist and poet Apiorkor Seyiram Ashong-Abbey delivers a powerful hymn to the universal matriarch in all of her manifestations — exalting her fearlessness as she faces the unknown, praising her body down to the folds of her skin, shouting against the silence surrounding her oppression, and above all shattering the chains (political and social) that bind her across the globe.


“Our courage is born from unity; our solidarity is our strength,” says Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of the national democratic movement in Belarus. She speaks at TEDWomen 2020 on November 12, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, politician

Big idea: In the face of authoritarianism, the path to fearlessness lies in unity and solidarity.

How? The people of Belarus have been under authoritarian rule since 1994, subject to police violence and everyday assaults on their freedoms. But this year, something changed. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets to participate in anti-government demonstrations, supporting Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign in opposition to the country’s authoritarian leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko. Tsikhanouskaya stepped in for her husband, who was jailed, to run against Lukashenko in the nation’s recent presidential election — an election she is widely viewed to have won, despite falsified results released by the regime. Now, she tells the story of how a small collection of women-led protests in the capital of Minsk sparked massive, peaceful demonstrations across the country — the likes of which Belarus has never seen — that continue amid calls for a new free and fair election. Even after being forced into exile with her children, Tsikhanouskaya remains determined. “Our courage is born from unity,” she says. “Our solidarity is our strength.”


In April 2020, Sophie Rose volunteered to be infected with COVID-19 as part of a human challenge trial. She makes the case for these trials at TEDWomen 2020 on November 12, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Sophie Rose, infectious disease researcher

Big idea: To quickly and equitably vaccinate the world’s eight billion people against COVID-19, we will need several approved vaccines. Human challenge trials may help speed up the development and deployment of effective vaccines.

How? In April 2020, Sophie Rose volunteered to be infected with COVID-19. As a young, healthy adult, she’s participating in a “human challenge trial” — a type of trial in which participants are intentionally exposed to infection — that may help researchers develop, manufacture and implement vaccines in record time, saving the lives of thousands of people. She explains her decision and the difference between challenge trials and the phase III clinical trials typically carried out for drugs and vaccines. Unlike phase III trials, where participants receive a vaccine and are subsequently monitored for possible infection throughout the course of their normal lives, challenge trial participants are purposely exposed to the virus after vaccination. Deliberate exposure allows researchers to know more quickly if the vaccine works (usually within a matter of months, instead of years) and requires fewer participants (around 50 to 100 instead of thousands). Because exposure is certain, challenge trial volunteers must be young, typically between ages 20 and 29, and have no preexisting conditions that could put them at an elevated risk. Since choosing to participate, Rose cofounded 1Day Sooner, a nonprofit that advocates for challenge trial participants and has helped more than 39,000 people around the world volunteer for these trials.


“It’s not just protesting and raising your voice, but also doing something to show your intentions,” says WNBA champion Renee Montgomery. She speaks at TEDWomen 2020 on November 12, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Renee Montgomery, WNBA champion, activist

Big idea: For people’s voices to be heard in the face of injustice, they need to be “felt.” We can do this by opting out of our comfort zones and taking positive social action.

How? Renee Montgomery hadn’t planned to quit her dream job in the middle of a pandemic, but it was a leap of faith she made in order to do her part in fighting America’s racial injustice. By “opting out” of her career as a WNBA player, she made space to focus on others’ voices and amplify them with her platform. Montgomery explains that, to truly have these experiences heard, they need to be felt: “Making it felt for me is an action,” she says. “It’s not just protesting and raising your voice, but also doing something to show your intentions.” Her intentions? To level the playing field so everyone has the same opportunities, regardless of race, and to turn this moment into positive, lasting momentum.


Yukon Regional Chief Kluane Adamek shares the legacy of matriarchs in the Yukon First Nations at TEDWomen 2020 on November 12, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Kluane Adamek, Yukon Regional Chief

Big idea: Leadership and matriarchal wisdom of the Yukon First Nations people.

Tell us more: In the Yukon First Nations, women lead — and have done so for generations. Their matriarchs have forged trade agreements, created marriage alliances and ensured business happens across their land for generations. Their matrilineal society is one that deeply values, honors and respects the roles of women. Much of the world doesn’t reflect this way of living, but Yukon Regional Chief Kluane Adamek urges others to follow in the footsteps of her people — by putting more women at the table and learning from the power of reciprocity. There’s so much women can share with the world, she says, encouraging all women to seek spaces to share their perspective and create impact.


Voto Latino CEO María Teresa Kumar reflects on the historic number of Latinx voters who cast a ballot in the US 2020 presidential election — and how they’ll shape the future. She speaks live at the TEDWomen 2020 on November 12, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

María Teresa Kumar, civic leader

Big idea: The engaged and growing Latinx vote turned out in record numbers during the US 2020 presidential election and has the potential to shape American politics for decades to come. 

How? A historic number of Latinx voters cast a ballot in the US 2020 presidential election. As the nation’s most rapidly growing demographic, Latinx youth are voting for a brighter future. María Teresa Kumar, CEO of Voto Latino, reflects on the issues closest to young Latinx voters and their families, which include health care, climate equity and racial justice. With a look back to FDR’s New Deal, which catalyzed growth, nation-building and paved the way for JFK’s century-defining Moonshot mission, Kumar peeks into the future of the United States and sees the potential for the newest generation of voters to shape the years ahead.

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Join us for TEDWomen 2020: Fearless on November 12

Par : TED Staff

TEDWomen 2020 is nearly here! The day-long conference will take place on November 12 via TED’s new virtual conference platform. TEDWomen attendees will experience TED’s signature talks as well as an array of live, interactive sessions, community “idea dates,” small-group speaker Q&As and more. The talks featured in the program have been developed in collaboration with an incredible group of TEDx organizers from Lagos, Nigeria; Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; Montreal, Canada; Colombo, Sri Lanka; and Sydney, Australia. TEDWomen will celebrate and amplify dynamic, multi-dimensional ideas from these communities and around the world.

In the midst of uncertainty, the greatest peril is to retreat or become immobilized. At TEDWomen, we’ll hear from bold leaders who are stepping forward and taking action.

TEDWomen 2020 speakers and performers include:

  • Kluane Adamek, Assembly of First Nations Yukon Regional Chief
  • Kylar W. Broadus, Human and civil rights attorney and advocate
  • Kemi DaSilva-Ibru, Women’s health specialist
  • Adie Delaney, Educator and performer
  • Elizabeth Diller, Architect, artist and designer
  • Julia Gillard, 27th Prime Minister of Australia
  • Jamila Gordon, AI advocate
  • Kesha, Musician, actress, activist
  • María Teresa Kumar, Civic leader
  • JayaShri Maathaa, Monk
  • Megan McArthur, NASA astronaut
  • Madison McFerrin, Singer and songwriter
  • Renee Montgomery, WNBA champion and activist
  • Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Economist and international development expert
  • Angélique Parisot-Potter, Legal and business integrity leader
  • Sophie Rose, Infectious disease researcher
  • Apiorkor Seyiram Ashong-Abbey, Poet and author
  • Gloria Steinem, Feminist activist and writer
  • Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Politician
  • Tracy Young, Builder
  • View the full speaker lineup

TED has partnered with a number of organizations to support its mission and contribute to the idea exchange at TEDWomen 2020. These organizations 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: Boston Consulting Group, Dove Advanced Care Antiperspirant, Project Management Institute and the U.S. Air Force.

TEDWomen 2020 is taking place on November 12, 11am – 6pm ET. TEDWomen applications will be accepted until 9am ET, November 9 (or until sold out). Learn more and apply now!

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Hope, action, change: Notes from Session 5 of TED2020

Par : Ann Powers

Daring, bold, systems-disrupting change requires big dreams and an even bigger vision. For Session 5 of TED2020, the Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED, highlighted bold plans for social change from Southern New Hampshire University, SIRUM, BRAC, Harlem Children’s Zone, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), Project CETI and One Acre Fund. From aiding the ultra-poor to upending medicine pricing to ensuring all communities are visible on a map, these solutions are uniquely positioned to help us rebuild key systems and push the boundaries of what’s possible through breakthrough science and technology. Learn more about these thrilling projects and how you can help them change the world.

“We can create radical access to medications based on a fundamental belief that people who live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world can and should have access to medicine they need to survive and to thrive,” says Kiah Williams, cofounder of SIRUM. She speaks at TED2020: Uncharted on June 18, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Kiah Williams, cofounder of SIRUM

Big idea: No one should have to choose between paying bills or affording lifesaving medications. 

How? Every day in the US, people must make impossible health decisions at the intersection of life and livelihood. The result is upwards of ten thousand deaths annually — more than opioid overdoses and car accidents combined — due to the high prices of prescription drugs. Kiah Williams and her team at SIRUM are tapping into an alternative that circumvents the traditional medical supply chain while remaining budget-friendly to underserved communities: unused medication. Sourced from manufacturer surplus, health care facilities (like hospitals, pharmacies and nursing homes) and personal donations, Williams and her team partner with medical professionals to provide prescriptions for conditions, ranging from heart disease to mental health, at flat, transparent costs. They currently supply 150,000 people with access to medicine they need — and they’re ready to expand. In the next five years, SIRUM plans to reach one million people across 12 states with a billion dollars’ worth of unused medicine, with the hopes of driving down regional pricing in low-income communities. “We can create radical access to medications based on a fundamental belief that people who live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world can and should have access to medicine they need to survive and to thrive,” Williams says.


Shameran Abed, senior director of the Microfinance and Ultra-Poor Graduation Program at BRAC, shares his organization’s work lifting families out of ultra-poverty at TED2020: Uncharted on June 18, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Shameran Abed, senior director of the Microfinance and Ultra-Poor Graduation Program at BRAC

Big idea: Let’s stop imagining a world without ultra-poverty and start building it instead.

How? At the end of 2019, approximately 400 million people worldwide lived in ultra-poverty — a situation that goes beyond the familiar monetary definition, stripping individuals of their dignity, purpose, self-worth, community and ability to imagine a better future. When he founded BRAC in 1972, Shameran Abed’s father saw that for poverty reduction programs to work, a sense of hope and self-worth needs to be instilled alongside assets. He pioneered a graduation approach that, over the course of two years, addressed both the deficit of income and hope in four steps: (1) supporting the basic needs with food or cash, (2) guiding the individual towards a decent livelihood by providing an asset like livestock and training them to earn money from it, (3) training them to save, budget and invest the new wealth, (4) integrating the individual socially. Since starting this program in 2002, two million Bangladeshi women have lifted themselves and their families out of ultra-poverty. With BRAC at a proven and effective nationwide scale, the organization plans to aid other governments in adopting and scaling graduation programs themselves — helping another 21 million people lift themselves out of ultra-poverty across eight countries over the next six years, with BRAC teams onsite and embedded in each country to provide an obtainable, foreseeable future for all. “Throughout his life, [my father] saw optimism triumph over despair; that when you light the spark of self-belief in people, even the poorest can transform their lives,” Abed says.

Pop-soul singer Emily King performs her songs “Distance” and “Sides” at TED2020: Uncharted on June 18, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Lending her extraordinary voice to keep the session lively, singer and songwriter Emily King performs her songs “Distance” and “Sides” from her home in New York City.


Chrystina Russell, executive director of SNHU’s Global Education Movement, is helping displaced people earn college degrees. She speaks at TED2020: Uncharted on June 18, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Chrystina Russell, executive director of SNHU’s Global Education Movement

Big idea: Expand access to accredited, college-level education to marginalized populations by reaching learners wherever they are in the world.

How? Education empowers — and perhaps nowhere more so than in the lives of displaced people, says executive director of SNHU’s Global Education Movement (GEM) Chrystina Russell. Harnessing the power of education to improve the world lies at the foundation of GEM, a program that offers accredited bachelor’s degrees and pathways to employment for refugees in Lebanon, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and South Africa. Today, the humanitarian community understands that global displacement will be a permanent problem, and that traditional education models remain woefully inaccessible to these vulnerable populations. The magic of GEM, Russell says, is that it addresses refugee lives as they currently exist. Degrees are competency-based, and without classes, lectures, due dates or final exams, students choose where and when to learn. GEM has served more than 1,000 learners to date, helping them obtain bachelor’s degrees and earn incomes at twice the average of their peers. Only three percent of refugees have access to higher education; GEM is now testing its ability to scale competency-based online learning in an effort to empower greater numbers of marginalized people through higher education. “This is a model that really stops putting time and university policies and procedures at the center — and instead puts the student at the center,” Russell says.


David Gruber shares his mind-blowing work using AI to understand and communicate with sperm whales. He speaks at TED2020: Uncharted on June 18, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

David Gruber, marine biologist, explorer, professor

Big idea: Through the innovations of machine learning, we may be able to translate the astounding languages of sperm whales and crack the interspecies communication code. 

How? Sperm whales are some of the most intelligent animals on the planet; they live in complex matriarchal societies and communicate with each other through a series of regionally specific click sequences called codas. These codas may be the key to unlocking interspecies communication, says David Gruber. He shares a bold prediction: with the help of machine learning technology, we will soon be able to understand the languages of sperm whales — and talk back to them. Researchers have developed a number of noninvasive robots to record an enormous archive of codas, focusing on the intimate relationship between mother and calf. Using this data, carefully trained algorithms will be able to decode these codas and map the sounds and logic of sperm whale communication. Gruber believes that by deeply listening to sperm whales, we can create a language blueprint that will enable us to communicate with countless other species around the world. “By listening deeply to nature, we can change our perspective of ourselves and reshape our relationship with all life on this planet,” he says.


“Farmers stand at the center of the world,” says Andrew Youn, sharing One Acre Fund’s work helping small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. He speaks at TED2020: Uncharted on June 18, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Andrew Youn, social entrepreneur

Big idea: By equipping small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa with the tools and resources they need to expand their work, they will be able to upend cycles of poverty and materialize their innovation, knowledge and drive into success for their local communities and the world.

How? Most small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are women who nourish their families and communities and fortify their local economies. But they’re often not able to access the technology, resources or capital they need to streamline their farms, which leads to small harvests and cycles of poverty. The One Acre Fund, a two-time Audacious Project recipient, seeks to upend that cycle by providing resources like seeds and fertilizer, mentorship in the form of local support guides and training in modern agricultural practices. The One Acre Fund intends to reach three milestones by 2026: to serve 2.5 million families (which include 10 million children) every year through their direct full-service program; to serve an additional 4.3 million families per year with the help of local government and private sector partners; and to shape a sustainable green revolution by reimagining our food systems and launching a campaign to plant one billion trees in the next decade. The One Acre Fund enables farmers to transform their work, which vitalizes their families, larger communities and countries. “Farmers stand at the center of the world,” Youn says.


Rebecca Firth is helping map the earth’s most vulnerable populations using a free, open-source software tool. She speaks at TED2020: Uncharted on June 18, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Rebecca Firth, director of partnerships and community at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)

Big idea: A new tool to add one billion people to the map, so first responders and aid organizations can save lives. 

How? Today, more than one billion people are literally not on the map, says Rebecca Firth, director of partnerships and community at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), an organization that helps map the earth’s most vulnerable populations using a free, open-source software tool. The tool works in two stages: first, anyone anywhere can map buildings and roads using satellite images, then local community members fill in the map by identifying structures and adding place names. HOT’s maps help organizations on the ground save lives; they’ve been used by first responders after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake and in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, by health care workers distributing polio vaccines in Nigeria and by refugee aid organizations in South Sudan, Syria and Venezuela. Now, HOT’s goal is to map areas in 94 countries that are home to one billion of the world’s most vulnerable populations — in just five years. To do this, they’re recruiting more than one million mapping volunteers, updating their tech and, importantly, raising awareness about the availability of their maps to local and international humanitarian organizations. “It’s about creating a foundation on which so many organizations will thrive,” Firth says. “With open, free, up-to-date maps, those programs will have more impact than they would otherwise, leading to a meaningful difference in lives saved or improved.”


“Our answer to COVID-19 — the despair and inequities plaguing our communities — is targeting neighborhoods with comprehensive services. We have certainly not lost hope, and we invite you to join us on the front lines of this war,” says Kwame Owusu-Kesse, COO of Harlem Children’s Zone. He speaks at TED2020: Uncharted on June 18, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Kwame Owusu-Kesse, CEO, Harlem Children’s Zone

Big idea: In the midst of a pandemic that’s disproportionately devastating the Black community, how do we ensure that at-risk children can continue their education in a safe and healthy environment?

How? Kwame Owusu-Kesse understands that in order to surpass America’s racist economic, educational, health care and judicial institutions, a child must have a secure home and neighborhood. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Harlem Children’s Zone has taken on a comprehensive mission to provide uninterrupted, high-quality remote education, as well as food and financial security, unfettered online access and mental health services. Through these programs, Owusu-Kesse hopes to rescue a generation that risks losing months (or years) of education to the impacts of quarantine. “Our answer to COVID-19 — the despair and inequities plaguing our communities — is targeting neighborhoods with comprehensive services,” he says. “We have certainly not lost hope, and we invite you to join us on the front lines of this war.”

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Border Stories: A night of talks on immigration, justice and freedom

Hosts Anne Milgram and Juan Enriquez kick off the evening at TEDSalon: Border Stories at the TED World Theater in New York City on September 10, 2019. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Immigration can be a deeply polarizing topic. But at heart, immigration policies and practices reflect no less than our attitude towards humanity. At TEDSalon: Border Stories, we explored the reality of life at the US-Mexico border, the history of the US immigration policy and possible solutions for reform — and investigated what’s truly at stake.

The event: TEDSalon: Border Stories, hosted by criminal justice reformer Anne Milgram and author and academic Juan Enriquez

When and where: Tuesday, September 10, 2019, at the TED World Theater in New York City

Speakers: Paul A. Kramer, Luis H. Zayas, Erika Pinheiro, David J. Bier and Will Hurd

Music: From Morley and Martha Redbone

A special performance: Poet and thinker Maria Popova, reading an excerpt from her book Figuring. A stunning meditation on “the illusion of separateness, of otherness” — and on “the infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives” that inhabit this universe — accompanied by cellist Dave Eggar and guitarist Chris Bruce.

“There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives,” says Maria Popova, reading a selection of her work at TEDSalon: Border Stories. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

The talks in brief:

Paul A. Kramer, historian, writer, professor of history

  • Big idea: It’s time we make the immigration conversation to reflect how the world really works.
  • How? We must rid ourselves of the outdated questions, born from nativist and nationalist sentiments, that have permeated the immigration debate for centuries: interrogations of usefulness and assimilation, of parasitic rhetoric aimed at dismantling any positive discussions around immigration. What gives these damaging queries traction and power, Kramer says, is how they tap into a seemingly harmless sense of national belonging — and ultimately activate, heighten and inflame it. Kramer maps out a way for us to redraw those mental, societal and political borders and give immigrants access to the rights and resources that their work, activism and home countries have already played a fundamental role in creating.
  • Quote of the talk: “[We need] to redraw the boundaries of who counts — whose life, whose rights and whose thriving matters. We need to redraw … the borders of us.”

Luis H. Zayas, social worker, psychologist, researcher

  • Big idea: Asylum seekers — especially children — face traumatizing conditions at the US-Mexico border. We need compassionate, humane practices that give them the care they need during arduous times.
  • Why? Under prolonged and intense stress, the young developing brain is harmed — plain and simple, says Luis H. Zayas. He details the distressing conditions immigrant families face on their way to the US, which have only escalated since children started being separated from their parents and held in detention centers. He urges the US to reframe its practices, replacing hostility and fear with safety and compassion. For instance: the US could open processing centers, where immigrants can find the support they need to start a new life. These facilities would be community-oriented, offering medical care, social support and the fundamental human right to respectful and dignified treatment.
  • Quote of the talk: “I hope we can agree on one thing: that none of us wants to look back at this moment in our history when we knew we were inflicting lifelong trauma on children, and that we sat back and did nothing. That would be the greatest tragedy of all.”

Immigration lawyer Erika Pinheiro discusses the hidden realities of the US immigration system. “Seeing these horrors day in and day out has changed me,” she says. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Erika Pinheiro, nonprofit litigation and policy director

  • Big idea: The current US administration’s mass separations of asylum-seeking families at the Mexican border shocked the conscience of the world — and the cruel realities of the immigration system have only gotten worse. We need a legal and social reckoning.
  • How? US immigration laws are broken, says Erika Pinheiro. Since 2017, US attorneys general have made sweeping changes to asylum law to ensure fewer people qualify for protection in the US. This includes all types of people fleeing persecution: Venezuelan activists, Russian dissidents, Chinese Muslims, climate change refugees — the list goes on. The US has simultaneously created a parallel legal system where migrants are detained indefinitely, often without access to legal help. Pinheiro issues a call to action: if you are against the cruel and inhumane treatment of migrants, then you need to get involved. You need to demand that your lawmakers expand the definition of refugees and amend laws to ensure immigrants have access to counsel and independent courts. Failing to act now threatens the inherent dignity of all humans.
  • Quote of the talk: “History shows us that the first population to be vilified and stripped of their rights is rarely the last.”

David J. Bier, immigration policy analyst

  • Big idea: We can solve the border crisis in a humane fashion. In fact, we’ve done so before.
  • How? Most migrants who travel illegally from Central America to the US do so because they have no way to enter the US legally. When these immigrants are caught, they find themselves in the grips of a cruel system of incarceration and dehumanization — but is inhumane treatment really necessary to protect our borders? Bier points us to the example of Mexican guest worker programs, which allow immigrants to cross borders and work the jobs they need to support their families. As legal opportunities to cross the border have increased, the number of illegal Mexican immigrants seized at the border has plummeted 98 percent. If we were to extend guest worker programs to Central Americans as well, Bier says, we could see a similar drop in the numbers of illegal immigrants.
  • Quote of the talk: “This belief that the only way to maintain order is with inhumane means is inaccurate — and, in fact, the opposite is true. Only a humane system will create order at the border.”

“Building a 30-foot-high concrete structure from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security,” says Congressman Will Hurd in a video interview with Anne Milgram at TEDSalon: Border Stories. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Will Hurd, US Representative for Texas’s 23rd congressional district

  • Big idea: Walls won’t solve our problems.
  • Why? Representing a massive district that encompasses 29 counties and two times zones and shares an 820-mile border with Mexico, Republican Congressman Will Hurd has a frontline perspective on illegal immigration in Texas. Legal immigration options and modernizing the Border Patrol (which still measures their response times to border incidents in hours and days) will be what ultimately stems the tide of illegal border crossings, Hurd says. Instead of investing in walls and separating families, the US should invest in their own defense forces — and, on the other side of the border, work to alleviate poverty and violence in Central American countries.
  • Quote of the talk: “When you’re debating your strategy, if somebody comes up with the idea of snatching a child out of their mother’s arms, you need to go back to the drawing board. This is not what the United States of America stands for. This is not a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent thing. This is a human decency thing.”

Juan Enriquez, author and academic

  • Big idea: If the US continues to divide groups of people into “us” and “them,” we open the door to inhumanity and atrocity — and not just at our borders.
  • How? Countries that survive and grow as the years go by are compassionate, kind, smart and brave; countries that don’t govern by cruelty and fear, says Juan Enriquez. In a personal talk, he calls on us to realize that deportation, imprisonment and dehumanization aren’t isolated phenomena directed at people crossing the border illegally but instead things are happening to the people who live and work by our sides in our communities. Now is the time to stand up and do something to stop our country’s slide into fear and division — whether it’s engaging in small acts of humanity, loud protests in the streets or activism directed at enacting legislative or policy changes.
  • Quote of the talk: “This is how you wipe out an economy. This isn’t about kids and borders, it’s about us. This is about who we are, who we the people are, as a nation and as individuals. This is not an abstract debate.”

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Weaving Community: Notes from Session 1 of TEDSummit 2019

Hosts Bruno Giussani and Helen Walters open Session 1: Weaving Community on July 21, 2019, Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

The stage is set for TEDSummit 2019: A Community Beyond Borders! During the opening session, speakers and performers explored themes of competition, political engagement and longing — and celebrated the TED communities (representing 84 countries) gathered in Edinburgh, Scotland to forge TED’s next chapter.

The event: TEDSummit 2019, Session 1: Weaving Community, hosted by Bruno Giussani and Helen Walters

When and where: Sunday, July 21, 2019, 5pm BST, at the Edinburgh Convention Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland

Speakers: Pico Iyer, Jochen Wegner, Hajer Sharief, Mariana Lin, Carole Cadwalladr, Susan Cain with Min Kym

Opening: A warm Scottish welcome from raconteur Mackenzie Dalrymple

Music: Findlay Napier and Gillian Frame performing selections from The Ledger, a series of Scottish folk songs

The talks in brief:

“Seeming happiness can stand in the way of true joy even more than misery does,” says writer Pico Iyer. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Pico Iyer, novelist and nonfiction author

Big idea: The opposite of winning isn’t losing; it’s failing to see the larger picture.

Why? As a child in England, Iyer believed the point of competition was to win, to vanquish one’s opponent. Now, some 50 years later and a resident of Japan, he’s realized that competition can be “more like an act of love.” A few times a week, he plays ping-pong at his local health club. Games are played as doubles, and partners are changed every five minutes. As a result, nobody ends up winning — or losing — for long. Iyer has found liberation and wisdom in this approach. Just as in a choir, he says, “Your only job is to play your small part perfectly, to hit your notes with feeling and by so doing help to create a beautiful harmony that’s much greater than the sum of its parts.”

Quote of the talk: “Seeming happiness can stand in the way of true joy even more than misery does.”


Jochen Wegner, journalist and editor of Zeit Online

Big idea: The spectrum of belief is as multifaceted as humanity itself. As social media segments us according to our interests, and as algorithms deliver us increasingly homogenous content that reinforces our beliefs, we become resistant to any ideas — or even facts — that contradict our worldview. The more we sequester ourselves, the more divided we become. How can we learn to bridge our differences?

How? Inspired by research showing that one-on-one conversations are a powerful tool for helping people learn to trust each other, Zeit Online built Germany Talks, a “Tinder for politics” that facilitates “political arguments” and face-to-face meetings between users in an attempt to bridge their points-of-view on issues ranging from immigration to same-sex marriage. With Germany Talks (and now My Country Talks and Europe Talks) Zeit has facilitated conversations between thousands of Europeans from 33 countries.

Quote of the talk: “What matters here is not the numbers, obviously. What matters here is whenever two people meet to talk in person for hours, without anyone else listening, they change — and so do our societies. They change, little by little, discussion by discussion.”


“The systems we have nowadays for political decision-making are not from the people for the people — they have been established by the few, for the few,” says activist Hajer Sharief. She speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 21, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Hajer Sharief, activist and cofounder of the Together We Build It Foundation

Big Idea: People of all genders, ages, races, beliefs and socioeconomic statuses should participate in politics.

Why? Hajer Sharief’s native Libya is recovering from 40 years of authoritarian rule and civil war. She sheds light on the way politics are involved in every aspect of life: “By not participating in it, you are literally allowing other people to decide what you can eat, wear, if you can have access to healthcare, free education, how much tax you pay, when can you retire, what is your pension,” she says. “Other people are also deciding whether your race is enough to consider you a criminal, or if your religion or nationality are enough to put you on a terrorist list.” When Sharief was growing up, her family held weekly meetings to discuss family issues, abiding by certain rules to ensured everyone was respectful and felt free to voice their thoughts. She recounts a meeting that went badly for her 10-year-old self, resulting in her boycotting them altogether for many years — until an issue came about which forced her to participate again. Rejoining the meetings was a political assertion, and it helped her realize an important lesson: you are never too young to use your voice — but you need to be present for it to work.

Quote of talk: “Politics is not only activism — it’s awareness, it’s keeping ourselves informed, it’s caring for facts. When it’s possible, it is casting a vote. Politics is the tool through which we structure ourselves as groups and societies.”


Mariana Lin, AI character designer and principal writer for Siri

Big idea: Let’s inject AI personalities with the essence of life: creativity, weirdness, curiosity, fun.

Why? Tech companies are going in two different directions when it comes to creating AI personas: they’re either building systems that are safe, flat, stripped of quirks and humor — or, worse, they’re building ones that are fully customizable, programmed to say just what you want to hear, just how you like to hear it. While this might sound nice at first, we’re losing part of what makes us human in the process: the friction and discomfort of relating with others, the hard work of building trusting relationships. Mariana Lin calls for tech companies to try harder to truly bring AI to life — in all its messy, complicated, uncomfortable glory. For starters, she says, companies can hire a diverse range of writers, creatives, artists and social thinkers to work on AI teams. If the people creating these personalities are as diverse as the people using it — from poets and philosophers to bankers and beekeepers — then the future of AI looks bright.

Quote of the talk: “If we do away with the discomfort of relating with others not exactly like us, with views not exactly like ours — we do away with what makes us human.”


In 2018, Carole Cadwalladr exposed Cambridge Analytica’s attempt to influence the UK Brexit vote and the 2016 US presidential election via personal data on Facebook. She’s still working to sound the alarm. She speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 21, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Carole Cadwalladr, investigative journalist, interviewed by TED curator Bruno Giussani

Big idea: Companies that collect and hoard our information, like Facebook, have become unthinkably powerful global players — perhaps more powerful than governments. It’s time for the public hold them accountable.

How? Tech companies with offices in different countries must obey the laws of those nations. It’s up to leaders to make sure those laws are enforced — and it’s up to citizens to pressure lawmakers to further tighten protections. Despite legal and personal threats from her adversaries, Carole Cadwalladr continues to explore the ways in which corporations and politicians manipulate data to consolidate their power.

Quote to remember: “In Britain, Brexit is this thing which is reported on as this British phenomenon, that’s all about what’s happening in Westminster. The fact that actually we are part of something which is happening globally — this rise of populism and authoritarianism — that’s just completely overlooked. These transatlantic links between what is going on in Trump’s America are very, very closely linked to what is going on in Britain.”


Susan Cain meditates on how the feeling of longing can guide us to a deeper understanding of ourselves, accompanied by Min Kym on violin, at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders. July 21, 2019, Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Susan Cain, quiet revolutionary, with violinist Min Kym

Big idea: Life is steeped in sublime magic that you can tap into, opening a whole world filled with passion and delight.

How? By forgoing constant positivity for a state of mind more exquisite and fleeting — a place where light (joy) and darkness (sorrow) meet, known to us all as longing. Susan Cain weaves her journey in search for the sublime with the splendid sounds of Min Kym on violin, sharing how the feeling of yearning connects us to each other and helps us to better understand what moves us deep down.

Quote of the talk: “Follow your longing where it’s telling you to go, and may it carry you straight to the beating heart of the perfect and beautiful world.”

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TED original podcast The TED Interview kicks off Season 2

Par : TED Staff

TED returns with the second season of The TED Interview, a long-form podcast series that features Chris Anderson, head of TED, in conversation with leading thinkers. The podcast is an opportunity to reconnect with renowned speakers and dive deeper into their ideas within a different global climate. This season’s guests include Bill Gates, Monica Lewinsky, Tim Ferriss, Susan Cain, Yuval Noah Harari, David Brooks, Amanda Palmer, Kai-Fu Lee, Sylvia Earle, Andrew McAfee and Johann Hari. Plus, a bonus episode with Roger McNamee that was recorded live at TED2019.

Listen to the first episode with Bill Gates now on Apple Podcasts.

In its first season, The TED Interview played host to extraordinary conversations — such as the writer Elizabeth Gilbert on the death of her partner, Rayya Elias; Sir Ken Robinson on the education revolution; and Ray Kurzweil on what the future holds for humanity.

Season two builds on this success with new ideas from some of TED’s most compelling speakers. Listeners can look forward to hearing from Bill Gates on the future of technology and philanthropy; musician Amanda Palmer on how the future of creativity means asking for what you want; Susan Cain on introversion and other notable past speakers.

“Ideas are not static — they don’t land perfectly formed in an unchanging world,” said Chris Anderson. “As times change, opinions shift and new research is published, ideas must be iterated on. The TED Interview is a remarkable platform where past speakers can further explain, amplify, illuminate and, in some cases, defend their thinking. Season two listeners can expect a front-row seat as we continue to explore the theory behind some of TED’s most well-known talks.”

The TED Interview launches today and releases new episodes every Wednesday. It is available on Apple Podcasts, the TED Android app or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. Season 2 features 12 episodes, each being roughly an hour long. Collectively the Season Two speakers have garnered over 100 million views through their TED Talks.

The TED Interview is proudly sponsored by Klick Health, the world’s largest independent health agency. They use data, technology and creativity to help patients and healthcare professionals learn about and access life-changing therapies.

TED’s content programming extends beyond its signature TED Talk format with six original podcasts. Overall TED’s podcasts were downloaded over 420 million times in 2018 and have been growing 44% year-over-year since 2016. Among others, The TED Interview joins notable series like Sincerely, X, where powerful ideas are shared anonymously, which recently launched its second season exclusively on the Luminary podcast app.

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“Presence creates possibility”: America Ferrera at TED2019

America Ferrera speaks at TED2019

In her breakout role in Real Women Have Curves, actor America Ferrera played an iconic character who resonated with her true self. Why aren’t there more roles like that? She speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 19, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

“My identity is not an obstacle — it’s my superpower,” says America Ferrera onstage at TED2019.

As an Emmy-award winning actor, director and producer, Ferrera crafts characters and stories that are multi-dimensional and deeply human. It hasn’t been easy — Hollywood wasn’t eager to cast her in full, genuine roles, instead giving her flimsy cliches to play. But we all lose out when our media doesn’t reflect the world, Ferrera says, and it’s the duty of directors, producers and actors to take representation seriously in their casting decisions.

Over and over through her career, America Ferrera heard she was either too Latina or not Latina enough for roles. But what does that even mean? She is Latina — so how could she be the wrong kind? She soon realized that directors and producers weren’t interested in the fullness of her talent but, rather, in filling stereotypes. She pushed back against roles like “Gangbanger’s Girlfriend” and “Pregnant Chola #2” and tried to land roles that were complex and challenging. But for the most part, they just didn’t exist. Directors claimed diversity was a financial risk, that there wasn’t an audience for her voice, or that she was just too brown for their films.

Ferrera tried to become what the industry wanted — straightening her hair, slathering on sunscreen — until she realized that she wanted to exist in her work as her own true self, not the industry’s version of her. Finally, in her breakthrough hits Real Women Have Curves and Ugly Betty, Ferrera brought her authentic self to her work, leading to critical, cultural and financial success. Ugly Betty premiered to 16 million viewers in the US and was nominated for 11 Emmys in its first season. Shows like Ugly Betty gave people around the world their first chance to see themselves on screen — for example, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai named Ugly Betty as one of her inspirations for becoming a journalist.

“I wanted to play people who existed in the center of their own lives, not cardboard cutouts that stood in the background of someone else’s,” she says, “Who we see thriving in the world teaches us how to see ourselves, how to think about our own value, how to dream about our futures.”

Across the world, people resonated with the characters and narrative of Ferrera’s work. “In spite of what I’d been told my whole life,” she says, “I saw firsthand that my ‘unrealistic expectations’ to see myself authentically represented in the culture were other people’s expectations too.”

But not much changed. Even though the audience was hungry for more, there wasn’t a slew of new films and shows highlighting diverse narratives. Privately, directors and producers would praise inclusion efforts … but that support didn’t extend to their own projects. The entertainment industry as a whole didn’t seem much different — and to this day, Ferrera is the only Latina to ever win an Emmy in a lead category.

That has to change — and it’s beginning to. There is a rising momentum of inclusive representation in mainstream media and it is vital we keep it going. Presence creates possibility, Ferrera says, and its impact is reverberating and profound. Directors and other authorities in media need to take representative casting out of theoreticals and put it into action.

“Change will come when each of us has the courage to question our own fundamental values and beliefs,” Ferrera says, “and see to it that our actions lead to our best intentions.”

Ultimately, if we commit to crafting stories that truly reflect the world we live in, we can create media that honors all of our voices.

America Ferrera speaks at TED2019

Directors and other authorities in media need to take representative casting out of theoreticals and put it into action, says America Ferrera at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 19, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

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America Ferrera speaks at TED2019

Meaning: Notes from Session 12 of TED2019

Par : Daryl Chen
Eric Liu speaks at TED2019

Eric Liu asks us to commit to being active citizens — wherever we are. He speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 19, 2019, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

The final session of TED2019 was a spectacle. From powerful calls to civic engagement and ancestorship to stories of self and perseverance, the session wrapped an incredible week and soared through the end with an unforgettable, totally improvised wrap-up.

The event: Talks and performances from TED2019, Session 12: Meaning, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson, Helen Walters and Kelly Stoetzel

When and where: Friday, April 19, 2019, 9am, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC

Speakers: Eric Liu, Yeonmi Park, Suleika Jaouad, David Brooks, America Ferrera, Bina Venkataraman

Music: Richard Bona on guitar

Mindblowing, completely improvised wrap-up covering the whole week: Freestyle Love Supreme: Anthony Veneziale, Chris Jackson, Chris “Shockwave” Sullivan, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Arthur Lewis

The talks in brief:

Eric Liu, author and CEO of Citizen University

  • Big idea: Instead of feeling despair at the state of the world, we need to commit to living as active, responsible citizens of our societies.
  • How? At a time when the free world seems leaderless, Liu says that we should seek hope not in leadership but in each other. His proposal: that we learn to practice “civic religion” and commit to being active in our citizenship. In pursuit of this, Liu started Civic Saturdays in 2016. These take a similar format to faith-based gatherings, with songs and sermons, but they all stem from shared ideals and a desire for fellowship. Participants then work together to organize rallies, register voters and improve their communities. Liu hopes this can counter the emerging culture of hyperindividualism, where “we are realizing now that a free-for-all is not the same as freedom for all,” and instead build community where we feel empowered to bring about, and not wait for, meaningful change.
  • Quote of the talk:Power without character is a cure worse than the disease.”

Yeonmi Park, human rights activist

  • Big idea: Everything must be taught, even the fundamentals we sometimes take for granted: freedom, compassion, love.
  • How? Right vs. wrong, justice vs. injustice — these aren’t concepts we inherently understand, says human rights activist Yoenmi Park. Telling her story of escape from North Korea, Park says that life there is “a totally different planet.” She gives an unsettling example: there’s only one definition of love in North Korea — “love for the Dear Leader.” Romantic love doesn’t exist as a concept or possibility. And for most North Koreans, neither does freedom. Now a US citizen, Park calls for us to fight for North Koreans — for all oppressed people around the world — who cannot speak for themselves. Freedom is fragile, she says. Who will fight for us when we’re not free?
  • Quote of the talk: “Nothing is forever in this world, and that’s why we have every reason to be hopeful.”

David Brooks, political and cultural commentator, New York Times Op-Ed columnist

  • Big idea: Our society is not only sinking into economic, environmental and political crises — we’re also mired in a deepening social crisis, trapped in a valley of isolation and fragmentation. How do we find our way out of this valley?
  • How? Society tells us that success is everything, that those with less success are less important, and that we can bootstrap ourselves to happiness without the help of other people. All of these maxims, says David Brooks, are lies. Brooks believes that those he calls “weavers” — community workers who re-knit social bonds on a local level — will create a “cultural and relational revolution” that leads each of us out of loneliness and into a new world of joy and social connection.
  • Quote of the talk: “We need a cultural and relational revolution … My theory of social change is that society changes when a small group of people find a better way to live, and the rest of us copy them.”

Suleika Jaouad speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us. April 15 – 19, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Suleika Jaouad, cancer survivor and author of the soon-to-be-published memoir Between Two Kingdoms

  • Big idea: As we start to live longer, we will spend more of our lives navigating between being sick and well. We need to break down the idea that the two are wholly separate.
  • How? Jaouad’s recovery from leukemia in her mid-20s is best described in her own words: “The hardest part of my cancer experience began once the cancer was gone. That heroic journey of the survivor we see in movies and watch play out on Instagram? It’s a myth. It isn’t just untrue; it’s dangerous, because it erases the very real challenges of recovery.” Nothing about being ill had prepared her for re-entering the world of the well. So Jaouad calls on us to break down the boundary between the two. “If we can all accept that we are not either ‘well’ or ‘sick’ but sometimes in between, sometimes forever changed by our experiences, we can live better.”
  • Quote of the talk: “You can be held hostage by the worst thing that’s ever happened to you and allow it you hijack your remaining days, or you can find a way forward.”

America Ferrera, actor, director and activist

  • Big idea: By putting representation into practice in our media, we can honor the extraordinary richness of humanity.
  • How? In her breakthrough hits Real Women Have Curves and Ugly Betty, Ferrera brought her authentic self to her work, leading to critical, cultural and financial success. She gave voice to multi-dimensional characters typically uncentered in media, allowing them to “exist in the center of their own lives.” But that wasn’t enough: though directors and producers would privately praise diversity efforts, the entertainment industry was slow to change. This was frustrating because shows like Ugly Betty gave people around the world — including Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai — their first chance to see themselves onscreen. But if we stay courageous and ensure our actions follow our intentions, Ferrera says, we can create media that reflects the world we live in and honors the genuine humanity of all.
  • Quote of the talk: “Change will come when each of us has the courage to question our own fundamental values and beliefs and see to it that our actions lead to our best intentions.”

Bina Venkataraman, writer and futurist

  • Big idea: As both descendants and ancestors of civilization, we must step out of our culture of immediacy and fight the allure of everyday minutiae, and think of generations to come.
  • How? Own up to the mistakes we’ve made and redesign the communities, businesses and institutions that fail at helping us prepare for things to come. What we measure, reward and fail to imagine keeps us from making strides toward shared, significant success as a species. Our foresight is impaired — in order to fix it, we need to shift and see the world and the people in it as a part of a shared resource, where the progress we make now can make be passed down to our collective children and grandchildren.
  • Quote of the talk: When we think about the future, we tend focus on predicting exactly what’s next; whether we’re using horoscopes or algorithms to do that, we spend a lot less time imagining all the possibilities the future holds.”

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In Case You Missed It: Highlights from day 3 of TED2019

In a powerful personal talk, illustrator, author and screenwriter Jonny Sun shares how social media can be an antidote to loneliness. He speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 17, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Day 3 of TED2019 featured three sessions of talks, a live podcast taping — and some world-changing ideas.

First, some news:

You could give the next best TED Talk. If you have an idea the world needs to hear, put your name forward to speak at next year’s TED conference! We’ve just opened applications in our TED2020 Idea Search, a worldwide hunt for the next great idea.

Can Twitter be saved? Jack Dorsey’s interview with TED’s Chris Anderson and Whitney Pennington Rodgers is live on TED.com. Hear from Jack about what worries him most about the messaging platform, which has taken a serious chunk of the blame for the divisiveness seen around the world, both online and off.

Inside the black hole image that made history. Also just published on TED.com: astrophysicist Sheperd Doeleman, head of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, speaks on the iconic, first-ever image of a black hole — and the epic, worldwide effort involved in capturing it.

Some larger themes that emerged from the day:

The spread of misinformation online is the great challenge of our time. We, the everyday users of the internet, might have to do what major tech companies and governments can’t: fight the misinformation we see every day in our feeds. Claire Wardle suggests we band together to accelerate a solution: for example, by “donating” our social data (instead of unwittingly handing it over to the tech giants), we could help researchers understand the scope of the problem. Could we build a new infrastructure for quality information, following the model of Wikipedia? In a special recording of The TED Interview, venture capitalist turned activist Roger McNamee picked up on the threat of misinformation, tracing the contours of Silicon Valley’s role in the 2016 US presidential election, Brexit and much more. After their conversation, Chris and Roger held a robust discussion with the audience, taking questions from Carole Cadwalladr, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie and Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy, among others.

But social media can also be a force for good. In a powerful personal talk, illustrator, author and screenwriter Jonny Sun shares how social media is his antidote to loneliness. By sending jokes and endearing, misspelled, illustrated observations on the human condition “out to the void” of social media, he’s found that the void is often willing to talk back — reminding us of our shared human-ness, even if only for a moment.

The new pursuit of happiness. Researcher Rick Doblin studies the use of psychedelics as medicine, including treatments that show promise against PTSD and depression. Used medically, he says, psychedelic drugs can heighten a patient’s emotional awareness and sense of unity — even create a spiritual connection. Psychologist Elizabeth Dunn studies how we can create more happiness by being more altruistic. The secret? You have to see the effects of your giving, and feel a true connection to the people you’re helping.

Exploring the unexplored. Science has a “geography problem,” says paleoanthropologist (and stand-up comedian) Ella Al-Shamahi. We’re not doing frontline scientific exploration in a massive chunk of the world, which governments have deemed too unstable — places that have played a big role in the human journey, like Africa and the Middle East. She takes us to Socotra, an island off Yemen known as the Galápagos of the Indian Ocean, where she joined the area’s first frontline exploration since 1999. Ninety percent of the reptiles and 30 percent of the plants there exist only, well, there. Al-Shamahi is hoping to return to Socotra and, with the help of local collaborators, continue to explore this alien land. A little further offshore, undersea explorer Victor Vescovo joins us fresh from an expedition to the bottom of the Indian Ocean — the fifth ocean bottom he’s seen. In conversation with TED science curator David Biello, Vescovo shares the technology powering his new submersible, designed to explore the deepest parts of the world’s oceans. He describes his project as “kind of the SpaceX of ocean exploration, but I pilot my own vehicles.”

Architecture doesn’t need to be permanent. When it comes to cities, we’re obsessed with permanence and predictability. But by studying impermanent settlements, we can learn to build cities that are more adaptable, efficient and sustainable, says architect Rahul Mehtrota. He takes us to the confluence of India’s Yamuna and Ganges rivers — where, every 12 years, a megacity springs up to house the seven million pilgrims who live there for the 55-day duration of the Kumbh Mela religious festival. The city is fully functional yet impermanent and reversible — built in ten weeks and completely disassembled after the festival. Studying the Kumbh Mela helped Mehrotra realize that our preoccupation with permanence is shortsighted. “We need to make a shift in our imagination about cities,” he says. “We need to change urban design cultures to think of the temporal, the reversible, the disassemblable.” And architect Bjarke Ingels takes us on a worldwide tour of his work — from much-needed flood-protection improvements around lower Manhattan (scheduled to break ground this year) to a toxin-free power plant in Copenhagen (with a rooftop you can ski on!) to a proposed floating ocean city (powered completely by solar energy — which could serve as a model for living on Mars.) We need to imagine vibrantly flexible habitats, he says — and, in doing so, we can forge a sustainable future for all.

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Possibility: Notes from Session 7 of TED2019

Judith Jamison + Members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Judith Jamison (seated) watches members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 17, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

To close out day 3 of TED2019, we imagine different versions of the future — from the magical possibilities of deep-sea exploration to the dark future of humanity if something goes horribly wrong. Gulp.

The event: Talks and performances from TED2019, Session 7: Possibility, hosted by TED’s Helen Walters and Kelly Stoetzel

When and where: Wednesday, April 17, 2019, 5pm, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC

Speakers: Judith Jamison, Rob Reid, Nick Bostrom, Ella Al-Shamahi, Victor Vescovo and Hannah Gadsby

Opening: Members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform “Wade in the Water” (from choreographer Alvin Ailey’s iconic 1960 work Revelations) and “Cry,” the solo piece Ailey created for his mother in 1971.

The talks in brief:

Judith Jamison, artistic director emerita of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

  • Big idea: Dance elevates our human experience, communicating struggles, thrills and universal emotions that go beyond words.
  • How? Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was founded in 1958 by the legendary dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey. In the middle of the civil rights movement, the dance company put on bold works that presented the African-American experience in its fullness — and as an essential part of American culture. Just over 60 years later, Judith Jamison, the Theater’s artistic director emerita, reflects on Ailey’s visionary legacy and the enduring power of dance to turn history into art that thrills and excites global audiences — and, not infrequently, brings tears to their eyes.
  • Quote of the talk: “When you’re sitting in the dark, in the theater, having a personal experience, you don’t feel blocked or misunderstood. You feel open, alive … inspired.”

Rob Reid, entrepreneur and cyberthriller author

  • Big idea: We must act fast to build a global immune system that could fight off a massive biotech attack.
  • How? Rob Reid raises the unthinkable specter of suicidal mass murder on a global scale, using tools of synthetic biology to create weaponized biotech. What can we do to protect ourselves? It’s (probably) years away from being a possibility, but now’s the time to start thinking about it. A couple ideas: enlisting the experts and creating more experts (for every million-and-one bioengineers, Reid notes, at least a million of them are going to be on our side) and finding a way to safeguard our prosperity and privacy that doesn’t rely on government and industry.
  • Quote of the talk: “I have come to fear [synthetic biology] … but more than that, to revere its potential. This stuff will cure cancer, heal our environment, and stop our cruel treatment of other creatures. So how do we get all this without annihilating ourselves?”

Nick Bostrom, philosopher, technologist, author, researcher of existential risk

  • Big idea: The more technological power we invent, the more likely we are to create a “black ball” — the one breakthrough that could destroy us all.
  • How? It’s an uncomfortable dilemma: as tech accelerates, so too does the potential for a bad actor to use those very advancements to wipe out civilization. Consider synthetic biology: at the current rate of progress, in the not-too-distant future someone could theoretically cook up a city-destroying organism after an afternoon’s work in the kitchen. (Yikes.) So, what are we to do? In conversation with Chris Anderson, Bostrom outlines four possible responses: restrict tech development (not very feasible, he notes); eliminate bad actors (also unfeasible, considering the many obstacles to success); mass surveillance (uncomfortable, but potentially palatable if done right); and global governance (risky, but if we’re lucky, it could help us survive). In short: if we want power, we better figure out how to limit it.
  • Quote of the talk: “You could put me down as a frightened optimist.”
Ella Al-Shamahi speaks at TED2019

Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi asks scientists to push harder to work in unstable areas. She speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 17, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Ella Al-Shamahi, paleoanthropologist and standup comedian

  • Big idea: Science has a geography problem.
  • How? We’re not doing frontline scientific exploration in a massive chunk of the world: the regions  governments have deemed too unstable. But many of these places, especially in Africa and the Middle East, have played a big role in the human journey. Al-Shamahi’s family is from Yemen, a place that’s so under-studied it’s akin to near-virgin territory. She can’t go there — but she did take an epic, risky journey to study Socotra, an island off Yemen known as the Galápagos of the Indian Ocean. Ninety percent of the reptiles and 30 percent of the plants there exist only, well, there — and the story of early humans there is barely told. Al-Shamahi is hoping to return to Socotra and, with the help of local collaborators, continue to explore.
  • Quote of the talk: “Science was about going out into the unknown. It was about truly global exploration even if there were risks. When did it become acceptable to make it difficult for science to happen in ‘unstable places?'”

Victor Vescovo, undersea explorer

  • Big idea: New submersible designs can let us explore depths of the world’s oceans that have never been seen before.
  • How? Vescovo joined TED’s science curator David Biello to discuss his experiences of deep sea exploration. Vescovo believes his team — packed into their two-person, self-designed submersible — is the very first to have dived to the bottom of the Southern Ocean, the expanse of water surrounding Antarctica that’s known for particularly hostile conditions. His submersible is engineered as a sphere, the shape best able to handle the immense pressure of deep sea dives; it’s built to make multiple journeys to the ocean floor. When you go that deep, Vescovo says, it’s possible to discover a whole lot of new species. He describes his project as “kind of the SpaceX of ocean exploration, but I pilot my own vehicles.” And if you hadn’t heard of the robust assfish before today? You’re welcome.
  • Quote of the talk: “There are only two rules to diving in a submarine. Number one is close the hatch securely. Number two is go back to rule number one.”

Hannah Gadsby, serious comedian

  • Big idea: Comedy has rules. Break them. Tell your story.
  • How? Gadsby was a “pathologically shy virtual mute with low self-esteem” when she first tried standup comedy. And “before I’d even landed my first joke, I knew I really liked stand-up and stand-up really liked me.” But it was only when she quit comedy, and broke its rules, that she could tell her own story and build a true connection with her audience — not as a mindless, laughing mob but as individuals who could carry her story along with her. Read more about Hannah Gadsby’s TED Talk.
  • Quote of the talk: “The point was not simply to break comedy, but to reshape it to better hold everything I wanted to share.”

“I broke comedy,” Hannah Gadsby says at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 17, 2019, at Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

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Judith Jamison + Members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

“It was no one’s job to ask: What could go wrong?” Roger McNamee speaks at TED2019

Roger McNamee speaks at TED2019

Investor Roger McNamee sits in conversation with TED’s Chris Anderson during TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 17, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Nine days before the 2016 US presidential election, Roger McNamee went to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg — whom he’d introduced, back in 2007 — and told them they had a problem. He’d seen a Facebook group, associated notionally with the Bernie Sanders campaign, distributing misogynistic, viral memes in a way that looked like someone was paying for them to spread. And a corporation had recently been expelled from the platform for selling data on people who had expressed an interest in Black Lives Matter — selling that data to police departments.

Their response: “These are isolated things.”

Then the election happened. In the shadow of Brexit. And Facebook did the opposite of what McNamee, a venture capitalist and early investor in Facebook, prescribed: which was to embrace the victims and tell them exactly what political ads they had seen, when they saw them and who paid for them. And even after an internal investigation showed them the scope of Russian interference in the election — and how they had targeted a specific group of 126 million people in the last gasp of the election — Facebook was slow to act and opaque with their users.

“I don’t want to re-litigate 2016. What I’m worried about is that now anybody can do that,” McNamee says, speaking to Head of TED Chris Anderson during a live taping of the TED Interview podcast at TED2019. Their conversation covered Silicon Valley’s pursuit of attention and profit, monopolies, outrage, filter bubbles, surveillance and more.

“We live in a time where there are no rules and there’s no enforcement, and there are really smart people [using] all this unclaimed data and all this unclaimed opportunity,” McNamee says. “At the beginning, it seemed to throw off nothing but goodness. By the time the bad stuff hit, we were so deep into it that it was really hard to reverse field.”

The effect of bad actors online has spilled offline, McNamee says. “You did not need to be on Facebook in Myanmar to be dead. You just needed to be a Rohingya,” he says. “You did not need to be on Facebook or YouTube in Christchurch, New Zealand, to be dead. You just need to be in one of those mosques. This stuff is affecting people who are not on these platforms in ways we cannot recover from.”

And it’s not just Facebook, and there are things that are less serious than dead that are still serious and affecting people’s lives. “Do you know how [Google Maps and Waze] get route timing for all the different routes?” McNamee asks. “Some percentage of the people have to drive inferior routes in order for them to know what the timing is … That’s behavioral manipulation.”

So is there a fix to get us around the problems caused by the unchecked power of these tech giants — to put a check on the greed and cutthroat race for attention?

“It has to start with the people who use the products,” McNamee says. “At the end of the day, we’ve been willing to accept a deal that we do not understand. The actual thing that’s going on inside these companies is not that we’re giving a little bit of personal data and they’re getting better ad targeting. There is way more going on here than that. And the stuff that’s going beyond that is having an impact on people’s lives broadly.”

McNamee doesn’t believe that the people in charge of the tech giants are inherently bad. “[Mark Zuckerberg] is one good night’s sleep away from the epiphany where he wakes up and realizes he can do more good by fixing the business model of Facebook than he can with a thousand Chan Zuckerberg Initiatives.”

“I’m not talking about intent, I’m talking about action,” he continues. “What winds up happening, because of the way the incentives of the business model work, you wind up getting creepy outcomes … You can have unintended bad consequences for which you are are still responsible,” McNamee says.

Opening the conversation up to include the audience, journalist Carole Cadwalladr, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie, Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy and many others had a chance to share their thoughts on the problems — and some solutions.

McNamee ends on an optimistic note — emboldened, he says, by recent events like teacher labor actions that have worked, the air traffic controllers whose partial sick-out helped end the government shutdown and Elizabeth Warren’s introduction of an antitrust policy that had Republicans feeling jealous:

“What I find is that everybody I meet — whether they’re on Fox or MSNBC, whether they’re on conservative talk radio or NPR, whether I’m in Nashville, Austin, Atlanta, or I’m in San Francisco or New York — everybody sits there and goes: ‘I get it. There’s something wrong. And we all have a role to play in this.'”

This interview was presented by Klick Health, sponsors of the TED Interview podcast, now heading into its second season.

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Gathering together: Notes from Session 4 of TEDWomen 2018

In a searching session of talks hosted by curator and photographer Deborah Willis and her son, artist Hank Willis Thomas (who spoke together at TEDWomen 2017), 12 speakers explored conflict, love, the environment and activism, and more. The session featured duet talks from Paula Stone Williams and Jonathan WilliamsNeha Madhira and Haley Stack, Aja Monet and phillip agnewBeth Mortimer and Tarje Nissen-Meyer, and William Barber and Liz Theoharis, as well as solo talks from Jan Rader and Yvonne Van Amerongen.

Paula Stone Williams and her son Jonathan Williams share their story of personal reckoning. “I could not ask my father to be anything other than her true self,” Jonathan says. They speak at TEDWomen 2018: Showing Up, November 29, 2018, Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Callie Giovanna / TED)

A story of redemption. Paula Stone Williams and her son Jonathan Williams know that the truth will set you free — but only after it upends your carefully constructed narrative. In a moving, deeply personal talk, they share the story of Paula’s transition from male to female. Her devotion to authenticity caused her to leave her comfort zone as a nationally known religious leader. In the process, Paula lost all of her jobs, most of her friends and was rejected by her church. “I always taught the kids that when the going gets tough, you have to take the road less traveled — the narrow path — but I had no idea how hard it would become,” she says. Jonathan faced a personal reckoning himself, questioning his childhood memories and asking himself: “Had my father even ever existed?” After a long process of reconciliation, Jonathan ultimately shifted his personal and professional outlook, turning his church into an advocate for the LGBTQ community. “I could not ask my father to be anything other than her true self,” he says. Nowadays, Jonathan’s kids lovingly refer to Paula with a new team of endearment: “GramPaula.”

How empathy can catalyze change in the opioid crisis. Compassion and education can save lives in the opioid epidemic, says Huntington, West Virginia, fire chief Jan Rader. As she saw rising levels of drug overdoses and deaths in her city, Rader realized that, unlike rescuing someone from a fire, helping someone suffering from substance abuse disorder requires interwoven, empathy-based solutions — and she realized that first responders have an important role to play in the overdose epidemic. So she developed programs like Quick Response Team, a 72-hour post-overdose response team of recovery coaches and paramedics, and ProAct, a specialty addiction clinic. Rader also established self-care initiatives for her team of first responders, like yoga classes and on-duty massages, to help alleviate PTSD and compassion fatigue. These programs have already had a remarkable impact — Rader reports that overdoses are down 40 percent and deaths are down 50 percent. Stigma remains one of the biggest barriers in tackling the opioid crises, but when a community comes together, change can happen. “In Huntington, we are showing the rest of the country … that there is hope in this epidemic,” Rader says.

When is a free press not really free? The freedom to publish critical journalism is more important than ever. Neha Madhira and Haley Stack remind us that this should apply “to everyone, no matter where you live or how old you are.” Madhira and Stack — who work at the Eagle Nation Online, a high school newspaper in Texas — learned the hard way that student journalists “don’t have the same First Amendment rights” everyone else had. In 2017, their principal pulled three stories, on topics like a book that was removed from a class reading list, and the school’s response to National Walkout Day. He instituted “prior review” and “prior restraint” policies on all stories, banned editorials, and fired the paper’s advisor. They had no choice but to fight. Madhira says, “How were we supposed to write our paper… if we couldn’t keep writing the relevant stories that were impacting our student body?” They received an outpouring of support from around the country, which eventually persuaded the principal to overturn his policy. But this all could happen again — which is why they now lobby for New Voices, a law which would extend First Amendment protections to student journalism, and which has now passed in 14 states. Madhira and Stack hope it will pass nationwide.

Aja Monet and phillip agnew blend art and community organizing into a way to change their community. They speak at TEDWomen 2018: Showing Up, on November 29, 2018, in Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Callie Giovanna / TED)

Art as organizing. Activists and artists Aja Monet and phillip agnew connected the way many young couples meet today — on Instagram. What started on social media quickly turned into a powerful partnership they call “Love Riott.” Together, they founded Smoke Signals Studio, a space for community-based art and music in Little Haiti, Miami. As they describe it, Smoke Signals is a place “to be loved, to be heard and to be held.” It’s a place where art and organizing become the answer to anger and anxiety. Both Monet and agnew have dedicated their lives to merging arts and culture with community organizing — Monet with the Community Justice Project and agnew with the Dream Defenders. “Great art is not a monologue. Great art is a dialogue between the artist and the people,” Monet says.

Using seismology to study elephants, biologist Beth Mortimer and geophysicist Tarje Nissen-Meyer are helping to fight poaching and protect wildlife. They spoke at TEDWomen 2018: Showing Up, on November 29, 2018, in Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Callie Giovanna / TED)

The enigmatic language of elephants. To study the language of elephants, one needs a seismometer — a device that measures earthquakes — which is how biologist Beth Mortimer and geophysicist Tarje Nissen-Meyer came to work together. Elephants communicate simultaneously through the land and air over long distances using infrasonic vocalizations, meaning that they make sounds deeper than the human ear can detect. “These vocalizations are as loud as 117 decibels, which is about the same volume as a Coachella rock concert,” says Nissen-Meyer. By using seismology to study wildlife, the pair is developing a noninvasive, real-time and low-cost study method that is practical in developing countries to help them fight poaching. Eventually, they’d like to go beyond elephants, and they have plans to continue eavesdropping on the silent discos of the animal kingdom, keeping an ear to the ground to help protect the world’s most vulnerable societies, precious landscapes and iconic animals.

Living a good life with dementia. How would you prefer to spend the last years of your life: in a sterile, hospital-like institution or in a comfortable home that has a supermarket, pub, theater and park within easy walking distance? The answer seems obvious now, but when the Hogeweyk dementia care center was founded by Yvonne Van Amerongen 25 years ago, it was seen as a risky break from traditional dementia care. Located near Amsterdam, Hogeweyk is a gated community consisting of 27 homes with more than 150 residents who have dementia, all overseen 24/7 by well-trained professional and volunteer staff. (The current physical village opened in 2009.) People live in groups according to shared lifestyles. One home, where Van Amerongen’s mother now lives, contains travel, music and art enthusiasts. Surprisingly, it runs on the same public funds given to other nursing homes in the Netherlands — success, Van Amerongen says, comes from making careful spending decisions. As she puts it, “Red curtains are as expensive as gray ones.” The village has attracted international visitors eager to study the model, and direct offshoots are under construction in Canada and Australia. Whether people have dementia or not, Van Amerongen says, “Everyone wants fun in life and meaning in life.”

“This is a moral uprising … a new and unsettling force of people who are repairing the breach, who refuse to give up, and refuse to settle and surrender to suffering,” says Reverend William Barber, right. Together with Reverend Liz Theoharis, at left, he speaks at TEDWomen 2018: Showing Up, November 29, 2018, Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Callie Giovanna / TED)

America’s fusion is our story. Reverends William Barber and Liz Theoharis have traveled from the Bronx to the border, from the deep South to the California coast, meeting mothers whose children died because of a lack of healthcare, homeless families whose encampments have been attacked by police and communities where there’s raw sewage in people’s yards. Closing session 4 of TEDWomen 2018, the two make a powerful call to end poverty. “America is beset by deepening poverty, ecological devastation, systemic racism and an economy harnessed to seemingly endless war,” Barber says. In a nation that boasts of being the wealthiest country in world, 51 percent of children live in food-insecure homes, and 250,000 people die every year of poverty and low wealth. “If we have a different moral imagination, if we have policy shifts guided by moral fusion, we can choose a better way,” Theoharis says. This past spring, Barber and Theoharis helped organize the largest, most expansive simultaneous wave of nonviolent civil disobedience in the 21st century and perhaps in history, re-inaugurating the Poor People’s Campaign started by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The campaign is changing the narrative around poor people, refuting the idea that it’s not possible for everyone to survive and thrive. Barber and Theoharis are organizing hearings, holding community BBQs, going door to door registering people for a movement, holding freedom schools and developing public policies that will improve people’s lives. “This is a moral uprising … a new and unsettling force of people who are repairing the breach, who refuse to give up, and refuse to settle and surrender to suffering,” Barber says.

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The Next Wave: A night of talks from TED and Zebra Technologies

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is bringing a tsunami of change that will dramatically affect how we interact with and adapt to technology. The ways we choose to ride this wave will determine the shape of our future. Will we use this as an opportunity to solve our most pressing issues, or allow it to become a calamity that divides us?

At TED Salon: The Next Wave, presented by TED and Zebra Technologies and hosted by TED’s Bryn Freedman, five speakers and one performer explored the tools and expertise we’ll harness to build the future.

Does artificial intelligence keep humans from learning too? AI is more and more important in our workplaces, but there’s a big catch, says researcher Matt Beane: it’s threatening our own ability to learn on the job. Beane studies the relationship between humans and AI, and he’s found that, in industries ranging from investment banking to surgery, the story is the same: As tools get more sophisticated, workers (especially people just starting out) get fewer opportunities for hands-on learning, the kind that involves struggle, practice and mentorship. The paradox: That’s the very experience necessary to leverage sophisticated tools. “Organizations are trying harder and harder to get results from AI,” he says, “but we’re handling it in a way that blocks learning on the job.” It’s early days for AI in most fields — though by 2030, half a billion of us will be using it in some way — so Beane’s talk is an important corrective right now. What can be done? He shares a vision that flips the current story into one of distributed, AI-enhanced mentorships that empower everyone to learn and grow wiser. 

Tiana Epps-Johnson shares her work helping local election officials learn the skills and technologies they need to run modern-day elections. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Empowering local election officials. “Voting is one of the most tangible ways that each and every one of us can shape our communities,” says civic engagement champion Tiana Epps-Johnson. And yet, compared to the rest of the world, the United States has one of the lowest voter turnout rates. Why does the US fall so far behind? Epps-Johnson identifies the main issue as outdated technology. But her approach to fixing this problem is more targeted than simply getting newer technologies out there. She focuses on an important but untapped resource for election modernization: local election officials. These are the people on the ground, the ones who are supposed to make voting the best possible experience for the voters in their counties. Currently, many of them lack the basic skills needed to achieve this goal. Epps-Johnson works with local election officials to train these officials in the skills needed for modern-day elections — such as using social media to get the word out, harnessing data to improve the voting process, or creating and maintaining a website for voters in their county. “If you’re ready to help millions, if you’re ready to close the gap between the system that we have and the system that we deserve, we need you,” Epps-Johnson says.

Automation and its discontents. What’s the future of work? That’s the question that Roy Bahat, head of the venture firm Bloomberg Beta, has spent the past two years trying to answer. He helped lead a wide-ranging project to understand how technology will impact work over the next 10 to 20 years — interviewing AI experts, video game designers, educators, truckers, inmates and everyone in between to identify concerns and emerging trends. In a candid conversation with Bryn Freedman, curator of the TED Institute, Bahat shares insights from his findings, discussing two major themes that surfaced: stability and dignity. First and foremost, Bahat says, people want a stable and secure income. Beyond that, people kept bringing up the idea of dignity — of feeling needed and finding self-worth through work. As automation increases, we need to create respect for work like caregiving and educating — jobs that can’t be replaced by robots, Bahat says. If we can do that, we’ll be prepared for the future of work.

Design technologist James Morley-Smith shares how a challenging family experience helped him come up with a new approach to design. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Start by thinking about impairments. When design technologist James Morley-Smith’s son Fintan was five months old, he was diagnosed with an eye cancer that eventually led to a complete loss of vision. Fintan, who is “incredibly resilient,” has learned Braille and excels at school and in playing the piano. This last activity led to Morley-Smith’s epiphany — he saw how Fintan’s piano instructor took his impairments into account and decided to teach him songs on only the black keys first so Fintan could use them as anchors for the white keys. In his work at Zebra, Morley-Smith designs for employees who are often in noisy, poorly lit industrial settings and clad in bulky protective gear. By following the black-keys tactic, he’s factoring in users’ limitations from the get-go. By making small changes — such as increasing type size and ensuring that interfaces can be handled easily with gloved fingers — he has increased productivity by up to 20 percent in some cases. Morley-Smith believes we can apply this thinking to every aspect of our lives. “It doesn’t matter what is impairing you from reaching your goals,” he says. “Reframe them so they are no longer a disability, and they might just be the advantage you need.”

Naia Izumi performs his own song, “Soft Spoken,” the elegantly complex tune that won him the 2018 NPR Tiny Desk Contest, during the TED Salon: The Next Wave. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

An electric, genre-bending performance. Singer and guitarist Naia Izumi has had quite a year — while the Georgia native was busking on the streets of Los Angeles, he submitted to the 2018 NPR Tiny Desk Contest, and he won! He’s now busily on tour along the East Coast, and he swung by the TED office to share his winning song. Encouraging the audience to join in the beat, Izumi played his song “Soft Spoken,” a soulful, genre-hopping tune that draws from his personal story and his musical roots, and features his innovative, percussive guitar style under heavenly vocals.

Ensuring our right to cognitive liberty. Brain reading tech is on the horizon, says bioethicist Nita A. Farahany, and we need to be prepared. The technology to translate thoughts is advancing every day; using electroencephalography (EEG) monitors similar to the fitness wristbands that track heart rate and sleep, we can decode thoughts of shapes and numbers — and even track emotional states. Real-world applications of this tech are already in practice globally in the manufacturing, automotive and entertainment industries. While the potential for this technology is groundbreaking and thrilling, Farahany warns of a darker future, in which the government can surveil and criminalize certain thought patterns, and private interests can capture and sell our brain data. The right to cognitive liberty, she says, is a fundamental human right, alongside self-determination and freedom of speech. We need to demand and secure legal protections for our brain data, she concludes, because our right to thought privacy is too important to risk.

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Reboot: The talks of TED@BCG

CEO of BCG, Rich Lesser, welcomes the audience to TED@BCG, held October 3, 2018, at Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

How do we manage the transformations that are radically altering our lives — all while making a positive impact on our well-being, productivity and the world? In a word: reboot.

For a seventh year, BCG has partnered with TED to bring experts in leadership, psychology, technology, sustainability and more to the stage to share ideas on rethinking our goals and redefining the operating systems we use to reach them. At this year’s TED@BCG — held on October 3, 2018, at the Princess of Wales Theater in Toronto — 18 creators, leaders and innovators invited us to imagine a bright future with a new definition of the bottom line.

After opening remarks from Rich Lesser, CEO of BCG, the talks of Session 1

Let’s stop trying to be good. “What if I told you that our attachment to being ‘good people’ is getting in the way of us being better people?” asks social psychologist Dolly Chugh, professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business. The human brain relies on shortcuts so we can cope with the millions of pieces of information bombarding us at any moment. That’s why we’re often able to get dressed or drive home without thinking about it — our brains are reserving our attention for the important stuff. In her research, Chugh has found the same cognitive efficiency occurs in our ethical behavior, where it shows up in the form of unconscious biases and conflicts of interest. And we’re so focused on appearing like good people — rather than actually being them — that we get defensive or aggressive when criticized for ethical missteps. As a result, we never change. “In every other part of our lives, we give ourselves room to grow — except in this one where it matters the most,” Chugh says. So, rather than striving to be good, let’s aim for “good-ish,” as she puts it. That means spotting our mistakes, owning them and, last but not least, learning from them.

You should take your technology out to coffee, says BCG’s Nadjia Yousif. She speaks at TED@BCG about how we can better embrace our tech — as colleagues. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Treat your technology like a colleague. “The critical skill in the 21st-century workplace is … to collaborate with the technologies that are becoming such a big and costly part of our daily working lives,” says technology advisor Nadjia Yousif. She’s seen countless companies invest millions in technology, only to ignore or disregard it. Why? Because the people using the technology are skeptical and even afraid of it. They don’t spend the time learning and training — and then they get frustrated and write it off. What if we approached new technology as if it were a new colleague? What if we treated it like a valued member of the team? People would want to get to know it better, spend time integrating it into the team and figure out the best ways to collaborate, Yousif says — and maybe even give feedback and make sure the tech is working well with everyone else. Yousif believes we can treat technology this way, and she encourages us to “share a bit of humanity” with our software, algorithms and robots. “By embracing the ideas that these machines are actually valuable colleagues, we as people will perform better … and be happier,” she says.

Confessions of a reformed micromanager. When Chieh Huang started the company Boxed out of his garage in 2013, there wasn’t much more to manage than himself and the many packages he sent. As his company expanded, his need to oversee the smallest of details increased — a habit that he’s since grown out of, but can still reference with humor and humility. “What is micromanaging? I posit that it’s actually taking great, wonderful, imaginative people … bringing them into an organization, and then crushing their souls by telling them which font size to use,” he jokes. He asks us to reflect on the times when we’re most tired at work. It probably wasn’t those late nights or challenging tasks, he says, but when someone was looking over your shoulder watching your every move. Thankfully, there’s a cure to this management madness, Huang says: trust. When we stop micromanaging the wonderfully creative people at our own companies, he says, innovation will flourish.

Dancing with digital titans. Tech giants from the US and China are taking over the world, says digital strategist François Candelon. Of the world’s top 20 internet companies, a full 100 percent of them are American or Chinese — like the US’s Alphabet Inc. and Amazon, and China’s Tencent and Alibaba. Europe and the rest of the world must find a way to catch up, Candelon believes, or they will face US-China economic dominance for decades to come. What are their options for creating a more balanced digital revolution? Candelon offers a solution: governments should tango with these digital titans. Instead of fearing their influence — as the EU has done by levying fines against Google, for instance — countries would be better off advocating for the creation of local digital jobs. Why would companies like Facebook or Baidu be willing to tango with governments? Because they can offer things like tax incentives and adapted regulations. Candelon points to “Digital India,” a partnership between Google and the government of India, as an example: one of the project’s initiatives is to train two million Indian developers in the latest technologies, helping Google develop its talent pipeline while cultivating India’s digital ecosystem. “Let’s urge our governments and the American and Chinese digital titans to invest enough brainpower and energy to imagine and implement win-win strategic partnerships,” Candelon says. The new digital world order depends on it.

Upcycling air pollution into ink. In 2012, a photo of an exhaust stain on a wall sparked a thought for engineer Anirudh Sharma: What if we could use air pollution as ink? A simple experiment with a candle and vegetable oil convinced Sharma that the idea was viable, leading him home to Bangalore to test how to collect the carbon-rich PM2.5 nanoparticles that would make up the ink. Sharma and his team at AIR INK created a device that could capture up to 95 percent of air pollution that passed through it; using it, 45 minutes of diesel car exhaust can become 30 milliliters of ink (or about 2 tablespoons). Artists worldwide embraced AIR INK, and this success brought surprising interest from the industrial world. Sharma realized that by incentivizing corporations to send their pollution to AIR INK, they could upcycle pollution usually headed for landfills into a productive tool. AIR INK won’t necessarily solve global pollution concerns, Sharma says, “but it does show what can be done if you look at problems a little differently.”

Leadership lessons for an uncertain world. Jim Whitehurst is a recovering know-it-all CEO. Kicking off Session 2, Whitehurst tells the story of how his work as the COO of Delta trained him to think that a good leader was someone who knew more than anyone else. But after becoming CEO of RedHat, an open-source software company, Whitehurst encountered a different kind of organization, one where open criticism of superiors — and not exactly following a boss’s orders — were normal. This experience yielded insights about success and leadership, as Whitehurst came to realize that being a good leader isn’t about control and compliance, it’s about creating the context for the best ideas to emerge out of your organization. “In a world where innovation wins and ambiguity is the only certainty, people don’t need to be controlled,” Whitehurst says. “They need to get comfortable with conflict. And leaders need to foment it.”

Elizabeth Lyle shares ideas on the future of leadership in the workplace at TED@BCG. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Why we need to coach people before they lead. The C-suites of corporate America are full of management coaches, yet top-tier execs are not the ones who really need the help, says Elizabeth Lyle, a principal in BCG’s Boston office. “Outdated leadership habits are forming right before our eyes among the middle managers who will one day take their place,” she says. While the uncertain future of work demands new ways of thinking, acting and interacting, tomorrow’s leaders aren’t given the autonomy or training they need to develop — and they don’t ask for it, lest they seem pushy and disagreeable. They also think that they’ll be able to change their behavior once they’ve earned the authority to do things their own way, Lyle says, but this rarely happens. By the time they’re in a high-stakes position, they tend to retreat to doing what their bosses did. The solution: senior leaders must present their direct reports with the opportunities to try new things, and reports should return that trust by approaching their work with thought and creativity. Lyle also suggests bringing in coaches to work in the same room with leaders and reports — like a couples therapist, they’d observe the pair’s communication and offer ideas for how to improve it.

A breakdown, and a reboot. Each of us feels the burden of daily repetitive actions on our bodies and psyches, whether we create them or they’re imposed by outside forces. Left unchecked, these actions can “turn into cages,” says Frank Müller-Pierstorff, Global Creative Director at BCG. In an electronic music performance, he uses soundscapes built out of dense, looped phrases to embody these “cages,” while dancer Carlotta Bettencourt attempts to keep up in an accompanying video — and ultimately shows us what might happen if we could only “reboot” under the weight of our stress.

WWMD? What would MacGyver do? That’s what Dara Dotz asks herself, whether she’s working to help build the first factory in space or aiding survivors of a recent catastrophic event. Much like the fictional genius/action hero, Dotz loves to use technology to solve real-life problems — but she believes our increasing reliance on tech is setting us up for major failure: Instead of making us superhuman, tech may instead be slowly killing our ability to be creative and think on our feet. If disaster strikes — natural or man-made — and our tech goes down, will we still have the ingenuity, resilience and grit to survive? With that concern in mind, Dotz cofounded a nonprofit, Field Ready, to support communities that experience disasters by creating life-saving supplies in the field from found materials and tools. With real-world examples from St. Thomas to Syria, Dotz demonstrates the importance of co-designing with communities to create specific solutions that fit the need — and to ensure that the communities can reproduce these solutions. “We aren’t going to be able to throw tech at every problem as efficiently or effectively as we would like — as time moves on, there are more disasters, more people and less resources,” she says. “Instead of focusing on the next blockchain or AI, perhaps the things we really need to focus on are the things that make us human.”

Rebooting how we work. What are we willing to give up to achieve a better way of working? For starters: the old way of doing things, says Senior Partner and Managing Director of BCG Netherlands, Martin Danoesastro. In a world that’s increasingly complex and fast-paced, we need a way of working that allows people to make faster decisions, eliminates bureaucracy and creates alignment around a single purpose. Danoesastro learned this firsthand by visiting and studying innovative and hugely profitable tech companies. He discovered the source of their success in small, autonomous teams that have the freedom to be creative and move fast. Danoesastro provides a few steps for companies that want to replicate this style: get rid of micro-managers, promote open and transparent communication throughout the organization, and ensure all employees take initiative. Changing deeply ingrained structures and processes is hard, and changing behavior is even harder, but it’s worth it. Ultimately, this model creates a more efficient workplace and sets the company up for a future in which they’ll be better prepared to respond to change.

The power of visual intelligence. Are you looking closely enough? Author Amy Herman thinks we should all increase our perceptual intelligence — according to Herman, taking a little more time to question and ponder when we’re looking at something can have lasting beneficial impact in our lives. Using a variety of fine art examples, Herman explains how to become a more intentional, insightful viewer by following the four A’s: assess the situation, analyze what you see, articulate your observations and act upon them. Herman has trained groups across a spectrum of occupations — from Navy SEALS to doctors to crime investigators — and has found that by examining art, we can develop a stronger ability to understand both the big picture and influential small details of any scene. By using visual art as a lens to look more carefully at what’s presented to us, Herman says, we’ll have the confidence to see our work and the world clearer than ever.

Fintech entrepreneur Viola Llewellyn shares her work pairing AI with local knowledge to create smarter products for the African market. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Culturally attuned microfinance for Africa. Financial institutions in Africa’s business sector don’t have the technology or tools to harness the continent’s potential for wealth, says fintech entrepreneur Viola Llewellyn, opening Session 3. The continent is made up of thousands of ethnic groups speaking more than 2,000 languages among them, rooted in a long, rich history of cultural diversity, tradition and wealth. “You need a deep understanding of nuance and history,” Llewellyn says, “and a respect for the elegance required to code and innovate [financial] products and services for the vast African market.” She cofounded Ovamba, a mobile technology company, to bridge the gap in knowledge between institutions and African entrepreneurs. Working with teams on the ground, Ovamba pairs human insights about local culture with AI to create risk models and algorithms, and ultimately product designs. Llewellyn highlights examples across sub-Saharan Africa that are successfully translating her vision into real-world profit. “In digitizing our future, we will preserve the beauty of our culture and unlock the code of our best wealth traits,” she says. “If we do this, Africans will become global citizens with less reliance on charity. Becoming global citizens gives us a seat at the table as equals.”

Globalization isn’t dead — it’s transforming into something new. All the way up to Davos, business leaders have proclaimed the death of globalization. But Arindam Bhattacharya thinks their obituary was published prematurely. Despite growing economic protectionism, and the declining influence of multilateral trade organizations, business is booming. Technology has allowed data-driven businesses like Netflix to reach their customers instantly and simultaneously — and as a result, Netflix revenues have grown more than five-fold. Netflix is one of a new breed of companies using cutting-edge technology to build “a radical new model of globalization.” And it’s not just data — soon, 3D printing will redefine our supply chains. Working with the manufacturer SpeedFactory, Adidas allows customers to choose designs online, have them printed at a nearby “mini-factory,” and delivered via drone in a matter of days, not weeks or months. Aided by local production, cross-border data flow could be worth $20 trillion by 2025 — more than every nation’s current exports combined. As society becomes “more nationalistic and less and less open,” Bhattacharya says, commerce is becoming more personalized and less tied to cross-border trade. These twin narratives are reinvigorating globalization.

Viruses that fight superbugs. Viruses have a bad reputation — but some might just be the weapon we need to help in the fight against superbugs, says biotech entrepreneur Alexander Belcredi. While many viruses do cause deadly diseases, others can actually help cure them, he says — and they’re called phages. More formally known as bacteriophages, these viruses hunt, infect and kill bacteria with deadly selectivity. Whereas antibiotics inhibit the growth of broad range of bacteria — sometimes good bacteria, like you find in the gut — phages target specific strains. Belcredi’s team has estimated that we have at least ten billion phages on each hand, infecting the bacteria that accumulate there. So, why is it likely you’ve never heard of phages? Although they were discovered in the early 20th century, they were largely forgotten in favor of transformative antibiotics like penicillin, which seemed for many decades like the solution to bacterial infections. Unfortunately, we were wrong, Belcredi says: multi-drug-resistant infections — also known as superbugs — have since developed and now overpower many of our current antibiotics. Fortunately, we are in a good place to develop powerful phage drugs, giving new hope in the fight against superbugs. So, the next time you think of a virus, try not to be too judgmental, Belcredi says. After all, a phage might one day save your life.

Madame Gandhi and Amber Galloway-Gallego perform “Top Knot Turn Up” and “Bad Habits” at TED@BCG. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

How music brings us together. “Music is so much more than sound simply traveling through the ear,” says sign language interpreter Amber Galloway-Gallego, during the second musical interlude of the day. In a riveting performance, musician and activist Madame Gandhi plays two songs — her feminist anthems “Top Knot Turn Up” and “Bad Habits” — while Galloway-Gallego provides a spirited sign language interpretation.

Agreeing to disagree. Our public discourse is broken, says behavioral economist Julia Dhar, and the key to fixing it might come from an unexpected place: debate teams. In the current marketplace of ideas, Dhar says, contempt has replaced conversation: people attack each other’s identity instead of actually hashing out ideas. If we turn to the principles of debate, Dhar believes we can learn how to disagree productively — over family dinners, during company meetings and even in our national conversations. The first principle she mentions is rebuttal: “Debate requires that we engage with a conflicting idea directly, respectfully and face-to-face,” she says — and as research shows, this forces us to humanize the “other side.” Second, ideas are totally separate from the identity of the person advocating for them in debate tournaments. Dhar invites us to imagine if the US Congress considered a policy without knowing if it was Democrat or Republican, or if your company submitted and reviewed proposals anonymously. And third, debate lets us open ourselves up to the possibility of being wrong, an exercise that can actually make us better listeners and decision makers. “We should bring [debate] to our workplaces, our conferences and our city council meetings,” Dhar says — and begin to truly reshape the marketplace of ideas.

A better world through activist investment. Who’s working on today’s most pressing issues? Activist investors, says BCG’s Vinay Shandal, or as he calls them: “the modern-day OGs of Wall Street.” These investors — people like Carl Icahn, Dan Loeb and Paul Singer — have made an art of getting large corporations to make large-scale changes. And not just to make money. They’re also interested in helping the environment and society. “The good news and perhaps the saving grace for our collective future is that it’s more than just an act of good corporate citizenship,” Shandal says. “It’s good business.” Shandal shares examples of investors disrupting industries from retail to food service to private prisons and shows growing evidence of a clear correlation between good ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing and good financial performance. You don’t need to be a rich investor to make a difference, Shandal says. Every one of us can put pressure on our companies, including the ones that manage our money, to do the right thing. “It’s your money, it’s your pension fund, it’s your sovereign wealth fund. And it is your right to have your money managed in line with your values.” Shandal says. “So speak up … Investors will listen.”

TED@BCG - October 3, 2018 at Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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

Bruno Giussani (left) and Chris Anderson co-host “We the Future,” a day of talks presented by TED, the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation, at the TED World Theater in New York City, September 25, 2018. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

We live in contentious times. Yet behind the dismaying headlines and social-media-fueled quarrels, people around the world — millions of them — are working unrelentingly to solve problems big and small, dreaming up new ways to expand the possible and build a better world.

At “We the Future,” a day of talks at the TED World Theater presented in collaboration with the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation, 13 speakers and two performers explored some of our most difficult collective challenges — as well as emerging solutions and strategies for building bridges and dialogue.

Updates on the Sustainable Development Goals. Are we delivering on the promises of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, which promised to improve the lives of billions with no one left behind? Using the Social Progress Index, a measure of the quality of life in countries throughout the world, economist Michael Green shares a fresh analysis of where we are today in relationship to the goals — and some new thinking on what we need to do differently to achieve them. While we’ve seen progress in some parts of the world on goals related to hunger and healthy living, the world is projected to fall short of achieving the ambitious targets set by the SDGs for 2030, according to Green’s analysis. If current trends keep up — especially the declines we’re seeing in things like personal rights and inclusiveness across the world — we actually won’t hit the 2030 targets until 2094. So what can we do about this? Two things, says Green: We need to call out rich countries that are falling short, and we need to look further into the data and find opportunities to progress faster. Because progress is happening, and we’re tantalizingly close to a world where nobody dies of things like hunger and malaria. “If we can focus our efforts, mobilize the resources, galvanize the political will,” Green says, “that step change is possible.”

Sustainability expert Johan Rockström debuts the Earth-3 model, a new way to track both the Sustainable Development Goals and the health of the planet at the same time. He speaks at “We the Future.” (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

A quest for planetary balance. In 2015, we saw two fantastic global breakthroughs for humanity, says sustainability expert Johan Rockström — the SDGs and the Paris Agreement. But are the two compatible, and can be they be pursued at the same time? Rockström suggests there are inherent contradictions between the two that could lead to irreversible planetary instability. Along with a team of scientists, he created a way to combine the SDGs within the nine planetary boundaries (things like ocean acidification and ozone depletion); it’s a completely new model of possibility — the Earth-3 model — to track trends and simulate future change. Right now, we’re not delivering on our promises to future generations, he says, but the window of success is still open. “We need some radical thinking,” Rockström says. “We can build a safe and just world: we just have to really, really get on with it.”

Henrietta Fore, executive director of UNICEF, is spearheading a new global initiative, Generation Unlimited, which aims to ensure every young person is in school, training or employment by 2030. She speaks at “We the Future.” (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

A plan to empower Generation Unlimited. There are 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24 in the world, one of the largest cohorts in human history. Meeting their needs is a big challenge — but it’s also a big opportunity, says the executive director of UNICEF, Henrietta Fore. Among the challenges facing this generation are a lack of access to education and job opportunities, exposure to violence and, for young girls, the threats of discrimination, child marriage and early pregnancy. To begin addressing these issues, Fore is spearheading UNICEF’s new initiative, Generation Unlimited, which aims to ensure every young person is in school, learning, training or employment by 2030. She talks about a program in Argentina that connects rural students in remote areas with secondary school teachers, both in person and online; an initiative in South Africa called Techno Girls that gives young women from disadvantaged backgrounds job-shadowing opportunities in the STEM fields; and, in Bangladesh, training for tens of thousands of young people in trades like carpentry, motorcycle repair and mobile-phone servicing. The next step? To take these ideas and scale them up, which is why UNICEF is casting a wide net — asking individuals, communities, governments, businesses, nonprofits and beyond to find a way to help out. “A massive generation of young people is about to inherit our world,” Fore says, “and it’s our duty to leave a legacy of hope for them — but also with them.”

Improving higher education in Africa. There’s a teaching and learning crisis unfolding across Africa, says Patrick Awuah, founder and president of Ashesi University. Though the continent has scaled up access to higher education, there’s been no improvement in quality or effectiveness of that education. “The way we teach is wrong for today. It is even more wrong for tomorrow, given the challenges before us,” Awuah says. So how can we change higher education for the better? Awuah suggests establishing multidisciplinary curricula that emphasize critical thinking and ethics, while also allowing for in-depth expertise. He also suggests collaboration between universities in Africa — and tapping into online learning programs. “A productive workforce, living in societies managed by ethical and effective leaders, would be good not only for Africa but for the world,” Awuah says.

Ayọ (right) and Marvin Dolly fill the theater with a mix of reggae, R&B and folk sounds at “We the Future.” (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Songs of hardship and joy. During two musical interludes, singer-songwriter Ayọ and guitarist Marvin Dolly fill the TED World Theater with the soulful, eclectic strumming of four songs — “Boom Boom,” “What’s This All About,” “Life Is Real” and “Help Is Coming” — blending reggae, R&B and folk sounds.

If every life counts, then count every life. To some, numbers are boring. But data advocate Claire Melamed says numbers are, in fact, “an issue of power and of justice.” The lives and death of millions of people worldwide happen outside the official record, Melamed says, and this lack of information leads to big problems. Without death records, for instance, it’s nearly impossible to detect epidemics until it’s too late. If we are to save lives in disease-prone regions, we must know where and when to deliver medicine — and how much. Today, technology enables us to inexpensively gather reliable data, but tech isn’t a cure-all: governments may try to keep oppressed or underserved populations invisible, or the people themselves may not trust the authorities collecting the data. But data custodians can fix this problem by building organizations, institutions and communities that can build trust. “If every life counts, we should count every life,” Melamed says.

How will the US respond to the rise of China? To Harvard University political scientist Graham Allison, recent skirmishes between the US and China over trade and defense are yet another chapter unfolding in a centuries-long pattern. He’s coined the term “Thucydides’ Trap” to describe it — as he puts it, the Trap “is the dangerous dynamic that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power.” Thucydides is viewed by many as the father of history; he chronicled the Peloponnesian Wars between a rising Athens and a ruling Sparta in the 4th century BCE (non-spoiler alert: Sparta won, but at a high price). Allison and colleagues reviewed the last 500 years and found Thucydides’ Trap 16 times — and 12 of them ended in war. Turning to present day, he notes that while the 20th century was dominated by the US, China has risen far and fast in the 21st. By 2024, for instance, China’s GDP is expected to be one-and-a-half times greater than America’s. What’s more, both countries are led by men who are determined to be on top. “Are Americans and Chinese going to let the forces of history draw us into a war that would be catastrophic to both?” Allison asks. To avoid it, he calls for “a combination of imagination, common sense and courage” to come up with solutions — referencing the Marshall Plan, the World Bank and United Nations as fresh approaches toward prosperity and peace that arose after the ravages of war. After the talk, TED curator Bruno Giussani asks Allison if he has any creative ideas to sidestep the Trap. “A long peace,” Allison says, turning again to Athens and Sparta for inspiration: during their wars, the two agreed at one point to a 30-year peace, a pause in their conflict so each could tend to their domestic affairs.

Can we ever hope to reverse climate change? Researcher and strategist Chad Frischmann introduces the idea of “drawdown” — the point at which we remove more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than we put in — as our only hope of averting climate disaster. At his think tank, he’s working to identify strategies to achieve drawdown, like increased use of renewable energy, better family planning and the intelligent disposal of HFC refrigerants, among others. But the things that will make the biggest impact, he says, are changes to food production and agriculture. The decisions we make every day about the food we grow, buy and eat are perhaps the most important contributions we could make to reversing global warming. Another focus area: better land management and rejuvenating forests and wetlands, which would expand and create carbon sinks that sequester carbon. When we move to fix global warming, we will “shift the way we do business from a system that is inherently exploitative and extractive to a ‘new normal’ that is by nature restorative and regenerative,” Frischmann says.

The end of energy poverty. Nearly two billion people worldwide lack access to modern financial services like credit cards and bank accounts — making it difficult to do things like start a new business, build a nest egg, or make a home improvement like adding solar panels. Entrepreneur Lesley Marincola is working on this issue with Angaza, a company that helps people avoid the steep upfront costs of buying a solar-power system, instead allowing them to pay it off over time. With metering technology embedded in the product, Angaza uses alternative credit scoring methods to determine a borrower’s risk level. The combination of metering technology and an alternative method of assessing credit brings purchasing power to unbanked people. “To effectively tackle poverty at a global scale, we must not solely focus on increasing the amount of money that people earn,” Marincola says. “We must also increase or expand the power of their income through access to savings and credit.”

Anushka Ratnayake displays one of the scratch-off cards that her company, MyAgro, is using to help farmers in Africa break cycles of poverty and enter the cycle of investment and growth. She speaks at “We the Future.” (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

An innovative way to help rural farmers save. While working for a microfinance company in Kenya, Anushka Ratnayake realized something big: small-scale farmers were constantly being offered loans … when what they really wanted was a safe place to save money. Collecting and storing small deposits from farmers was too difficult and expensive for banks, and research from the University of California, Berkeley shows that only 14–21 percent of farmers accept credit offers. Ratnayake found a simpler solution — using scratch-off cards that act as a layaway system. MyAgro, a nonprofit social enterprise that Ratnayake founded and leads, helps farmers save money for seeds. Farmers buy myAgro scratch cards from local stores, depositing their money into a layaway account by texting in the card’s scratch-off code. After a few months of buying the cards and saving little by little, myAgro delivers the fertilizer, seed and training they’ve paid for, directly to their farms. Following a wildly successful pilot program in Mali, MyAgro has expanded to Senegal and Tanzania and now serves more than 50,000 farmers. On this plan, rural farmers can break cycles of poverty, Ratnayake says, and instead, enter the cycle of investment and growth.

Durable housing for a resilient future. Around the world, natural disasters destroy thousands of lives and erase decades of economic gains each year. These outcomes are undeniably devastating and completely preventable, says mason Elizabeth Hausler — and substandard housing is to blame. It’s estimated that one-third of the world will be living in insufficiently constructed buildings by 2030; Hausler hopes to cut those projections with a building revolution. She shares six straightforward principles to approach the problem of substandard housing: teach people how to build, use local architecture, give homeowners power, provide access to financing, prevent disasters and use technology to scale. “It’s time we treat unsafe housing as the global epidemic that it is,” Hausler says. “It’s time to strengthen every building just like we would vaccinate every child in a public health emergency.”

A daring idea to reduce income inequality. Every newborn should enter the world with at least $25,000 in the bank. That is the basic premise of a “baby trust,” an idea conceived by economists Darrick Hamilton of The New School and William Darity of Duke University. Since 1980, inequality has been on the rise worldwide, and Hamilton says it will keep growing due to this simple fact: “It is wealth that begets more wealth.” Policymakers and the public have fallen for a few appealing but inaccurate narratives about wealth creation — that grit, education or a booming economy can move people up the ladder — and we’ve disparaged the poor for not using these forces to rise, Hamilton says. Instead, what if we gave a boost up the ladder? A baby trust would give an infant money at birth — anywhere from $500 for those born into the richest families to $60,000 for the poorest, with an average endowment of $25,000. The accounts would be managed by the government, at a guaranteed interest rate of 2 percent a year. When a child reaches adulthood, they could withdraw it for an “asset-producing activity,” such as going to college, buying a home or starting a business. If we were to implement it in the US today, a baby trust program would cost around $100 billion a year; that’s only 2 percent of annual federal expenditures and a fraction of the $500 billion that the government now spends on subsidies and credits that favor the wealthy, Hamilton says. “Inequality is primarily a structural problem, not a behavioral one,” he says, so it needs to be attacked with solutions that will change the existing structures of wealth.

Nothing about us, without us. In 2013, activist Sana Mustafa and her family were forcibly evacuated from their homes and lives as a result of the Syrian civil war. While adjusting to her new reality as a refugee, and beginning to advocate for refugee rights, Mustafa found that events aimed at finding solutions weren’t including the refugees in the conversation. Alongside a group of others who had to flee their homes because of war and disaster, Mustafa founded The Network for Refugee Voices (TNRV), an initiative that amplifies the voices of refugees in policy dialogues. TNRV has worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other organizations to ensure that refugees are represented in important conversations about them. Including refugees in the planning process is a win-win, Mustafa says, creating more effective relief programs and giving refugees a say in shaping their lives.

Former member of Danish Parliament Özlem Cekic has a novel prescription for fighting prejudice: take your haters out for coffee. She speaks at “We the Future.” (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Conversations with people who send hate mail. Özlem Cekic‘s email inbox has been full of hate mail and personal abuse for years. She began receiving the derogatory messages in 2007, soon after she won a seat in the Danish Parliament — becoming one of the first women with a minority background to do so. At first she just deleted the emails, dismissing them as the work of the ignorant or fanatic. The situation escalated in 2010 when a neo-Nazi began to harass Cekic and her family, prompting a friend to make an unexpected suggestion: reach out to the hate mail writers and invite them out to coffee. This was the beginning of what Cekic calls “dialogue coffee”: face-to-face meetings where she sits down with people who have sent hate mail, in an effort to understand the source of their hatred. Cekic has had hundreds of encounters since 2010 — always in the writer’s home, and she always brings food — and has made some important realizations along the way. Cekic now recognizes that people of all political convictions can be caught demonizing those with different views. And she has a challenge for us all: before the end of the year, reach out to someone you demonize — who you disagree with politically or think you won’t have anything in common with — and invite them out to coffee. Don’t give up if the person refuses at first, she says: sometimes it has taken nearly a year for her to arrange a meeting. “Trenches have been dug between people, yes,” Cekic says. “But we all have the ability to build the bridges that cross the trenches.”

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