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Head of TED Chris Anderson hosts Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)
Bold ideas often meet resistance — but what if they were met with curiosity? Session 5 of TED2024 didn’t shy away from audacious ideas. Instead, it invited us all to embrace the discomfort of considering the impossible and unfamiliar, to find the courage to step into someone else’s shoes and assume goodness in those around us — because that’s what catalyzes imagination and possibility.
From the search for extraterrestrial life to the future of democracy, speakers delved into topics that challenge conventions and will spark conversation long after they stepped off the red circle.
The event: Talks from Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson
When and where: Wednesday, April 17, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Speakers: Avi Loeb, Bill Ackman, Alison Taylor, Andrew Yang, Bari Weiss, Scott Galloway
Musician Xiuhtezcatl performs at Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)
Performance: Xochimilco artist Xiuhtezcatl (or X) performed the songs “Careful” and “Veils,” seamlessly blending influences from his Indigenous and Mexican heritage with a fervent dedication to environmental activism.
The talks in brief:
Astrophysicist Avi Loeb speaks at Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)
Diving into theories around interstellar phenomena such as the Oumuamua asteroid, astrophysicist Avi Loeb suggests we haven’t found scientific proof of alien life simply because we haven’t dedicated the proper funding. He explores the research needed to find the higher intelligence potentially residing galaxies away, imagining a future where otherworldly knowledge helps improve life on Earth.
Business professor Alison Taylor (left) and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman speak at Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)
In a wide-ranging conversation, Bill Ackman, the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, sits down with business professor Alison Taylor to discuss the activist investor playbook and how it applies to the social and political realms. They dig into free speech, Ackman’s notoriously long posts on X, the conversation around Harvard and DEI as well as the intersection of power, voice and wealth.
Political reformer Andrew Yang speaks at Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Jason Redmond / TED
American politics has an incentives problem, says political reformer Andrew Yang. The current system caters to primary voters, which has created a disconnect between overall Congressional approval and reelection rates. How do we realign incentives to make government work for more people? Yang shows why nonpartisan primaries and ranked-choice voting could be the answer.
Journalist and editor Bari Weiss speaks at Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
In an unflinching look at issues that widen the political divide in the US, journalist and editor Bari Weiss highlights why courage is the most important virtue — and shares examples of people who have wielded it. She urges us all to say what we believe in the face of conformity and silence.
Marketing professor Scott Galloway speaks at Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway dissects the data showing that, in the US, younger people are worse off financially than their parents were at the same age. He shows the knock-on effects of this theft of generational wealth, asking: If we allow this to keep happening, do we really love our kids?
The audience gives a standing ovation at Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)
TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.
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After going heavy on horror in October, Hulu has something for nearly everyone in November. There’s Hulu Original comedy Quiz Lady, starring Sandra Oh and Awkwafina as sisters on a journey to pay off debt by winning game shows (Nov. 3); and Black Cake, a serial drama based on Charmaine Wilkerson’s book of the same…
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AI is everywhere, and it’s only going to continue taking over our lives. You don’t even need to download anything AI-specific in order to try it out for yourself. In fact, you can do it right from Instagram. Meta is now rolling out its AI chatbots to its various products—including Instagram, WhatsApp, and…
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While the headlining announcement of Meta Connect 2023 might be the Meta Quest 3, AI made its own significant splash. Like all other tech companies right now, Meta is pouring resources into artificial intelligence, and previewed a slew of new AI features coming to its apps and services over the next few months months.
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The 2022 TED Fellows at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2021 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Session 2 of TED Fellows talks brought us yet another incredible group of individuals doing wildly different things in wildly different places. Eleven speakers and one performer took us across the globe to share their bold plans for social impact, technological innovation, cultural shifts and more.
The event: Talks from Session 2 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022, hosted by TED’s Shoham Arad and Lily James Olds
When and where: Sunday, April 10, 2022, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Speakers: Channing Gerard Joseph, Clementine Jacoby, Jawad Sharif, Adjany Costa, Olga Kitaina, Wiatta Thomas, Robert Katzschmann, Albert Cahn, Heejae Lim, Kiana Hayeri, Melaku Belay
Music: With infectious rhythms, “Blinky” Bill Sellanga delivers another killer set of his songs “Jam Now Simmer Down” and “Dracula” to open up the session of talks.
“Blinky” Bill Sellanga performs at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
The talks in brief:
Channing Gerard Joseph speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Channing Gerard Joseph, author, queer culture historian
Big idea: Learning Black queer history is crucial to understanding our shared history.
Why? Black queer communities have largely been erased from history — perceived as immoral, deviant and even dangerous. Thus many don’t know how Black queer people have shaped American history — people like Bayard Rustin who organized the 1963 March on Washington or Francis Thompson who helped shaped the course of Reconstruction and support for the 14th Amendment. Take the fight for queer liberation, for instance. The accepted narrative is that it all started with the Stonewall Inn uprising, which sprouted Pride celebrations … but that isn’t exactly true, says Joseph. The foundation of self-acceptance and solidarity needed for the courageous, confident community to take root had been fostered long before thanks to William Dorsey Swan, the first drag queen. Joseph shares the little-known yet storied history of Swan and the birth of drag, tracing its origins back to the Emancipation Day Parade, a celebration of freedom for Black Americans. Today, drag is mainstream, from documentaries like Paris Is Burning to television shows such as Pose and RuPaul’s Drag Race, without much of a nod to its revolutionary beginnings. The power to choose how we define ourselves is more important than ever. As long as the term queen lives on, it pays homage to a century-and-a-half long celebration of African American liberation, says Joseph. But that also begs the question: How many other Black queer stories have been erased from historical record, and what could those stories teach us about who we are?
Clementine Jacoby speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Clementine Jacoby, criminal justice technology entrepreneur
Big idea: Despite checking all the boxes and meeting all the requirements, hundreds of thousands of people are stuck in prison or on parole due to the faulty, incomplete databases that form the backbone of the criminal justice system. By connecting these stale and scattered databases, we can get these people out of the prison system and help ensure they stay out.
How? From policymakers to parole officers, everyone in the criminal justice system agrees that bad data keeps people stuck in the system. The reason is simple: vital information related to drug testing, fines, housing and employment is kept in siloed and stale databases, leading to information bottlenecks. Tracking down all the data requires a level of time and energy that is difficult to maintain by parole officers due to their already overwhelming work schedules. At Recidiviz, an engineering nonprofit, Clementine Jacoby works to connect the five databases that control parole and release eligibility. One of her tools helps parole officers identify who is eligible for parole, who is missing a final requirement and who needs the most help. They launched the tool in Idaho, and after just six months, five percent of people on parole and probation were moved to lower levels of supervision — or out of the criminal justice system entirely. Data won’t entirely fix the US criminal justice system, but it can help the 200,000 people stuck in it due to slow data, offer corrections leaders new ways to gauge program success and inform policymakers of better ways to understand the impacts of both new and engrained justice system laws.
Jawad Sharif speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Jawad Sharif, documentary filmmaker
Big idea: Documentary film is a space for debate and dialogue that challenges the danger of reducing reality to a singular story.
How? As a filmmaker, Jawad Sharif amplifies the unheard voices of his homeland Pakistan. “I decided to show this richness by telling the stories of communities that didn’t fit in the single narrative of my country — a narrative that dictates how we have to think and how we have to live.” says Sharif. His filmmaking has led him to the second-highest mountain in the world, K-2, where he followed the path of Pakistani mountaineers like Hassan Sadpara, who make dangerous treks carrying the luggage of foreign climbers. His art introduced him to Faqeer Zulfiqar, one of the only musicians in Pakistan who plays the ancient boreendo instrument. It also led him to Sarah Gill, Pakistan’s first transgender doctor — a massive achievement in the face of discrimination. Sharif’s documentary films give voice to the free thinkers of his country. By countering a narrative that nurtures fundamentalism, he uses this medium as both an act of defiance and an act of creation.
Adjany Costa speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Adjany Costa, Indigenous conservation champion
Big idea: To preserve key ecosystems around the world, global conservation efforts should center the voices of those in communities that are most vulnerable.
How? In places like the Angolan village of Luchaze, generational knowledge, storytelling and ancient wisdom play a key role in community wellbeing — but conservationist Adjany Costa notes that these cultural customs are often left out of environmental conservation strategies. This is what she refers to as “community-based conservation washing.” Similar to the greenwashing associated with many climate actions efforts, it doesn’t consider the environmental, social and economic realities of a place or people. Costa has observed the immediate effects of this exclusionary approach while working in Angola’s Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation area: the KAZA wetlands are teeming with flora and fauna, but its sources in Eastern Angola remain unprotected. Encouraging a new way to think about conservation in Indigenous communities, she asks: What if instead of trying to impose a one-size-fits-all plan on communities, we allow them to use their centenary knowledge to inform policies and practices that are uniquely suited to their way of life? This approach is at the heart of her conservation work, which seeks to empower villagers — like the Luchaze people — to spearhead their own conservation efforts, by teaching them about alternative livelihoods, bridging storytelling gaps that have been created by war and putting the power of decision making back into their hands. Costa acknowledges that while help may come from outside sources, it is ultimately the trust that these communities instill in themselves that will allow them to cultivate a sense of ownership over their land and livelihood. “Lasting conservation comes from within, from believing, from belonging, from dreaming,” she says.
Olga Kitaina speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Olga Kitaina, psychologist, entrepreneur
Big idea: In Russia — with its cultural memory of psychiatry as an instrument of oppression — psychotherapy is a way to move forward from the burden of the past and trauma of the present.
How? During the Soviet Union, psychiatry was often used as a political tool. Since then, Russia has seen major reforms in the use of psychiatry to help instead of traumatize — yet problems remain. Stigmas surrounding mental health endure, and proper channels for support have never been developed. There’s nothing protecting people from scams and fraud, and the lack of proper licensing has allowed the likes of tarot card readers and astrologers to claim the title of psychologist. Kitaina saw an opportunity to remedy that gap and developed an assessment platform to get people the proper professional help they need. As factors such as stress and global issues increase, her goal is to minimize the risk of people giving up on therapy, negatively impacting well-being on both an individual and global scale. On top of that, Kitaina believes that without access to professional help, the biggest losses are the worsening quality of connections between people, the lack of self-awareness and the increase in hatred and violence that flourishes in its stead. Psychotherapy is about more than one individual finding help for their individual issues, she says == when one of us is wounded, all of us share that wound; by knowing ourselves, we become better human beings in our interconnected world, with a real hope of peace.
Wiatta Thomas speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Wiatta Thomas, agribusiness entrepreneur
Big idea: It’s time to abandon the individualistic mindset that often accompanies entrepreneurship and build a better one, founded on working together.
Why? Despite so much money being poured into development in African countries, Wiatta Thomas saw youth failing to launch sustainable agribusinesses due to a lack of access to resources, markets and technology. She recognized this as a symptom of the individualistic entrepreneurial mindset of the American startup scene, and founded Aquafarms Africa — a business incubator that adapts the traditional entrepreneurial approach to a community-focused model. “In attempting to mimic the West, we’ve lost the value of continuing to go forward together,” Thomas says. She and her team share assets like land, water and energy with entrepreneurs looking to launch agribusinesses. This helps farmers grow locally and see an increase in profits in highly sought-after products like yellow and red peppers, lowering the prices for the communities they are being sold to. We need investors to move on from a capitalistic mindset to a mutualistic one, says Thomas, to regenerate the planet, rather than destroy it for short-term profit.
Robert Katzschmann speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Robert Katzschmann, soft-bodied roboticist
Big idea: Instead of building machines out of rigid, noisy materials, let’s build biomimetic machines out of soft, living materials that are adaptive and quiet.
How? Imagine a boat that propels by moving its “tail” from side to side, just like a fish. That’s the kind of machine Robert Katzschmann’s lab builds: pliable-bodied robots that imitate natural movements with artificial muscles. Their biomimetic robotic fish, SoFi, can explore the ocean without propellers, pumping water back and forth inside a deformable tail to imitate the swimming motion of a fish. Now the lab is taking it a step further, outfitting SoFi with artificial muscles that transform electrical energy into movement; when a voltage is applied to SoFi’s “muscles,” they tighten and shorten, just like biological muscle. The possibilities of this technology are thrilling — for instance, robots made of living cells that could heal themselves and proliferate — and promise to more safely integrate into the natural environment while cutting down on noise and pollution.
Albert Cahn speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Albert Cahn, anti-surveillance advocate
Big idea: We’re tracked nearly everywhere we go through the everyday tech we use. The threat is way worse than you imagine, says Albert Cahn — but the solution is simpler than you might think.
How? You may know that advertisers can sell a log of every link you click and place you go on the internet. But did you know the government can buy this kind of data, too? For instance, thanks to commercially available GPS data, the New York City Police Department could buy data on everyone who attended a Black Lives Matter protest, and Texas officials could do the same for visitors to an abortion clinic. And what companies won’t sell, Cahn says, officers can take by force — a product of the US crudely applying its 18th-century Constitution to 21st-century technology. To subvert the immense power this gives the government and police, Cahn proposes “legal firewalls”: laws that wouldn’t fight how our data is collected but rather how it’s exploited by the government. This would look like the creation of new legal codes dictating that our digital lives are outside the bounds of surveillance — and outlawing government data purchases, geofence warrants and police access to other pools of data. Now is the time to take action, Cahn says; otherwise, surveillance will soon be irrevocably embedded into the fabric of society.
Heejae Lim speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Heejae Lim, education technology entrepreneur
Big idea: A parent is a child’s first teacher. We can do a better job of tapping into the incredible potential of families in education.
How? “When teachers and families work together, everyone wins,” says education technology entrepreneur Heejae Lim. Inspired by the tireless efforts of her own mother, who served as de facto translator for Korean immigrant families in their community in England, Lim and her team created a communication app that helps multilingual and underserved families create connections with their children’s teachers in their own languages. Teachers write communications in English and families receive it in their own languages, and vice versa. “We break down the language barrier and bridge cultural and knowledge differences by explaining education concepts and prompting and enabling teachers and parents to talk to each other,” Lim says. All pointing towards the goal of helping the four in five students in the US who come from low-income or immigrant families can thrive.
Kiana Hayeri speaks at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Kiana Hayeri, documentary photographer
Big idea: After a 20-year US occupation and subsequent transition to Taliban rule, the people of Afghanistan continue to face harrowing realities in the face of war and displacement. But many remain hopeful that their country will one day heal.
How? Moved to uncover what life looks like in Afghanistan after its two-decade occupation by the US, documentary photographer Kiana Hayeri traveled across Kabul to chronicle the lives of those who were left to grapple with the aftermath of war. Through a series of vivid images, Hayeri shares what she discovered along the way: a pained mother whose grief was physically debilitating; young sons armed with guns, risking their lives for cause and country; teenagers incarcerated for political charges. In stunning detail, she recounts their stories and transports us to monumental moments — like a military raid on Afghanistan’s National Institute of Music, where a young girl’s dreams of playing music were shattered, and an airport suicide bombing that claimed the lives of more than 100 Afghans. Her journey came to a crushing end the day the Taliban took control of Kabul, and she recalls the mixture of guilt and heartbreak that she felt as she had to leave the country she lived and worked in. Despite death, devastation and deferred dreams, Hayeri hopes for the day when Afghanistan will have the chance.
Melaku Belay and Mehret Mandefro speak at TED Fellows Talks Session 2 at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Melaku Belay, choreographer, dancer
Big idea: Ancient, traditional dances are always in the process of becoming anew. They connect us to the past while they tell stories of the present.
How? Melaku Belay begins with a traditional Ethiopian Eskista dance to the soundscape of Mercato workers pounding recycled metal into new objects in the open-air market. Originating in a moment of danger and improvisation, Eskista is “beauty born out of the desire to survive,” Belay says in his native Amharic, which is translated live onstage by filmmaker and anthropologist Mehret Mandefro, and the sound of the Mercato workers is in honor of the Indigenous trade, knowledge and creativity that thrives there. The improvised Eskista saved the once-homeless Belay when he performed the dance for years in Addis Ababa, dreaming up his present reality of sharing Eskista around the world, telling stories that express a spirit of pride that Ethiopia was never colonized as opposed to stories of hunger or war. Bridging the past, present and future, Belay ends by dancing Eskista to jazz, an African diasporic tradition that resonates with the Ethiopian spirit of freedom. “I love my traditional dance because it is alive in the moment and it leads us to the future,” Belay says.
TED Fellows director Shoham Arad and TED Fellows deputy director Lily James Olds host Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
The TED Fellows program is built around a deep belief in and commitment to socially engaged innovation and human ingenuity. The mission: to shift the balance of power by supporting whole individuals, both personally and professionally. At Session 1 of TED Fellows talks at TED2022, 11 speakers and two performers shared world-changing ideas and innovations from the fields of astrophysics, conservation, social change, art and so much more.
The event: Talks from Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022, hosted by TED’s Shoham Arad and Lily James Olds
When and where: Sunday, April 10, 2022, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Speakers: Jessie Christiansen, Adetayo Bamiduro, Gautam Shah, Micaela Mantegna, Ryan Gersava, Enzo Romero, Bree Jones, Lam Ho, Kyra Gaunt, Bektour Iskender, Constance Hockaday
Music: Visual artist and composer Paul Rucker put his strikingly masterful cello technique on display with a haunting yet meditative rendition. And musician “Blinky” Bill Selanga thrilled the audience with his Afrocentric beats and dynamic energy, performing “Kilamu” and “Ama Aje”.
The talk in brief:
Jessie Christiansen speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Jessie Christiansen, planet hunter
Big Idea: The discovery of 5,000 exoplanets (and counting) is more than impressive; their data could answer timeless questions about our very existence.
How? When Jessie Christiansen joined NASA’s Kepler mission in 2010, she’d already spent four years combing through 87,000 stars, searching for an exoplanet. On her second day of the mission, she’d found her first and second. As of March 2022, 5,000 exoplanets have been found, and the new data means we can finally ask bigger questions: Can planets exist without a star? Can they orbit each other? How many are like Earth? How are planets made? And perhaps most famously: Where do we come from, and how did we get here? “There’s a saying that this generation was born too late to explore the Earth and too soon to explore space. That’s not true anymore,” Christiansen says.
Adetayo Bamiduro speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Adetayo Bamiduro, motorcycle financing entrepreneur
Big idea: Africa is being left behind in the transition to clean mobility. Motorcycles are the secret to a cleaner, more profitable future for the continent.
How? By 2050, Lagos, Nigeria will outgrow many cities in the world including New York City and Mexico City, becoming home to more than 32 million people. Currently, Lagos and other African mega-cities like it suffer from inadequate road infrastructure, pollution, congestion and poor conditions. One of the many impacted by these issues is the African motorcycle taxi driver, who is excluded from the formal economy, left to the mercy of polluting vehicles and high costs due to exploitative loans sharks. At MIT, Bamiduro met his business partner, and together they embarked on a fix: an integrated approach to the design, manufacturing and financing operations targeted at highly vulnerable informal groups. Broken down into three parts, their solution provides motorcycle taxi drivers with access to electric vehicles and batteries, maintenance and insurance and emergency assistance, helping more than 15,000 drivers renew their livelihoods. By 2025, their goal is to provide electric mobility solutions to 150,000 drivers, paving the way towards a more sustainable and prosperous future for the world’s youngest and fastest-growing continent.
Gautam Shah speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Gautam Shah, conservationist
Big idea: Wildlife conservation efforts could be more successful if we create and strengthen our relationships with other species. Advanced technologies like the metaverse could play an essential role.
How? “If we want to preserve all life on Earth, we need to create relationships with all life on Earth,” says Gautam Shah, whose combined passion for wildlife and technology makes him acutely aware of the disconnect between humans and other species. Technology has helped us collect lots of data about our fellow non-human inhabitants of Earth, but Shah observes that this data hasn’t been fully contextualized for the millions of people around the world who express interest in wildlife. His solution? A unique digital identity for animals that allows them to exist in virtual spaces like the metaverse, bringing their stories closer to us. By digitally recreating the events that happen in nature — from elephant migration to deforestation — Shah believes that humans could use the metaverse to feel less detached from and more engaged with their natural environment.
Micaela Mantegna speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Micaela Mantegna, video game lawyer
Big idea: How do we save the metaverse from becoming a bad internet sequel? Basic human qualities of kindness and connection.
How? “The metaverse is here and is already on fire,” says Micaela Mantegna. At a cross-section between augentmented and physical reality, the metaverse has the frightening potential of inheriting the worst traits of the internet, with VR and neurotechnology using involuntary data to create, as Mantagna puts it, “a capitalism of corporeal surveillance.” To save us from this fate, a coordination of engineering and law, based on kindness and connection, must be implemented to ensure content portability across different software environments and identical legal standards throughout. “It’s not every day that humanity has the chance to create new a reality, so, my invitation to you: let’s make it a good one,” she says.
Ryan Gersava speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Ryan Gersava, social innovator, educator
Big idea: Building a world where all people — including those with disabilities and chronic illnesses — can find belonging starts with healing.
How? Social innovator, educator Ryan Gersava is one of the nearly billion people worldwide living with a disability, which often leads to chronic illness and decreased chances of employment, lack of social protection and extreme poverty. His healing journey led him to start an online vocational school in the Philippines, Virtualahan, which provides training to people with disabilities, recovering addicts and others who struggle to find employment. So far they’ve graduated hundreds of people in more than 60 cities and provinces all over the Philippines, setting them up to earn an average of 40-60 percent above minimum wage. Now he’s calling on organizations to invest in talent with disabilities, and for all of us to investigate our biases around disability and chronic illness, which makes it difficult and painful for people to disclose their conditions. “There’s no need to suffer in silence anymore,” Gersava says. “I invite you to be part of this movement.”
Enzo Romero speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Enzo Romero, bionic innovator
Big idea: Prosthesis for developing nations should be designed locally, with the needs of the communities they are built for in mind.
Why? As a child born without his right hand, Enzo Romero was astonished and inspired by the prosthetics he would see his favorite movie characters (like Luke Skywalker) wearing. But in his home country of Peru, they are far too expensive for the majority of amputees. With the intent of creating functional and affordable options, Romero and his team at LAT Bionics isolated the most used occupational gestures: pinch, cylindrical and lateral, and designed mechanical and myoelectric prostheses around them. Their devices, such as the Maki, which runs on mechanical activation, and the Pisko, which runs on electronic activation, cost a fraction of what imported tech does. Why? The parts are 3D printed with materials mainly sourced from recycled plastic bottles. “We have the capacity to develop our own technology, having the necessities of our people in mind, so then people with disabilities and limited resources can live life again,” Romero says.
Bree Jones speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Bree Jones, equitable housing developer
Big idea: Development and homeownership opportunities in overlooked neighborhoods are possible — without the displacement of existing residents.
How? Systemic barriers like redlining have (and continue to) keep Black communities from building wealth through real estate and other assets. Housing advocate Bree Jones explains how developing neighborhoods often are subjected to two trajectories: people move away and the area is deemed a risky investment, so either the quality of life there decays or the neighborhood is gentrified and new residents capitalize off of the distress of legacy residents by scooping up undervalued real estate and selling it back at a higher price. To end these toxic cycles of the racial wealth gap, Jones founded Parity, a nonprofit that creates upfront demand for homeownership in neighborhoods experiencing hyper vacancy by tapping into existing social networks. They’re doing this by leading the purchase and construction of vacant homes and selling them at affordable prices; helping people attain creditworthiness; and preventing displacement, allowing current residents to accrue wealth they can pass on to the next generation. “We’re healing the social fabric of the neighborhood as we’re rebuilding the built environment,” Jones says.
Lam Ho speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Lam Ho, legal aid activist
Big idea: The way the American legal system works needs to change. Clients deserve to have agency over their own cases in court – and lawyers should support them with their knowledge of the law.
How? As a lawyer, Lam Ho witnessed the same thing happen in courtrooms across the US: clients aren’t given the chance to contribute their perspective during their own legal proceedings. Ho’s mother didn’t have a say in her divorce because she didn’t have an attorney and Ho thought by becoming a lawyer he could help people like her but instead, Ho realized he became a part of the problem. Instead of forcing families with limited resources to accommodate lawyers and their voices being silenced, Ho wants the dynamic of the US legal system to flip. He founded Beyond Legal Aid so lawyers can change the system from within by allowing clients to be participants in the process – rather than be subjected to it. By inviting clients to tell their own stories in court, their own way, justice can be created – even when the law is wrong. “We can give advice and empower them to navigate the law, but ultimately follow their lead and defer to their decisions.” says Ho.
Kyra D. Gaunt speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Kyra Gaunt, ethnomusicologist
Big idea: Musical play could be an empowering experience for young Black girls through which they can learn to love their own voices and disrupt the trends of anti-Black, patriarchal music.
How? As an ethnomusicologist, Kyra Gaunt studies the consequences of intimate bedroom musical play in Black girls, trying to understand how they could preserve the integrity of their own voices while technology and the media often misrepresent them. After years of viewing thousands of viral dance videos posted to the internet, she has made a few disturbing realizations, like the fact that many girls perform to songs that are produced, engineered and written by men, singing along to lyrics that often express anti-Black, patriarchal sentiments. Music and dance are therapeutic in many ways, particularly for Black girls whose musical play happens during their formative years, but many songs topping today’s charts are peppered with musical mansplaining that can have damaging implications for girls as they grow up to navigate situations like dating. Gaunt believes that Black girls could disrupt the stereotypes and stigmas created by algorithms on online platforms by learning to love their own voice. Whether this means producing their own dance songs or supporting female musicians, they could chart their own revolution in sound.
Bektour Iskender speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Bektour Iskender, independent news publisher
Big idea: Journalism is a sword and shield against international crime and its leaders.
How? What makes criminal organizations strong? Their strong cross-border connections. They operate over long distances, build efficient logistics and hide their wealth across man jurisdictions. Iskender is one of the founders of Kloop, a self-described, very unusual media organization that reveals these secret operations. Initially a new website and journalism school, Kloop evolved as its students grew older and more ambitious alongside the stories they sought to cover — and became part of an expansive media network reporting on international organized crime. Their investigations put Central Asia on the map like never before. His organization’s work uncovered a corruption scandal that rocked his home country of Kyrgyzstan and sparked protests that eventually forced the president himself to resign, among several other revelations. The story Iskender shares only exemplifies the takeaways he’d like the world to understand. First, journalism networks are incredibly efficient, important and provide safety. Two, support local media organizations all around the world for their unique insights and connections. Recently, Kloop had started to branch out, making a second home in Ukraine. Highlighting his points, Iskender posits that a better linked and funded local journalism collaboration could have saved many lives preceding Russia’s war in Ukraine. Which leads to his third and final point: We must expand the cross-border networks outside of the media world, too. Because every exposed corrupt official, every organized crime leader is a chance to protect our world not only from smugglers and thieves, but also dictators and warmongers.
Constance Hockaday speaks at Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022: A New Era on April 10, 2022, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Constance Hockaday, artist
Big idea: To achieve our hopes and goals individually and as a society, we need to fundamentally remodel our leadership styles to be more inclusive, collaborative and compassionate.
How? Though we live in a diverse and ever-changing world, our leadership models are archaic, narrow-visioned and stagnant. To illuminate new modes of leadership, Constance Hockaday invited artists from various backgrounds to design, write, create and perform public addresses as part of her Artists In Presidents project. She learned that leadership begins when one can express their autonomy, agency and desires: we need to be able to believe that our hopes and ambitions for a better world are possible. Belief does not form in a vacuum and it cannot be sustained alone—it’s crucial that we come together to share and build our interconnected dreams. Leadership, Hockaday says, is the ability to listen to these hopes and goals, however fragmented or vague, and guide people towards the truth of what they want and how they can achieve it. Leadership is a commitment to people; it is a way to help those around us understand how their individual dreams for the future are aligned with community-created, shared visions for a better world.
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Attendees gather at Session 6 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED)
The feeling of wellbeing has been in short supply the last couple years. In Session 6 of TED2022, we took a crack at restocking that supply — featuring a return of Bill Gates to the TED stage (talking about how to make COVID the last pandemic), a compelling case for the four-day work week and much more.
The event: Talks from TED2022, Session 6: Wellbeing, hosted by TED’s Helen Walters and Whitney Pennington Rodgers
When and where: Tuesday, April 12, 2022, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Speakers: Bill Gates, Jason W. Chin, Juliet Schor, Sergiu P. Pasca, Bevy Smith, Shankar Vedantam
The talk in brief:
Bill Gates speaks at Session 6 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED)
Bill Gates, technologist, philanthropist
Big idea: We can make COVID-19 the last pandemic.
How? COVID has killed millions, upended economies and increased inequity. Now we must seize the opportunity to learn from it and ensure everyone has a chance to live a healthy and productive life. Taking lessons from ancient Rome, where a devastating fire led Emperor Augustus to create a permanent firefighting organization, Gates thinks we need to invest in and practice pandemic prevention through the creation of a global fast-response pandemic-fighting outfit could get to the epicenter of newly detected pandemics in a matter of days, not months, with the right tools and resources. He calls it the GERM team (GERM = Global Epidemic Response & Mobilization): a full-time group made up of specialists in epidemiology, data science, logistics and more whose mission is to stop outbreaks before they become pandemics. Like firefighters, the GERM team would constantly drill to make sure they could respond quickly and work to improve local health systems in the absence of burgeoning outbreaks and new pathogens. Their goal would be to stop an outbreak within 100 days — a goal which, had it been achieved with COVID, would have stopped 98 percent of the death associated with the disease. In addition to GERM, better diagnostics, infection-blocking tools and easier-to-distribute vaccines will be key to stopping the next pandemic. Finally, and most expensive, we need to invest in improved health systems. The cost to prevent the next pandemic will be tens of billions of dollars, a massive sum but far less than the estimated 14 trillion dollar cost of COVID. “We need to spend billions in order to save trillions,” Gates says.
Jason W. Chin speaks at Session 6 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Jason W. Chin, synthetic biologist
Big Idea: Making a virus-resistant organism by reprogramming the genetic code is not just about stopping the spread of disease — it’s about making a sustainable, circular bio-economy based on nature.
How? The universal DNA code used to make proteins in all life forms and viruses is something we can exploit in multiple applications: from virus-resistant crops to improved drugs to cleaner manufacturing. Jason Chin began with the question, “Does all life need multiple synonymous codons to encode a single amino acid?” and completely replaced and compressed the genetic code of an E.Coli cell, creating the largest synthetic genome ever made. The resulting live cell no longer had the code or machinery that would allow a virus to read its code or depend on it for its own replication, showing that rewriting genetic code could be a route to creating broadly virus-resistant life. Further, by adding synthetic DNA deleted from the genome back into the cell alongside new, engineered translational machinery that reads it, Chin can program cells to make new molecules, or polymers, used to make plastics, materials and drugs including antibiotics, anti-tumor agents. These polymers could enable low-energy, renewable processes — a favorable alternative to plastics derived from crude oil. By reprogramming the universal genetic code, Chin seeks to unlock pathway to closed-loop, low-energy, cellular manufacturing processes. “By taking inspiration from nature and building on the powerful paradigms nature has created, we have the opportunity to build the sustainable industries of the future,” he says.
Juliet Schor speaks at Session 6 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Juliet Schor, economist
Big idea: A four-day week sounds great. But is it realistic?
The answer: Actually, yes — and it not only benefits workers but also companies and society writ large, says Juliet Schor. For almost a decade, companies and governments have been experimenting by offering shorter work hours without pay cuts. The result? Employees are less stressed, value their jobs more, have better lives outside of work — and get as much done in four days than they did in five. As for companies, Schor shares evidence that they’re benefiting from lower turnover, higher-quality applicants and savings on health care. What’s more, shorter work hours reduces carbon emissions: if people are commuting to and spending less time at the office, everybody’s carbon footprint goes down. Schor admits that it’s not feasible for everyone to take advantage of a compressed four-day work week — namely public school teachers and frontline health care workers. But pandemic-driven anxiety and burnout call for brave new experimentation in how we work and live.
Sergiu P. Pasca speaks at Session 6 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Sergiu P. Pasca, neuroscientist
Big Idea: By growing live neural circuits of the human brain in lab settings, we can gain new insight into human biology and usher in a new era of brain disorder research and treatment.
How? Though we’ve studied how the human brain functions through the brains of other animals, the intricate workings of the human brain — and human brain disorders — remain a mystery. This could all change thanks to new research on brain organoids, which are living cellular clumps of neural tissue. Brain organoids are grown by turning skin cells into stem cells, then instructing those stem cells to organize into brain-related structures. Organoids can then be combined into assembloids, creating miniature living circuits that help us better understand how brain biology and activity works. Developing treatments for brain disorders like autism and schizophrenia is especially difficult because we aren’t able to access or replicate live brain tissue from patients — until now. By growing and studying these neural circuits, we can revolutionize our understanding of human brain function, evolution and disease.
Bevy Smith speaks at Session 6 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED)
Bevy Smith, pop culture queen
Big idea: Life gets greater, later.
How? It takes getting to know yourself and settling for nothing less, says Bevy Smith. Once a globe-trotting fashion advertising executive, she realized that while she had succeeded in the traditional sense, she had also settled for a life and persona that didn’t reflect her true self. Her revelation (or “Bevelation”) pushed her to reconsider how settling for cliché goals can be insidious and lead to unhappiness, spurring a renewed life of world travel, cultural immersion, rediscovering the selfhood she had repressed and embracing the art of extending grace to others. Smith recognizes that while her mother’s strength and clarity of self throughout her own life helped give her a blueprint on where to start, she also asked herself three questions that she hopes will help anyone looking to foster positive growth. First: Who am I at my core? Delve deep into yourself to excavate your personhood. Second: How am I being perceived? Be honest with your behaviors and how you affect the people around you. And third: How would I like to be perceived? Do the work and show up for yourself in ways most authentic to pursuing a better life and you’ll love the person who comes forward. Better to bloom late than not at all.
Shankar Vedantam speaks at Session 6 of TED2022: A New Era on April 12, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Shankar Vedantam, journalist, podcast host
Big idea: The predictions we make about our lives tend to be largely misguided because, as we grow and evolve, we chart paths for ourselves that are inevitably different from what we once envisioned. By embracing discomfort, being humble and finding the courage to embark on new adventures, we could work proactively to curate the best version of our future selves.
How? It’s tempting to imagine that the person looking back at you in the mirror many years from now is immediately recognizable, with all your hopes, desires and dreams still intact — but Shankar Vedantam believes this way of thinking can be misleading. It’s what he describes as the “illusion of continuity”: the idea that our future will be much like the present, with little to no change. Vedantam explains that when we have a change of heart about anything — from our career trajectory to end-of-life care — there’s a lot more at play than we think. Our ever-changing psychological make-up and the plasticity of our brains means we’re constantly evolving — and so, too, are our wants and needs. The illusion of continuity plays out in larger contexts, too: spouses, politicians and defenders of the law often make lasting proclamations and commitments which, with time, grow incompatible with the realities of the future. So how do we tackle this problem? Vedantam makes three suggestions that could help us rise to the occasion. First, accept and welcome change and constantly seek out new ventures and relationships. Second, practice humility, making space for new perspectives that we may have disagreed with in the past. And finally, face challenges bravely, confident that we can develop the skills and abilities to overcome them in the future. “If you can practice these things, your future self will look back and say thank you,” he says.
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Week 7 of TED2020 featured conversations on where the coronavirus pandemic is heading, the case for reparations, how we can better connect with each other and how capitalism must change to build a more equitable society. Below, a recap of insights shared throughout the week.
Bill Gates discusses where the coronavirus pandemic is heading, in conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson at TED2020: Uncharted on June 29, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Bill Gates, technologist, philanthropist
Big idea: The coronavirus pandemic isn’t close to being over, but we’re making scientific progress to mitigate its impact.
How? Bill Gates talks best (and worst) case scenarios for the coronavirus pandemic in the months ahead. This fall could be quite bad in the United States, he admits, as there is speculation among researchers that COVID-19 may be seasonal and its force of infection will increase as the weather cools. But there’s also good progress on the innovation track, he says: the steroid dexamethasone was found to have benefits for critically ill patients, and monoclonal antibodies seem promising, as well. In short: we’ll have some additional support for the fall if things do indeed get worse. Gates also explains the challenges of reducing virus transmission (namely, the difficulty of identifying “superspreaders”); provides an update on promising vaccine candidates; offers his thoughts on reopening; takes a moment to address conspiracy theories circulating about himself; and issues a critical call to fellow philanthropists to ramp up their action, ambition and awareness to create a better world for all.
Chloé Valdary shares the thinking behind the “theory of enchantment,” a framework that uses pop culture as an educational tool. She speaks with TED business curator Corey Hajim at TED2020: Uncharted on June 30, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Chloé Valdary, writer, entrepreneur
Big Idea: Pop culture can show us how to love ourselves and one another, the first step in creating systemic change.
How? Chloé Valdary developed the “theory of enchantment,” a social-emotional learning program that applies pop culture to teach people how to meet the hardships of life by developing tools for resilience, including learning to love oneself. This love for oneself, she believes, is foundational to loving others. Built on the idea of “enchantment” — the process by which you delight someone with a concept, idea, personality or thing — the program uses beloved characters like Disney’s Moana, lyrics from Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé and even trusted brands like Nike to teach three principles: treat people like human beings, not political abstractions; never criticize a person to tear them down, only to uplift and empower them; and root everything you do in love and compassion. The program aims to engender love and ultimately advance social change. “If you don’t understand the importance of loving yourself and loving others, you’re more prone to descend into rage and to map into madness and become that bad actor and to treat people unfairly, unkindly,” she says. “As a result that will, of course, contribute to a lot of the systemic injustice that we’re seeing today.”
Economist and author William “Sandy” Darity makes the case for reparations — and explains why they must be structured to eliminate the racial wealth gap in the United States. He speaks with TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers at TED2020: Uncharted on June 30, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
William “Sandy” Darity, economist, author
Big Idea: The time has come to seriously talk about reparations: direct financial payments to the descendants of slaves for hundreds of years of injustice.
How? A growing consciousness of America’s systemic white supremacy (built on mass incarceration, police violence, discrimination in markets and the immense wealth gap between black and white communities) has brought contemporary politics to a boil. How does the country dismantle the intertwined legacies of slavery and the unequal, trans-generational wealth distribution that has overwhelmingly benefited white people? Reparations are not only a practical means to address the harm visited upon Black Americans by centuries of economic exclusion, but also a chance for white America to acknowledge the damage that has been done — a crucial step to reconciliation and true equality. To truly redress the harm done to descendants of slavery, reparations must seek to eliminate the racial wealth gap. Darity believes that, for the first time since Reconstruction promised formerly enslaves people “40 acres and a mule,” reparations are entering the mainstream political discussion, and a once wildly speculative idea seems to lie within the realm of possibility. “It’s always an urgent time to adopt reparations,” Darity says. “It has been an urgent time for the 155 years since the end of American slavery, where no restitution has been provided. It’s time for the nation to pay the debt; it’s time for racial justice.”
“Hope is the oxygen of democracy and we, through inequality and the economic injustice, we see far too much of an America literally asphyxiating hope,” says Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. He speaks with head of TED Chris Anderson at TED2020: Uncharted on July 1, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation
Big idea: We need to consider a new kind of philanthropy and capitalism rooted in accountability and equity.
Why? Darren Walker says wealthy philanthropists shouldn’t ask themselves, “What do I do to give back?” — but rather, “What am I willing to give up?” Discussing how comfort and privilege intermix to contribute to injustice, Walker shows why for true progress to be made, tax policies must be changed for wealthier citizens and entitlement cast aside. In a country full of exhaustion, grief and anger, Walker calls for nuance in handling complex ideas like defunding the police. In order for change to be long-lasting, we must eliminate tokenism and hold corporations accountable long after they fade from the day’s headlines. Quoting Langston Hughes, Walker says: “I believe that we no longer can wait for that ‘someday’ — that this generation should not have to say ‘someday in the future, America will be America.’ The time for America to be America is today.”
Quote of the talk: “Hope is the oxygen of democracy and we, through inequality and the economic injustice, we see far too much of an America literally asphyxiating hope. Just as we saw the murder of George Floyd, the breath was taken out of his body by a man who was there to protect and promote. It’s a metaphor for what is happening in our society, where people who are Black and Brown, queer, marginalized are literally being asphyxiated by a system that does not recognize their humanity. If we are to build back better, that must change.”
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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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TED2019 may be past, but the TED community is busy as ever. Below, a few highlights.
Amplifying 2 million women across the U.S. Activist Ai-jen Poo, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza and Planned Parenthood past president Cecile Richards have joined forces to launch Supermajority, which aims to train 2 million women in the United States to become activists and political leaders. To scale, the political hub plans to partner with local nonprofits across the country; as a first step, the co-founders will embark on a nationwide listening tour this summer. (Watch Poo’s, Garza’s and Richards’ TED Talks.)
Sneaker reseller set to break billion-dollar record. Sneakerheads, rejoice! StockX, the sneaker-reselling digital marketplace led by data expert Josh Luber, will soon become the first company of its kind with a billion-dollar valuation, thanks to a new round of venture funding. StockX — a platform where collectible and limited-edition sneakers are bought and exchanged through real-time bidding — is an evolution of Campless, Luber’s site that collected data on rare sneakers. In an interview with The New York Times, Luber said that StockX pulls in around $2 million in gross sales every day. (Watch Luber’s TED Talk.)
A move to protect iconic African-American photo archives. Investment expert Mellody Hobson and her husband, filmmaker George Lucas, filed a motion to acquire the rich photo archives of iconic African-American lifestyle magazines Ebony and Jet. The archives are owned by the recently bankrupt Johnson Publishing Company; Hobson and Lucas intend to gain control over them through their company, Capital Holdings V. The collections include over 5 million photos of notable events and people in African American history, particularly during the Civil Rights Movement. In a statement, Capital Holdings V said: “The Johnson Publishing archives are an essential part of American history and have been critical in telling the extraordinary stories of African-American culture for decades. We want to be sure the archives are protected for generations to come.” (Watch Hobson’s TED Talk.)
10 TED speakers chosen for the TIME100. TIME’s annual round-up of the 100 most influential people in the world include climate activist Greta Thunberg, primatologist and environmentalist Jane Goodall, astrophysicist Sheperd Doeleman and educational entrepreneur Fred Swaniker — also Nancy Pelosi, the Pope, Leana Wen, Michelle Obama, Gayle King (who interviewed Serena Williams and now co-hosts CBS This Morning home to TED segment), and Jeanne Gang. Thunberg was honored for her work igniting climate change activism among teenagers across the world; Goodall for her extraordinary life work of research into the natural world and her steadfast environmentalism; Doeleman for his contribution to the Harvard team of astronomers who took the first photo of a black hole; and Swaniker for the work he’s done to educate and cultivate the next generation of African leaders. Bonus: TIME100 luminaries are introduced in short, sharp essays, and this year many of them came from TEDsters including JR, Shonda Rhimes, Bill Gates, Jennifer Doudna, Dolores Huerta, Hans Ulrich Obrest, Tarana Burke, Kai-Fu Lee, Ian Bremmer, Stacey Abrams, Madeleine Albright, Anna Deavere Smith and Margarethe Vestager. (Watch Thunberg’s, Goodall’s, Doeleman’s, Pelosi’s, Pope Francis’, Wen’s, Obama’s, King’s, Gang’s and Swaniker’s TED Talks.)
Meet Sports Illustrated’s first hijab-wearing model. Model and activist Halima Aden will be the first hijab-wearing model featured in Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue, debuting May 8. Aden will wear two custom burkinis, modestly designed swimsuits. “Being in Sports Illustrated is so much bigger than me,” Aden said in a statement, “It’s sending a message to my community and the world that women of all different backgrounds, looks, upbringings can stand together and be celebrated.” (Watch Aden’s TED Talk.)
Scotland post-surgical deaths drop by a third, and checklists are to thank. A study indicated a 37 percent decrease in post-surgical deaths in Scotland since 2008, which it attributed to the implementation of a safety checklist. The 19-item list created by the World Health Organization is supposed to encourage teamwork and communication during operations. The death rate fell to 0.46 per 100 procedures between 2000 and 2014, analysis of 6.8 million operations showed. Dr. Atul Gawande, who introduced the checklist and co-authored the study, published in the British Journal of Surgery, said to the BBC: “Scotland’s health system is to be congratulated for a multi-year effort that has produced some of the largest population-wide reductions in surgical deaths ever documented.” (Watch Gawanda’s TED Talk.) — BG
And finally … After the actor Luke Perry died unexpectedly of a stroke in February, he was buried according to his wishes: on his Tennessee family farm, wearing a suit embedded with spores that will help his body decompose naturally and return to the earth. His Infinity Burial Suit was made by Coeio, led by designer, artist and TED Fellow Jae Rhim Lee. Back in 2011, Lee demo’ed the mushroom burial suit onstage at TEDGlobal; now she’s focused on testing and creating suits for more people. On April 13, Lee spoke at Perry’s memorial service, held at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank; Perry’s daughter revealed his story in a thoughtful instagram post this past weekend. (Watch Lee’s TED Talk.) — EM
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