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Evil Week: Pass Off Cheap Baked Goods As the Expensive Stuff

Welcome to Evil Week, our annual dive into all the slightly sketchy hacks we’d usually refrain from recommending. Want to weasel your way into free drinks, play elaborate mind games, or, er, launder some money? We’ve got all the info you need to be successfully unsavory.

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Breathing deep and embracing humanity’s full potential: Notes on Session 7 of TED2023

Head of TED Chris Anderson and Audacious Project Executive Director Anna Verghese host Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

In the soul-seeking Session 7 of TED2023 a group of extraordinary individuals considered counternarratives to the doom-and-gloom that pervades much of modern media and sought to recalibrate our thinking on what it means to be human.

The event: Talks from Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and Audacious Project Executive Director Anna Verghese

When and where: Wednesday, April 19, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Natalie Cargill, Sixto Cancel, Richard V. Reeves, Coleman Hughes, Anne Morriss, Kevin Stone, Sarah Jones, Sheena Meade

Singer-songwriter Maria Arnal performs at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Performance: Singer-songwriter Maria Arnal lit up the TED stage, weaving together folk and techno-pop to create a dazzling soundscape.

The talks in brief:

Philanthropic mastermind Natalie Cargill speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

What would you do with 3.5 trillion dollars? Philanthropic mastermind Natalie Cargill has used this thought experiment, grounded in thousands of hours of expert research, to investigate what it would take to actually solve some of our most pressing problems. With this amount of money, she says, we could tackle extreme poverty, pandemic prevention, climate change, nuclear war, runaway AI and more – with just one year’s worth of funding. Where would this money come from, you may ask? If everyone in the global top one percent of earners (i.e., people making $60,000 a year or more after tax) gave away just ten percent of their income for a year, we’d be there. Cargill’s point is that we’re not doomed to suffer through unnecessary and avoidable issues. “Huge problems can be solved, and philanthropy can be good,” she says.

Foster care transformation advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Sixto Cancel speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

As adults, foster youth are two times more likely than war veterans to experience and suffer from PTSD, says child welfare advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Sixto Cancel. He shares his story of entering foster care at 11 months old, being placed with a foster family at nine years old and then, at 15, collecting enough evidence to prove he was unsafe in that home and re-entering the system. Eventually, Cancel was reunited with relatives who happened to live only 58 miles away from where he grew up, and while he was grateful, he couldn’t help but think about how different his life could have been had he been raised by people who loved him all along. With this in mind, Cancel founded Think of Us: a nonprofit dedicated to engaging with youth, parents and relatives to redesign foster care into a system where children are raised by kin in supportive and safe environments. He shares three urgent messages: (1) Children should be raised by their families and the majority of foster care should be replaced with kinship care. (2) We need to center those who have been impacted by the system when redesigning it. (3) We all have a role to play in this cause. “Together … we can literally ensure that millions of children are living in a home where they can say, ‘I am loved,'” says Cancel.

Social mobility scholar Richard V. Reeves speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

While researching gender inequality in education, social mobility scholar Richard V. Reeves made a surprising discovery: when it comes to a school without barriers, girls have the academic advantage. It’s not a question of intelligence; it’s simply that the part of the brain associated with organization and impulse control develops later in boys than girls — meaning doing chemistry homework can be a lot more difficult for male students. Reeves suggests a more equitable school system would start boys a year after girls and makes the case for hiring more male teachers — particularly in English, where more young men struggle — to give boys role models in the classroom. “The future cannot be female. Nor of course, can the future be male. The future has to be for every single one of us … We have to rise together,” says Reeves.

Podcast host Coleman Hughes speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

The percentage of Black and white Americans who felt good about race relations nosedived from 2013 to 2021. Given this concerning trend, writer and podcast host Coleman Hughes thinks we need a new racial paradigm. Our current fixation on racial identity — where “we let racial essences define who we are” — does more harm than good, he says. He advocates for rehabilitating a now-controversial ideology: colorblindness. Far from being conservative or white supremacist, as some critics allege, Hughes says colorblindness has its roots in the US antislavery movement and is the “best principle with which to govern a multiracial, multiethnic democracy.” But wouldn’t a colorblind approach render us unable to fight racism, gutting key policies like affirmative action? Hughes thinks replacing race-based policies with class-based ones would both reduce inequality and ease racial tensions. Class is almost always a better proxy for disadvantage than race, he says, and class-based policies are less divisive because they “do not penalize anyone for immutable biological traits.”

Leadership visionary Anne Morriss speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Leadership visionary and cohost of the TED Audio Collective podcast Fixable Anne Morriss offers five steps to solve any workplace problem, starting with curiosity. First, she says, ask questions that get to the root of the issue, being open to the idea that it could be you. Next, formulate a “good enough plan,” and then talk to those with different perspectives to build trust and improve your plan. Finally, honor the past as you set a vision for the future, recognizing what people don’t want to lose. In the last step, take action with urgency, effectively putting into place everything you’ve learned in the previous steps. “The most effective leaders we know solve problems at an accelerated pace, while also taking responsibility for the success and the wellbeing of their customers and employees and shareholders,” says Morris. “They move fast and fix things.”

Orthopedic surgeon Kevin Stone speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

From synthetic embryos to lab-grown skin, we live in a brave new world of stem cell advances. So why can it still take years to recover from a knee injury? When you tear your ACL, the stem cells in your body produce daughter cells called progenitor cells that orchestrate the body’s healing response. But this response only activates after the initial injury and can prove insufficient over time. By strengthening this response, orthopedic surgeon and TED community member Kevin Stone hopes to make ACL injury recovery a matter of weeks, not months or years. 

Polymorphic filmmaker Sarah Jones speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

With chameleonic ease, polymorphic filmmaker Sarah Jones slips into and out an array of characters in a talk exploring cancel culture, which she defines as when people (both powerful and marginalized) are “silenced, excluded, disempowered and disinvited from the larger conversation.” Jones shares her own painful experience being canceled ahead of the release of her 2022 film Sell/Buy/Date, digging into the nuances of this much-discussed, often nebulous phenomenon. In her view, cancellation doesn’t improve the larger culture of inequality but instead creates more hurt and angry people. She thinks the solution to actually holding others to account is to start by being self-accountable — noticing any tendencies in ourselves that could be hurtful and trying to unlearn them — and then doing the hard work of trying to help others see the biases they may be blind to.

Second chance advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Sheena Meade speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

“For many Americans, a criminal record — even for a petty offense — can hold them back forever,” says Desmond Meade, introducing his wife, Sheena Meade, CEO of the Clean Slate Initiative and a 2023 Audacious Project grantee. Like many, her future was heavily affected by a minor conviction (bouncing a check to pay for her family’s groceries), and this was enough to bar her from housing and education opportunities for years later. Around 100 million Americans — or one in three — have an arrest or conviction record. More than 30 million of them are eligible for clearance, but fewer than 10 percent pursue it because it’s expensive and many don’t even know it’s an option. Meade makes the case for clean slate laws that automate the sealing of arrest and conviction records after people have completed their sentence and remain crime-free for a set period of time. In the last three years, she and her team have helped pass laws in six states, helping millions move on with their lives. With the Audacious Project, they’re working towards passing these laws in 50 states, so an additional 14 million people get a true second chance.

TED community members applaud the speakers of Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

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A New Era: Notes from Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022

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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Shaping the future: Notes from the TED Fellows Session of TEDMonterey

“Sensor data can change the game by providing a common source of truth that enables coordinated action required to maintain life-saving equipment,” says Nithya Ramanathan during the Fellows Session at TEDMonterey: The Case for Optimism on August 2, 2021. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

The TED Fellows are known to be a range of multifaceted souls, making possible the impossible. The eight speakers and one performance on stage at TEDMonterey exemplified this year’s (and every year’s) cohort of amazing people shaping the future and rising to the challenge of making the world better than it’s been left.

The event: TEDMonterey: Fellows Session, hosted by TED’s Shoham Arad and Lily James Olds on Monday, August 2, 2021

Speakers: Daniel Alexander Jones, Tom Osborn, Jenna C. Lester, Alicia Chong Rodriguez, Jim Chuchu, Germán Santillán, Lei Li, Nithya Ramanathan

In a breathtaking performance, Daniel Alexander Jones opens the TED Fellows Session at TEDMonterey: The Case for Optimism on August 2, 2021. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Opening the session, performance artist and writer Daniel Alexander Jones evoked the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement with an abridged, rousing performance of the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and closed with a holistic, poetic summary of the talks and the spirit they contained.


Tom Osborn, mental health innovator

Big idea: In areas with limited access to psychologists and psychiatrists, youth trained in evidence-based mental health care can provide support for their peers.

How? Growing up in rural Kenya, Osborn faced enormous pressure to succeed in school and chart a path out of poverty for his family. He suffered from symptoms he now recognizes as anxiety and depression but went without any resources to help him navigate these difficult emotions. As an adult, Osborn works to ensure that the youth in Kenya today have access to mental health support through his organization, the Shamiri Institute. With too few clinicians to serve the population (only two for every one million citizens), the organization trains 18 to 22-year-old Kenyans to deliver evidence-based mental healthcare to their peers. Youth treated through the institute pay under two dollars a session and have already reported reductions in symptoms of anxiety and depression. As Osborn looks to the future, he hopes to use this community-first, youth-oriented model as a template to help kids across the globe lead successful, independent lives.


The harmful patterns and limited scope of diagnosis taught in textbooks and perpetuated in classes around dark skin must end, says Jenna C. Lester during the Fellows Session at TEDMonterey: The Case for Optimism on August 2, 2021. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Jenna C. Lester, dermatologist

Big idea: Dermatologists need to get comfortable with all types of skin colors — and that starts with changing what they learn.

How? Just under half of new dermatologists admit they don’t feel comfortable identifying health issues that make themselves known via skin indicators — such as Lyme disease’s “bullseye” — that may show up differently on darker skin. Lester believes this discomfort leads to poorer health outcomes for people with dark skin and proves ultimately detrimental to the patient-physician relationship. So, she founded the Skin of Color Clinic, a program on a mission to help doctors unlearn the harmful patterns and limited scope of diagnosis taught in textbooks and perpetuated in classes around dark skin. She hopes that with her efforts, combined with other similar initiatives around the US, to right the equilibrium of over- and underrepresentation in the dermatological field so that everyone — no matter their skin tone — can have access to quality health and wellness.


Introducing a smart bra that can track and support women’s heart health, Alicia Chong Rodriguez aims to close the gender gap in cardiovascular research. She speaks at TEDMonterey: The Case for Optimism on August 2, 2021. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Alicia Chong Rodriguez, health care technology entrepreneur

Big idea: A smart bra that can track and support women’s heart health.

How? About 44 million women in the US live with heart disease, but helpful data is severely lacking. Why? Because most cardiovascular research is performed on men, resulting in therapies largely designed for male bodies. Rodriguez wants to close that data gap — with a bra. By wearing an everyday bra fit with special biomarker sensors, life-saving data could be gathered continuously in real time. The sensors track heart rhythm, breathing, temperature, posture and movement and update this information to the wearer’s records — so that doctors can understand their health better with troves of information to back it up. By simply wearing a bra, she says, we could close the data divide and finally usher women’s health care into the 21st century.


Jim Chuchu, filmmaker

Big idea: Stolen African art and artifacts showcased around the world should be returned to museums and cultural institutions on the African continent.

Why? Why are stolen African artifacts still in the possession of Western museums? Chuchu reminds us, many of these cultural artifacts wound up in cities like London and New York because they were looted by colonial forces. Working to return Kenya’s material heritage to the country, he and the International Inventories Programme, an organization he co-founded, are rectifying these injustices. They have created a database of cultural objects held outside of Kenya — locating over 32,000 items so far. Beyond tracking these precious artifacts, Chuchu also hopes to start a public conversation about the morality of holding stolen African art in foreign institutions. “We’re asking for the return of our objects,” he says, “to help us remember who we are.”


Germán Santillán, cultural chocolatier

Big idea: By training a new generation in Indigenous cacao cultivation and culinary methods, Germán Santillán is helping revive the culinary tradition of Oaxacan chocolate.

How? The Mixtec people in Oaxaca, Mexico have been cultivating and consuming chocolate — in ceremonies like marriage or politics — for over 800 years. However, in Mexico today, four out of five chocolate bars are produced using foreign cocoa. Santillán grew up in a Mixtec village in Oaxaca and watched as ancient Mixtec methods long-used to grow cocoa beans and prepare chocolate fell out of use. To revive the rich culinary tradition of chocolate in his region, Santillán and a small group of locals started Oaxacanita Chocolate. Unlike commercial chocolate bars, their Oaxacan chocolate uses native cocoa beans and traditional farming and roasting methods. Not only does their company produce a delicious product, but it has also helped boost his region economically and train a new generation of farmers and cooks in once-disappearing Indigenous techniques. It’s a powerful reminder of how Indigenous knowledge and practices can thrive in a modern context.


 

Lei Li shows how cutting-edge photoacoustic imagery will transform the way we see inside our bodies to detect, track and diagnose disease, during the Fellows Session at TEDMonterey: The Case for Optimism on August 2, 2021. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Lei Li, medical imaging innovator

Big idea: Advanced imaging using light and sound will transform how we see inside our bodies, elevating our ability to detect, track and diagnose disease.

How? The foundation of advanced photoacoustic imaging converts light energy into sound energy, also known as the photoacoustic effect. The process goes like this: Li and his team pulse painless, gentle lasers into living tissue (in this example, he used a mouse), which absorbs the light and rises in temperature, leading to the generation of acoustic waves — or sound — that medical sensors interpret into a high-resolution image. Li shows how the clarity and detail of these images far exceeds those produced by a traditional MRI, CT scan or ultrasound. The applicability of this technology is wide-reaching, from breast cancer diagnosis and human brain imaging to potentially steering medicine-delivering microrobots inside our bodies. Photoacoustic imaging is a fast-growing research field, he says, and the promise for global health is reason enough to sound-off.


Nithya Ramanathan, technologist

Big Idea: Smart sensors are a game changer when it comes to preserving life-saving vaccines.

How? After life-saving technology is deployed to countries with limited infrastructure, Ramanathan realized it is often left unsupported from thereon. Take vaccines for example, if they get too hot or cold on their journey or in storage, they could be ruined before use. Ramanathan talks through real-world examples — one case in particular took place in Stanford Children’s Hospital, where a refrigerator malfunctioning for 8 months meant that over 1,500 kids needed to be re-vaccinated — and the stakes are even higher now with COVID-19. Her solution? Smart sensors in refrigerators where vaccines are stored that monitor temperatures and send out alerts when they are unsafe — as well as data on the best routes to use in an emergency. Ramanathan and her team at Nexleaf, a non-profit she co-founded, have implemented this scalable, cost-effective and vital technology in thousands of locations in Asia and Africa. These simple yet extremely effective tools show what is possible when we invest in collecting and utilizing data.

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Editor’s Picks: A (non-exhaustive) list of our favorite TED Talks of 2020

As we usher out 2020 — the (enter superlative of your choice) year — let’s take a moment to look back before we close the door for good. What captured our imaginations, reflected our emotions and sparked our hope for a better tomorrow? From the wisdom of Dolly Parton to the life-saving potential of snail venom to the transformative work of antiracism, here are some of the TED Talks that stayed with us as the world shifted beneath our feet.

Why do people distrust vaccines? Anthropologist Heidi Larson describes how medical rumors originate, spread and fuel resistance to vaccines worldwide.

Host of Radiolab Jad Abumrad gives a captivating talk on truth, difference, storytelling — and Dolly Parton.

A more equal world starts with you. Yes, it’s that simple, says equity advocate Nita Mosby Tyler.

Housewife-turned-politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya shares a beautiful meditation on the link between fearlessness and freedom.

Backed by the real, often-untold story of Rosa Parks, professor David Ikard makes a compelling case for the power and importance of historical accuracy.

Racism makes our economy worse — and not just for people of color. Public policy expert Heather C. McGhee offers a crucial rethink on how we can create a more prosperous world for all.

In a talk that’s part cultural love letter, part history lesson, France Villarta details the legacy of gender fluidity in his native Philippines — and emphasizes the universal beauty of all people, regardless of society’s labels.

For the poor and vulnerable, the health impacts of climate change are already here. Physician Cheryl Holder calls on doctors, politicians and others to build a health care system that incorporates economic and social justice.

Venom can kill … or it can cure. A fascinating talk from marine chemical biologist Mandë Holford on the potential of animal venom to treat human diseases.

Why has there been so little mention of saving Black lives from the climate emergency? David Lammy, a Member of Parliament for Tottenham, England, talks about the link between climate justice and racial justice.

“It shouldn’t be an act of feminism to know how your body works,” says gynecologist and author Jen Gunter. The era of menstrual taboos is over.

Scientists predict climate change will displace more than 180 million people by 2100. Disaster recovery lawyer Colette Pichon Battle lays out how to prepare for this looming crisis of “climate migration.”

In a talk brimming with original illustrations and animations, visual artist Oliver Jeffers offers observations on the “beautiful, fragile drama of human civilization.”

Prince William, The Duke of Cambridge, calls on us all to rise to our greatest challenge ever: the “Earthshots,” a set of ambitious objectives to repair the planet.

If you: do laundry, are (or have been) pregnant, shop for your household or do similar labor, then by GDP standards, you’re unproductive. Economist Marilyn Waring explains her vision for a better way to measure growth.

The fossil fuel industry is waiting for someone else to pay for climate change. Climate science scholar Myles Allen shares a bold plan for the oil and gas companies responsible for the climate crisis to clean up the mess they made — and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

Just like the rest of 2020, the aftermath of the US presidential election was unprecedented. Learn why the concession speech is one of the most important safeguards for democracy in this prescient talk from lawyer and political commentator Van Jones.

The way we’ve been doing business is hurting us and the environment. What’s the fix? Economist Rebecca Henderson calls for a reimagined capitalism where companies pay for the climate damage they cause.

Author and historian Ibram X. Kendi explains how the concept of antiracism can help you actively uproot injustice and inequality in the world — and replace it with love.

A stunning talk and performance from theater artist Daniel Alexander Jones on how coming undone can be the first step toward transformation.

How do we eradicate racial bias? Psychologist Jennifer L. Eberhardt explores how interrupting and adding friction to our thought processes could address the unfair targeting Black people face at all levels of society.

“Complete silence is very addictive,” says Rebecca Knill, a writer who has cochlear implants that enable her to hear. With humor and charm, she explores the evolution of assistive listening technology — and how we could build a more inclusive world.

Starbucks COO Rosalind G. Brewer invites business leaders to rethink what it takes to create a truly inclusive workplace — and lays out how to bring real, grassroots change to boardrooms and communities alike.

It takes more than rhetoric or elegance to win a dispute. US Supreme Court litigator Neal Katyal shares stories of some of his most impactful cases — and the key to crafting a persuasive and successful argument in (and out of) court.

Get the inside story behind Thomas Crowther’s headline-making research on reforestation — and the platform he created to help restore the biodiversity of Earth, everywhere.

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Beauty everywhere: Notes from Session 6 of TED2020

Par : Ann Powers

We’re six weeks into TED2020! For session 6: a celebration of beauty on every level, from planet-trekking feats of engineering to art that deeply examines our past, present, future — and much more.

Planetary scientist Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle shows off the work behind Dragonfly: a rotorcraft being developed to explore Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, by air. She speaks at TED2020: Uncharted on June 25, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle, planetary scientist 

Big idea: The Dragonfly Mission, set to launch in 2026, will study Titan, the largest moon orbiting Saturn. Through this mission, scientists may discover the secrets of the solar system’s origin, the history of life on Earth — and even the potential for life beyond our planet.

How? Launched in 1997, the Cassini-Huygens Mission provided scientists with incredible information about Titan, a water-based moon with remarkable similarities to Earth. We learned that Titan’s geography includes sand dunes, craters and mountains, and that vast oceans of water — perhaps 10 times as large as Earth’s total supply — lie deep underneath Titan’s surface. In many ways, Titan is the closest parallel to pre-life, early Earth, Elizabeth Turtle explains. The Cassini-Huygens Mission ended in 2017, and now hundreds of scientists across the world are working on the Dragonfly Mission, which will dramatically expand our knowledge of Titan. Unlike the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, Dragonfly will live within Titan’s atmosphere, flying across the moon to gather samples and study its chemical makeup, weather and geography. The data Dragonfly sends back may bring us closer to thrilling discoveries on the makeup of the solar system, the habitability of other planets and the beginnings of life itself. “Dragonfly is a search for greater understanding — not just of Titan and the mysteries of our solar system, but of our own origins,” Turtle says.


“Do you think human creativity matters?” asks actor, writer and director Ethan Hawke. He gives us his compelling answer at TED2020: Uncharted on June 25, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Ethan Hawke, actor, writer, director

Big idea: Creativity isn’t a luxury; it’s vital to the human experience.

How? We often struggle to give ourselves permission to be creative because we’re all a little suspect of our own talent, says Ethan Hawke. Recounting his own journey of creative discovery over a 30-year career in acting — along with the beauty he sees in everyday moments with his family — Hawke encourages us to reframe this counterproductive definition of human creativity. Creative expression has nothing to do with talent, he says, but rather is a process of learning who you are and how you connect to other people. Instead of giving in to the pull of old habits and avoiding new experiences — maybe you’re hesitant to enroll in that poetry course or cook that complicated 20-step recipe — Hawke urges us to engage in a rich variety of creative outlets and, most importantly, embrace feeling foolish along the way. “I think most of us really want to offer the world something of quality, something that the world will consider good or important — and that’s really the enemy,” Hawke says. “Because it’s not up to us whether what we do is any good. And if history has taught us anything, the world is an extremely unreliable critic. So, you have to ask yourself, do you think human creativity matters?”


Singer-songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Bob Schneider performs for TED2020: Uncharted on June 25, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Keeping the beauty of the session flowing, singer-songwriter Bob Schneider performs “Joey’s Song,” “The Other Side” and “Lorena.”


“We have thousands of years of ancient knowledge that we just need to listen to and allow it to expand our thinking about designing symbiotically with nature,” says architect Julia Watson. “By listening, we’ll only become wiser and ready for those 21st-century challenges that we know will endanger our people and our planet.” She speaks at TED2020: Uncharted on June 25, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Julia Watson, architect, landscape designer, author

Big idea: Ancient Indigenous technology can teach us how to design with nature, instead of against it, when facing challenges. We just need to look and listen. 

How? In her global search for ancient design systems and solutions, Julia Watson has encountered wondrous innovations to counter climate challenges that we all can learn from. “High-tech solutions are definitely going to help us solve some of these problems, but in our rush towards the future, we tend to forget about the past in other parts of the world,” she says. Watson takes us to the villages of Khasi, India, where people have built living bridges woven from ancient roots that strengthen over time to enable travel when monsoon season hits. She introduces us to a water-based civilization in the Mesopotamian Marshlands, where for 6,000 years, the Maʻdān people have lived on manmade islands built from harvested reeds. And she shows us a floating African city in Benin, where buildings are stilted above flooded land. “I’m an architect, and I’ve been trained to seek solutions in permanence, concrete, steel, glass. These are all used to build a fortress against nature,” Watson says. “But my search for ancient systems and Indigenous technologies has been different. It’s been inspired by an idea that we can seed creativity in crisis.”


TED Fellow and theater artist Daniel Alexander Jones lights up the stage at TED2020: Uncharted on June 25, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

TED Fellow and theater artist Daniel Alexander Jones lights up the (virtual) stage by channeling Jomama Jones, a mystical alter ego who shares some much-needed wisdom. “What if I told you, ‘You will surprise yourself’?” Jomama asks. “What if I told you, ‘You will be brave enough’?”


“It takes creativity to be able to imagine a future that is so different from the one before you,” says artist Titus Kaphar. He speaks at TED2020: Uncharted on June 25, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)

Titus Kaphar, artist

Big idea: Beauty can open our hearts to difficult conversations.

How? A painting’s color, form or composition pulls you in, functioning as a kind of Trojan horse out of which difficult conversations can emerge, says artist Titus Kaphar. (See for yourself in his unforgettable live workshop from TED2017.) Two weeks after George Floyd’s death and the Movement for Black Lives protests that followed, Kaphar reflects on his evolution as an artist and takes us on a tour of his work — from The Jerome Project, which examines the US criminal justice system through the lens of 18th- and 19th-century American portraiture, to his newest series, From a Tropical Space, a haunting body of work about Black mothers whose children have disappeared. In addition to painting, Kaphar shares the work and idea behind NXTHVN, an arts incubator and creative community for young people in his hometown of Dixwell, Connecticut. “It takes creativity to be able to imagine a future that is so different from the one before you,” he says.

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Anthropo Impact: Notes from Session 2 of TEDSummit 2019

Radio Science Orchestra performs the musical odyssey “Prelude, Landing, Legacy” in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 22, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Session 2 of TEDSummit 2019 is all about impact: the actions we can take to solve humanity’s toughest challenges. Speakers and performers explore the perils — from melting glaciers to air pollution — along with some potential fixes — like ocean-going seaweed farms and radical proposals for how we can build the future.

The event: TEDSummit 2019, Session 2: Anthropo Impact, hosted by David Biello and Chee Pearlman

When and where: Monday, July 22, 2019, 5pm BST, at the Edinburgh Convention Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland

Speakers: Tshering Tobgay, María Neira, Tim Flannery, Kelly Wanser, Anthony Veneziale, Nicola Jones, Marwa Al-Sabouni, Ma Yansong

Music: Radio Science Orchestra, performing the musical odyssey “Prelude, Landing, Legacy” in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing (and the 100th anniversary of the theremin’s invention)

… and something completely different: Improv maestro Anthony Veneziale, delivering a made-up-on-the-spot TED Talk based on a deck of slides he’d never seen and an audience-suggested topic: “the power of potatoes.” The result was … surprisingly profound.

The talks in brief:

Tshering Tobgay, politician, environmentalist and former Prime Minister of Bhutan

Big idea: We must save the Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers from melting — or else face dire, irreversible consequences for one-fifth of the global population.

Why? The Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers are the pulse of the planet: their rivers alone supply water to 1.6 billion people, and their melting would massively impact the 240 million people across eight countries within their reach. Think in extremes — more intense rains, flash floods and landslides along with unimaginable destruction and millions of climate refugees. Tshering Togbay telegraphs the future we’re headed towards unless we act fast, calling for a new intergovernmental agency: the Third Pole Council. This council would be tasked with monitoring the glaciers’ health, implementing policies to protect them and, by proxy, the billions of who depend of them.

Fun fact: The Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers are the world’s third-largest repository of ice (after the North and South poles). They’re known as the “Third Pole” and the “Water Towers of Asia.”


Air pollution isn’t just bad for the environment — it’s also bad for our brains, says María Neira. She speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 22, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

María Neira, public health leader

Big idea: Air pollution isn’t just bad for our lungs — it’s bad for our brains, too.

Why? Globally, poor air quality causes seven million premature deaths per year. And all this pollution isn’t just affecting our lungs, says María Neira. An emerging field of research is shedding a light on the link between air pollution and our central nervous systems. The fine particulate matter in air pollution travels through our bloodstreams to our major organs, including the brain — which can slow down neurological development in kids and speed up cognitive decline in adults. In short: air pollution is making us less intelligent. We all have a role to play in curbing air pollution — and we can start by reducing traffic in cities, investing in clean energy and changing the way we consume.

Quote of the talk: “We need to exercise our rights and put pressure on politicians to make sure they will tackle the causes of air pollution. This is the first thing we need to do to protect our health and our beautiful brains.”


Tim Flannery, environmentalist, explorer and professor

Big idea: Seaweed could help us drawdown atmospheric carbon and curb global warming.

How? You know the story: the blanket of CO2 above our heads is driving adverse climate changes and will continue to do so until we get it out of the air (a process known as “drawdown”). Tim Flannery thinks seaweed could help: it grows fast, is made out of productive, photosynthetic tissue and, when sunk more than a kilometer deep into the ocean, can lock up carbon long-term. If we cover nine percent of the ocean surface in seaweed farms, for instance, we could sequester the same amount of CO2 we currently put into the atmosphere. There’s still a lot to figure, Flannery notes —  like how growing seaweed at scale on the ocean surface will affect biodiversity down below — but the drawdown potential is too great to allow uncertainty to stymie progress.

Fun fact: Seaweed is the most ancient multicellular life known, with more genetic diversity than all other multicellular life combined.


Could cloud brightening help curb global warming? Kelly Wanser speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 22, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Kelly Wanser, geoengineering expert and executive director of SilverLining

Big idea: The practice of cloud brightening — seeding clouds with sea salt or other particulates to reflect sunshine back into space — could partially offset global warming, giving us crucial time while we figure out game-changing, long-term solutions.

How: Starting in 2020, new global regulations will require ships to cut emissions by 85 percent. This is a good thing, right? Not entirely, says Kelly Wanser. It turns out that when particulate emissions (like those from ships) mix with clouds, they make the clouds brighter — enabling them to reflect sunshine into space and temporarily cool our climate. (Think of it as the ibuprofen for our fevered climate.) Wanser’s team and others are coming up with experiments to see if “cloud-brightening” proves safe and effective; some scientists believe increasing the atmosphere’s reflectivity by one or two percent could offset the two degrees celsius of warming that’s been forecasted for earth. As with other climate interventions, there’s much yet to learn, but the potential benefits make those efforts worth it. 

An encouraging fact: The global community has rallied to pull off this kind of atmospheric intervention in the past, with the 1989 Montreal Protocol.


Nicola Jones, science journalist

Big idea: Noise in our oceans — from boat motors to seismic surveys — is an acute threat to underwater life. Unless we quiet down, we will irreparably damage marine ecosystems and may even drive some species to extinction.

How? We usually think of noise pollution as a problem in big cities on dry land. But ocean noise may be the culprit behind marine disruptions like whale strandings, fish kills and drops in plankton populations. Fortunately, compared to other climate change solutions, it’s relatively quick and easy to dial down our noise levels and keep our oceans quiet. Better ship propellor design, speed limits near harbors and quieter methods for oil and gas prospecting will all help humans restore peace and quiet to our neighbors in the sea.

Quote of the talk: “Sonar can be as loud as, or nearly as loud as, an underwater volcano. A supertanker can be as loud as the call of a blue whale.”


TED curator Chee Pearlman (left) speaks with architect Marwa Al-Sabouni at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders. July 22, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Marwa Al-Sabouni, architect, interviewed by TED curator Chee Pearlman

Big idea: Architecture can exacerbate the social disruptions that lead to armed conflict.

How? Since the time of the French Mandate, officials in Syria have shrunk the communal spaces that traditionally united citizens of varying backgrounds. This contributed to a sense of alienation and rootlessness — a volatile cocktail that built conditions for unrest and, eventually, war. Marwa Al-Sabouni, a resident of Homs, Syria, saw firsthand how this unraveled social fabric helped reduce the city to rubble during the civil war. Now, she’s taking part in the city’s slow reconstruction — conducted by citizens with little or no government aid. As she explains in her book The Battle for Home, architects have the power (and the responsibility) to connect a city’s residents to a shared urban identity, rather than to opposing sectarian groups.

Quote of the talk: “Syria had a very unfortunate destiny, but it should be a lesson for the rest of the world: to take notice of how our cities are making us very alienated from each other, and from the place we used to call home.”


“Architecture is no longer a function or a machine for living. It also reflects the nature around us. It also reflects our soul and the spirit,” says Ma Yansong. He speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders. July 22, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Ma Yansong, architect and artist

Big Idea: By creating architecture that blends with nature, we can break free from the “matchbox” sameness of many city buildings.

How? Ma Yansong paints a vivid image of what happens when nature collides with architecture — from a pair of curvy skyscrapers that “dance” with each other to buildings that burst out of a village’s mountains like contour lines. Yansong embraces the shapes of nature — which never repeat themselves, he notes — and the randomness of hand-sketched designs, creating a kind of “emotional scenery.” When we think beyond the boxy geometry of modern cities, he says, the results can be breathtaking.

Quote of talk: “Architecture is no longer a function or a machine for living. It also reflects the nature around us. It also reflects our soul and the spirit.”

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A first glimpse at the TEDSummit 2019 speaker lineup

Par : TED Staff

At TEDSummit 2019, more than 1,000 members of the TED community will gather for five days of performances, workshops, brainstorming, outdoor activities, future-focused discussions and, of course, an eclectic program of TED Talks — curated by TED Global curator Bruno Giussani, pictured above. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)

With TEDSummit 2019 just two months away, it’s time to unveil the first group of speakers that will take to the stage in Edinburgh, Scotland, from July 21-25.

Three years ago, more than 1,000 members of the TED global community convened in Banff, Canada, for the first-ever TEDSummit. We talked about the fracturing state of the world, the impact of technology and the accelerating urgency of climate change. And we drew wisdom and inspiration from the speakers — and from each other.

These themes are equally pressing today, and we’ll bring them to the stage in novel, more developed ways in Edinburgh. We’ll also address a wide range of additional topics that demand attention — looking not only for analysis but also antidotes and solutions. To catalyze this process, half of the TEDSummit conference program will take place outside the theatre, as experts host an array of Discovery Sessions in the form of hands-on workshops, activities, debates and conversations.

Check out a glimpse of the lineup of speakers who will share their future-focused ideas below. Some are past TED speakers returning to give new talks; others will step onto the red circle for the first time. All will help us understand the world we currently live in.

Here we go! (More will be added in the coming weeks):

Anna Piperal, digital country expert

Bob Langert, corporate changemaker

Carl Honoré, author

Carole Cadwalladr, investigative journalist

Diego Prilusky, immersive media technologist

Eli Pariser, organizer and author

Fay Bound Alberti, historian

George Monbiot, thinker and author

Hajer Sharief, youth inclusion activist

Howard Taylor, children safety advocate

Jochen Wegner, editor and dialogue creator

Kelly Wanser, geoengineering expert

Ma Yansong, architect

Marco Tempest, technology magician

Margaret Heffernan, business thinker

María Neira, global public health official

Mariana Lin, AI personalities writer

Mariana Mazzucato, economist

Marwa Al-Sabouni, architect

Nick Hanauer, capitalism redesigner

Nicola Jones, science writer

Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland

Omid Djalili, comedian

Patrick Chappatte, editorial cartoonist

Pico Iyer, global author

Poet Ali, Philosopher, poet

Rachel Kleinfeld, violence scholar

Raghuram Rajan, former central banker

Rose Mutiso, energy for Africa activist

Sandeep Jauhar, cardiologist

Sara-Jane Dunn, computational biologist

Sheperd Doeleman, black hole scientist

Sonia Livingstone, social psychologist

Susan Cain, quiet revolutionary

Tim Flannery, carbon-negative tech scholar

Tshering Tobgay, former Prime Minister of Bhutan

 

With them, a number of artists will also join us at TEDSummit, including:

Djazia Satour, singer

ELEW, pianist and DJ

KT Tunstall, singer and songwriter

Min Kym, virtuoso violinist

Radio Science Orchestra, space-music orchestra

Yilian Cañizares, singer and songwriter

 

Registration for TEDSummit is open for active members of our various communities: TED conference members, Fellows, past TED speakers, TEDx organizers, Educators, Partners, Translators and more. If you’re part of one of these communities and would like to attend, please visit the TEDSummit website.

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Short talks, big ideas: The talks of TED Unplugged at TED2019

Hosts Chee Perlman and Anthony Veneziale keep the showing moving along swiftly, hosting TED Unplugged at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 16, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

In a fast-paced session of talks curated by TED arts and design curator Chee Pearlman and hosted with improv leader Anthony Veneziale, 12 members of the TED community shared ideas in a special format: each had to keep their talks under six minutes, with auto-advancing, timed slides. And yes, the mic does cut after six minutes!

The talks in brief:

Entrepreneur Brickson Diamond shares his journey from feeling like a Martian as a kid to finding his tribe. He speaks during TED Unplugged at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 16, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Brickson Diamond, entrepreneur and co-chair of the Blackhouse Foundation

  • Big idea: Finding our tribe sometimes takes a deeper level of connection.
  • How? We need to look for the hooks — the secrets and struggles we share but don’t talk about — to connect with and get closer to each other.
  • Quote of the talk: “If you dig deep, you reach far.”

Cady Coleman, astronaut who has flown on the Space Shuttle twice and lived on the International Space Station for almost 6 months (and delivered the first TED Talk given in space)

  • Big idea: Space is where mission and magic come together.
  • How? The day after her 50th birthday, Cady Coleman climbed aboard a Russian rocket and was launched into space. During her time at the International Space Station, she did experiments that expanded the frontiers of science, seeking answers to questions we could never arrive at on earth.
  • Quote of the talk: “Space belongs to all of us. It’s a place that’s magic for all of us.”

Janet Iwasa, Molecular animator and TED Senior Fellow

  • Big idea: Try to visualize the things that can’t be seen.
  • How? By creating visualizations of molecules that are too small for even the most powerful microscopes to see, Janet Iwasa reveals the hidden mechanisms that power the world.
  • Quote of the talk: “Invisible molecular worlds are vast and largely unexplored. To me, these landscapes are just as exciting to explore as a natural world that’s visible all around us.”

“These days I believe less in silver bullets and more in people who show up to help,” says software engineer and public servant Matt Cutts. He speaks during TED Unplugged at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 16, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Matt Cutts, Software engineer and public servant

  • Big idea: Silicon Valley likes to talk about making the world a better place, but technologists can make a real impact by joining the government.
  • How? By doing things like moving government systems from paper to digital, Cutts and his team have been able to speed up processes to help people get what they need when they need it.
  • Quote of the talk: “These days I believe less in silver bullets and more in people who show up to help.”

Lucy Farey-Jones, Technology strategist

  • Big idea: Our willingness to accept AI in our lives is changing — radically.
  • How? Lucy Farey-Jones created a list of potential AI applications — from AI house cleaners and package deliverers to cyborgs, AI lawyers and even AI sex partners — and ranked them based on how comfortable people are with them. What she’s found is a growing comfortability with AI taking over.
  • Quote of the talk: “The trojan horse of AI is already in our living room.”

Bjarke Ingels, (Interplanetary) architect

  • Big idea: We should move to Mars.
  • How? Bjarke Ingels was challenged to design a city on Mars by 2117. If you strip away the biosphere, Mars and Earth are actually very similar, he says. What would we need to have in order to move there? Nutrients, water, a vegetarian diet and more than a bit of creativity. Ingels is starting with a prototype “city” in Dubai, exhibiting many of the technologies that would be necessary for life on Mars.
  • Quote of the talk: “Martians are vegan.”

In an ode to parrotfish, marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson shares five ways that these reef fish are special. She speaks during TED Unplugged at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 16, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Marine biologist, launching the first think tank for ocean cities

  • Big idea: Parrotfish are absolutely amazing.
  • How? In five ways: they have a mouth shaped like a parrot’s beak that’s strong enough to chew coral; they poop fine white sand, over 380 kilograms of it each year; they have style: striped, teal, magenta and polka-dotted, with multiple “wardrobe changes” throughout their lives; most species have the ability to change from female to male over the course of their lives; and sometimes, when they cozy up into reefs, they secrete a mucous bubble that masks them from predators, protecting them throughout the night. But they’re under threat by overfishing and the destruction of coral reefs.
  • Quote of the talk: “I am never going to give up working to protect and restore this magnificent planet. I’m not motivated by hope — but rather by a desire to be useful.”

Rob Gore, Emergency room doctor

  • Big idea: There’s a joy in caring for others, but not at the expense of caring for self.
  • How? Toxic stress impacts the body in devastating ways. After the death of a friend brought on episodes of panic attacks, Rob Gore sought therapy, where he learned how to use stress as a tool and to empathize with people without taking their problems on.
  • Quote of the talk: “I wasn’t supposed to be invincible.”

Stefan Sagmeister, Designer

  • Big idea: Beautify isn’t in the eye of the beholder, and it isn’t only skin-deep.
  • How? Why should we bother chasing beauty if everyone has a different idea of what it is? Turns out, we agree on what’s beautiful more than we think. For example, almost everyone prefers a circle over a square. And by simply painting a neglected underpass in Brooklyn with the word “Yes,” Sagmeister and colleagues transformed the space into a hot spot for wedding photos.
  • Quote of the talk: “There’s wide agreement around the world, throughout different cultures and throughout different times, of what we find is beautiful.”

John Werner, TEDxBeaconStreet organizer

  • Big idea: We can work together for the betterment of all.
  • How? John Werner got 61 of his fellow students to not take a college final exam, taking their professor up on a prisoner’s-dilemma challenge where everyone could get an A if nobody took the exam. His class was the only one in 10 years to pull this off.
  • Quote of the talk: “If we organize and we set our minds to it, we can do extraordinary things and get A’s when things really matter.”

“Everybody deserves access to information about their bodies and the organs inside their bodies — especially the ones that give us pleasure,” says Andrea Barrica. She speaks during TED Unplugged at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 16, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Andrea Barrica, Sex tech entrepreneur

  • Big idea: There’s nothing wrong with sexual pleasure and with having sex because it feels good.
  • How? Why don’t we know more about the clitoris? Probably because its only job is to experience pleasure, and we’re traditionally taught about sexuality solely in terms of reproduction.
  • Quote of the talk: “Everybody deserves access to information about their bodies and the organs inside their bodies — especially the ones that give us pleasure.”

David Kwong, Magician and cruciverbalist

  • Big idea: Failure is an illusion.
  • How? You can rely on your skillset to maintain control even when things go wrong — just like magicians whose tricks sometimes don’t go as planned. There’s always a Plan B.
  • Quote of the talk: “Success depends not on hiding missteps but using them to leverage the steps moving forward.”

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brianwgreene89

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