TED’s Lindsay Levin and systems innovator Ryan Panchadsaram host Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit on July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Nick Hagen / TED)
To rise to the challenge of climate change, we need big, bold, gigaton-scale solutions. Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit 2023 focused on the clean technologies that need to scale fast — and made space for ideas on radical climate leadership, the use of art for environmental activism and the push for climate-friendly alternatives to the world’s most-consumed foods.
The event: Talks from Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, hosted by TED’s Lindsay Levin and systems innovator Ryan Panchadsaram
When and where: Thursday, July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan
Speakers: Olivia Breese, Jim Snabe, John O’Donnell, Isabella Kirkland, Marcelo Mena, Jim Whitaker, Jessica Whitaker Allen, Tao Zhang
Energy innovator Olivia Breese speaks at Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit on July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Nick Hagen / TED)
Energy innovator Olivia Breese imagines a “love story” between green electrons and water molecules, the result of which is a molecule that can store and release energy without emitting carbon dioxide — a flexible and vastly more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Similar to how wind energy has scaled up to become affordable and efficient, Breese calls for global investment in green molecule production. “A world which runs entirely on green energy, it’s not a luxury. It’s a necessity,” she says.
Jim Snabe, chairman of Siemens and Northvolt, speaks at Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit on July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Nick Hagen / TED)
Throughout his career, Jim Snabe has helped lead companies working to accelerate decarbonization. Now, he’s also serving as Vision Council chair for the TED Future Forum (TFF), a new initiative focused on the role of business in advancing solutions to the climate crisis. He outlines TFF’s plans to be a catalyst and community for companies committed to stepping up with greater climate ambition, issuing an invitation for anyone interested in joining the massive, collaborative effort to transform the global economy. “If we want to avoid a climate disaster, we need much more radical leadership,” he says.
Energy entrepreneur John O’Donnell speaks at Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit on July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Nick Hagen / TED)
Electrified industrial heat is the next trillion-dollar market, but manufacturing needs constant heat, requiring a way to store energy when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. Engineer John O’Donnell offers a solution: his company, Rondo, produces heat batteries consisting of thousands of bricks stacked in a grid, heated with renewable energy. When heated, a brick can store as much energy as a lithium battery per pound, but costs less and lasts longer. O’Donnell proposes that this “boring” (his word) but effective system could scale fast, helping to green industrial processes worldwide.
Artist Isabella Kirkland speaks at Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit on July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Investigating humanity’s relationship to nature, artist Isabella Kirkland paints species that once lived along the Hudson River in her work “Palisades,” showcasing the profound beauty and rarity of the diverse life that once inhabited our planet — and advocating for the conservation of that which is still here. “I think of my paintings as alarm clocks,” she says. “They’re reminders of what’s at stake; the only problem is we keep pushing the snooze button.” Using art as both a poignant record of loss (like her painting “Gone,” which depicts extinct flowers, fish and snails) and discovery (like her painting “Canopy,” which shows mosses, insects and tiny orchids all new to Western science), Kirkland highlights the danger that wildlife trade poses to nature. Creation is her form of activism, and she uses it to celebrate and advocate for all living creatures that were, are and will be, inviting us all to do the same.
Biochemical engineer Marcelo Mena speaks at Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit on July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Nick Hagen / TED)
Deadly and polluting methane that forms in massive landfills in places like Ghazipur, India, or Santiago, Chile, often causes fires — and heatwaves are only making the issue worse. Reducing these emissions is the most efficient way to lower Earth’s temperature within our lifetime, says biochemical engineer Marcelo Mena. But time is running out and this harmful gas needs to be cut in half by 2050 in order to effectively combat global warming. Working in more than 10 cities, Mena’s team created the Waste MAP (Methane Assessment Platform), which uses satellite information to pinpoint pollution sources ranging from organic waste, food production and enteric fermentation (a fancy way to say cow farts). Mena also introduces the enteric fermentation R&D accelerator: an ambitious, 200-million-dollar research effort to reign in livestock emissions and point the way toward a cleaner, safer future for everyone.
Conservation coordinator Jessica Whitaker Allen and sustainability advocate Jim Whitaker speak at Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit on July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Rice is the world’s most consumed food source — and it accounts for 10 percent of the world’s methane emissions. Jim Whitaker (a fifth-generation rice farmer) and his daughter Jessica Whitaker Allen (a builder of conservation solutions) are seeking to grow sustainability awareness within the agricultural communities where they live in southeast Arkansas. Together, they’ve defined farming protocols that could slash rice’s environmental impacts, cutting water use, methane production and the need for fertilizer. While her dad works literally on the ground to refine irrigation methods, Jessica (a waterfowl conservationist by day) pursues funding to spread green practices — and SmartRice, a sustainable grain hybrid — first to their neighbors and, eventually, to the rest of the world. While it’s not easy to convince struggling farmers to invest in new methods, Jim and Jessica make strong arguments that the best way to preserve a farm’s bottom line is to preserve its land for future generations.
Impact investor Tao Zhang speaks at Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit on July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
A Chinese saying goes: “There is no pleasure in eating without meat.” Every year, China consumes 26 percent of the world’s meat, 43 percent of its pork and 45 percent of its seafood. But unlike other major meat-eating countries like the United States, China has yet to embrace more climate-friendly alternative proteins because, as Tao Zhang explains, consumers there regard mock meat as a cheap, unhealthy and flavorless substitute. Since the world can’t solve climate change without China, Zhang sees swaying Chinese eaters towards these new proteins as a climate-positive business opportunity. He discusses the potential impact of investing in food innovation in China, emphasizing why more research and development are needed to create, market and distribute tasty, affordable, regionally appropriate and meat-free proteins.
The attendee town hall at Session 4 of the TED Countdown Summit on July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
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Head of TED Chris Anderson speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Whether you’re thrilled or terrified by it, there’s no question that the time of artificial intelligence has come. Session 2 of TED2023 looked at some of the reasons to get excited about this transformational moment — and gave space to those who have expressed concern about the future it may usher in.
The event: Talks from Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson
When and where: Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Speakers: Greg Brockman, Yejin Choi, Gary Marcus, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Alexandr Wang, Sal Khan
The talks in brief:
In a talk from the cutting edge of technology, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman explores the underlying design principles of GPT-4 — the company’s most advanced large language model — and demos some mind-blowing new plug-ins for ChatGPT. Hooking up his laptop to the big screens in the TED Theater, he shows how ChatGPT could help you create a recipe for dinner, generate an image of the finished dish, draft a tweet about that dish and build the corresponding grocery list in Instacart — all without you ever leaving the chatbot. He also shares its new ability to fact-check its own work (with citations a human could triple-check) and interpret a data-intensive spreadsheet even when given relatively vague instructions. After the talk, head of TED Chris Anderson joins Brockman onstage to dig into the timeline of ChatGPT’s development and get Brockman’s take on the risks, raised by many in the tech industry and beyond, around releasing such a powerful tool into the world.
Yejin Choi speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
“Giving true common sense to AI is still a moonshot, and you don’t reach the moon by making the tallest building in the world one inch taller at a time,” says computer scientist Yejin Choi. The epic scale of many AI systems brings three big issues with it, she says: (1) AI models are expensive to train, (2) their power is concentrated to only a few tech companies and (3) the environmental impact is massive. She shares wisdom on how to give AI common sense by instilling the data it’s trained on with human norms and values (not raw web data) and explains why smaller tech can make for a more humanistic, democratic and sustainable AI future.
AI prognosticator Gary Marcus speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Misinformation poses a threat to democracies worldwide. How will the rise of AI systems like ChatGPT impact this trend? As a leading voice in artificial intelligence, Gary Marcus advocates for an international AI regulatory body and says we should find a way to integrate ChatGPT’s brute statistical power with more trustworthy, logic-based systems.
Decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky has a simple message: superintelligent AI could probably kill us all. Is an obedient, even benevolent, AI of superhuman intelligence possible? Yes, Yudkowsky says, but inscrutable large language models like ChatGPT are leading us down the wrong path. By the time the world realizes, he thinks it may be too late.
Alexandr Wang speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
War and AI. Two words that, when put together, might make you (and possibly the entire world) uncomfortable. But it’s a reality we must face, says AI technologist Alexandr Wang, as a new technological arms race with deep implications for national security and democracy is on our doorstep. Big international players like China are ahead of the game; meanwhile, the Ukraine War is demonstrating the changing nature of war in real-time, with digital tools proving invaluable to the defense of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. There are a lot of implications to account for, but artificial intelligence can only be as powerful as the data it uses to fuel its algorithms. Wang calls for fellow technologists to rise to the challenge against authoritarian regimes by supporting national security. “We must fight for the world we want to live in. It’s never mattered more.”
Sal Khan speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
The current general discourse has suggested that artificial intelligence, especially chatbots like ChatGPT, will lead to the death of education and learning. Not so fast, says education innovator Sal Khan; there is still so much opportunity to better education with these new advanced technologies. He reveals and demos Khan Academy’s education-first chatbot, known as Khanmigo. The chatbot can serve as a tutor for the student and a teaching aide for the educator, helping with lesson plans and more. Like this, artificial intelligence is not a gate, but a key that unlocks a new era of educational potential and acceleration.
“Excited or concerned, describe your predominant feeling on AI?” Audience members vote with their hands during Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
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TED curators Cloe Shasha Brooks and Whitney Pennington Rodgers host the TED Idea Search: Southeast Asia 2022 to discover new voices.
From July through September, the TED Idea Search: Southeast Asia 2022 applications were open to anyone living in or descended from Southeast Asia. Applicants were required to create a two-minute video as a part of their submission.
After sorting through hundreds of applications, the TED team selected nine finalists to participate in two virtual TED Membership events, where the finalists talked more about their ideas and participated in a Q&A with TED Members. After each Q&A, TED Members had the opportunity to vote on each finalist’s idea and speaking style.
Thanks to those ratings, the TED team selected three winners who will be invited to give a TED Talk, either virtually or in person. Those winners are:
Hong Hoang, climate activist, based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Hoang finds creative ways to conduct climate activism in politically challenging contexts.
Piyachart Phiromswad, economist, based in Bangkok, Thailand
Phiromswad studies the technological, social and economic ways we can unleash the true power of a globally aging population.
Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh, entomologist, based in Subang Jaya, Malaysia
Jusoh studies the wonders of fireflies — and even discovered a new species of firefly.
Each winner will be paired with a TED curator to develop their idea in the lead-up to their moment onstage or direct-to-camera talk. Stay tuned for those published talks on TED.com!
Check out a selection of speakers who were discovered during past TED Idea Searches:
Adie Delaney: An aerialist on listening to your body’s signals
Adeola Fayehun: Africa is a sleeping giant — I’m trying to wake it up
Andrea Berchowitz: The link between menopause and gender inequity at work
Ariel Waldman: The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica’s ice
Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle: What Saturn’s most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life
Leo Lanna and Lvcas Fiat: The colorful, shapeshifting wonder of the Amazon’s praying mantises
Miguel Antonio Modestino: How to transform the chemical industry — one reaction at a time
Tamekia MizLadi Smith: How to train employees to have difficult conversations
Zak Ebrahim: I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace
Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with the lions
Robert A. Belle: The emotions behind your money habits
Sophia Kianni: Language shouldn’t be a barrier to climate action
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Journalist Adeola Fayehun and TED curator Cloe Shasha Brooks host the TED Idea Search: Africa 2022 to discover new voices.
From April through June 2022, the TED Idea Search: Africa 2022 applications were open to anyone living in or descended from the African continent. Applicants were required to create a two-minute video as a part of their submission.
After sorting through hundreds of applications, the TED team selected ten finalists to participate in two virtual TED Membership events, where the finalists talked more about their ideas and participated in a Q&A with TED Members. After each Q&A, TED Members had the opportunity to vote on each finalist’s idea and speaking style.
Thanks to those ratings, the TED team selected three winners who will be invited to give a TED Talk, either virtually or in person. Those winners are:
Chinyanta Kabaso, dancer, based in Glasgow, Scotland
Kabaso studies the roots and meanings of traditional African dance styles and performs dances from across the continent of Africa.
Diarra Bousso Gueye, fashion designer and mathematician, based in Dakar, Senegal
Gueye uses mathematics to design clothing patterns and encourages her customers to vote on which designs are manufactured.
Laetitia Ky, artist and activist, based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Ky creates sculptures from her hair through an activist lens.
Why Africa?
TED is committed to a global mindset. We seek to source ideas from everywhere and to make them widely and freely accessible. Powerful ideas, expressed and distributed with care, can bring different groups together and create a shared vision of a future worth pursuing. It is with that global mindset that we are focusing on different regions of the world for several idea search events — most recently Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Past TED Idea Search winners:
Check out a selection of speakers who were discovered during past TED Idea Searches:
Adie Delaney: An aerialist on listening to your body’s signals
Adeola Fayehun: Africa is a sleeping giant — I’m trying to wake it up
Andrea Berchowitz: The link between menopause and gender inequity at work
Ariel Waldman: The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica’s ice
Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle: What Saturn’s most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life
Leo Lanna and Lvcas Fiat: The colorful, shapeshifting wonder of the Amazon’s praying mantises
Miguel Antonio Modestino: How to transform the chemical industry — one reaction at a time
Tamekia MizLadi Smith: How to train employees to have difficult conversations
Zak Ebrahim: I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace
Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with the lions
Robert A. Belle: The emotions behind your money habits
Sophia Kianni: Language shouldn’t be a barrier to climate action
TED Idea Search: Africa 2022
Lily James Olds and Leonie Hoerster host the Bezos Scholars salon at the TED World Theater in New York City on September 9, 2022. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
The first-ever TED Salon co-created in partnership with the Bezos Family Foundation featured incredible ideas from the Bezos Scholars — extraordinary young people thinking about the future of education, human rights, financial systems and more — as well as some special TED Fellows guests. The result of a years-long collaboration between the Bezos Scholars and TED Fellows, this energetic, future-facing TED session showcased the organizations’ shared belief in and commitment to socially engaged innovation and human ingenuity.
The event: TED Talks from the Bezos Scholars, hosted by TED Fellows co-director Lily James Olds and senior program manager Leonie Hoerster
When and where: Friday, September 9, 2022, at TED World Theater in New York City
Comedy: From TED Fellow and comedian Negin Farsad, who opened the salon with a stand-up set that hilariously tracked what’s happened over the last couple of pandemic-fueled years.
Joshua Roman and Matthew Garcia perform at the Bezos Scholars salon at the TED World Theater in New York City on September 9, 2022. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Music: From TED Senior Fellow, cellist and classical rockstar Joshua Roman and Bezos Scholar and violist Matthew Garcia, who closed out the session with a stirring rendition to the first movement of Beethoven’s Eyeglasses Duo.
The talks in brief:
Joel Baraka speaks at the Bezos Scholars salon at the TED World Theater in New York City on September 9, 2022. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Joel Baraka, refugee education innovator
Big idea: Gamifying school curricula can help get students in refugee camps get excited about learning.
How? Going to school in a refugee camp is complicated: students encounter crowded classrooms, a rigid curriculum and limited access to teachers. Joel Baraka grew up in the Kyangwali refugee camp in western Uganda and remembers that what he liked best about his school years were the hours he spent outside the classroom playing soccer with his friends or the card game Spades. That’s why as an entrepreneur, Baraka wanted to find a way to “gamify” the learning experience for other refugee students. He presents the educational board game he created, 5 STAZ, that schools in Kyangwali now use as a daily part of schoolwork to help students master their curriculum – and have fun while doing it.
Meghan Hussey speaks at the Bezos Scholars salon at the TED World Theater in New York City on September 9, 2022. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Meghan Hussey, disability inclusion advocate
Big idea: Despite the global conversation around inclusive societies and workplaces for all races and genders, people with disabilities are still routinely excluded from education and employment. Making up an estimated 15 percent of the world’s population, their potential contributions remain unknown and unexplored. It’s time to build an inclusive future for people with all different kinds of abilities.
How? Meghan Hussey, a disability inclusion advocate and Global Development and Government Relations Director for the Special Olympics, believes that everyone benefits when people with disabilities are allowed to thrive — and the only thing holding them back from that is our own attitudes towards “those people.” According to Hussey, an inclusive future is four steps away. First, we must re-examine our assumptions and stereotypes around disability. These arise from the lack of disabled people in our everyday lives, and that lack is largely due to a lack of accommodations. Second, we must actively remove barriers and invite people with disabilities into our lives and organizations. Third, we should recognize how other exclusion issues — gender-based violence, health care accessibility — intersect with each other. And finally, we must listen to the voices of people with disabilities, because they will tell us what’s needed to remove the barriers keeping them from mainstream society.
Matthew Garcia speaks at the Bezos Scholars salon at the TED World Theater in New York City on September 9, 2022. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Matthew Garcia, education equalizer
Big idea: To break down racial, class and geographic barriers, nonprofits should think virtual.
Why? A Latinx son of immigrants from a small Texas border town, Matthew Garcia grew up loving to play the viola but living far away from classical music meccas like New York and Chicago. Through years of intense practice and community support, Garcia overcame the odds, traveling with other elite young musicians to tour four continents and play Carnegie Hall – but then he hit a wall. One of the best violists in the world told him he would never succeed as a professional musician: he hadn’t started early enough and hadn’t gotten the private lessons he’d needed, the violist explained. He had missed out on key resources that gave his peers an edge. Garcia never gave up the viola, but this devastating advice changed his life and spurred him to action. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he founded a virtual nonprofit that provides free virtual private lessons to thousands of youth outside of major US cities. By broadening our ideas about what nonprofits can accomplish in the digital age, Garcia says, we can break down geographic, economic and racial barriers to historically exclusive fields like classical music, art and research.
Miguel Goncalves speaks at the Bezos Scholars salon at the TED World Theater in New York City on September 9, 2022. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Miguel Goncalves, impact investor
Big idea: Millennials and Gen Z are set to become the richest generations in history — inheriting 30 trillion dollars’ worth of economic rewards in the coming years. But they’ll also inherit climate change impacts, global instability and a huge and growing wealth gap. Investor Miguel Goncalves believes that wealth can be leveraged to solve these problems through ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investments, which weigh environmental and social costs and benefits in their return calculations. But how can investors overcome the inertia and bias that many old-guard investors hold towards ESG investments?
How? Recent data suggests that about half of institutional investors consider the benefits of ESG investing to be unproven at best, or unclear at worst. Goncalves thinks that institutional investors are guided by expectations as much as by data, and when it comes down to it, “expectations create reality” — in other words, ESG investing won’t work if people don’t believe in it. To change expectations, Goncalves believes analysts could alter financial metrics to focus on what really matters to each industry, rather than cherry-picking the data that makes companies look good. In addition, financial forecasts should weigh potential blowback from environmental irresponsibility, social scandal or wealth inequality. But what Goncalves believes we really need to make ESG investing work is trust: a belief that companies that do good will be around longer, perform better and, in the end, create sustainable wealth.
Okong’o Kinyanjui speaks at the Bezos Scholars salon at the TED World Theater in New York City on September 9, 2022. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Okong’o Kinyanjui, pan-African LGBTQIA+ advocate
Big idea: In many African countries, outdated colonialist laws make it dangerous for LGBTQIA+ people to share their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. In response, online communities are becoming vital safe spaces to combat hate and help people find the support and resources they need to thrive.
How? Okong’o Kinyanjui co-created the Queer African Network, an online platform aiming to provide every queer African with access to verified opportunities, mentorship, fundraising and support. Through a three-week probation period on the network, community leaders are able to authenticate account holders, keeping bots and blackmailers out of private group chats and events. Once safety is established, the community can offer connections and mentorship, moving people closer to financial stability, without sacrificing their identity. There’s also space for queer Africans to share their stories, creating an archive of their lived experiences that can be used to allocate resources. Through constructive online spaces, communities can challenge oppressive systems and create new structures that prioritize collaboration over discrimination.
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The Audacious Project is TED’s collaborative funding initiative to put ideas for social change into action. Today, we launched eight new talks from this year’s cohort, featuring some of the world’s boldest changemakers and their ideas to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges. Collectively this group has secured more than $900 million in funding from the Audacious Project, matching their transformative ideas with catalytic resources. Learn more at AudaciousProject.org, and watch the talks at TED.com/AudaciousProject.
A safe pathway to resettlement for migrants and refugees
Becca Heller, International Refugee Assistance Project
Why Indigenous forest guardianship is crucial to climate action
Nonette Royo, Tenure Facility
How ancient Arctic carbon threatens everyone on the planet
Sue Natali, Woodwell Climate Research Center
Mental health care that disrupts cycles of violence
Celina De Sola, Glasswing International
An election redesign to restore trust in US democracy
Tiana Epps-Johnson, Center for Tech and Civic Life
A transparent, easy way for smallholder farmers to save
Anushka Ratnayake, myAgro
A bold plan for transforming access to the US social safety net
Amanda Renteria, Code for America
The most powerful untapped resource in health care
Edith Elliott and Shahed Alam, Noora Health
The billion-dollar campaign to electrify transport
Monica Araya, ClimateWorks: Drive Electric
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Audacious Project executive director Anna Verghese and head of TED Chris Anderson onstage at TED2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The 2021-22 cohort features nine audacious responses to some of the world’s biggest challenges. (Photo: Dian Lofton / TED)
Communities around the globe are grappling with division and uncertainty. Lasting and transformative change on the world’s most pressing challenges will require us to work together and find common ground. At The Audacious Project, we aspire to be a lever for courageous collaboration, supporting those who are reimagining and rebuilding our systems to better meet the demands of this moment.
This past year, the Audacious community has come together to catalyze more than $900 million for nine bold projects. Sourced from our global network, and supported by our team over the past 12 months, these projects hope to create clear pathways to a better future.
The 2021-22 Audacious Project grantees are:
These projects reflect continued collaboration between a group of global partners, philanthropic organizations and determined individuals who believe in the power of pooling significant, long-term resources in service of impact. Our hope is that this inspires others to engage in the work too.
This new cohort joins an existing Audacious portfolio of 29 projects, with over $3.1 billion of philanthropic dollars catalyzed since 2015. Four cycles into this program, the Audacious projects together reveal a powerful truth: the problems we face are not intractable, and the status quo is not inevitable.
We look forward to sharing these new projects with you next week at TED2022 during the Audacious session co-hosted by Academy Award nominee and Emmy, BAFTA and Peabody Award winner Ava DuVernay, and we very much hope you’ll join us in supporting and amplifying their work far and wide.
With gratitude and determined hope,
Anna Verghese, executive director of The Audacious Project
Chris Anderson, head of TED
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Sex educator and podcaster Kaz speaks at TEDWomen 2021: What Now? on December 2, 2021 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
For Session 2 of TEDWomen 2021, seven speakers shared ideas and insights on everything from mental health and family structures to how to uplift personal and collective dignity.
The event: TEDWomen 2021: Session 2, hosted by TED’s head of curation Helen Walters in Palm Springs, California on December 2, 2021
Speakers: Charles C. Daniels, Jr., Smita Sharma, Zarlasht Halaimzai, Kaz, Francisca Mutapi and Diana Adams
Musical comedian Marcia Belsky performs at TEDWomen 2021: What Now? on December 2, 2021 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)
Music and comedy: For a bit of comic relief, Marcia Belsky has some fun with a song about scrolling back through a date’s Instagram feed as well as “100 Tampons,” which lampoons NASA’s notorious decision to provide astronaut Sally Ride with an egregious supply of tampons for her six-day trip to the space in 1983. “And they asked: Will that be enough?” she sings.
The talks in brief:
Scholar and therapist Charles C. Daniels, Jr. speaks at TEDWomen 2021: What Now? on December 2, 2021 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)
Charles C. Daniels, Jr., scholar, therapist
Big idea: In order to be present and connected to their children, fathers need to learn and be empowered to parent themselves.
How? An estimated 10 million children in the US see their fathers less than once a month, and research has shown that poverty rates, emotional and behavioral issues and school dropout and crime rates all increase when kids inconsistently see their fathers. Sharing his personal journey, Charles C. Daniels, Jr. recounts the profound impact of not seeing his own father — and explores the complex reasons a parent could have for not being there. The reasons that don’t get talked about are the ones that exacerbate the problem, he explains. That’s why he created Father’s UpLift, an organization that helps dads love, forgive and heal themselves and their children. They work with fathers to navigate shame, guilt and other challenges through group therapy, mentorship, coaching and support. Daniels, Jr. helps fathers reconnect with their kid and learn how to parent themselves so they, in turn, can be better parents.
Photojournalist and visual storyteller Smita Sharma speaks at TEDWomen 2021: What Now? on December 2, 2021 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)
Smita Sharma, TED Fellow, photojournalist, visual storyteller
Big idea: Throughout the world, women are cast aside as unworthy of education or self-determination, relegated to tasks of parenting, household duties — and, sometimes, trafficked or enslaved. Through her moving photographs, Smita Sharma shares their stories.
How? By blending into her subjects’ lives and communities (sometimes under the guise of a researcher on “female hygiene,” something men are typically loathe to discuss), Smita Sharma gains the trust of her subjects: women born into poverty who are denied education, become victims of abduction, sexual violence or child marriage. With their consent, Sharma creates powerful visual narratives that depict these forgotten lives with grace and compassion, and that seek to inspire action around systemic issues of gender inequality.
Writer and advocate for refugee rights Zarlasht Halaimzai speaks at TEDWomen 2021: What Now? on December 2, 2021 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)
Zarlasht Halaimzai, writer, advocate for refugee rights
Big idea: Understanding the emotional fallout of violence and displacement is more important than ever.
Why? As a child growing up in Afghanistan, Zarlasht Halaimzai was surrounded by violence. She vividly recalls her grandmother trying to shepherd her family to safety as rockets fell around them, and the overwhelming sense of fear that pervaded her life. The violence forced Halaimzai and her family to leave their home — and when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996, her family sought asylum in the UK, beginning a new life. Now almost three decades later, Halaimzai is an advocate for refugee rights, working to help others overcome the devastation of war and the trauma of feeling expendable. Estimates suggest that today there are more than 84 million forcibly displaced people and 420 million children growing up in places where violence is the norm. Living under the threat of constant violence affects people even when they manage to get out, she says, leaving a terrible legacy on their bodies, minds, spirits and social bonds. With the Amna, Halaimzai uses art, mindfulness, dancing and storytelling to make sense of violence and the experience of being forced from your home, recognizing trauma and building community. The situation is bleak but not hopeless, she says, and there are things we can all do to participate in change. It’s time to demand governments stop investing in mass destruction. “Every vote that we cast should be against weapons of mass destruction, against automation of war,” she says. And she asks us to protect asylum seekers and to be good neighbors to displaced people who join our communities.
Kaz, TED Fellow, sex educator, podcaster
Big idea: Let’s create safe spaces for sex education (no shame or judgment allowed!) and build a curriculum to educate young people on consent.
Why? The best way to raise adults with healthy sexual habits is to teach kids about consent early — before sex is even a topic of conversation, says sex educator and TED Fellow Kaz. This would look like teaching kids that everything associated with their bodies can be negotiated, whether it’s a hug from grandma or asking permission to play tag with someone on the playground. A native of Kenya, Kaz experienced firsthand the detrimental effects of incompetent sex education. Her school’s curriculum centered shame, disturbing imagery and abstinence, leaving her and her peers largely without useful knowledge on consent, pleasure, communication, relationships and what healthy sexual behavior looks like. Now, she seeks to bring this “taboo” topic out of darkness because, as she says, the more we talk about sex, the safer and better it becomes for everyone.
Francisca Mutapi, global health researcher
Question: What’s going on with the Omicron COVID-19 variant?
Answer: There’s nothing unusual or unexpected about the COVID-19 virus mutating, says Francisca Mutapi: variants will continue to arise from all across the globe. The key is to ensure our mitigation strategies are sustainable and proportionate to the crisis. This includes all the usual suspects: making potentially high-transmission areas safer; ramping up and normalizing regular testing, as opposed to implementing travel restrictions and bans (which are largely ineffective); increasing vaccine uptake through education; and, as always, wearing face masks and washing hands.
Attorney and LGBTQIA advocate Diana Adams speaks at TEDWomen 2021: What Now? on December 2, 2021 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Diana Adams, attorney, LGBTQIA advocate
Big idea: Laws should protect all forms of family — including “chosen family” (family we aren’t biologically related to) — and not just nuclear family.
Why? The majority of people in the US are not living in nuclear families with a spouse and kids — yet this is treated like it’s a bad thing. As a divorce lawyer, Diana Adams knows that marriage comes with more than a thousand benefits under federal law, from health insurance to better tax rates. “Our laws should move away from the idea that there is only one ideal family form and value all families as they exist,” says Adams. Advocating for more inclusive laws that also support LGBTQIA, polyamorous triads or quads, co-parents and domestic partnerships, Adams explains how a more expansive view of family would strengthen all relationships. This belief is why they founded the nonprofit Chosen Family Law Center, which works to change the law so it protects the entire spectrum of what a family could look like. “My definition of family is people committed to being there for each other no matter what,” Adams says.
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Do you have a TED Talk to share with the world? TED is hosting its second idea search of 2021 with a mission to hear big, bold ideas — this time specifically from Latin America.
TED Idea Search: Latin America 2021 is open to anyone living in or descended from South America, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Applicants are required to create a two-minute video as a part of their submission. The deadline for submissions has been extended to July 26, 2021 at 11:59pm ET. At this time, we are only able to accept applications in English.
TED is committed to a global mindset. We seek ideas from everywhere and aim to make them widely and freely accessible. Powerful ideas, expressed and distributed with care, have the potential to bring diverse groups together and create a shared vision of a future worth pursuing. It is with that global mindset that we are focusing on different regions of the world for the next few idea search events.
Applicants who are selected for round two will be invited to a virtual event where they will have the opportunity to talk more about their idea and participate in a Q&A with members of the TED community.
Winners will be invited to give a TED Talk, either virtually or in person.
Learn more and submit your application!
In the meantime, learn more about the TED Global Idea Search 2021 winners from earlier this year whose TED Talks are scheduled to be published on TED.com by the end of the year:
Saad Bhamla, chemical engineer and professor at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Talk topic: How insects pee — and what we can learn from them
Andrea Berchowitz, cofounder and CEO of Vira Health in London, UK
Talk topic: How to make the workplace more menopause-friendly
Robert A. Belle, accountant in Nairobi, Kenya
Talk topic: The surprising information about ourselves that accounting can uncover
Sophia Kianni, student and activist in Mclean, Virginia, USA
Talk topic: Tackling climate change by translating critical climate information from English to other languages
And check out just a selection of speakers who were discovered during past idea searches:
Adie Delaney: An aerialist on listening to your body’s signals
Adeola Fayehun: Africa is a sleeping giant — I’m trying to wake it up
Ariel Waldman: The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica’s ice
Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle: What Saturn’s most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life
Tamekia MizLadi Smith: How to train employees to have difficult conversations
Zak Ebrahim: I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace
Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with the lions
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Would you pay two percent more for the carbon-neutral version of things you already buy? Tracing the journey of a lump of coal through the steelmaking supply chain, Jens Burchardt reveals the surprisingly cheap economics of low-carbon products. He speaks at TED@BCG on April 8, 2021. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Evolutions don’t happen overnight. After a year of slowing down and shifting priorities due to the pandemic, we can use this moment to find a better way forward. In a day of talks, interviews and performances, nine speakers and performers explored a range of innovative solutions aimed at addressing the climate crisis, cybersecurity, inequality, trust and more.
The event: TED@BCG: Evolutions is the tenth event TED and Boston Consulting Group have co-hosted to spotlight leading thinkers from around the globe and share their solutions for a better world. Hosted by TED’s Head of Partnerships Lisa Choi Owens, with opening remarks from Rich Lesser, CEO of BCG, and Chris Anderson, Head of TED.
Fun fact: TED@BCG events have generated 138 TED Talks, which have been viewed more 143 million times to date.
Music: Performance by neo-soul songstress MALIA.
The talks in brief:
Marcos Aguiar, digital trust advisor
Big idea: Trust plays a massive role in the success of businesses — and should be designed into their ecosystems.
How? Delivering on a promise or behaving in an expected way is key to earning a customer’s loyalty. Whether you’re scrolling through Facebook, hailing cars via Uber or booking a vacation on Airbnb, each business uses unique elements to win over consumers — oftentimes, with trust as their foundation. How can companies design with trust in mind? Sharing findings from a study that analyzed trust in business ecosystems, Marcos Aguiar offers a toolbox to building systemic trust that consists of seven elements: access; contracts with formalized terms and conditions; incentives to cooperate; control, or gentle guidance, that shapes behavior; transparency; intermediation; and mitigation when mishaps occur. While not all companies need every tool, he says, many will benefit greatly from three to six of them, depending on their industry. Aguiar encourages us all to consider the role trust plays in the platforms we use — and how it can improve our lives beyond them, too.
Anu Puusa, co-op enthusiast
Big idea: Cooperatives — businesses or other enterprises jointly owned, operated and controlled by their members — represent a sustainable model that can achieve long-term social, economic and environmental goals.
How? Cooperatives, also known as co-ops, are the invisible giant of the global economy, says Anu Puusa. Worldwide, there are more than three million co-ops, made up of one billion members, employing 280 million people and selling more than two trillion dollars in goods and services. How exactly do they work? Unlike most businesses, in which certain owners can buy power and influence, a co-op is fully owned by its members, who are also its customers and decision-makers. Each member has one vote, making each member an equal partner and owner in the business — whether the co-op is a farm, grocery store, bank, water supplier or any other organization. Co-ops find that sweet spot between for-profit businesses and the nonprofit world, Puusa says: while they do aim to make money, they also center members’ social and environmental goals and hope to anchor wealth in a community across generations. Because co-ops think in the long term rather than quarter to quarter, creating a sustainable business is the top priority. “Unlike capitalism, the cooperative movement is not broken,” Puusa says. “It just needs better marketing.”
Biotech pioneer Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw talks about equitable access to health care, the Indian biopharma industry and the essential role of international cooperation during the pandemic. She speaks with TED tech curator Simone Ross at TED@BCG on April 8, 2021. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, biotech pioneer, in conversation with TED technology curator Simone Ross
Big idea: Key partnerships, global cooperation and a willingness to experiment with new ideas made COVID-19 vaccine development and distribution possible.
How? Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of Indian biopharmaceutical giant Biocon, discusses the development of COVID-19 vaccines, pointing to India’s critical role in the global vaccine supply chain and championing equitable health care access. Unlike many governments worldwide, the pharmaceutical industry formed key partnerships at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, which enabled the rapid development of vaccines and facilitated a wide-ranging distribution effort. Small biotech companies, such as BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax were first to create innovative vaccine programs when the virus hit. Importantly, they partnered with established pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson to fund, license and develop the vaccines and tap into the necessary networks and supply chains to distribute them. What’s more, Mazumdar-Shaw says, these “big Pharma” companies then partnered with each other to overcome production and manufacturing limitations and supply the world with millions of doses. From these partnerships, as well as equitable distribution initiatives like Cepi, COVAX and the Gates Foundation, she says, we’ve seen growing support for equitable access to health care.
Jens Burchardt, climate impact advocate
Big idea: Saving the planet doesn’t have to break the bank. By spending one to two percent more on eco-friendly products, consumers can help shift industries towards massively smaller (or non-existent) carbon footprints.
How? The steel industry is a highly competitive market — and a massive emitter of greenhouse gases. From the outset, the cost of transforming steelmaking into a low-carbon process would seem too high and potentially risky for suppliers. Jens Burchardt brings a fresh perspective to the challenge, walking us through the ins and outs of production in “hard-to-abate” (or energy-intensive) sectors. By tweaking the price consumers pay for products, he says, the world could take a huge step forward in lowering carbon emissions — and it may not be as expensive as we think. Using the example of an average European midsize sedan (which sells for approximately 30,000 euros), Burchardt breaks down the cost of materials — separate from assembly, marketing and other aspects of production — and calculates that it makes up only fifteen percent of the car’s total price. Companies could employ a low-carbon supplier and market their product as eco-friendly — for only 500 extra euros for consumers at the point of sale. For many industries, a greener world may not be as unreachable as once thought.
Want to do business in Africa? Emerging markets expert Nomava Zanazo shares four things companies need to understand about African customers. She speaks at TED@BCG on April 8, 2021. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Nomava Zanazo, emerging markets expert
Big idea: A message to businesses: stop assuming and get to know African consumers before you sell to them.
How? When looking to sell a new product or service in a country’s market, companies seek to understand the consumer base before jumping in, inquiring about aspects like shopping habits and brand loyalty. But when it comes to the African continent, they seem to abandon these considerations and lump assumptions broadly across its hyper-diverse 55 countries. Emerging markets expert (and South African) Nomava Zanazo gives a crash course on the everyday African spender. For example, Africans don’t want the cheapest product lines — but they do value brands and are much tech savvier than they’re given credit for. By debunking these misconceptions and myths, Zanazo encourages businesses to respect the African market and stop underestimating its consumers. Want your business to thrive in Africa? “Do the homework,” she says. “My continent is worth it.”
Nadya Bartol, cybersecurity leader
Big idea: We must remove the shame around cybersecurity mistakes in order to have safe digital lives.
How? We like to think of ourselves as confident and tech-savvy digital citizens. But many of us have accidentally downloaded a virus, been phished or had our identities stolen. Even software developers sometimes write insecure code without realizing it. These mistakes shouldn’t be hidden but highlighted in order to thwart future cybersecurity attacks, says Nadya Bartol — and we must start by lifting the shame. Much of modern life is computerized, from cars we drive to pacemakers that save lives, and anything digitally interconnected can be hacked. How do we truly stay safe in a digital world? Bartol suggests positive reinforcement and celebrated accountability to foster better, healthier cultures of cybersecurity. Only by being open and honest can we create an environment to learn, grow and protect ourselves in our hyperconnected world.
Beth Ford, farmer’s advocate, in conversation with TED business curator Corey Hajim
Big idea: US farmers face a wide range of challenges — from spotty broadband access to mounting climate disruptions. But there are also a variety of exciting solutions aimed at building 21st-century resilience.
How? As the CEO of Land O’Lakes, Beth Ford works to create a future for farmers that’s both environmentally and economically sustainable. Among many initiatives, she’s focused on expanding technology infrastructure, specifically by pushing for greater broadband access in rural areas. Many farming communities have little to no internet access, leaving children without remote learning opportunities and farmers without modern agricultural tech that requires bandwidth to operate. Ford is speaking with governments and other stakeholders in order to make broadband access a priority — and establish it as a basic right nationwide. She’s also helping farmers build out sustainable business practices in the face of climate volatility. Her team’s agronomists, for instance, work with farmers to get acre-by-acre insights into soil health; they’re also helping establish carbon credits, whereby farmers who reduce their carbon emissions can sell those offsets to other industries. It’s a climate-friendly approach that’s also profitable, Ford says — part of a wave of initiatives aimed at making farmers part of the solution.
We spend a lot of time trying to gain mastery over a set of skills or knowledge base. Adam Grant shows why it might be better to aspire not for mastery but rather being able to rethink what we think we know. He speaks at TED@BCG on April 8, 2021. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Adam Grant, organizational psychologist
Big idea: Confident humility allows us to remain flexible and rethink a situation, a critical skill in a rapidly changing world.
How? Most of us love trying on new clothes, eating at new restaurants and picking up new hobbies. But when it comes to our goals, identities and habits, we don’t like change — especially if it means giving up. Adam Grant digs into how we can avoid getting stuck in our same old ways of thinking and instead broaden our thought patterns and ourselves, even if it means choosing a path we didn’t originally envision. From an unlikely career as a diver to a fateful hike in Panama and a newfound hobby performing magic tricks, Grant shares examples from his own life that illustrate the confident humility needed to know “when to grit and when to quit.” Understanding when you’re in over your head or simply recognizing that you’re not on the right path is a crucial part of remaining flexible and dodging debilitating tunnel vision, so you can achieve your bigger goals.
Jens Burchardt speaks at TED@BCG, April 8th, 2021. Photo courtesy of TED.
Have a great idea? Apply for the chance to give a TED Talk, either virtually or in person, and join past TED speakers like environmental activist Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, pictured above at TEDWomen 2019. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)
Do you have a TED Talk to share with the world? TED is hosting two global idea searches in 2021 with a mission: to hear big, bold ideas from every corner of the globe! We’re looking for people who can offer new, unique insights and fresh ways of thinking to a very large audience.
Applications for the first 2021 Global Idea Search are now open. You’ll be required to create a two-minute video as a part of your submission, and the deadline for this round is January 31, 2021 (11:59pm ET).
Applicants who are selected for round two will be invited to a virtual event where they’ll talk more about their idea and participate in a Q&A with members of the TED community.
Winners will be invited to give a TED Talk, either virtually or in person.
Learn more and submit your application!
Not ready to apply yet? That’s OK — the second global idea search of 2021 will open in June.
In the meantime, check out just a selection of speakers who were discovered during past idea searches:
Adie Delaney: An aerialist on listening to your body’s signals (444k views)
Adeola Fayehun: Africa is a sleeping giant — I’m trying to wake it up (1.5 million views)
Ariel Waldman: The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica’s ice (1.1m views)
Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle: What Saturn’s most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life (1.3m views)
Tamekia MizLadi Smith: How to train employees to have difficult conversations (2m views)
Zak Ebrahim: I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace (6.4m views and a TED Book)
Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with the lions (2.6m views)
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The final week of TED2020 featured conversations with experts on work, tech, government, activism and more, who shared thoughts on how we can build back better after the pandemic. Below, a recap of insights shared throughout the week.
“We are living through the tech-enabled unraveling of full-time employment itself,” says anthropologist Mary L. Gray. She speaks with TED business curator Corey Hajim at TED2020: Uncharted on July 6, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Mary L. Gray, anthropologist
Big idea: AI-driven, service-on-demand companies like TaskRabbit, Amara and Amazon have built a new, invisible workforce.
How? The COVID-19 pandemic has sharply accelerated the world’s online services economy, and it’s amplifying a transition to a distributed workforce. If the thousands of jobs with no benefits, health care or safety net are any indication, society has yet to figure out how to treat the isolated human service provider, says Mary L. Gray. Over the next five years, we’ll need to fill millions of new tech jobs, most of which are built around solving the problems artificial intelligence can’t handle. How will we safeguard the new, abundant and diverse workforce that will fill these jobs, while ensuring that our changing economy is both equitable and sustainable? We often don’t value the people behind the scenes, but Gray believes it’s in society’s best interest to help workers thrive in a chaotic career landscape by providing the social services that companies don’t. “The marketplace alone can’t make the future of AI-enabled service work equitable or sustainable,” Gray says. “That’s up to us.”
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discusses the company’s explosive growth in conversation with TED technology curator Simone Ross at TED2020: Uncharted on July 6, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Eric Yuan, CEO, Zoom
Big idea: Although we might be physically separated by distance, we can still create connection.
How? When coronavirus hit, Zoom’s business exploded overnight. Originally built for business meetings and remote work, the software is now used by people all over the world to teach school classes, do yoga with friends and even get married. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discusses how the company met this new demand and their plans to grow quickly, explaining how Zoom created the most popular video chat software by listening to its users and creating a product to suit their needs. He envisions a Zoom of the future that will be even more user-centric, by providing an experience that rivals face-to-face gatherings with things like digital handshakes and real-time language translations. After the pandemic, Yuan doesn’t think all business and events should be conducted over Zoom. Instead, he predicts a hybrid model where people work from home more often but still go into the office for social interaction and connection. Addressing recent security concerns, he explains that the company will design a simplified security package for first-time users to protect their privacy online. “We are going to keep working as hard as we can to make the world a better place,” he says.
“UV is like hitting the RNA of the virus with a sledgehammer,” says radiation scientist David Brenner, discussing how far-UVC light could be used to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2. He speaks with TED science curator David Biello at TED2020: Uncharted on July 7, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
David Brenner, radiation scientist
Big idea: We can use far-UVC light to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19.
How? Far-UVC light is a wavelength of ultraviolet light that kills bacteria and, crucially, is safe to use around humans. Over the past five years, Brenner and colleagues have conducted studies showing that far-UVC light doesn’t penetrate human skin or eyes but does have powerful germicidal capacities, killing coronaviruses at a highly effective rate. (He first laid out that idea for us in his talk from TED2017.) His team is now testing far-UVC light against SARS-CoV-2, paving the way for a potentially game-changing tool in the fight against COVID-19 and future coronavirus pandemics. Here’s how it would work: we’d install far-UVC lights in ceilings (just like normal lights) and keep them on continuously throughout the day — in hospital waiting rooms, subways and other indoor spaces — to maintain a sterilization effect. This doesn’t mean we would stop wearing masks or social distancing, Brenner notes, but we would have a powerful new weapon against the novel coronavirus. The primary challenge now lies in ramping up production of far-UVC products, Brenner says, though he’s hopeful a plethora of them will be available by the end of the year — providing a ray of hope in these pandemic times. “UV is like hitting the RNA of the virus with a sledgehammer,” he says.
“If you change your city, you’re changing the world,” says Eric Garcetti, chair of C40 Cities and mayor of City of Los Angeles. He speaks with TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers at TED2020: Uncharted on July 7, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Eric Garcetti, chair of C40 Cities and mayor of City of Los Angeles
Big idea: We need to rebuild our cities to be inclusive, green and sustainable.
How? In this moment of rebuilding, Garcetti shares the tangible ways Los Angeles and other cities around the world are working towards economic and social justice and climate action while battling COVID-19. By focusing on greening infrastructure, transportation and energy production, cities are turning this moment into an opportunity. “If we don’t have a just economy, the social fabric will tear apart … whether that’s based on racial prejudice and racism that’s historic, whether it’s based on economic discrimination caste systems, whether it’s looking at the way that the economy is putting more and more wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people,” Garcetti says. “We really see an opportunity to bring these together because the big mega industries of tomorrow are green industries.” By setting the responsibility of racial and gender equality on the shoulders of leadership, measuring progress and holding them accountable, he thinks we can create a more inclusive and prosperous future.
“There’s never that moment where you feel: ‘OK this the right moment to challenge the system.’ Because you might end up waiting your whole life,” says education activist Malala Yousafzai. She speaks with TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers at TED2020: Uncharted on July 8, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Malala Yousafzai, education activist
Big idea: In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, things won’t be the same. But it’s an important opportunity for change — with Gen Z leading the way.
How? Let’s start with Yousafzai herself: a recent graduate of Oxford University and the youngest person to ever win a Nobel Peace Prize, whose biggest dream and current activism encompasses gender equality. Her activism is grounded in education for girls, with the hope that it transforms the world into a place where women are empowered to positively impact every corner of society. Before COVID-19 and between classes, she traveled on behalf of her organization, the Malala Fund, to help create a platform for girls to speak out and urge leaders to eradicate unfair treatment based on gender. Now she’s concerned about the many girls who will lose their access to education because of the pandemic, and she maintains that we must continue to fight for them as the world changes. She has fears just like everyone else but holds on to hope through examples of Gen Z activists and change-makers taking the lead across the world to fight for a better future for all. A few ways to help now? Support activists and organizations working in your community, organize social media campaigns and start writing letters to your political leaders demanding progress, so that you too can join in fixing what’s broken.
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For week 2 of TED2020, global leaders in climate, health and technology joined the TED community for insightful discussions around the theme “build back better.” Below, a recap of the week’s fascinating and enlightening conversations about how we can move forward, together.
“We need to change our relationship to the environment,” says Chile’s former environment minister Marcelo Mena. He speaks with TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers at TED2020: Uncharted on May 26, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Marcelo Mena, environmentalist and former environment minister of Chile
Big idea: People power is the antidote to climate catastrophe.
How? With a commitment to transition to zero emissions by 2050, Chile is at the forefront of resilient and inclusive climate action. Mena shares the economic benefits instilling green solutions can have on a country: things like job creation and reduced cost of mobility, all the result of sustainability-minded actions (including phasing coal-fired power plants and creating fleets of energy-efficient buses). Speaking to the air of social unrest across South America, Mena traces how climate change fuels citizen action, sharing how protests have led to green policies being enacted. There will always be those who do not see climate change as an imminent threat, he says, and economic goals need to align with climate goals for unified and effective action. “We need to change our relationship to the environment,” Mena says. “We need to protect and conserve our ecosystems so they provide the services that they do today.”
“We need to insist on the future being the one that we want, so that we unlock the creative juices of experts and engineers around the world,” says Nigel Topping, UK High Level Climate Action Champion, COP26. He speaks with TED Global curator Bruno Giussani at TED2020: Uncharted on May 26, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Nigel Topping, UK High Level Climate Action Champion, COP26
Big idea: The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to break from business as usual and institute foundational changes that will speed the world’s transition to a greener economy.
How? Although postponed, the importance of COP26 — the UN’s international climate change conference — has not diminished. Instead it’s become nothing less than a forum on whether a post-COVID world should return to old, unsustainable business models, or instead “clean the economy” before restarting it. In Topping’s view, economies that rely on old ways of doing business jeopardize the future of our planet and risk becoming non-competitive as old, dirty jobs are replaced by new, cleaner ones. By examining the benefits of green economics, Topping illuminates the positive transformations happening now and leverages them to inspire businesses, local governments and other economic players to make radical changes to business as usual. “From the bad news alone, no solutions come. You have to turn that into a motivation to act. You have to go from despair to hope, you have to choose to act on the belief that we can avoid the worst of climate change… when you start looking, there is evidence that we’re waking up.”
“Good health is something that gives us all so much return on our investment,” says Joia Mukherjee. Shes speaks with head of TED Chris Anderson at TED2020: Uncharted on May 27, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Joia Mukherjee, Chief Medical Officer, Partners in Health (PIH)
Big idea: We need to massively scale up contact tracing in order to slow the spread of COVID-19 and safely reopen communities and countries.
How? Contact tracing is the process of identifying people who come into contact with someone who has an infection, so that they can be quarantined, tested and supported until transmission stops. The earlier you start, the better, says Mukherjee — but, since flattening the curve and easing lockdown measures depend on understanding the spread of the disease, it’s never too late to begin. Mukherjee and her team at PIH are currently supporting the state of Massachusetts to scale up contact tracing for the most vulnerable communities. They’re employing 1,700 full-time contact tracers to investigate outbreaks in real-time and, in partnership with resource care coordinators, ensuring infected people receive critical resources like health care, food and unemployment benefits. With support from The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED, PIH plans to disseminate its contact tracing expertise across the US and support public health departments in slowing the spread of COVID-19. “Good health is something that gives us all so much return on our investment,” Mukherjee says. See what you can do for this idea »
Google’s Chief Health Officer Karen DeSalvo shares the latest on the tech giant’s critical work on contact tracing. She speaks with head of TED Chris Anderson at TED2020: Uncharted on May 27, 2020. (Photo courtesy of TED)
Karen DeSalvo, Chief Health Officer, Google
Big idea: We can harness the power of tech to combat the pandemic — and reshape the future of public health.
How? Google and Apple recently announced an unprecedented partnership on the COVID-19 Exposure Notifications API, a Bluetooth-powered technology that would tell people they may have been exposed to the virus. The technology is designed with privacy at its core, DeSalvo says: it doesn’t use GPS or location tracking and isn’t an app but rather an API that public health agencies can incorporate into their own apps, which users could opt in to — or not. Since smartphones are so ubiquitous, the API promises to augment contact tracing and help governments and health agencies reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Overall, the partnership between tech and public health is a natural one, DeSalvo says; communication and data are pillars of public health, and a tech giant like Google has the resources to distribute those at a global scale. By helping with the critical work of contact tracing, DeSalvo hopes to ease the burden on health workers and give scientists time to create a vaccine. “Having the right information at the right time can make all the difference,” DeSalvo says. “It can literally save lives.”
After the conversation, Karen DeSalvo was joined by Joia Mukherjee to further discuss how public health entities can partner with tech companies. Both DeSalvo and Mukherjee emphasize the importance of knitting together the various aspects of public health systems — from social services to housing — to create a healthier and more just society. They also both emphasize the importance of celebrating community health workers, who provide on-the-ground information and critical connection with people across the world.
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ELEW and Marcus Miller blend jazz improvisation with rock in a musical cocktail of “rock-jazz.” They perform at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 24, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Dian Lofton / TED)
To keep pace with our ever-changing world, we need out-of-the-box ideas that are bigger and more imaginative than ever. The speakers and performers from this session explore these possibilities, challenging us to think harder about the notions we’ve come to accept.
The event: TEDSummit 2019, Session 4: Business Unusual, hosted by Whitney Pennington Rodgers and Cloe Shasha
When and where: Wednesday, July 24, 2019, 9am BST, at the Edinburgh Convention Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland
Speakers: Margaret Heffernan, Bob Langert, Rose Mutiso, Mariana Mazzucato, Diego Prilusky
Music: A virtuosic violin performance by Min Kym, and a closing performance by ELEW featuring Marcus Miller, blending jazz improvisation with rock in a musical cocktail of “rock-jazz.”
The talks in brief:
“The more we let machines think for us, the less we can think for ourselves,” says Margaret Heffernan. She speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 24, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Dian Lofton / TED)
Margaret Heffernan, entrepreneur, former CEO and writer
Big idea: The more we rely on technology to make us efficient, the fewer skills we have to confront the unexpected. That’s why we must start practicing “just-in-case” management — anticipating the events (climate catastrophes, epidemics, financial crises) that will almost certainly happen but are ambiguous in timing, scale and specifics.
Why? In our complex, unpredictable world, changes can occur out of the blue and have outsize impacts. When governments, businesses and individuals prioritize efficiency above all else, it keeps them from responding quickly, effectively and creatively. That’s why we all need to focus on cultivating what Heffernan calls our “unpredictable, messy human skills.” These include exercising our social abilities to build strong relationships and coalitions; humility to admit we don’t have all the answers; imagination to dream up never-before-seen solutions; and bravery to keep experimenting.
Quote of the talk: “The harder, deeper truth is that the future is uncharted, that we can’t map it until we get there. But that’s OK because we have so much capacity for imagination — if we use it. We have deep talents for inventiveness and exploration — if we apply them. We are brave enough to invent things we’ve never seen before. Lose these skills and we are adrift. But hone and develop them, and we can make any future we choose.”
Bob Langert, sustainability expert and VP of sustainability at McDonald’s
Big idea: Adversaries can be your best allies.
How? Three simple steps: reach out, listen and learn. As a “corporate suit” (his words), Bob Langert collaborates with his company’s strongest critics to find business-friendly solutions for society. Instead of denying and pushing back, he tries to embrace their perspectives and suggestions. He encourages others in positions of power to do the same, driven by this mindset: assume the best intentions of your critics; focus on the truth, the science and facts; and be open and transparent in order to turn critics into allies. The worst-case scenario? You’ll become better, your organization will become better — and you might make some friends along the way.
Fun fact: After working with NGOs in the 1990s, McDonald’s reduced 300 million pounds of waste over 10 years.
“When we talk about providing energy for growth, it is not just about innovating the technology: it’s the slow and hard work of improving governance, institutions and a broader macro-environment,” says Rose Mutiso. She speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 24, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Dian Lofton / TED)
Rose Mutiso, energy scientist
Big Idea: In order to grow out of poverty, African countries need a steady supply of abundant and affordable electricity.
Why? Energy poverty, or the lack of access to electricity and other basic energy services, affects nearly two-thirds of Sub-Saharan Africa. As the region’s population continues to grow, we have the opportunity to build a new energy system — from scratch — to grow with it, says Rose Mutiso. It starts with naming the systemic holes that current solutions (solar, LED and battery technology) overlook: we don’t have a clear consensus on what energy poverty is; there’s too much reliance on quick fixes; and we’re misdirecting our climate change concerns. What we need, Mutiso says, is nuanced, large-scale solutions with a diverse range of energy sources. For instance, the region has significant hydroelectric potential, yet less than 10 percent of this potential is currently being utilized. If we work hard to find new solutions to our energy deficits now, everybody benefits.
Quote of talk: “Countries cannot grow out of poverty without access to a steady supply of abundant, affordable and reliable energy to power these productive sectors — what I call energy for growth.”
Mariana Mazzucato, economist and policy influencer
Big idea: We’ve forgotten how to tell the difference between the value extractors in the C-suites and finance sectors and the value producers, the workers and taxpayers who actually fuel innovation and productivity. And recently we’ve neglected the importance of even questioning the difference between the two.
How? Economists must redefine and recognize true value creators, envisioning a system that rewards them just as much as CEOs, investors and bankers. We need to rethink how we value education, childcare and other “free” services — which don’t have a price but clearly contribute to sustaining our economies. We need to make sure that our entire society not only shares risks but also rewards.
Quote of the talk: “[During the bank bailouts] we didn’t hear the taxpayers bragging that they were value creators. But, obviously, having bailed out the biggest ‘value-creating’ productive companies, perhaps they should have.”
Diego Prilusky demos his immersive storytelling technology, bringing Grease to the TED stage. He speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 24, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)
Diego Prilusky, video pioneer
Big idea: Get ready for the next revolution in visual storytelling: volumetric video, which aims to do nothing less than recreate reality as a cinematic experience.
How? Movies have been around for more than 100 years, but we’re still making (and watching) them in basically the same way. Can movies exist beyond the flat screen? Yes, says Diego Prilusky, but we’ll first need to completely rethink how they’re made. With his team at Intel Studios, Prilusky is pioneering volumetric video, a data-intensive medium powered by hundreds of sensors that capture light and motion from every possible direction. The result is like being inside a movie, which you could explore from different perspectives (or even through a character’s own eyes). In a live tech demo, Prilusky takes us inside a reshoot of an iconic dance number from the 1978 hit Grease. As actors twirl and sing “You’re the One That I Want,” he positions and repositions his perspective on the scene — moving, around, in front of and in between the performers. Film buffs can rest easy, though: the aim isn’t to replace traditional movies, he says, but to empower creators to tell stories in new ways, across multiple vantage points.
Quote of the talk: “We’re opening the gates for new possibilities of immersive storytelling.”
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Marco Tempest and his quadcopters perform a mind-bending display that feels equal parts science and magic at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 23, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)
In an incredible session, speakers and performers laid out the biggest problems facing the world — from political and economic catastrophe to rising violence and deepfakes — and some new thinking on solutions.
The event: TEDSummit 2019, Session 3: The Big Rethink, hosted by Corey Hajim and Cyndi Stivers
When and where: Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 5pm BST, at the Edinburgh Convention Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland
Speakers: George Monbiot, Nick Hanauer, Raghuram Rajan, Marco Tempest, Rachel Kleinfeld, Danielle Citron, Patrick Chappatte
Music: KT Tunstall sharing how she found her signature sound and playing her hits “Miniature Disasters,” “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” and “Suddenly I See.”
The talks in brief:
“We are a society of altruists, but we are governed by psychopaths,” says George Monbiot. He speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 23, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
George Monbiot, investigative journalist and self-described “professional troublemaker”
Big idea: To get out of the political mess we’re in, we need a new story that captures the minds of people across fault lines.
Why? “Welcome to neoliberalism, the zombie doctrine that never seems to die,” says George Monbiot. We have been induced by politicians and economists into accepting an ideology of extreme competition and individualism, weakening the social bonds that make our lives worth living. And despite the 2008 financial crisis, which exposed the blatant shortcomings of neoliberalism, it still dominates our lives. Why? We haven’t yet produced a new story to replace it — a new narrative to help us make sense of the present and guide the future. So, Monbiot proposes his own: the “politics of belonging,” founded on the belief that most people are fundamentally altruistic, empathetic and socially minded. If we can tap into our fundamental urge to cooperate — namely, by building generous, inclusive communities around the shared sphere of the commons — we can build a better world. With a new story to light the way, we just might make it there.
Quote of the talk: “We are a society of altruists, but we are governed by psychopaths.”
Nick Hanauer, entrepreneur and venture capitalist.
Big idea: Economics has ceased to be a rational science in the service of the “greater good” of society. It’s time to ditch neoliberal economics and create tools that address inequality and injustice.
How? Today, under the banner of unfettered growth through lower taxes, fewer regulations, and lower wages, economics has become a tool that enforces the growing gap between the rich and poor. Nick Hanauer thinks that we must recognize that our society functions not because it’s a ruthless competition between its economically fittest members but because cooperation between people and institutions produces innovation. Competition shouldn’t be between the powerful at the expense of everyone else but between ideas battling it out in a well-managed marketplace in which everyone can participate.
Quote of the talk: “Successful economies are not jungles, they’re gardens — which is to say that markets, like gardens, must be tended … Unconstrained by social norms or democratic regulation, markets inevitably create more problems than they solve.”
Raghuram Rajan shares his idea for “inclusive localism” — giving communities the tools to turn themselves around while establishing standards tp prevent discrimination and corruption — at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 23, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Raghuram Rajan, economist and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India
Big idea: As markets grow and governments focus on solving economic problems from the top-down, small communities and neighborhoods are losing their voices — and their livelihoods. But if nations lack the tools to address local problems, it’s time to turn to grass-roots communities for solutions.
How? Raghuram Rajan believes that nations must exercise “inclusive localism”: giving communities the tools to turn themselves around while establishing standards tp prevent discrimination and corruption. As local leaders step forward, citizens become active, and communities receive needed resources from philanthropists and through economic incentives, neighborhoods will thrive and rebuild their social fabric.
Quote of the talk: “What we really need [are] bottom-up policies devised by the community itself to repair the links between the local community and the national — as well as thriving international — economies.”
Marco Tempest, cyber illusionist
Big idea: Illusions that set our imaginations soaring are created when magic and science come together.
Why? “Is it possible to create illusions in a world where technology makes anything possible?” asks techno-magician Marco Tempest, as he interacts with his group of small flying machines called quadcopters. The drones dance around him, reacting buoyantly to his gestures and making it easy to anthropomorphize or attribute personality traits. Tempest’s buzzing buddies swerve, hover and pause, moving in formation as he orchestrates them. His mind-bending display will have you asking yourself: Was that science or magic? Maybe it’s both.
Quote to remember: “Magicians are interesting, their illusions accomplish what technology cannot, but what happens when the technology of today seems almost magical?”
Rachel Kleinfeld, democracy advisor and author
Big idea: It’s possible to quell violence — in the wider world and in our own backyards — with democracy and a lot of political TLC.
How? Compassion-concentrated action. We need to dispel the idea that some people deserve violence because of where they live, the communities they’re a part of or their socio-economic background. Kleinfeld calls this particular, inequality-based vein of violence “privilege violence,” explaining how it evolves in stages and the ways we can eradicate it. By deprogramming how we view violence and its origins and victims, we can move forward and build safer, more secure societies.
Quote of the talk: “The most important thing we can do is abandon the notion that some lives are just worth less than others.”
“Not only do we believe fakes, we are starting to doubt the truth,” says Danielle Citron, revealing the threat deepfakes pose to the truth and democracy. She speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 23, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Danielle Citron, professor of law and deepfake scholar
Big idea: Deepfakes — machine learning technology used to manipulate or fabricate audio and video content — can cause significant harm to individuals and society. We need a comprehensive legislative and educational approach to the problem.
How? The use of deepfake technology to manipulate video and audio for malicious purposes — whether it’s to stoke violence against minorities or to defame politicians and journalists — is becoming ubiquitous. With tools being made more accessible and their products more realistic, what becomes of that key ingredient for democratic processes: the truth? As Danielle Citron points out, “Not only do we believe fakes, we are starting to doubt the truth.” The fix, she suggests, cannot be merely technological. Legislation worldwide must be tailored to fighting digital impersonations that invade privacy and ruin lives. Educational initiatives are needed to teach the media how to identify fakes, persuade law enforcement that the perpetrators are worth prosecuting and convince the public at large that the future of democracy really is at stake.
Quote of the talk: “Technologists expect that advances in AI will soon make it impossible to distinguish a fake video and a real one. How can truths emerge in a deepfake ridden ‘marketplace of ideas?’ Will we take the path of least resistance and just believe what we want to believe, truth be damned?”
“Freedom of expression is not incompatible with dialogue and listening to each other, but it is incompatible with intolerance,” says editorial cartoonist Patrick Chappatte. He speaks at TEDSummit: A Community Beyond Borders, July 23, 2019, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Patrick Chappatte, editorial cartoonist and graphic journalist
Big idea: We need humor like we need the air we breathe. We shouldn’t risk compromising our freedom of speech by censoring ourselves in the name of political correctness.
How? Our social media-saturated world is both a blessing and a curse for political cartoonists like Patrick Chappatte, whose satirical work can go viral while also making them, and the publications they work for, a target. Be it a prison sentence, firing or the outright dissolution of cartoon features in newspapers, editorial cartoonists worldwide are increasingly penalized for their art. Chappatte emphasizes the importance of the art form in political discourse by guiding us through 20 years of editorial cartoons that are equal parts humorous and caustic. In an age where social media platforms often provide places for fury instead of debate, he suggests that traditional media shouldn’t shy away from these online kingdoms, and neither should we. Now is the time to resist preventative self-censorship; if we don’t, we risk waking up in a sanitized world without freedom of expression.
Quote of the talk: “Freedom of expression is not incompatible with dialogue and listening to each other, but it is incompatible with intolerance.”
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Curators David Biello and Chee Pearlman host TED Salon: Trailblazers, in partnership with The Macallan, at the TED World Theater in New York City on June 27, 2019. (Photo: Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
The event: TED Salon: Trailblazers, hosted by TED design and arts curator Chee Pearlman and TED science curator David Biello
When and where: Thursday, June 27, 2019, at the TED World Theater in New York City
The partner: The Macallan
Music: Sammy Rae & The Friends
The talks in brief:
Marcus Bullock, entrepreneur and justice reform advocate
“It’s always better to collaborate with different communities rather than trying to speak for them,” says fashion designer Becca McCharen-Tran. She speaks at TED Salon: Trailblazers, in partnership with The Macallan, at the TED World Theater, June 27, 2019, New York, NY. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Becca McCharen-Tran, founder and creative director of bodywear line CHROMAT
Amy Padnani, editor at the New York Times (or, as some of her friends call her, the “Angel of Death”)
Sam Van Aken shares the work behind the “Tree of 40 Fruit,” an ongoing series of hybridized fruit trees that grow multiple varieties of stone fruit. He speaks at TED Salon: Trailblazers, in partnership with The Macallan, at the TED World Theater, June 27, 2019, New York, NY. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Sam Van Aken, multimedia contemporary artist, art professor at Syracuse University in New York and creator of the Tree of 40 Fruit
Removing his primetime-ready makeup, Lee Thomas shares his personal story of living with vitiligo. He speaks at TED Salon: Trailblazers, in partnership with The Macallan, at the TED World Theater, June 27, 2019, New York, NY. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Lee Thomas, broadcast journalist
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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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Have a great idea you want to share? TED’s own Cloe Shasha launches the worldwide Idea Search for TED2020, onstage at TED2019: Bigger Than Us. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED
If you have an idea the world needs to hear, put your name forward to speak at next year’s TED conference! We’ve just opened applications in our TED2020 Idea Search, a worldwide hunt for the next great idea.
The theme of TED2020 is UNCHARTED. The future is more uncertain than it’s ever been; we’re looking for people who will give us a clue as to where we’re heading — and how we’ll get there.
Are you working on an invention, design or vision that will really change the way things are done?
Do you have a thoughtful approach to the world’s shared frustrations?
Are you an explorer who’s discovered something strange and amazing?
If any of these questions resonate with you, apply today!
Wherever you are, whatever your time zone, you can beam in to the TED World Theater to share your idea during several upcoming events. Applications are open now, with the first deadline on May 29, 2019.
Want inspiration? Here are just a few speakers who were discovered during past talent searches:
Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with the lions (2.3m views)
Ashton Applewhite: Let’s end ageism (1.4m views)
OluTimehin Adegbeye: Who belongs in a city? (2.2m views)
Zak Ebrahim: I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace (5.2m views and a TED Book)
And some past Idea Search talks that went viral on TED.com:
Christopher Emdin: Teach teachers how to create magic (2.27 million views)
Lux Narayan: What I learned from 2,000 obituaries (1.65m views)
Lara Setrakian: 3 ways to fix a broken news industry (1.1m views)
Todd Scott: An intergalactic guide to using a defibrillator (1.1m views)
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TED's own Cloe Shasha speaks at TED2019
Sheperd Doeleman, head of the Event Horizon Telescope, shares how the international collaboration helped us see the unseeable. He speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 15, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)
The theme of TED2019 is “Bigger than us,” and day 1 did not disappoint. Even though it had just three sessions, they were chock full of compelling ideas and calls for action. Here are seven takeaways:
We’re shining light into some really dark places. Sheperd Doeleman, head of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, takes us inside the new (and iconic) black hole image and the epic effort involved in making it. The petabytes (1 petabyte = 1 million GB) of data that were used to construct the image came from a network of telescopes operated by 200 people in 60 countries who, he says, “effortlessly sidestepped the issues that divide us.” (Here’s a thought: Let’s get competing political candidates to work on science projects … together!) And two TED Fellows showed documentary projects that exposed hidden truths: Taghi Amirani shares footage from his just-finished Coup 53, which reveals the British and American conspiracy that overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and shaped the country’s fate (and his family’s), while Nanfu Wang speaks about One Child Nation, her film about the traumas caused by China’s one-child policy.
And some places still need illumination. British journalist Carole Cadwalladr describes her investigation into the Facebook ads that targeted people with lies prior to the 2016 Brexit vote, but most of the evidence of what occurred remains locked in the “black boxes” of Facebook, Google and Twitter. She urges them to release their data, saying: “It’s a crime scene, and you have the evidence.” Writer Baratunde Thurston shares examples of people in the US who had the police called on them because they were “living while black” — when they went to a swimming pool, donated food to the homeless or played golf, “concerned” observers phoned 911 to report them. Systemic racism underlies these 911 calls, and even though changing it may sound impossible, Thurston has hope. He believes that if we can see the humanity of people targeted by racism, we can change our actions; when we change our actions, we change the story; and when we change the story, we can change the system.
The words we use matter. We’re living in polarizing times, and many fractures occur during our conversations. By tweaking what we say, political pollster Frank Luntz shows how to keep our discussions open and respectful. One standout from his suggestions: instead of saying the passive “I’m listening,” try the active, empathic “I get it.”
Businesses need to look beyond balance sheets and focus on their people. TED Fellow Jess Kutch created coworker.org, a platform that helps employees organize. While it tends to scare executives, Kutch says corporate leaders should view organizing as a positive — it’s what she calls “productive conflict,” offering “an opportunity to build a better workplace, a stronger business and an economy that works for all of us.” (Besides, she notes, the people most passionate about changing their workplace tend to be the people who love their workplace the most.) … Creating a company that puts employees first is part of what Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya calls his “anti-CEO playbook.” Other actions in his playbook: Asking communities what they need instead of demanding tax breaks and concessions from them; being accountable to one’s customers rather than one’s shareholders; and taking sides on political issues — because, he says, businesses should use their power to make a difference.
Ethics shouldn’t be an afterthought. While Cadwalladr calls out the tech giants and Ulukaya calls for humanity in business, a slew of TED Fellows echo the theme of responsibility. MIT researcher Arnav Kapur demos a technology that can communicate a person’s thoughts — but he stressed it’s not mind reading. It picks up only “deliberate speech” while “control resides with the user.” … Cofounder and executive director of The Good Food Institute Bruce Friedrich says humans have a responsibility to the earth not to tax it with the consequences of meat consumption. He’s championing research and investment into plant-based and cell-based meat. … Finally, astrodynamicist Moriba Jah speaks about our planet’s responsibility to, well, the rest of the universe. There are more than 500,000 objects in space put there by humans — “most of us what we launch never comes back,” he says. The world’s nations should pool their efforts and data to track the trash.
Music can be used to teach history and biology. Teachers might want to take a lesson from these TED Fellows. Amma Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin shares a rousing excerpt from her in-progress musical At Buffalo, which examines black identity through the events of the 1901 World’s Fair in Buffalo, New York. And biologist Danielle N. Lee led the crowd in a version of Naughty by Nature’s “O.P.P.” to illustrate the concept of “extra-pair copulation.” (Trust us — it was amazing.)
Fishing cats are the cutest cat you’ve never heard of. Oh yes, they are.
That concludes this highly abbreviated rundown of the day’s doings, which also included walking Easter Island statues, innovative ways of creating new medications, a Kenyan music festival with the winning name of “Blankets and Wine” (sign us up!), an astrophysicist who is taking how she studies stellar explosions and applying them to city lights and the criminal justice system, restoring the Maldives with canvas “bladders,” spoken word from the sublime Sarah Kay and Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and much more.
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Amma Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin (center) with performers from her new musical, At Buffalo, as the groundbreaking TED Fellows program celebrates its 10th anniversary. Fellows Session 1 at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 15, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
The event: Talks and performances from TED Fellows, celebrating the 10th anniversary of this life-changing, world-changing program. Session 1 is hosted by TED Fellows director Shoham Arad and TED Senior Fellow Jedidah Isler.
When and where: Monday, April 15, 2019, 10:30am, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC.
Opening: We begin the day by sharing a powerful moment with Dr. Robert Joseph, a Hereditary Chief of the Gwawaenuk First Nation, and Kristen Rivers of the Squamish Nation, who welcome us to Vancouver with a simple message: Let us be one with each other.
The talks, in brief:
Ashwin Naidu, conservationist and founder of the Fishing Cat Conservancy
Jess Kutch, founder of the digital labor organizing platform Coworker.org
Brandon Clifford, ancient technology architect and founder of the design studio and research lab Matter Design
Documentary filmmaker Nanfu Wang uncovers untold stories behind China’s one-child policy, and the creeping effects of propaganda. She speaks at Fellows Session 1 at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 15, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Nanfu Wang, documentary filmmaker who tells stories about human rights in China
Taghi Amirani, documentary filmmaker
Gangadhar Patil, journalism entrepreneur and founder of 101Reporters
Federica Bianco, urban astrophysicist and professional boxer
In a spoken-word piece, writer Marc Bamuthi Joseph investigates the pride and terror of seeing his son enter adulthood. He speaks at Fellows Session 1 at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 15, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Marc Bamuthi Joseph, writer and performer
Ivonne Roman, police captain and cofounder of the Women’s Leadership Academy
We take an interstitial break to watch a trailer from the new film from Blitz the Ambassador, a TED Senior Fellow: The Burial of Kojo. The visually astonishing film was just released on Netflix after being acquired by Ava DuVernay’s company, Array Releasing. Preview it above.
Technologist Arnav Kapur is working on a device that picks up neural signals and converts them to speech — a breakthrough tech that could give a voice back to some people who have lost their ability to speak. He speaks at Fellows Session 1 at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 15, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)
Arnav Kapur, technologist and inventor of the AI device AlterEgo
Bruce Friedrich, food innovator and founder of the Good Food Institute
Laurel Braitman, writer-in-residence at the Stanford University School of Medicine
Amma Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin, scholar and artist who develops theatrical works based on historical documents
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Sarah Parcak shared the vision for GlobalXplorer at TED2016. Today, the platform announced its second expedition: India. Photo credit: TED/Bret Hartman
Today, GlobalXplorer, the citizen science platform created by satellite archaeologist Sarah Parcak with the 2016 TED Prize — which allows users live out their Indiana Jones fantasies and search for archaeological sites from home — announced the location of its second expedition. The location will be: India!
GlobalXplorer’s first expedition took users to Peru, where they searched 150,000 kilometers of land and identified thousands of features of archaeological interest, including more than 50 new Nazca Lines and 324 sites determined by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture to be of high interest. The exploration of India will be even more sweeping in scope.
India is a large country with 29 states, spread out over 3.287 million square kilometers. Working with the Archaeological Survey of India (a branch of India’s Ministry of Culture) and alongside Tata Trusts and the National Geographic Society, GlobalXplorer’s new expedition will cover the entire country, state by state. This vast work will be accomplished with the help of machine learning. Over the past year, GlobalXplorer has been working with technology partners to train AI to weed out tiles that either contain no archaeological features or that are not able to be properly searched because of dense cloud cover or an impenetrable landscape. Platform users will take on the next step: looking at tiles with potential signs of archaeological features. Searching this most promising fraction of tiles will be no small task. Parcak estimates that, with the help of the crowd, this mapping will be done in less than three years.
“Folks we are about to announce country #2 for @Global_Xplorer I am SO excited. What’s your guess?” she tweeted at 6:30am this morning. Then later she revealed: “So thrilled to be able to share: Globalxplorer will be heading to India next!”
More information on when the expedition begins will be coming soon. In the meantime, read lots more — including how GlobalXplorer is using a blockchain-enabled app to keep antiquities safe — on Medium. And watch the video below to get excited about what you might find.
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TED-Ed’s Stephanie Lo (left) and TED’s own Cloe Shasha co-host the salon Education Everywhere, on January 24, 2019, at the TED World Theater in New York City. (Photo: Dian Lofton / TED)
The event: TED Salon: Education Everywhere, curated by Cloe Shasha, TED’s director of speaker development; Stephanie Lo, director of programs for TED-Ed; and Logan Smalley, director of TED-Ed
The partner: Bezos Family Foundation and ENDLESS
When and where: Thursday, January 24, 2019, at the TED World Theater in New York City
Music: Nora Brown fingerpicking the banjo
The big idea: We’re relying on educators to teach more skills than ever before — for a future we can’t quite predict.
Awesome animations: Courtesy of TED-Ed, whose videos are watched by more than two million learners around the world every day
New idea (to us anyway): Poverty is associated with a smaller cortical surface of the brain.
Good to be reminded: Education doesn’t just happen in the classroom. It happens online, in our businesses, our social systems and beyond.
Nora Brown, who picked up the ukulele at age six, brings her old-time banjo sound to the TED stage. (Photo: Dian Lofton / TED)
The talks in brief:
Kimberly Noble, a neuroscientist and director of the Neurocognition, Early Experience and Development Lab at Columbia University
Olympia Della Flora, associate superintendent for school development for Stamford Public Schools in Connecticut, and the former principal at Ohio Avenue Elementary School in Columbus, Ohio
Marcos Silva, a TED-Ed Innovative Educator and public school teacher in McAllen, Texas; and Ana Rodriguez, a student who commutes three hours every day to school from Mexico
Joel Levin, a technology teacher and the cofounder of MinecraftEdu
Jarrell E. Daniels offers a new vision for the criminal justice system centered on education and growth. (Photo: Dian Lofton / TED)
Jarrell E. Daniels, criminal justice activist and Columbia University Justice-In-Education Scholar
Liz Kleinrock, third-grade teacher and diversity coordinator at a charter school in Los Angeles
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