Enchanters: Notes on Session 10 of TED2024

Session 10 of TED2024 plumbs the depths of human emotions, celebrating the beauty of community art, the everyday bravery of family life, the power of sound and more.

The event: Talks from Session 10 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by TED’s Helen Walters

When and where: Thursday, April 18, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Jaime Rojo, Lily Yeh, Mark Grimmer, Kelly Corrigan, Felipe Sánchez Luna, Kylan Gibbs, Lear deBessonet

Performance: Joined onstage by a marching band, broadway legend Brian Stokes Mitchell belts “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” accompanied by pianist Todd Almond — and participation from TED-attendees-turned-singers throughout the TED Theater.

The talks in brief: 

Photographer Jaime Rojo shares his experience photographing the migration of monarch butterflies across North America each year, diving into the latest research behind how these mesmerizing insects make their multi-thousand-mile journey.

From Rwanda to North Philadelphia to the Chinese countryside, barefoot artist Lily Yeh uses the world’s streets and walls as her canvas, collaborating with local communities to weave beauty and healing through the vibrant tapestry of their collective stories and talents.

We are living in the age of immersive experiences, says Mark Grimmer, cofounder of 59 Productions. Redefining narrative possibilities, he shares several multidisciplinary projects, including a multi-sensory exhibit of David Bowie that re-animated his kaleidoscopic career through a whirlwind of objects, costumes and videos — and showed what happens when diverse ideas collide.

Kelly Corrigan ponders the “Olympic achievements” of everyday bravery: the mundane triumphs each of us racks up simply navigating life’s tribulations, big and small. While bravery may consist of simply hanging around and listening (regardless of whether times are tough or boring), its reward is a “maximum dosage” of total human emotion.

In an astounding sonic experience, Felipe Sánchez Luna takes the audience on a journey of music and code, mixing notes and rhythms with ones and zeroes. His composition combines real recordings with data, AI-driven music and human creativity to tap into the transformative power of sound to evoke a deeper, emotional understanding of our world.

Video games are increasingly immersive, but they can still make you feel like you’re in a “closed” system, taken from one scripted point to another based on the buttons you press. Inworld cofounder Kylan Gibbs is helping expand this world with “AI agents” — characters powered by AI that have depth, realism and “brains.” He explains how these agents generate new game outcomes unique to each player’s decisions, augmenting our ability to tell stories.

Church pageants, football games and Mardi Gras aren’t just spectacles — they’re universal human experiences. Theater director Lear deBessonet‘s productions ignite the communal, healing thrill of collective expression by drawing their huge casts (often involving scores of performers) from a cross-section of their host communities.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

Shapeshifters: Notes on Session 9 of TED2024

In Session 9 of TED2024, great minds working on world-shifting innovations shared their work, from a biologist who raised mice with two dads to a computer scientist with a more democratic crowdfunding model. Whether at home or on the global stage, these big ideas have the potential to shape what’s possible.

The event: Talks from Session 9 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson

When and where: Thursday, April 18, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Katsuhiko Hayashi, Carole K. Hooven, Chris Duffy, Anima Anandkumar, Kevin Owocki, Gibran Huzaifah

Performance: Writer, musician and comedian Elle Cordova personified the most beloved fonts, including Futura, Times New Roman, Garamond and more. The funny and smart typographical adventure included a nod to TED’s preferred Helvetica, as well as an audition from Comic Sans to represent the org with a new motto: “thinky thoughts are good.”

The talks in brief:

Biologist Katsuhiko Hayashi dives into the science behind how his team used breakthrough assisted reproductive technology to raise healthy young from the skin cells of two male mice. The accomplishment has implications for endangered species — and the shape of all future families.

Exploring the intersection of science, parenthood and societal norms, behavioral endocrinologist Carole K. Hooven delves into the evolutionary biology and cultural influence behind the differences between sexes — starting with how and why kids play.

Before he was a comedian and host of the TED podcast How to Be a Better Human, Chris Duffy taught elementary school. He shares what he learned from his fifth graders about nurturing your grown-up sense of humor, proposing that there are perks in seeing the world as a kid does: full of hilarious, amazing and extremely weird things.

Perhaps generative AI can write a competent song lyric, but by itself, it lacks the physical knowledge to build a better airplane. To model physical processes, says AI professor Anima Anandkumar, these systems must grasp the finest details of the real world, from molecular bonds to ocean currents. She shares recent AI projects that demonstrate this ability — forecasting weather, designing medical devices and more.

Gitcoin founder Kevin Owocki introduces quadratic funding, a new kind of crowdfunding model. Unlike Kickstarter or Patreon, quadratic funding uses a mathematical formula to match contributions based on the number of contributors rather than the amount given. The more people who care about a project, the more funding it will get.

When Gibran Huzaifah started an aquaculture farm in Indonesia, he was quickly confronted by the lack of technology in the industry. Farmers had insufficient data insights into murky ponds and spent huge sums on manual feeding. So he launched a start-up to automate feeding, eliminate resource waste and solve supply disadvantages for small farmers.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

The TED Theater at TED2024, in photos

For one incredible week each year, a cavernous wing of the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada transforms into the TED Theater: a custom-made, hand-built, 1,200-seat theater that plays host to world-changing ideas meant to spark conversation, deepen understanding and drive meaningful change. Below, just a sampling of the incredible photography from this year’s event, TED2024. And check out our live coverage of the conference and watch TED Talks from TED2024.

TED2024 Photo Team: Leandro Badalotti, Tracy Gitnick, Ryan Lash, Erin Lubin, Jason Redmond, Callie Giovanna Shields, Gilberto Tadday, Jasmina Tomic and Elizabeth Zeeuw

Explorers: Notes on Session 8 of TED2024

From redefining the boundaries of artificial intelligence to unraveling the mysteries of the human genome, Session 8 of TED2024 inspired us to reimagine our relationship with technology and its impact on society.

This session’s explorers offered profound insights into the intersection of technology and human experience — and envisioned a future where innovation fosters greater understanding and connection.

The event: Talks from Session 8 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by TED’s Helen Walters

When and where: Thursday, April 18, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Ray Kurzweil, Keolu Fox, Cliff Kapono, Catie Cuan, Pau Garcia, Peace Itimi, Anjan Sundaram, Amy Kurzweil

The talks in brief: 

We’ve always used technology to enhance our capacities, but the rapid progress of AI is poised to transform our world in radical and beautiful ways. From nanocomputers to “longevity escape velocity,” AI visionary Ray Kurzweil shares why he believes the advent of artificial general intelligence will revamp human life for the better.

Tapping into Indigenous wisdom and cutting-edge technology, Keolu Fox, cofounder of the Native BioData Consortium, and professional surfer and scientist Cliff Kapono propose an eco-friendly approach to data storage — one that relies on the genomes of living organisms like sugar cane. This approach not only mitigates environmental impact but also honors Indigenous heritage by fostering resilience within ecosystems.

Robot choreographer Catie Cuan gives insight into the curiously beautiful world of robotic movement, proposing that robots who can dance — i.e. move with intention and grace — will be better caregivers, teachers and companions who can more seamlessly function among us.

What’s your favorite memory? This is a question that Pau Garcia often explores as part of his project Synthetic Memories, which uses generative AI to create visualizations of people’s memories. He explores the poignant power of this work — from reconnecting people with long-gone moments to potentially helping Alzheimer’s patients tap into lost memories — and shows how we might use technology to understand the past.

Peace Itimi takes us inside Africa’s thriving tech ecosystem starting with MainOne, a Nigerian company that laid West Africa’s first privately owned undersea cable and brought faster connectivity to the region. She introduces us to a range of start-up success stories — from the East African fintech company Kopo Kopo to South Africa’s open-banking platform Stitch.

Small Indigenous communities make up only five percent of the world’s population, but they defend 80 percent of the biodiversity that remains on Earth, says war reporter Anjan Sundaram. He takes us to our planet’s bloody ecological frontlines, where invisible heroes are battling corporations and cartels to save our planet’s last natural ecosystems.

What if AI could breathe new life into the words of a deceased loved one? Cartoonist Amy Kurzweil’s grandfather, Fred, fled Vienna before World War II. When she set about building a chatbot with his archives, she thought the project might feel like a resurrection. Instead, conversations with Fred became a journey into the past, one that changed her ideas about art.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

Trailblazers: Notes on Session 7 of TED2024

We’re about halfway through TED2024, and Session 7 was a whopper — covering everything from preventative medicine for one of the world’s rare diseases to quantum computing, the future of audio computing and a sprinkle of musical improvisational comedy.

The event: Talks from Session 7 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson and host of TED Radio Hour Manoush Zomorodi

When and where: Wednesday, April 17, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Sonia Vallabh, Diabaté Abdoulaye, Reggie Watts, Hartmut Neven, Tammy Ma, Jason Rugolo

The talks in brief:

Biomedical researcher Sonia Vallabh’s life was turned upside down when she learned she had the genetic mutation for a rare and fatal illness, prion disease, which could strike at any time. Fifteen years later, Vallabh’s search for a cure has led her to new insights about the importance of preventative medicine.

Malaria is a disease as old as humankind, says scientist Diabaté Abdoulaye. He shows the path to a malaria-free world by harnessing the potential of “gene drive” technology — which augments the genetics of mosquitos to reduce disease transmission — combined with community support and funding.

“No one loves perception more than people who are conscious,” jokes musician and comedian Reggie Watts. In an absurdist ode to improvisation, he beatboxes, raps, loops his own rhythms and philosophizes on how we’re all making it up as we go along.

By replacing the binary logic of ones and zeroes with the laws of quantum physics, quantum computing allows us to perform computations with way fewer steps. Hartmut Neven, the founder and lead of Google Quantum AI, sees exciting commercial applications on the horizon; imagine, for instance, a phone that could warn you if you enter a room with dangerous viruses or detect allergens in your food.

In 2022, physicist Tammy Ma and her team used a giant laser to achieve a scientific breakthrough: fusion ignition, or the combining of two hydrogen atoms for energy generation. She explains the science behind this groundbreaking success and explores what’s needed to make a fusion-powered world a reality.

Deeptech inventor and designer Jason Rugolo introduces a new hands-free, screen-free computer you can wear on your ears and talk to like a friend. In contrast to digital assistants like Siri — which require you to issue specific commands — Rugolo shows how audio computers will use LLMs and machine learning to understand your intentions and engage with you like a person.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

Bridge-Builders: Notes on Session 6 of TED2024

In Session 6 of TED2024, we heard from bridge-builders — inspiring speakers working to unite people across political divides, conflicts, differences and more.

The event: Talks from Session 6 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by TED’s Helen Walters and Dave Isay, the founder of StoryCorps and winner of the 2015 TED Prize

When and where: Wednesday, April 17, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Gabrielle Rifkind, David Finnigan, Ketakandriana Rafitoson, Spencer J. Cox, Daniel Lubetzky

Performance: The Jerusalem Youth Chorus (JYC) is a choral and dialogue program for Palestinian and Israeli youth in Jerusalem. JYC’s founder Micah Hendler and executive director Amer Abu Arqub discuss the impetus behind the program, how music creates cross-cultural understanding and introduce the chorus itself for a rousing performance.

Gabrielle Rifkind is director of the Oxford Process, an organization devoted to ending armed conflict with the tools of mass psychology and geopolitics, rather than the weapons of war. With inclusive negotiating strategies, she believes we can create a world where nations rush to the bargaining table rather than to their guns.

In the wake of his production Kill Climate Deniers, playwright David Finnigan received countless messages from everyday individuals defending their beliefs. While climate deniers still refuse to believe science, says Finnigan, they’re right about one thing: climate action requires us to change how we live — and that’s something we all should embrace.

In Madagascar, activist Ketakandriana Rafitoson empowers citizens to protect their rights in the face of systemic exploitation. In the absence of strong democratic traditions, her grassroots toolkit of citizen assemblies, legal aid and collective action is helping to organize Madagascar, one community at a time.

​​When he felt his faith in the peaceful transfer of power in the US eroding, Governor of Utah Spencer J. Cox reached out to his political opponent to produce a campaign ad — together. It sparked a nationwide conversation about bridging political divides and fostering a united society. On the TED stage, he shares three things we can all do to disagree without hate.

We’re being programmed to think every issue is binary: “us versus them.” But Daniel Lubetzky says the real enemy is not a person but a mindset: extremism that hijacks the agenda and foments division. He previews a new initiative that aims to bring together “builders” (instead of “dividers”) from around the world and across the political spectrum, to replace eternal conflict with practical problem-solving.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

Provocateurs: Notes on Session 5 of TED2024

Bold ideas often meet resistance — but what if they were met with curiosity? Session 5 of TED2024 didn’t shy away from audacious ideas. Instead, it invited us all to embrace the discomfort of considering the impossible and unfamiliar, to find the courage to step into someone else’s shoes and assume goodness in those around us — because that’s what catalyzes imagination and possibility.

From the search for extraterrestrial life to the future of democracy, speakers delved into topics that challenge conventions and will spark conversation long after they stepped off the red circle.

The event: Talks from Session 5 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson

When and where: Wednesday, April 17, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Avi Loeb, Bill Ackman, Alison Taylor, Andrew Yang, Bari Weiss, Scott Galloway

Performance: Xochimilco artist Xiuhtezcatl (or X) performed the songs “Careful” and “Veils,” seamlessly blending influences from his Indigenous and Mexican heritage with a fervent dedication to environmental activism.

The talks in brief:

Diving into theories around interstellar phenomena such as the Oumuamua asteroid, astrophysicist Avi Loeb suggests we haven’t found scientific proof of alien life simply because we haven’t dedicated the proper funding. He explores the research needed to find the higher intelligence potentially residing galaxies away, imagining a future where otherworldly knowledge helps improve life on Earth.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Bill Ackman, the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, sits down with business professor Alison Taylor to discuss the activist investor playbook and how it applies to the social and political realms. They dig into free speech, Ackman’s notoriously long posts on X, the conversation around Harvard and DEI as well as the intersection of power, voice and wealth.

American politics has an incentives problem, says political reformer Andrew Yang. The current system caters to primary voters, which has created a disconnect between overall Congressional approval and reelection rates. How do we realign incentives to make government work for more people? Yang shows why nonpartisan primaries and ranked-choice voting could be the answer.

In an unflinching look at issues that widen the political divide in the US, journalist and editor Bari Weiss highlights why courage is the most important virtue — and shares examples of people who have wielded it. She urges us all to say what we believe in the face of conformity and silence.

NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway dissects the data showing that, in the US, younger people are worse off financially than their parents were at the same age. He shows the knock-on effects of this theft of generational wealth, asking: If we allow this to keep happening, do we really love our kids?

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

Illuminators: Notes on Session 4 of TED2024

For Session 4 of TED2024, illuminators from diverse disciplines explored the bright future of their fields. From AI as a digital species to explosive art that climbs into the sky, speakers looked at how light (literally and figuratively) can shape our climate, social interactions, scientific discoveries and more.

The event: Talks from Session 4 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, cohosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and executive director of the Audacious Project Anna Verghese

When and where: Tuesday, April 16, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Mustafa Suleyman, Nour E. Rawafi, Millie Chu Baird, Sarah J. Doherty, Sara Giusto, Cai Guo-Qiang

An audacious update: Videos throughout the session provided updates on the Audacious Project’s 2018 cohort, including Girl Trek, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Sightsavers, The Bail Project and Living Goods + Last Mile Health. Learn more about their work.

Performance: Jordan Johnson and Aidan Carberry’s JA Collective perform a hypnotic exploration of movement, alternating between the abrupt and fluid, moving one another across the stage accompanied by stunny visual art.

The talks in brief:

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman offers a vision of a future infused with AGI, proposing that AI’s ubiquity and skillset make it more than just a tool — it should instead be considered a digital species. While the metaphor may not be perfect, he suggests this framework can allow us to better consider how we want AI to grow and where we need to be more cautious.

From sustaining life on Earth to its potential for catastrophic solar storms, astrophysicist Nour E. Rawafi sheds light on why understanding the sun is crucial to our future. He illuminates its enduring mysteries and humanity’s next technological steps to unraveling them — like sending probes on a galactic journey into the atomosphere of our fiery neighbor.

Even though its atmospheric volume is dwarfed by that of CO2, methane is 80 times more effective at trapping heat. Thus, cutting methane emissions is key to tackling climate change, says environmental advocate Millie Chu Baird. With the help of a new satellite called MethaneSAT, supported by the Audacious Project, she hopes to improve ourunderstanding of where all that methane comes from as well as our ability to address its impacts.

Aerosol emissions are responsible for the deaths of between four and 10 million people, but they also cool the planet (by about half a degree, scientists estimate) by making clouds more reflective, bouncing sunlight back into space. Atmospheric scientist Sarah J. Doherty explains how we might both reduce pollution and lower temperatures by replacing toxic aerosols with their natural counterparts.

Sara Giusto is a talent manager — but not in the way you might imagine. Her biggest client is imma: a pink-bobbed, CGI-created “virtual human” influencer. Giusto shares how imma’s influence extends to real-world issues and emotions, raising an important question: In an increasingly virtual world, what’s really real?

Speaking in Mandarin translated live with an AI-generated imitation of his voice powered by technology from Metaphysic, multidisciplinary artist Cai Guo-Qiang shares how he creates captivating spectacles from gunpowder and fireworks, enchanting audiences worldwide with scenes of alien footprints, mushroom clouds and more.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

System Changers: Notes on Session 3 of TED2024

Many of the world’s systems, big and small, could use an upgrade. In a dynamic Session 3 at TED2024, six speakers explore how to do just that — taking on everything from global development and capitalism to robots and vertical farming.

The event: Talks from Session 3 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by TED’s Helen Walters

When and where: Tuesday, April 16, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Karthik Muralidharan, Daniela Rus, Rumman Chowdhury, Hiroki Koga, Zeynep Ton, Pete Stavros

Special appearance: Lily James Olds, the director of the TED Fellows program, announces the 2024 cohort of TED Fellows, whose work spans five continents and represents 11 countries — including, for the first time, Georgia. Read more about them here.

The talks in brief:

Spoiler: There is such a thing as a free lunch in global development, says economics professor Karthik Muralidharan. Although key indicators like school enrollment rates reached historic highs, most children are surviving, not thriving. He explains that with smarter resource allocation and evidence-based interventions, we can achieve more — without spending more.

Despite breathtaking advances, the worlds of AI and robotics remain siloed. Roboticist and computer scientist Daniela Rus describes how “liquid networks” — a more flexible, efficient and sustainable AI paradigm — promise to shatter the barrier between AI and robotics, creating a future where bespoke machines shape our everyday lives.

Will AI systems dominate our lives, or will they enhance human agency? Rumman Chowdhury, CEO and cofounder of Humane Intelligence, says that for AI to achieve its full potential, we must invite non-experts into the development process and empower people to shape and train new technologies.

Inside a vertical farming facility, you can control every environmental factor (temperature, humidity, light, pollination, etc.). You can also experiment regularly, improving practices to generate the sweetest strawberries year-round, says Hiroki Koga, CEO of Oishii. He shares how innovations in big data are making vertical farming an affordable, eco-friendly alternative to traditional farming.

Essential work doesn’t pay well, but MIT management professor Zeynep Ton believes it should. She points to companies like Costco or the Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona, which have reduced costs and worker turnover — and increased profits and productivity — by paying their workers decent, livable wages.

What if all employees had stock ownership in the companies they worked for? Investor Pete Stavros turned over stock ownership of a manufacturing company to its 800 workers, drastically improving the company’s productivity, profitability and the lives of its workers — a testament to the power of employee ownership.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

Mind Expanders: Notes on Session 2 of TED2024

AI is reshaping how we interact with the world around us and within us, expanding creative possibilities and bringing us closer together by dissolving barriers of all kinds. But anyone who’s paying attention can spot its obvious flaws and potential pitfalls.

From trailblazing platforms making software accessible to micro-robotics revolutionizing health care (including a mind-blowing demo you won’t want to miss), Session 2 of TED2024 explored the frontiers of tech with visionary entrepreneurs, scientists and creators. They offered glimpses of what good AI could do for the world when governed with empathy and curiosity.

The event: Talks from Session 2 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and creative technologist and host of The TED AI Show Bilawal Sidhu

When and where: Tuesday, April 16, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Vinod Khosla, Fei-Fei Li, Thomas Dohmke, Niceaunties, Alex Luebke, Vivek Kumbhari, Helen Toner

A special challenge: President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund Andrew Steer announces the AI for Climate and Nature Grand Challenge, a groundbreaking initiative set to distribute up to $100 million in grants to harness AI in the fight against climate change and nature loss.

The talks in brief:

Vinod Khosla is a self-proclaimed techno-optimist who believes in the power of “foolish ideas.” He shares his predictions for how technology will continue improving human lives, discussing expanded medical care through AI doctors, a massive robotic workforce, planes that can travel 4,000 miles per hour and more.

AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li proposes that the progress of AI’s understanding of spatial intelligence – the ability to derive predictions and insight from objects’ relationships to one another – is catalyzing robotic learning, bringing us closer to a world where AI not only sees and creates but also interacts with the world around us.

Software development has long been the purview of specialized workers. By removing the barrier between programming languages and human ones, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke shows how AI is poised to change that forever. He demos never-before-seen software his team has been developing that promises to empower people to create code using just their spoken words — in any language.

From sushi-bedecked cars with legs to elderly women wearing cat-shaped masks made of cereal, artist Niceaunties’ surreal “Auntieverse” — a mind-bending homage to “auntie culture” prevalent in Asian communities — charmingly showcases the creative potential of human-AI partnerships.

Meet PillBot: a wireless micro-robot that can go inside the human body and take a look around. In a (literally) stomach-turning demo, engineer and entrepreneur Alex Luebke swallows a PillBot and physician-scientist Vivek Kumbhari navigates it around his stomach with a game controller, showing how the device allows direct visualization of internal organs and could move us past the age of invasive, expensive endoscopies.

No one understands AI — not even experts, says policy expert Helen Toner. But that doesn’t mean we can’t govern it. She makes the case that people and policymakers need to push for more research into AI interpretability (measuring what these systems can do) as well as regulations that require AI companies to share what they’re building and why.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

Dreamers: Notes on Session 1 of TED2024

It’s time for TED! And this year’s conference marks a big year: the 40th anniversary of TED, honoring the inaugural conference in 1984.

With that in mind, TED2024 kicked off with a classically eclectic opening session, ranging from a powerful conversation on how Israel and Palestine can find peace to the future of AI to visual storytelling as you’ve never before seen it.

The event: Talks from Session 1 of TED2024: The Brave and the Brilliant, hosted by Chris Anderson, Monique Ruff-Bell and Helen Walters

When and where: Monday, April 15, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Aziz Abu Sarah, Maoz Inon, Demis Hassabis, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, RuPaul Charles, Willie Williams, Angus Hervey

Performance: Writer, musician and comedian Elle Cordova shares a poem she wrote about the Big Bang and, joined by guitarist Toni Lindgren, plays “Carl Sagan” — an original song about the endless scroll of social media and our desire to reach out to others across the void.

The talks in brief:

Peacemakers Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon discuss the immeasurable tragedies they’ve experienced growing up in Palestine and Israel, respectively — and how they choose reconciliation over revenge, again and again. With a fierce belief in a better future, they work to foster opportunities for connection and understanding across divides, collectively building hope for peace.

DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis shows how AI might solve humanity’s “big questions” by identifying patterns in impossibly huge (and humanly incomprehensible) datasets. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Hassabis explores AI from its game-playing, algorithmic roots to the current high-powered arms race.

Since the 1990s, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, the president of Tompkins Conservation and the former CEO of Patagonia, has worked with her husband to rewild more than two million acres of crucial habitat in the southernmost regions of Argentina and Chile. She explains how actively restoring natural territories and bringing back missing species can heal the planet amidst our ongoing climate and extinction crises.

In an engaging dish session, drag superstar RuPaul Charles takes the stage to debut “On the Spot,” TED’s new interactive Q&A format. Giving rapid-fire responses to a stream of unexpected questions, Ru enlightens us on everything from the power of drag to expand our definitions of self to the value of not taking anything too seriously.

Redefining the boundaries of live entertainment, multimedia show director Willie Williams showcases his work designing and directing transcendent shows for artists like U2, David Bowie and many more. He shares his thinking on how to weave cutting-edge tech with imaginative visuals to create unforgettable experiences and connections.

Whether or not you believe that world is on track for imminent doom might depend on where you get your news, says Angus Hervey, founder of Fix The News. He delivers good news for humanity that the media cycle missed last year, from advances in clean energy technologies to declining rates of extreme poverty, crime and disease.

TED2024, held April 15-19, 2024, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a week of talks, discovery sessions, excursions, dinners, performances and more celebrating “The Brave and the Brilliant.” Special thanks to our strategic partners PwC, Adobe, Schneider Electric and Northwestern Mutual.

Moving on up: Talks from day 3 of TEDWomen 2023

For the final day of TEDWomen 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia, a multidisciplinary group of experts took on the challenges and opportunities of navigating change — from reimagining migration for political power and addressing the real threats of AI to championing inclusivity, celebrating nature’s wildness and pondering life’s myriad complexities through art.

The event: Sessions 4 and 5 of TEDWomen 2023, hosted by TEDWomen editorial director Pat Mitchell, TED’s head of curation Helen Walters and activist, filmmaker and entrepreneur Maya Penn

When and where: Friday, October 13, 2023, at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia

Speakers: Charles M. Blow, Sasha Luccioni, Ruha Benjamin, Melonie D. Parker, Sherrell Dorsey, Mary Ann Sieghart, Dyhia Belhabib, Rebecca McMackin, Lucy McBath, Valerie Montgomery Rice, Maira Kalman, Freada Kapor Klein, Sheila Ngozi Oparaocha, Chantale Zuzi Leader

Music: Darkwave artist Abra captivated the TEDWomen audience with her signature blend of gothic, R&B and electronic music.

Societal progress often feels like two steps forward, one step back — how do we change that? New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow calls for a peaceful, reverse migration of Black Americans to southern US states, to write over legacies of oppression and wield political power to change history.

We’ve all heard it recently: “AI could kill us all.” Instead of catastrophizing, AI ethics researcher Sasha Luccioni wants to address AI’s more pressing risks — like carbon emissions, copyright infringement and biased data — by creating tools and legislation that promote transparency.

In the era of superintelligent AI, are health care and housing for all really beyond reach? From the outcry against Atlanta’s “Cop City” to tech-driven democracy in Barcelona, researcher Ruha Benjamin imagines a future where tech and people-power work in tandem, not in opposition.

How can we create safe and inclusive work cultures for all? Google’s chief diversity officer Melonie D. Parker joins journalist and host of the TED Tech podcast Sherrell Dorsey in a nuanced conversation about creating a sustainably inclusive company where every employee can thrive.

We still take women less seriously than men, says author, journalist and broadcaster Mary Ann Sieghart. She explains how we can tackle what she calls the “authority gap” by questioning our biases against women’s intelligence (like judging a woman by the pitch of her voice) and actively promoting female experts.

Criminal groups use sophisticated technology to perpetrate crimes on the ocean: drug smugglers pilot autonomous submarines; pirates use satellites to detect ships they plan to capture and ransom. Maritime crime fighter Dyhia Belhabib introduces Heva, a tool that uses AI to aggregate international criminal records with the goal of detecting and stopping maritime crime.

Ecological horticulturist Rebecca McMackin explores the beauty of letting your garden run wild, surveying the success she’s had increasing biodiversity on the piers of Brooklyn Bridge Park and offering tips for creating wildlife-friendly habitats at home.

Following the death of her only son, US Congresswoman Lucy McBath was elected to office with one major goal: pass comprehensive gun safety legislation. She shares the power of a personal story to bridge divides and make real, impactful change.

“There are challenges and fears that catapult us to become the greatest versions of ourselves, to become great leaders,” says health equity advocate and president and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine Valerie Montgomery Rice. She shares three lessons in leadership and shows how they can guide anyone hoping to break through fear, stand up for what’s right and build opportunity for all.

Multidisciplinary artist Maira Kalman delivers a delightfully wry, sneakily profound reflection on time, death, work, art, family, dreams and more. Backed by her wise, witty illustrations, her talk seems to embody the entirety of life itself, in all its absurd glory.

Impact investor Freada Kapor Klein is building fairness into the core of tech companies. Her VC fund, Kapor Capital, only invests in businesses that commit to hiring diverse teams, fostering inclusive workplaces and creating products and services that close opportunity gaps.

The dominant narrative of energy transition has a problem, says energy equity expert Sheila Oparaocha: it ignores the billions of people without energy access. For just and inclusive climate solutions, Oparaocha says we must empower women and prioritize universal access to sustainable energy.

After surviving devastating violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chantale Zuzi Leader found safety in the US. She urges everyone to consider the problem of displacement with curiosity and compassion — and offers refugees like her a powerful message of hope: “It is possible to break through.”

Life, love and finding a path: Talks from day 2 of TEDWomen 2023

Day 2 of TEDWomen 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia featured an interdisciplinary array of ideas from speakers who are disrupting poverty, creating bold art, restoring Indigenous rights, exploring bioluminescence in nature and much more.

The event: Sessions 2 and 3 of TEDWomen 2023, hosted by TEDWomen editorial director Pat Mitchell and activist, filmmaker and entrepreneur Maya Penn

When and where: Thursday, October 12, 2023, at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia

Speakers: Tracie Revis, Diana Greene Foster, Aisha Nyandoro, Andre Dickens, Rosita Najmi, Esha Chhabra, Paige Alexander, Jay Bailey, Karinna Grant, Laetitia Ky, Glenn Close, Laurel Braitman, Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh, Gary Barker, Lindsay Morris, Reed J. Williams, Maria E. Sophocles

A warm welcome: From Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who shared how the city has partnered with the Carter Center on a campaign called Inform Women, Transform Lives, which is aimed at raising awareness about women’s right to information.

Music: An enchanting, genre-bending performance of her songs “Universe,” “Statues” and “Liberation” by singer-songwriter and producer Buzz.

Tracie Revis’s ancestors were forcibly removed from their homeland in what is currently known as Georgia. Now, she’s working to reclaim part of that land, the Ocmulgee Mounds, and turn it into Georgia’s first national park and preserve, which would be co-managed by the Muscogee Creek tribe — tapping into the immense power of their ancestral homeland to heal generational trauma.

Does having an abortion negatively impact a woman’s life? Demographer Diana Greene Foster’s research, known as The Turnaway Study, shows that women who want abortions and get them experience better mental and physical health and socioeconomic well-being than those who are denied.

For Black mothers receiving guaranteed income through the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, a first-of-its-kind guaranteed income program in the US, a steady check meant having the power to uplift those around them. Inspired by their example, poverty disruptor Aisha Nyandoro wants people to redefine wealth in terms of the good it can create.

Don’t fret about your leadership style, says global development economist Rosita Najmi — focus instead on your leadership languages. She explains why the best leaders are “multilingual,” fluent in the languages of business, philanthropy and public policy.

“Sustainability” has become a business buzzword, but environmental business journalist Esha Chhabra thinks it’s time to dig deeper. She outlines the growing wave of regenerative companies — which take a far more holistic approach to operations, with every aspect of business driving towards solving a social problem — and shows how many of them are already making big changes in fashion, energy, food, agriculture and beyond.

Access to information is the key to unlocking human rights for all, says equality champion Paige Alexander. Leading The Carter Center, she and her team are connecting women to vital resources to get educated, start businesses and transform lives around the world.

When creating an incubator for Black entrepreneurs, Jay Bailey drew inspiration from Motown and HBCUs — two great models for economic mobility. What do they have in common? Bailey says both cultivate belonging and give people the freedom to believe.

What if you could buy the latest fashions without crowding your closet or growing your carbon footprint? Digital fashion entrepreneur Karinna Grant says that future is already emerging: NFTs and augmented reality are expanding possibilities for creative consumption while decreasing waste.

Artist Laetitia Ky creates incredible sculptures using the hair on her head (and a bit of wire), transforming it into surprising forms — an umbrella, a sunflower, wings, a raised fist — that promote bodily autonomy and self-acceptance.

In 2009, Jessie Close confessed to her sister, actor Glenn Close, that her son’s struggle with schizophrenia had filled her with thoughts of suicide. She recounts how this revelation inspired their mental health advocacy organization, Bring Change To Mind, which is seeking to transform society’s negative perceptions of mental illness.

“Life is just one endless sushi conveyor belt of things that are going to test you and teach you at the same time,” says writer Laurel Braitman. Sharing the story of growing up as her dad battled cancer, she shares wisdom on why you can’t have joy without sorrow, bravery without fear.

There are more than 2,000 firefly species that we know of, and they’re found on every continent except for Antarctica. Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh explores the mysteries of these luminous beetles — which are an essential part of a healthy ecosystem — and details her quest to discover new firefly species and safeguard them as their habitats disappear.

From childhood, boys have violent impulses imbued in them by a society that emphasizes independence at any cost. Unsurprisingly, most violent crimes are committed by men. Gary Barker shares ways to overcome violence by cultivating male empathy.

After bringing her son to a summer camp for gender-nonconforming children, photographer Lindsay Morris launched a project to share the kids’ stories with the world. One of them, Reed J. Williams, is now a powerful advocate for transgender youth. Together, Morris and Williams reveal two sides to the LGBTQ+ experience — one as a mother, one as a trans woman — and offer poignant insight into the power of community.

Gynecologist Maria E. Sophocles explains the science behind menopause — and its unsexy impacts in the bedroom. From estrogen to advocacy, she offers some solutions for women to bridge “the bedroom gap” and get back to comfortable, pleasurable sex.

A world view: Talks from day 1 of TEDWomen 2023

TEDWomen 2023 kicked off in its new home of Atlanta, Georgia with a moving and wide-ranging session of talks and performances about the future of global democracy, the pursuit of freedom in Russia and Ukraine, the path to recovery for survivors and more.

The event: Session 1 of TEDWomen 2023, hosted by TEDWomen editorial director Pat Mitchell, TED’s head of curation Helen Walters and activist, filmmaker and entrepreneur Maya Penn

When and where: Wednesday, October 11, 2023, at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia

Speakers: Yordanos Eyoel, Irina Karamanos Adrian, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Jane Ferguson, Dasha Navalnaya, Ava DuVernay, Christine Schuler Deschryver, Chris Anderson

Music: Introduced by Atlanta Symphony Orchestra music director Nathalie Stutzmann, chamber music group The Merian Ensemble open the week with an evocative and transporting performance of Nicole Chamberlain’s “Atalanta” for flute, oboe, bass clarinet, harp and viola.

It’s not news that democracy is under attack globally. In order to encourage new democracies (and protect established ones), we need more than robust institutions — we need grassroots action, says democracy entrepreneur Yordanos Eyoel, who explores innovative ways to nurture nascent pro-democracy groups wherever they’re threatened.

As a feminist, Irina Karamanos Adrian was not thrilled to become Chile’s First Lady. She shares how she overturned the position’s institutionalized responsibilities in an effort to make them more transparent, asserting that it’s undemocratic for an unelected position to have such power.

How do we defend people’s freedom and dignity against authoritarianism, asks human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk. In the face of Russian troops occupying Ukraine, she emphasizes the extraordinary capabilities of ordinary people — and urges us all to stand together.

Women journalists shape the way the world sees wars, says war reporter Jane Ferguson. Illuminating the historic impact of female-led reporting, she highlights the perspective-broadening power of humanizing stories from war zones.

Dasha Navalnaya is the daughter of an important man: Alexey Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition and one of Vladimir Putin’s top critics. She shares the story of her father’s poisoning and imprisonment — and why Russians need your help to bring down Putin’s authoritarian regime.

In conversation with TEDWomen editorial director Pat Mitchell, writer, producer and filmmaker Ava DuVernay discusses how she turned Caste — Isabel Wilkerson’s Pulitzer-Prize winning nonfiction analysis of race in the US — into Origin, a gripping narrative film exploring both the book’s thesis and the author’s life story.

Human rights activist Christine Schuler Deschryver shares how her organization, City of Hope, is modeling a new recovery program for women survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one that allows women to reclaim their bodies while developing skills to become future community leaders.

We’re well aware of how quickly hate and misinformation go viral. But in a one-of-a-kind preview of his upcoming book, head of TED Chris Anderson argues generosity can be infectious as well — creating powerful ripple effects that help us thrive.

Closing performance: Mahogany-N-Motion, a student-run women’s dance group from Spelman College — a historically Black liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia — close out the session with an energetic, drumline-infused performance that brought the TEDWomen crowd to its feet.

Momentum: Notes from Session 7 of TED Countdown Summit 2023

TED Countdown Summit 2023 concluded with a wide-ranging session featuring eight inspiring takes from around the world on how to ensure a fast, fair transition to a clean energy future.

The event: Talks from Session 6 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, hosted by TED’s David Biello and Lindsay Levin with journalist Orlando P. Bailey.

When and where: Friday, July 14, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan

Speakers: Kala Constantino, Rebecca Collyer, Rich Powell, Zainab Usman, Amir Nizar Zuabi, Sims Witherspoon, Ramón Méndez Galain, Mike Posner

There’s a green energy wave swelling in the Philippines. Kala Constantino, director of the ecology advocacy group Tara Climate Foundation introduces us to a cross-section of the actors working to build a grid for cheap and clean renewable power throughout Asia. Electricity consumers in the Philippines pay one of the highest bills in Southeast Asia due to imported fossil fuels. Yet, as an island nation, the country also loses hundreds of millions of dollars every year to the impacts of climate disasters aggravated by carbon emissions. Activists have already encouraged the government to set aside funds for renewables and slow down the construction of coal-fired plants. With their help, Constantino hopes to see the Philippines become energy independent through solar and wind power, which will not only reduce electricity costs but also create jobs in a new, profitable sector.

Rebecca Collyer is the executive director of 2023 Audacious Project grantee ReNew2030, a global coalition to scale the use of wind and solar energy. In conversation with TED science curator David Biello, Collyer explores how to ensure the transition to renewable energy is fast and fair — a crucial task, as the power sector produces more carbon emissions than any other sector in the world. She shows how, by mobilizing governments, businesses and local communities around the world, ReNew2030 aims to scale wind and solar power capacity by 2030 and set the world up for a climate-secure future — all while creating local jobs and clean air.

We’ve all heard of the dangers of NIMBY-ism (“not in my backyard”). Climate innovation leader Rich Powell takes it a step further, saying that the true barrier to immediate implementation of clean energy projects is BANANA-ism: “build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.” This means that critical infrastructure like windmills, nuclear plants and flexible power grids can get bogged down for years in the permitting process — or killed by wealthy lobbyists seeking to keep wind farms or solar panels away from their property. Powell believes that the quickest way to solve our clean energy crisis is to remove these barriers, while keeping environmental protections like the Clean Water Act. If voters and regulators can find common ground, then he says we’ll be well on our way toward replacing our existing power grid with one focused on renewables.

Solving the climate crisis requires collective action on a global scale, but today’s economy is becoming fractured between four regions: the US, China, Europe and the rest of the world. Political economist Zainab Usman says the solution lies with policymakers, business leaders and activists. Working together worldwide, they can distribute low-carbon technology globally; prioritize consumer welfare to make green tech more accessible; and set global standards to govern the sourcing of strategic, nonrenewable materials (such as the minerals in solar panels and other green products). With these goals, Usman says, we don’t have to live out the divided, dystopian future predicted by George Orwell and other such writers long before.

Tapping into the power of theater and its ability to turn pressing issues into human stories that spark hope, theater director and playwright Amir Nizar Zuabi shares the journey of Little Amal — a 10-year-old refugee girl (who is actually a 13-foot puppet) that went on an epic, 5,000-mile migration across eight countries in a globe-trotting art piece called “The Walk.” She embodied the broken global refugee system that has left so many people vulnerable and displaced. Inspired by the impact Little Amal had on the communities she passed through, Zuabi unveils for the first time his next piece: “The Herds,” a massive migration of animal puppets that will start in West Africa and end in Norway, set to begin their travels in 2025. Evolving as they move, the herds will take on new species native to each country they encounter, raising awareness about climate change and the threat it poses to animals and humans alike in a devastating, powerful and beautiful way.

Sims Witherspoon wants to use artificial intelligence to tackle climate change. When building a sustainable future, she believes AI can help us better understand the impact of climate change on Earth’s ecosystems, accelerate the breakthrough science we need to create a carbon-free energy supply and speed up the transition to renewable energy sources. Witherspoon explains how she and her team recently partnered with Google to develop an AI that accurately predicts wind availability on one of Google’s wind farms. They trained a neural net on weather forecasts and Google’s historical turbine data and then deployed it on the wind farm to test its accuracy. Their AI ultimately performed 20 percent better than Google’s existing system, and Google has since decided to scale the technology — a win for the company and the planet.

Fifteen years ago, Uruguay was experiencing an energy crisis; today, the tiny nation produces 98 percent of its electricity from renewable sources — and even exports extra energy to countries like Argentina and Brazil. Former particle physicist Ramón Méndez Galain charted the country’s transition to renewables as head of the country’s National Energy Agency. He shares how they achieved energy stability with widespread political support by shifting away from fossil fuels toward clean energy sources like wind, solar and sustainable biomass made from rice hulls, bagasse and pulp. Uruguay also developed technologies to predict the availability of intermittent sources, like wind and solar, to determine which energy sources to rely on and when. Although the transition required massive effort, coordination and innovation, the country can now depend on a stable, sustainable and, yes, profitable energy sector.

Singer-songwriter Mike Posner performs two hit songs, “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” and “Could You Do the Same,” and delivers an inspiring talk about how he walked nearly 3,000 miles across the United States. A lot happened along the way, he says — including a life-threatening rattlesnake bite — but the journey left him with five crucial life lessons and a sense of deep, true happiness.

Community: Notes from Session 6 of TED Countdown Summit 2023

From innovative technologies upgrading our buildings to age-old Aboriginal wisdom on fire management and more, the five speakers of Session 6 of TED Countdown Summit 2023 offered transformative insights on how we can redefine our relationships to both our stuff and the world, with a focus on sustainability and resilience.

The event: Talks from Session 6 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, hosted by TED’s Logan McClure Davda and Lindsay Levin

When and where: Friday, July 14, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan

Speakers: Josephine Philips, Aruna Rangachar Pohl, Oral McGuire, Donnel Baird, Gopal D. Patel

The fashion industry emits more carbon than travel from all airlines worldwide, combined. And all those clothes we toss in the charity box to make room for new ones? Many end up in landfills in Ghana or buried in a pile in the Atacama Desert so big astronauts can see it from space. To make fashion more sustainable, Josephine Philips says we need to buy less and value more the clothes we already own. When a shirt is torn, we should repair it, not toss it. Before giving away that old sweater, we should recall every experience we’ve had while wearing it, plus the time, labor and resources that went into making it — from the field that grew its cotton to the hands that stitched it together. When we value things correctly, she reminds us, we’re less wasteful, which reduces our negative impact on the planet.

Sustainable development leader Aruna Rangachar Pohl takes us on the long journey of one of India’s most beloved snacks: biscuits — revealing how the production of these treats and other highly processed goods that rely on industrial farming are hurting the planet and our health. Armed with a vision to rejuvenate productive landscapes in India equitably and sustainably, Rangachar Pohl established the India Foundation for Humanistic Development, and she shares stories of small-scale farmers in their incubator who are joining forces, acting as shareholders and purchasing resources in bulk together. Training farmers to adopt natural practices and calculate their carbon sequestration with a focus on revenue, Rangachar Pohl shows how green production really pays off. By creating a climate-resilient agricultural sector where people’s rights are protected, farming can mean a greener, tastier and healthier future for everyone.

“I acknowledge fire as a friend, as a part of my being and my spirit,” says Oral McGuire, a fire practitioner and member of the Mangarda Balladong Nyungar First Nations in southwestern Australia. A professional firefighter for 18 years, McGuire acknowledges the threat uncontrolled fire can pose to our natural environment. Connecting Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and practices, he shares the importance of applying the right kind of fire in a sacred practice known as “kaarl-ngariny,” to maintain the health and balance of the land. By protecting and preserving nature through proper fire management, McGuire says can heal the spirit of the land and promote biodiversity at the same time.

Powering the United States’s 125 million buildings accounts for 30 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. To make matters worse, older ovens, furnaces and hot water heaters have been found to leak benzene, methane and nitrogen dioxide into homes, threatening the health of those inside. Energy upgrader Donnel Baird aims to solve this problem by moving buildings off of fossil fuels and onto renewably sourced electric power. His company BlocPower has trained thousands of people to install tech like solar panels, electric induction ovens and heat pumps. The company also works with financing to plan electrification costs into a home’s mortgage in an effort to make it more affordable, and with data accessibility so homeowners can understand the electrification plan they need.

To tackle the climate crisis, we’ll need to keep building resiliency and momentum. Gopal D. Patel is here with some good news: there’s already a time-tested, millennia-old framework to do just that. As cochair of the United Nations Multi-faith Advisory Council, Patel mobilizes faith communities for environmental advocacy and action around the world. He explains how the ideas and wisdom of faith traditions can apply to the climate movement, namely in three areas: nourishing and uplifting community; finding rituals and tradition that give a sense of belonging; and working with purposeful action. You don’t have to be religious to take advantage of these learnings, Patel says: they’re guides for anyone looking to advance climate action with a sense of renewed purpose and intention.

Renewal: Notes from Session 5 of TED Countdown Summit 2023

For Session 5 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, seven speakers underscored the urgency for collective action, highlighting the growing frequency and severity of extreme weather events; insights on the electric vehicle revolution; the interconnectedness of deforestation, pandemics and climate change; the crucial role of leadership in climate justice and more.

The event: Talks from Session 5 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, hosted by TED’s Logan McClure Davda and journalist Orlando P. Bailey

When and where: Thursday, July 13, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan

Speakers: Al Roker, Cynthia Williams, Neil Vora, Ludmila Rattis, Louise Mabulo, David Lammy, Justin J. Pearson

Music: Multidisciplinary artist, musician, creative producer and Flint, Michigan native Tunde Olaniran explores themes of identity, injustice and empowerment across the worlds of music, dance, film, literature and performance art. Joined on the TED Countdown stage by four incredible dancers, Olaniran smolders through a set of songs powered by experimental electronic beats.

Al Roker is known as “America’s weatherman,” and he’s been in the weather business for a long time, reporting live from some of recent history’s worst storms and natural disasters. All this has made one thing abundantly clear to him: extreme weather is increasing in frequency and severity, and the consequences will be devastating. Offering a comprehensive overview of the knock-on effects of extreme weather, Roker encourages all of us to take small collective actions and unite in our efforts to address climate change in order to create a more sustainable, hopeful future for all.

Cynthia Williams‘s family has long worked in the auto industry — her grandfather started with General Motors during the 1940s boom, followed by her father a generation later along with nearly all her uncles. They witnessed a total transformation in the era of transportation, and today, as a sustainability executive for Ford, Williams is seeing another: the electric vehicle revolution. She explains how the car industry is already advancing towards a sustainable future by building new carbon-neutral manufacturing plants and training hundreds of thousands of workers. They’re also investing in supportive infrastructure (making sure EV charging stations are as plentiful and convenient as gas stations) and developing products that consumers want. Electric vehicles are sustainable, says Williams; they should be desirable, too.

The first rule of physicians is to do no harm — and that extends to trees, says actor and activist Rainn Wilson as he introduces Neil Vora, who leads pandemic prevention at Conservation International. Having worked at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for more than a decade previously, Vora shares his unique journey of transitioning from treating patients to protecting forests and the species in them. Highlighting the importance of preventing pandemics (not just reacting to them), Vora exposes three crucial ways deforestation impacts human health: (1) Animals living alongside humans are more likely to carry germs that can infect us; (2) When people move into deforested areas, there is more exposure to new viruses; (3) And animals are more likely to spread illness when their homes are threatened. “We have solutions to address deforestation. And if we implement them wisely, we can prevent outbreaks and mitigate climate change,” Vora says.

Ecologist Ludmila Rattis reveals the surprisingly fruitful benefits of letting nature take care of business, sharing how the digestive habits of tapirs in Amazonia spread seeds throughout the region, regenerating the forest. As tapirs walk, they eat fruit, slowly digest them and then poop, transporting the fruit seeds to new land. In a single tapir dropping, Rattis’s lab found an average of 733 seeds belonging to up to 24 different species. Creatures like dung beetles help reduce the competition in this concentrated pile of life — spreading the seeds as they roll, tunnel and bury the poop — and show how the somewhat undignified parts of nature are intertwined with our planet’s future more than we realize.

Louise Mabulo grew up on seemingly strange advice from her parents and grandparents about planting toward a full moon or burying a rock under root crops for a better yield. While others tended to regard her family’s beliefs as superstitious, Mabulo has since discovered the profound wisdom in them. She works in restorative agroforestry, and through her initiative, The Cacao Project, which works to build sustainable and climate-resilient livelihoods for farmers, she’s seen even the most bizarre stories proven true. Crops planted during a full moon do bear more fruit; root crops do thrive when planted with rocks because rocks keep the soil loose enough for air pockets to form and encourage growth. Invisible knowledge, Mabulo says, might hold the key to helping us adapt our ecosystems to a changing climate. It also affirms our spiritual and cultural connection with nature and our place in it.

In a wide-ranging and inspirational interview, Tennessee state representative Justin J. Pearson and British MP David Lammy discuss the pressing issue of climate justice and the nuances of leadership within the movement. Pearson shares his journey in the movement that began with a fight against a pipeline project in Memphis, Tennessee, emphasizing the significance of empowering the most affected communities and acknowledging the interconnectedness of different social issues. Lammy explains the need for a collective focus on large-scale issues and the role of climate justice as a unifying objective that transcends identity politics. They collectively emphasize the necessity for unifying and authentic leadership — and the need to hold powerful nations accountable for environmental action.

Magnitude: Notes from Session 4 of TED Countdown Summit 2023

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Dilemmas: Notes from Session 3 of TED Countdown Summit 2023

Session 3 of TED Countdown Summit 2023 tackled some of the knottier issues related to climate change — from the massive amount of money needed to finance the global green transition, to the struggle for energy access in developing nations and the ecosystem effects of fast fashion — and offered glimpses of the world-changing solutions already underway to lead us into a clean, prosperous future for all.

The event: Talks from Session 3 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, hosted by TED’s Lindsay Levin and David Biello

When and where: Wednesday, July 12, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan

Speakers: Nili Gilbert, David Blood, Avinash Persaud, Tombo Banda, Steve Presley, Amy Powney, Payton M. Wilkins, Xiaojun “Tom” Wang

How much money is required to decarbonize the world? Sustainable investment experts Nili Gilbert and David Blood provide both macro and on-the-ground perspectives on the kinds of finance flowing to climate solutions. While some progress has been made, hard-to-abate sectors and the Global South are still being left out of solutions. The good news? There’s certainly enough capital; there are no legal barriers to allocating capital to sustainable solutions; there are amazing entrepreneurs and business people doing the work; and public policy is on the move (like the Inflation Reduction Act in the US). The key is to get money moving to the right places and, as Gilbert says, to see this moment for what it is: a massive, multigenerational opportunity for sustainable growth — greater in scale than the Industrial Revolution and on pace to transform the world in less than 30 years.

After Hurricane Maria decimated Dominica in 2017, the country declared its intention to become the first climate-resilient nation in the world. But as they sought to organize their response to future climate disasters, economist Avinash Persaud says, they quickly realized that the only real solution was to halt climate change entirely. For the developing world, the path to a greener, more sustainable future looks different than for wealthier countries. Developing nations can’t ban emissions, tax carbon or shift to renewables without hurting their growing economies and leaving large portions of their workforce unemployed. Persaud introduces the Bridgetown Initiative, a proposal to finance the green transformation of global systems, as a solution. Beginning with reducing barriers to private investment in green technologies in developing nations, the initiative also calls for more generous lending policies for resilience investments and a revenue stream created by taxing emissions from the shipping industry.

When electricity arrived in Zomba, Malawi in 1994, energy access innovator Tombo Banda says it brought her village significant changes to the health, comfort and happiness of its residents. But the reality is that 500 million people still lack access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa, relying on highly polluting materials like diesel and firewood. How do we get more people access to clean electrification quickly? Enter mini-grids, or localized renewable energy systems. By making the mini-grid business model more profitable, these systems can become more scalable — and enticing for private investors. Innovative approaches like using less expensive batteries and appliance financing to increase revenues can also accelerate electrification, Banda says, ultimately making electricity more accessible — and creating better lives for millions of people.

In conversation with TED’s Lindsay Levin, Nestlé North America CEO Steve Presley discusses how one of the world’s largest food companies aims to reach net zero by 2050. Their efforts include sourcing ingredients from regenerative farming, improving packaging to contain less plastic, powering manufacturing with renewable energy and offering financial incentives to local farmers who use sustainable practices. Presley shares where Nestlé has made progress and where it’s still investing for change, encouraging transformation at every step of the food production process.

Fashion designer Amy Powney designs for sustainability first, ensuring all aspects of the clothing made by Mother of Pearl, where she is creative director, are environmentally friendly and ethically produced. That ethos stands in contrast to the fast fashion garments that are often produced by underpaid workers with materials sourced from fossil fuels, endangered forests or plastics. She delves into the problems surrounding our pursuit of cheap clothing, from health and pollution to landfills that are visible from space, calling for everyone to reconsider the value of each item of clothing they own, its connection to the Earth and the lives touched by its creation.

Shutting down the fossil fuel industry means cleaner air and healthier citizens in the long term. But in the short term, it also means fewer jobs and shrinking livelihoods. While green jobs could, in time, supply a needed paycheck, the immediate impacts of closing a mine or refinery are devastating. We can protect both workers and the environment with an age-old solution: unions. As union leader and environmental justice advocate Payton Wilkins tells it, the multi-generational, multi-ethnic and multi-gender trade union movement could become a formidable force in the fight against climate change — and in places like Denmark, where unions spearhead the ascendance of clean energy, they already are. By showing workers that environmental justice and workplace equity are not mutually exclusive, Wilkins hopes to lead US unions to the front lines of the fight against climate change.

Xiaojun “Tom” Wang grew up in the Chinese province of Shanxi, the world’s largest coal producer. Each year, more than a billion tons of coal are dug out from underneath Shanxi’s mountains, helping heat and power at least 24 other provinces in China. Wang narrates the devastating impacts of coal mining — accidents in coal mines, massive landslides, damage to cultural sites — and calls for Beijing to ease the pressure on Shanxi’s coal industry. Shanxi needs support in breaking free from its coal addiction, he says, not only to transition to a clean economy, but also to protect its rich cultural heritage.

Lessons: Notes from Session 2 of TED Countdown Summit 2023

What lessons are already available to us as we tackle climate change? For Session 2 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, science, solutions and the role of industry in stemming the threat of the climate emergency took center stage.

The event: Talks from Session 2 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, hosted by TED’s Lindsay Levin and David Lammy, Member of Parliament for Tottenham, England and Shadow Foreign Secretary

When and where: Wednesday, July 12, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan

Speakers: Jonathan Foley, Emma Nehrenheim, Cedrik Neike, Susan Lozier, Morten Bo Christiansen, Bo Cerup-Simonsen, Mike Duggan, Laprisha Berry Daniels

To solve climate change, the International Monetary Fund estimates that the global community needs to invest between three and six trillion dollars annually in climate solutions. Where should that money go and which projects should we fund? Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, uses a science-based framework to outline a plan for investing with maximum impact. First, we need to prioritize immediate actions with cumulative benefits, like stopping deforestation and cutting methane leaks. Next, we should focus our spending on cutting carbon emissions now over investing in distant high-tech solutions. Third, we must prioritize geographical hotspots with an outsized effect on climate change, like the Amazon rainforest or high-emission factories. And finally, we should invest in solutions that benefit people’s well-being, promote food security and increase access to clean water and sanitation.

Batteries will be fundamental to powering a sustainable world — but only if we don’t repeat the same mistakes of past industrialization, says battery recycler Emma Nehrenheim. She outlines the environmentally intensive impact of battery production — particularly from the extraction of minerals for lithium-ion batteries, which provide energy for electric vehicles and other key aspects of life — and proposes a shift towards a circular battery economy that uses and reuses already existing materials, vastly reducing the industry’s carbon footprint and need for mineral extraction.

We are running out of time to save our planet from climate change — and the metaverse can help. Using virtual tools like AI to cheat time in the real world, Cedrik Neike explains how “digital twin technology” (think simulated giga factories that are one-for-one digital copies of real ones) can help solve real-world problems more efficiently by providing a digital space to test solutions, without pollution. Using the example of virtually ideating the production of safer and faster-charging batteries and then bringing those learnings to the physical world, Neike points to the potential of industrial metaverses to revolutionize industries and redesign entire cities — from transportation, agriculture and housing — addressing massive challenges and avoiding the creation of excess waste at the same time.

Oceanographer Susan Lozier dives into the importance of the ocean’s natural circulation, which overturns water in a way that naturally captures carbon and regulates global temperatures. She shares the incredible research being done internationally to track changes in this overturn, as warming global temperatures could slow the circulation, lessen carbon uptake and increase the rate of climate-related disasters. While a collapse in this age-old system isn’t likely until 2100, Lozier warns of the dangers faced by future generations if we don’t change course now, calling for climate action to lower temperatures within the next 10 years.

As leader of the decarbonization team for A.P. Moller – Maersk, Morten Bo Christiansen is drawing an organizational roadmap to net zero that could help transform the global shipping industry. In conversation with TED’s Lindsay Levin, Christiansen shares his company’s ambitious goal to decarbonize their heavy-emitting business by 2040, highlighting how they’ve started implementing solutions like using green methanol as fuel in their container ships and deploying electric trucks in the US. He also points out the challenges in scaling green fuel production, price issues due to the high cost of green fuels and the need for collaborations across the value chain to manage these obstacles. Despite these challenges, Christiansen remains optimistic, making the case that the added cost to consumers for using green shipping methods is far outweighed by the urgently needed environmental benefits.

In conversation with TED’s Lindsay Levin, Bo Cerup-Simonsen, CEO of the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, discusses the essential role of their center in orchestrating systemic, global collaboration to tackle large-scale environmental challenges. Discussing the center’s origins, purpose and the strides it’s made in technological, commercial and regulatory spaces, Cerup-Simonsen highlights the push towards green alternatives, like green methanol and ammonia, in global shipping. Through tangible initiatives like “green corridors,” which enable end-to-end zero-carbon shipping between selected ports, they’re fostering cross-industry collaboration to accelerate the green transition and sharing lessons learned in combating the uncertainty hindering decisive action from companies and nations.

Mike Duggan is serving his third term as mayor of Detroit, and he’s dead set on building the city’s climate responsiveness. His proposal is a unique one: to transform blighted, vacant lots into solar farms throughout the city. He describes how, with the buy-in of Detroiters themselves, he plans to start building these farms in different neighborhoods with the aim of powering all of Detroit’s municipal buildings and cleaning up dilapidated, vacant land from the city’s manufacturing past.

Like many cities, Detroit is already feeling the effects of climate change. In the past 10 years, two major floods have cost the city more than a billion dollars in damages. The challenge of climate change may be daunting, but human beings have moved from place to place and adapted to changes in climate (both environmental and social) throughout history. For inspiration, public health social worker Laprisha Berry Daniels mines the survival strategies her grandparents learned after leaving the Jim Crow South to settle in Detroit. The climate crisis may be unprecedented, but Daniels says we can still prepare for it by embracing the lessons of the past. First, we must accept the reality of climate change and prepare for it. Second, we should embrace the power of mutual aid. Lastly, we should empower communities to adapt through community-led planning.

Compass: Notes from Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit 2023

TED Countdown Summit 2023 kicked off in Detroit, Michigan, with a wide-ranging, solution-filled session of TED Talks and performances meant to inspire action on the world’s toughest challenge: climate change. Over the course of four days, the Summit seeks to change the conversation on climate change and tell a new, true story about how a bright, clean, just, environmentally bountiful world isn’t just possible — it’s already here.

The event: Talks from Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, hosted by TED’s Lindsay Levin and David Biello with journalist Orlando P. Bailey

When and where: Tuesday, July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan

Speakers: Simon Stiell, Julio Friedmann, Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Changhua Wu, Paul Hawken, Anika Goss, Al Gore, Maxim Timchenko

Music: Detroit Youth Choir rocked the house with an energetic performance of “Hey Look Ma, I Made It” by Panic! At The Disco and “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, putting their creative skills and talents on full display.

Transformational climate action is closer than we think, says Simon Stiell, who leads the UNFCCC — the UN’s entity supporting the global response to climate change. Drawing a parallel to the meteoric growth of text messaging in the 1990s and 2000s, Stiell outlines why climate action is set up to transition from a linear to exponential pace — so long as each of us applies our particular skill sets to push the world towards its “green tipping points.” “If you act, the exponential change that is needed will happen,” he says.

How do we meet the energy needs of 10 billion people — sustainably and affordably? According to carbon removal expert Julio Friedmann, there are three key ingredients to cooking up a bright, clean future for everyone: infrastructure (think: transmission lines, roads and seaports) to make energy accessible; globally aligned (and actually affordable) innovation, like turning electricity into fuel; and more systemic, multi-tiered investment strategies on a global level. “Collective action, building together, is what makes the difficult possible and nourishes the soul through mission and purpose,” he says.

The Biden Administration has set the ambitious goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. But the US still gets 80 percent of its energy from fossil fuels. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s famous “moonshot” speech in 1962, the Biden Administration is now funding “Earthshots” to accelerate breakthroughs in abundant, affordable and reliable clean energy solutions. If the US is going to meet its climate goals, slashing emissions isn’t enough, says soil scientist and national science leader Asmeret Asefaw Berhe. That’s why her team at the Department of Energy is working to employ new technologies, inspired by organic carbon-capture, to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

Policy analyst Changhua Wu says that today China is undergoing a green revolution. The country has accelerated electric vehicle adoption, increased usage of solar and other renewables (with the goal of producing one kilowatt of solar energy per capita by 2030) and is promoting a circular economy that recycles raw materials to enable sustainable growth. To avoid climate catastrophe, Wu says, the US should moderate its foreign policy and learn from China’s efforts to promote sustainability on a massive scale.

Activists are leading the charge into a sustainable future, but their work is never easy and rarely fully appreciated. After being invited to speak at TED Countdown Summit, environmental activist Hong Hoang (a winner of TED Idea Search: Southeast Asia 2022) was detained in her native Vietnam for her efforts to call global attention to Vietnam’s environmental abuses. Before a moment of silence in her honor, TED shared Hoang’s Idea Search submission video, where she emphasized the need her create climate activism in politically challenging contexts.

We pay plenty of attention to the role industry plays in the destruction of our ecosystems and in the emission of greenhouse gasses. But what about the role of industrial agriculture? According to environmentalist Paul Hawken, industrial agriculture (the “fossil food industry,” as he calls it) is the world’s biggest culprit in environmental degradation. Modern factory farms reduce the nutritional content of soil, encourage erosion, ooze toxic runoff and kill off microbial fungi that naturally sequester carbon. Hawken paints a picture of a transition to regenerative agriculture: farming that embraces ancient techniques to renew the soil and insure fertility for generations. He explains how it would create farms that soak up more water, nurture healthier crops and recreate habitats for indigenous species — restoring biodiversity and mitigating the worst impacts of climate change.

Climate change tests the social and economic fabric of cities like Detroit with rising temperatures that stretch power grids and “500-year” floods that leave mold and destruction in their wake. City visionary Anika Goss says financial stability is critical for Detroit’s survival in the face of the mounting climate crisis, and that the city must rebuild resilience in order to protect its citizens, who are overwhelmingly people of color already facing social inequity. By fostering entrepreneurship, restoring infrastructure and reviving abandoned urban spaces, she believes Detroit can overcome the unique challenges posed by the collapse of its manufacturing sector, creating thriving neighborhoods that embrace justice, sustainability and social connectivity.

Fossil fuel companies claim to be in favor of climate-friendly solutions, but do their efforts have any real impact? Nobel Laureate and climate advocate Al Gore returns to the TED Countdown stage to break down the data proving that the greed of fossil fuel executives has thwarted their attempts to support climate action. He reveals two obstacles to lowering global emissions — namely, how oil and gas companies deliberately slow down global efforts to move capital away from fossil fuels, and the ineffectiveness of carbon capture technology — and reminds everyone that “the will to act is itself a renewable resource.”

Ukrainian energy executive Maxim Timchenko shares how DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, has diversified the country’s power structures to survive Russian attacks, highlighting the resilience of renewable energy (such as wind turbines, which are a smaller, more difficult target for bombers). He outlines how they’ve expanded renewable energy production throughout the war with Russia, becoming a testing ground in the global fight against climate change and the future of energy independence.

Doses of possibility: The mind-blowing interstitials of TED2023

The shorts of TED2023 define the era we find ourselves in — immersed in artificial intelligence, playing with possibility and defiantly full of infinite depth and discovery. Watch below for AI-infused resets and perspective shifts embodying the spirit of TED2023.

The short: “Baraye”
In brief: Coldplay performs Iranian protest song “Baraye” (originally by Shervin Hajipour) — and invites exiled Iranian actor Golshifteh Farahani on stage to sing with them during their Buenos Aires concert in 2022.
Shown during: Session 1: In which we start things off with a bang

The short: “Jacquemus ‘Champagne?'”
The creator: Directed by Pantera
In brief: A runaway, ricocheting champagne cork causes tremendous trouble in record time for a quiet Christmas party.
Shown during: Session 1: In which we start things off with a bang

Arthur C. Clarke about the future of AI.
—21 September 1964

[source, BBC Archive: https://t.co/u9RpXTrztK]pic.twitter.com/rccfoQlv42

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 26, 2023

The short: “Arthur C. Clarke predicts AI at the 1964 New York World Fair”
The creator: BBC Archive
In brief: BBC newscaster Arthur C. Clarke predicts the future of artificial intelligence with startling accuracy — during a report from the 1964 World’s Fair.
Shown during: Session 2: In which we explore the astounding new era of AI

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Remi (@remi_molettee)

The short: “Symbiosis”
The creators: AI: @remi_molettee; Film: slimshowroom; Performers: Ebinum Brothers; Music: Max Richter
In brief: Two root-like bodies dance and tumble over, under and through each other in a vast desert.
Shown during: Session 2: In which we explore the astounding new era of AI

The short: “All for You”
The creator: Directed by Arthur Studholme
In brief: A series of meet-cutes devolve from dream to nightmare for one man who seems to have enough room in his romantic imagination for everyone and everything he encounters.
Shown during: Session 4: In which we ponder ideas that are way, way out there

The short: “Hairy Pouter”
The creators: Directed by Chris Carboni; Sound by Ambrose Yu; Music by Charles Di Raimondo
In brief: A 98-year-old woman’s review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, absurdly interpreted in this film entirely designed by AI.
Shown during: Session 4: In which we ponder ideas that are way, way out there

The short: “You Know What I Need”
The creators: Video by MELT IMMERSIVE; Directed by Kuba Matyka & Kamila Staszczyszyn
In brief: Mind-melting, multi-dimensional AI art meets the melodies of Troye Sivan and PNAU in this visually immersive and psychedelic music video.
Shown during: Session 6: In which we discover how our brains might soon get upgraded

The short: “Ode To My Shiny Metal Toaster”
The creator: Guided by Alexander Reben
In brief: A poem dedicated to a shiny metal toaster … generated, titled, illustrated and spoken by artificial intelligence.
Shown during: Session 6: In which we discover how our brains might soon get upgraded

The short: “One More Try”
The creator: Directed by Najeeb Tarazi
In brief: How many tries does it take to get to the center of a sweet skateboarding trick? One, two, three? A lot more than that, sometimes.
Shown during: Session 6: In which we discover how our brains might soon get upgraded

The short: “Apple – The Greatest”
The creator: Directed by Kim Gehrig
In brief: An ode to the beauty of human diversity — and how tech assists our journey through life.
Shown during: Session 7: In which we breathe deep and embrace humanity’s full potential

The short: “KCRW: ‘Listen'”
The creator: Directed by Anderson Wright
In brief: A reminder to just stop … and listen … to the world around you.
Shown during: Session 7: In which we breathe deep and embrace humanity’s full potential

The short: “I’m Only Sleeping”
The creator: Directed (and painted) by Em Cooper
In brief: Take a semi-lucid, painterly dip between dreaming and waking with this trippy visual complement to this sleepy Beatles single.
Shown during: Session 8: In which we delightedly and unapologetically nerd out

The short: “Magically Turning into Random Objects”
The creator: Kevin Parry
In brief: A man transforms into a variety of everyday objects through the power and optical illusory magic of impressive video editing.
Shown during: Session 8: In which we delightedly and unapologetically nerd out

The short: “I asked AI to write an Eminem rap about cats”
The creator: Grandayy
In brief: Ever wondered what it would sound like if Eminem rapped about cats? AI has your answer.
Shown during: Session 9: In which we prepare for the inevitable chaos ahead

The short: “Bonobo – ATK”
The creators: Directed by McGloughlin Brothers
In brief: Fast trains + high shutter speeds = everyday zoetropes as the world passes you by.
Shown during: Session 9: In which we prepare for the inevitable chaos ahead

The short: “Blue Jeans and Bloody Tears”
The creators: Concept and creative direction by Nim Shapira; Song by Amir Shoenfeld, Avshalom Ariel, Ben Scheflan, Eran Hadas, ORACLE Israel & UK and Nim Shapira; Music video by Karni and Saul
In brief: The first Eurovision song generated by artificial intelligence. (Warning: The chorus will get stuck in your head.)
Shown during: Session 10: In which we experience new levels of AI creativity … and ask some hard questions

@donalleniii

How does this WORK??? #gen1 @runwayml

♬ Indiana Jones (Main Theme) – The Movie Soundtrack Experts

The short: “AI Adventurer Archaeologist”
The creator: Don Allen Stevenson III
In brief: AI reimagines a homemade homage to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom into an inspired and dynamic animated scene.
Shown during: Session 10: In which we experience new levels of AI creativity … and ask some hard questionss

The short: “Turbulence”
The creator: Roman De Giuli
In brief: Glittering, metallic transcendence in ultra high-definition slow motion.
Shown during: Session 11: In which we celebrate the unbridled power of the imagination

The short: “Tropical Zincphony”
The creators: Directed by Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker
In brief: A parade of mangoes roll down a plethora of Panamanian zinc roofs. Where do they stop? Nobody knows.
Shown during: Session 11: In which we celebrate the unbridled power of the imagination

Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot delivers powerful message to Vladimir Putin at TED2023

In an electric talk at Session 4 of TED2023, Pussy Riot founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova delivered a powerful message to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding his war in Ukraine: “You have already lost. You know it … The world is with Ukraine.”

“Courage is contagious, and it’s a strength we all have inside us,” Tolokonnikova says. In 2011, she cofounded the Russian protest and performance art group Pussy Riot in opposition to Vladimir Putin’s oppressive regime. After a string of protests and arrests, she and her fellow members were sentenced to two years in prison for their “Punk Prayer,” performed in a central Moscow cathedral. She was 22 years old at the time, wondering, “Can one person change the world? … Am I going to be able to achieve my dreams, or am I inevitably going to be smashed by the system?” 

Since her release from the Siberian penal colony in late 2013, Tolokonnikova has continued her fight. She founded the investigative news agency Mediazona, a rare independent media organization in Russia. Her other initiative, UnicornDAO, is supports female artists. Now living in exile, Tolokonnikova stands as a leading voice in the fight for freedom in Russia and was named a top enemy of Putin simply because, in her words, “Courage is contagious.” She calls for everyone to embrace the courage within themselves.

 

 

 

 

The dots finally connect: Notes on Session 12 of TED2023

After a jam-packed week of ideas, connection and wonder, the remarkable closing session of TED2023 connected the dots, with deep thinking on purpose and the power of self-belief as well as some much-needed challenges to conventional wisdom.

The event: Talks from Session 12 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson, Helen Walters and Whitney Pennington Rodgers

When and where: Friday, April 21, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Sheryl Lee Ralph, Krista Tippett, David McWilliams, Emmanuel Acho

Performance: Jacob Collier‘s music makes spirits soar. No stranger to the big stage, Collier brings his signature “audience choir” to TED, inviting the whole audience to test out their pipes and create haunting harmonies that prove anyone can make beautiful music.

Conference wrap-up: Sending up the conference with her signature wit, actor and comedian Julia Sweeney observes the TED tradition of closing out a sometimes serious week with a hilarious set of jokes that celebrate the speakers who took the stage.

“The greatest relationship you will ever have is with yourself,” says actor Sheryl Lee Ralph. As soon as she steps on stage, Ralph sings a powerful rendition of Dianne Reeves’s “Endangered Species,” as she did when she won her Emmy for supporting actress in a comedy for her role as Barbara Howard in the series Abbott Elementary. Sharing her own journey (and challenges) with self-belief, Ralph gifts us with three life-altering pearls of wisdom that can help us muster the confidence to take up the space we deserve: 1) See yourself for who and what you truly are. 2) In order to believe in yourself, reframe your experiences in ways that empower you. 3) Act like you believe in yourself. Ralph urges us all to start a meaningful practice of looking in the mirror. “Believe in what you see,” she says. “If you can’t love it, then respect it. If you can’t respect it, then encourage it. If you can’t encourage it, empower it. If you can’t empower it, please be kind to it.”

Journalist and host of the On Being podcast Krista Tippett dives into the spirit of a post-pandemic world and offers three tips for cultivating a happier, more meaningful life. First, she suggests, see the “generative story of our time.” Human brains are naturally inclined to notice threats, but if you retune yourself to notice the goodness around you, that can influence your worldview, too. Second, in the tradition of Rainer Maria Rilke, learn to “live the questions.” Ask high-quality questions that can deepen and guide you in the present moment; don’t fixate only on the answers. Finally, reconsider the matter of your “calling” and the possibility of wholeness. You are more than your job. Participate in your relationships and your community to discover and embrace your role in the wider story of society.

Economists get paid to think about the future — so why are they so often wrong? David McWilliams believes the answer lies in how our society discourages unconventional thinking. Take the consensus among economists after World War I, for example. Most predicted a return to the gold standard and a “war to end all wars.” It took a poet, William Butler Yeats, to anticipate the great tipping point ahead: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,” Yeats wrote in “The Second Coming.” McWilliams says the system that produced so many overconfident economists in the 1920s remains fundamentally unchanged. Our schools reward a narrow range of intelligence and, after formal education, we unwittingly create echo chambers that constrain our understanding of the world. To fight confirmation bias, we must embrace unconventional thinkers: “If you want to understand the world more clearly, listen less to the economists and more to the poets,” McWilliams says.

Content about the power of goal-setting is inescapable. Almost anyone will tell you: if you want to achieve something, set a goal. But Emmanuel Acho, former NFL linebacker and Emmy-winning host and producer, has a different story to tell. Goal-setting, Acho says, is a symptom of our insatiable desire for feedback. We crave affirmation and the feeling that we’ve achieved an end, but whether or not you achieve your goals, Acho believes they carry a hidden cost. Goals damage your self-worth and prevent you from exploring unexpected possibilities. The most fulfilled people pursue growth with no endpoint. Take Kirk Hammett, lead guitarist of Metallica, for example. Hammett never set out to sell 125 million records: he “just wanted to play his guitar a little better every day.”

Celebrating the unbridled power of imagination: Notes on Session 11 of TED2023

Session 11 of TED2023 was a celebration of the unbridled power of imagination. What is imagination, exactly? According to poet and session co-host Sarah Kay, it’s the ability to notice, see and observe what is — and then to dream, build and expand on what is not but could be. Eight speakers and one performer led the way in doing just that for this classically eclectic evening session.

The event: Talks from Session 11 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by poet Sarah Kay and TED’s head of curation Helen Walters

When and where: Thursday, April 20, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Lonneke Gordijn, Vinu Daniel, Misan Harriman, Melissa Villaseñor, Imran Chaudhri, Lucas Rizzotto, Ersin Han Ersin

Opening poem: Poet Sarah Kay shares some of the amazing things she sees “wandering the streets of Bewilderville” in New York City, encouraging us all “to pick up when the universe calls.”

Performance: A self-described “dance floor demon,” singer-songwriter Tolliver rocks the house with a performance of “Say What” and “I’m Nervous.”

The talks in brief:

Nature is never static, says experiential artist Lonneke Gordijn, whose work with creative partner Ralph Nauta is informed by that principle. Together they’ve created artworks that evoke nature and border on magic, founding Studio Drift to tap into the world’s mysteries. Gordijn describes Shylight, an installation of lights that float down from the ceiling, opening and closing, interacting like flowers, and how it became an ongoing art piece exploring different mechanisms and rhythms that spark different reactions in their audience. Fascinated by murmurations (creatures going places, leaderless, moving together), Gordijin shares the evolving process of their research-backed, software-driven environmental art piece made of a building-sized swarm of drones that flew across the desert at Burning Man, enchanting all. Unexpectedly, she reveals a massive block of concrete hiding in the shadows of the TED Theater, as — like magic — it becomes weightless and begins to float over Gordijn … over the audience … almost like it came to life and was trying to find its way back home.

What if we could put waste to work building a better world? Climate-responsive architect Vinu Daniel is doing exactly that, having developed new, natural building techniques that utilize local, discarded materials such as plastic, tires and mud to create magnificent yet utilitarian spaces. His design firm, Wallmakers, builds dreamlike homes, schools and more that blend with the landscape, showing what’s possible when we build with our planet in mind.

Given a warm video introduction by his friend, Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle, arts advocate Misan Harriman‘s love for rich cultural experiences was ignited in his youth by the internet. It was an “endless library of the extraordinary,” he says, especially for a dyslexic Nigerian boy like himself who felt under-stimulated in his boarding school classes. Harriman went from observer of content to artist after he saw an image of Coretta Scott King at the funeral of her late husband Martin Luther King Jr. — it showed him that photography had the power to expose the work we need to do in this life. When George Floyd was murdered, Harriman took his camera to the protests that erupted in London and captured one of the greatest civil rights movements in our lifetimes — and Martin Luther King III shared one of his images on social media and millions saw what his work illuminated. Pointing to the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa, he urges us all to take an unflinching look at what needs to be done in the world around us — and then do something.

While Saturday Night Live alum Melissa Villaseñor earned comedic success through her uncanny celebrity impressions, too often she felt the laughs weren’t for her but rather for the characters. She shares how she learned to combine personal vulnerability with her classic voice bits (think: Sandra Bullock, Britney Spears, Dolly Parton and many more), centering her identity and family story on stage. Through her touching, hilarious journey, Villaseñor encourages everyone to be themselves and believe in their dreams — even if you don’t know what to do after you achieve them.

From the desktop computer to the laptop to the smarthphone to the smartwatch, in recent decades our devices have grown smaller and more powerful. User experience visionary and Humane cofounder Imran Chaudhri says the next step in this progression will be far more radical. Using the power of AI, our devices will disappear completely, and the human-technology relationship will become “screenless, seamless and sensing.” To make his point, Chaudhri previews his company’s unreleased device, which sits in his breast pocket and can translate his words — and voice — into French, ask for local shopping suggestions and assess if a chocolate bar meets his dietary restrictions. He forecasts a future where AI-powered tech will do away with screens, helping us to be more present and efficient in our everyday lives.

What is the relationship between art and technology? In the past, says mixed reality experiential artist Lucas Rizzotto, artists often imagined new realities that engineers later built (think of the influence of sci-fi writers, for instance). But as powerful technology grows more accessible, Rizzotto wants to reverse this formula by encouraging artists to express themselves through technology — because it’s perspective, even more than technical skill, that leads to a vision worth creating. He shares how his own free-ranging exploration has led to various unexpected and delightful innovations: a suit you can play like an instrument and a game for lonely people now being adapted as group therapy. “When you take the technology we don’t understand and approach it as an artist, you do things a conventional engineer would never do,” Rizzotto says.

What’s it like to be a tree — to host a vast web of relationships that anchor an entire ecosystem? In a mind-blowing talk, artist Ersin Han Ersin asks us to step into a giant sequoia tree, peering through its bark into the tapestry of life within. He gives a tour of his multisensory, mixed-reality installations — co-created with the art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast along with teams of scientists, programmers, structural engineers and more — and shares how they explore the concept of umwelt, or the unique sensory world of different organisms. The work is an effort to rethink the primordial relationship between plants, animals and fungi — and to dismantle the myth of human separation from the natural world. “We are as much trees as trees are us,” he says.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew discusses the app’s algorithm and future — live at TED2023

Hot on the heels of his US congressional testimony, TikTok CEO Shou Chew sat down with head of TED Chris Anderson at Session 10 of TED2023 Thursday to discuss the roots of TikTok: what it does, how it works and what it’s doing to protect its users.

Chew reaffirmed his platform’s dedication to offering creativity, inspiration and fun to millions, highlighting some of his favorite creators around the world whose lives have been transformed by their videos going viral. TikTok’s revolutionary interest-predicting algorithm is a simple matter of math, said Chew, showing videos to users based not on subjects or social networks but instead on content others with similar likes have also enjoyed. In this way, anyone can have their videos can be surfaced, irrespective of their status in the real world.

Diving into some thornier issues, Chew addressed the privacy concerns that have led many in the United States to call for the app’s ban. Far from being a potential data gold mine for the Chinese government, Chew said, all new information on US users harvested by TikTok is housed in servers within the US — although he admits it will take the rest of 2023 to delete old data stored in servers elsewhere.

Meanwhile, TikTok continues to prioritize safety, particularly for its youngest users, said Chew. Access to sensitive material and certain features of the app are limited depending on the user’s age, while all content is moderated by both AI and a staff of 10,000 humans. Chew also stressed TikTok’s commitment to nurturing a healthy relationship between users and the app — despite its seemingly addictive design — by the inclusion of gentle suggestions to reduce screen time after a certain amount of use.

The TED Theater at TED2023, in photos

For one special week each year, a cavernous wing of the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada is transformed into the TED Theater: a custom-made, hand-built, 1,200-seat theater that plays host to mind-boggling, world-changing ideas meant to spark conversation, connection and wonder. Below, just a sampling of the incredible photography from this year’s event, TED2023. Also, check out our live coverage of the conference and watch TED Talks from TED2023.

TED2023 Photo Team: Leandro Badalotti, Ella DeGea Truelove, Tracy Gitnick, Ryan Lash, Erin Lubin, Jason Redmond, Gilberto Tadday, Jasmina Tomic, Elizabeth Zeeuw

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New levels of AI creativity … and some hard questions: Notes on Session 10 of TED2023

The uses of AI are seemingly limitless, a fact perhaps most easily apparent in the world of art. While some artists fear their skills could be replaced by computer-generated creations, others have embraced machine learning collaborations, spawning mind-boggling works of the imagination. In Session 10 of TED2023, five speakers explore the creative possibilities opened up by AI and discuss the pros and cons of a world where everyone — even computers — can create.

The event: Talks from Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson

When and where: Thursday, April 20, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Shou Chew, Eileen Isagon Skyers, Bilawal Sidhu, Refik Anadol, K Allado-McDowell

Hot on the heels of his congressional testimony, TikTok CEO Shou Chew sits down with head of TED Chris Anderson to discuss the roots of TikTok: what it does, how it works and what it’s doing to protect its users. Chew reaffirms his platform’s dedication to offering creativity, inspiration and fun to millions, while addressing the privacy concerns that have led many in the United States to call for a ban. Far from being a potential data gold mine for the Chinese government, Chew says, all new information on US users harvested by the app’s revolutionary interest-predicting algorithms is housed in servers within the US — although he admits it will take the rest of 2023 to delete old data stored in servers elsewhere. Meanwhile, TikTok continues to prioritize safety, particularly for its youngest users, by limiting access to sensitive material, gently offering suggestions to reduce screen time and moderating content (a Herculean task performed by AI algorithms in tandem with 10,000 human moderators).

From bizarre lifeforms to imaginary influencers, we’ve seen AI create all sorts of images, says media art curator Eileen Isagon Skyers — but how do we engage with art made by machines? She points to artists, metaphors and narratives that are pushing the boundaries of AI, including Mario Klingemann’s “Memories of Passersby I”: a machine that uses neural networks to generate a seemingly infinite stream of portraits trained on images from the 17th to 19th centuries. Isagon Skyers shows how AI can be a gateway beyond the human imagination (and physical reality), like artist Sophia Crespo‘s AI-generated “Neural Zoo” which depicts chimeras that don’t exist. She points to Sara Ludy’s multi-media digital art that explores immateriality, Ivona Tau’s AI-generated images that could be mistaken for photographs and Claire Silver’s collaborative paintings she creates with machines. In order to grapple with an increasingly technological future, we need to see what’s being made at the intersection of human and machine creativity, says Isagon Skyers.

Creative technologist Bilawal Sidhu is on a lifelong quest to blur the lines between reality and imagination. As a kid, this meant making videos manipulated with computer graphics and visual effects. Now, with advances in AI, this quest is getting supercharged, he says. He offers a tour of the techniques he’s been playing with, including Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF), which create volumetric 3D scenes based on 2D images, and ControlNet, which lets users guide an AI image generation process and essentially re-skin reality. The end result? Young creators no longer need to master expensive tools and esoteric knowledge, he says. Creation will be democratized, and all that’s required is a vision and a knack for co-creating with AI models.

Vividly colorful images of artificial coral reefs ripple on a massive screen behind media artist and director Refik Anadol as he describes his project “Coral Dreams”: AI-generated imagery of corals, created by an algorithm trained on more than 100 million images. Anadol uses machine learning algorithms by harnessing large, publicly available data sets and transforming them into visualizations that tap into humanity’s collective memories — essentially preserving the disappearing parts of nature while also creating artificial realities. With data as his paintbrush, Anadol evokes the feeling of being digitally immersed in nature: projects like “Floral Dreams” use AI trained on 75 million floral images, while “scent of our dreams” uses an algorithm trained on more than half a million scents. As the lines between physical and virtual, nature and technology blur, generative AI helps us create new multi-sensory realities and reflect on the world we live in. Deeply inspired by the leaders of the Yawanawá tribe in Brazil, Anadol asks, “Could we use AI to preserve and learn about ancient knowledge about nature?”

“Are we at risk of losing what makes us most human? How can we preserve and even enhance the best in ourselves with AI?” asks writer, musician and AI collaborator K Allado-McDowell. They believe the answer lies in creation, collaboration and care. Having written three books with the aid of AI, Allado-McDowell says nurturing creative relations with these programs can help open the mind, bringing to life ideas that could never have been born of a single creator. Collaboration is important for shaping a well-rounded and diverse future of AI, as the voices that are fed into machine learning help shape its output, too. Finally, Allado-McDowell believes AI should most prominently be used to discover new ways to help people heal, through both art and science, emphasizing care as a north star.

In a fascinating discussion on the state of art in the age of AI, artists Eileen Isagon Skyers, Bilawal Sidhu, Refik Anadol and K Allado-McDowell share how they’re using tools like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and DALL-E to fuel their creativity. With questions from head of TED Chris Anderson, the four creators dig into a range of topics: the repercussions of a market flooded with people who can now make art within seconds, the potential need for new copyright rules, and the role of creative constraints when working with AI tools. They end by sharing what excites them most about this novel, exploratory phase of artistic creation. The field is wide open, says K Allado-McDowell: it’s up to anyone to become a genre-defining mastermind of the form.

Preparing for the inevitable chaos ahead: Notes on Session 9 of TED2023

As we barrel into the future at breakneck speed, there can be a sense of perilous vertigo. How do we prepare for constant upheaval and change? The answer may lie in a combination of close listening, careful thought and inspiration from people committed to creating peace and progress. In Session 9 of TED2023, seven speakers and performers took up this mantle, exploring topics ranging from reproductive justice and the future of girls’ education to rethinking parenting and the end of life.

The event: Talks from Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED’s head of curation Helen Walters

When and where: Thursday, April 20, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Angeline Murimirwa, Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor, Mark Edwards, Jessie Reyez, Sean Goode, Becky Kennedy, Alua Arthur

We’ve all heard the story of how girls’ education is as close as we may get to a silver bullet for making the world a better place. But there’s more that needs to be done beyond putting a diploma in a girl’s hand, says education activist and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Angeline Murimirwa. Asking so much of young girls places an unimaginably heavy weight on them to beat the odds on their own and make the world a better place without radically reshaping the systems and environment that oppress them. That’s where Murimirwa’s organization CAMFED comes in, helping to lift the burden and ease the pressure by providing a strong social and financial network of 250,000 women mentors and supporters who have made the same difficult journey. A sisterhood, if you will, that not only works but also pays it forward to those who walk alongside them. Murimirwa is living proof, she shares, as one of the first in Zimbabwe helped by the organization years ago — and look where she is now, as its CEO.

If Peru is to become a fully developed country, Peruvian businesses must lead the way, says Intercorp founder Carlos Rodríguez-Pastor, one of Peru’s financial icons. By partnering with companies across the nation, he’s implementing numerous programs to nurture the country’s growing middle class. In conversation with TED business curator Corey Hajim, Rodríguez-Pastor breaks down Peru’s problems into three barriers: education, health care and infrastructure. Working on the ground rather than in the boardroom, he’s found innovative solutions to these problems, partnering with companies to build better schools that are also profitable (which, he says, equates to sustainable), bolstering health care through Peru’s existing pharmacy system and leveraging Peruvian tax law to funnel improvement funds directly to local infrastructure projects.

According to reproductive health advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Mark Edwards, almost half of all pregnancies in the US are unplanned, and — astonishingly — six out of ten typical birth control pill users will become accidentally pregnant over a span of ten years. These jaw-dropping statistics underscore the sobering fact that many pregnancies occur not because women aren’t using birth control but because they aren’t using the most effective type for their particular circumstances.  In fact, there are 18 FDA-approved forms of birth control, all of which vary in effectiveness for different women and, more importantly, aren’t all available to the women who need it most. Edwards believes contraception is a basic health care right. With his organization Upstream USA, he’s improving birth control education and access for women who lack adequate health care in a post-Roe world where contraception has become critical for family planning.

Speaking during a break between powerful performances of her songs “STILL C U” and “Figures,” singer-songwriter Jessie Reyez tells us she’s “made a profound discovery: we’re born, we grow, we die, and life is suffering.” Indeed, her own struggles with suffering led her to write her music, with roots tapping both sadness and hope. She says we all need to create our own solace from the ruins at our feet — or more succinctly: “Life is what we make it.” Mirroring the message of her spoken words, Reyez’s songs illuminate their painful roots, showcasing her raw powers of creation in sparsely accompanied vocal vignettes that are direct, immediate and often incendiary.

“Will you forgive me, no matter what I do, no matter what I say?” asked TED community member Sean Goode. He believes saying yes to this question provides the opportunity for greater connection, giving space to discuss different experiences and disagreements without harm. By providing grace, says Goode, we’re able to look past difficult histories and envision a more hopeful future together.

Every parent loses their temper, but what comes next? As with any relationship, clinical psychologist and parenting whisperer Becky Kennedy believes the best choice is repair: go back to the moment of disconnection, take responsibility for your actions and state what you’ll do differently next time. Where a parent’s lack of repair can force the child to form unproductive coping mechanisms seeped in self-blame, a 15-second intervention can foster healthy emotional regulation and teach effective communication. Kennedy offers straightforward guidance on how to repair, with tips on self-forgiveness, accountability and seizing the opportunity for growth in all relationships — no matter how big the obstacle may seem.

Just as it’s healthy and helpful to think about our lives, so too is it healthy and helpful to think about how they’ll end, says death doula Alua Arthur. As someone who provides non-medical, holistic support for dying people as well as their friends and family, Arthur spends a lot of time thinking about the end of life. The central question she asks people through her work is this: “What must you do to be at peace with yourself so that you may live presently and die gracefully?” By encouraging people to view their present life from the vantage point of a graceful death, Arthur helps them retrofit their lives, seeing clearly who they want to be and what kind of legacy they want to leave behind. Humans are meaning-making machines, she says. Rather than waiting until our deathbeds to figure out our grand life purpose, why not make meaning and magic out of the daily mundane? “The greatest gift of mortality is the sheer wonder that we get to live at all,” she says.

Delightedly and unapologetically nerding out: Notes on Session 8 of TED2023

It wouldn’t be a TED conference without a session devoted to nerding out. Session 8 of TED2023 featured speakers covering the future of digital property rights and blockchain, new thinking on health and medicine, a deep look at the problems facing the oceans and how a few simple lines can evoke both life’s challenges and its wonder.

The event: Talks from Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED current events curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers

When and where: Thursday, April 20, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Yat Siu, Anna Greka, Jeff Chen, Amy Baxter, Nina Tandon, Tony Long, Liana Finck

What does it mean to own something online? Most of us spend hours each day online, but we own very little there. You don’t own your Instagram account or the data your TikTok usage creates — data that generates profit and feeds TikTok’s superior algorithm. Future-focused technologist Yat Siu believes the “open metaverse,” a decentralized version of the internet also known as web3, is laying the foundation for a freer, fairer, more prosperous internet by ensuring robust digital property rights. Around the world, the freest, wealthiest countries enjoy strong property rights — so should we be concerned that more and more of our lives are being mediated by a version of the internet that doesn’t guarantee those same rights to its users?

Molecular scientist Anna Greka studies the world’s rarest diseases using advanced technology to analyze billions of cells via millions of images. With hypothesis-driven research, or “molecular sleuthing,” as she calls it, Greka and her team have been able to determine the cause of a previously mysterious string of kidney failures — and even developed a promising treatment. Their work could lead to treatments for more than 50 different diseases plaguing humanity, from ALS to Alzheimer’s, underlining Greka’s belief that studying the most niche medical cases could really help us all.

What if there was an easy way to prove the effectiveness of natural products? With AI-driven, crowdsourced clinical trials, health tech entrepreneur and TED community member Jeff Chen believes these supplements can have their chance to prove efficacy with a diverse dataset that includes populations historically excluded from trials — and that’s exactly what he and his team at Radical Science are doing. By sending products directly to a diverse grouping of consumers for testing and collecting that data, they offer an avenue to bypassing the slow-moving process of FDA approval — while giving some of nature’s oldest medicines the chance to be put to the test.

What is pain, really? If you whack your thumb with a hammer, you might think, “The pain is in my thumb.” But the reality is that nerves are sending an alarm to your spine, and then pain happens in your brain … somewhere. It’s kind of vague, says pediatric emergency physician and pain management pioneer Amy Baxter. What we do know is that pain’s not in one place, but rather is a symphony of connections. This includes connections to areas of the brain that trigger things like fear, memory, meaning and control. (“The same punch on the arm hurts more from a bully than a buddy,” she says.) Baxter has used this insight to find alternative treatments to pain, in an effort to reduce use of addictive opioids like oxycontin. She explains how methods ranging from vibration and cold to distraction, counting and relaxation can help block pain — without the potentially fatal side effects of opioid use. We have power over our pain, she says: it just takes some practice.

As humans injure earlier and live longer than ever before, we need our implants to last as long as we do, says bioengineer and TED community member Nina Tandon. In both her 2011 and 2012 TED Talks, she championed the use of stem cells as an ingredient to grow spare parts for repairs on the human body. At TED2023, she gives an update on how far her organization has come in developing bone and cartilage replacements. (For the curious, it takes three weeks to engineer bone, and four for cartilage — plus they can do any of the 207 bones or 360 joints in the body.) As of 2021, they became the first biotech company greenlit by the FDA to use this approach. She asks: “Would we rather have spare parts made from metal, plastic and ceramic, or connect to our own internal fountain of cellular youth?”

Today, a fifth of all seafood is thought to be caught illegally, a crime worth up to 23.5 billion dollars per year. Pirate fishing threatens the health of our ocean and the well-being of millions of people — and it’s not the only crime at sea that goes undetected. Oil spills go unpunished, oil and gas exploration unmonitored. Why are Earth’s oceans such a Wild West? The problem is they’re vast, says Tony Long, president and CEO of Global Fishing Watch and 2023 Audacious Project grantee. You can’t manage the entire ocean from the decks of ships — but you can from space. Using machine learning and GPS data, Global Fishing Watch has built the first-ever livestream map to track the movements of industrial fishing fleets and made it freely available to the world — part of a plan to illuminate all human activity in the ocean and transform ocean management.

In an illustrated journey through an often-baffling world, cartoonist Liana Finck‘s drawings hold our hands through life’s most confusing predicaments (large and small): pondering what to make for dinner, how to leave a party without being rude. She also takes on more complex things that take many drawings, like creating her own version of God; think more human, less confident. After a breakup, Finck realized drawing from her own life not only helped her understand herself better — but also helped her connect to other people. With the power of pen and paper, she shows us we can navigate life’s complexities together with levity, humor and line.

OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman demos unreleased ChatGPT plug-ins — live at TED2023

ChatGPT stunned the world. What comes next?

Speaking live at Session 2 of TED2023 on Tuesday, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman took a peek under the hood of GPT-4 — the company’s most advanced large language model — and discussed why he thinks this is a historic moment to shape the future of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Brockman projected his laptop onto the big screens in the TED Theater and demoed a series of mind-blowing, unreleased plug-ins for ChatGPT. Working live off the internet, he showed 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 having to leave the chatbot. He went on to demonstrate ChatGPT’s new ability to fact-check its own work (with citations you can click on) and interpret a data-intensive spreadsheet even when given relatively vague instructions.

The idea, Brockman says, is that the machine learns to “align” with your intent. Just like you might teach a child a task without giving precise instructions, so too will the AI gradually learn to apply its knowledge to novel situations through a feedback loop with users. He hopes this will take the shape of a deep, trustworthy collaboration between humans and AI on the path to completing harder and harder tasks. Humans will be the managers and overseers of this work, Brockman says — the machine just executes the details.

Acknowledging that many people are nervous about the potential of AGI, Brockman nonetheless maintained his view that the technology will create a better world for everyone. The key to achieving this, he says, will be widespread participation and input from people on what the guardrails for the AI should be.

After the talk, head of TED Chris Anderson joined Brockman onstage to dig deeper into the timeline of ChatGPT’s development and the risks, raised by many in the tech industry and beyond, of putting such a powerful tool out into the world. Was it a responsible decision, or a reckless one? Brockman’s stance is that the best approach is to release the machine before it’s super powerful, see it in action and “let reality hit you in the face.” From there, he says, it’s our collective responsibility to provide feedback to the AI on the way to incremental improvement.

One way or another, Brockman says, AGI is poised to transform almost every aspect of how we use computers. It’s time that we all get literate in this technology.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The talks in brief:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discovering how our brains might soon get upgraded: Notes on Session 6 of TED2023

In a mind-bending Session 6 of TED2023, neurotech, mental health and breakthroughs in brain-computer interfaces took the mainstage, with seven incredible speakers sharing ideas on how our brains may soon get an upgrade.

The event: Talks from Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED’s head of curation Helen Walters

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

Speakers: Luis von Ahn, Andy Dunn, Francesca Hogi, Gus Worland, Maya Shankar, Nita Farahany, Conor Russomanno

The talks in brief:

We often think of education as an equalizing force, but unequal access to education actually worsens inequality. Motivated by his experience in his native Guatemala, educational equity technologist Luis von Ahn embarked on an ambitious mission: to boost access to education globally. The brainchild of that effort, Duolingo, now has hundreds of millions of users. But in designing Duolingo, von Ahn faced a big problem: How could an app designed to actually teach you something compete with platforms like TikTok and Instagram, some of the most addictive things humans have ever created? If Duolingo was the “broccoli” of smartphone apps, von Ahn decided he would have to “make broccoli taste like dessert.” The result: an app that harnesses the psychological techniques of social media and mobile games for a good cause.

Mental health truth-teller Andy Dunn began suffering from manic episodes due to bipolar I disorder in his early 20s, around the same time he was creating his immensely successful online retail company Bonobos. Such mental health issues have been shown to appear at higher rates among entrepreneurs, often applauded for their “crazy” ideas while their darker “shadows” are ignored. Dunn shares his journey to mental wellness and offers a vision of a future where entrepreneurs are “able to dream crazy dreams” while also being held accountable, in and out of the boardroom. He calls for more accessible, affordable healthcare for all and asks everyone to consider the truly conditional nature of love and leadership. “Entrepreneurs are not gods, even when we think we are,” says Dunn.

“You were born knowing how to love,” says love coach, podcast host and TED community member Francesca Hogi. She spent 10 years speaking to thousands of individuals about their romantic hopes and dreams, uncovering the pervasiveness of false marketing that claims “while you can’t buy love, you can buy your worthiness to be loved.” Hogi says this propaganda makes us believe love is external and scarce, instead of internal and infinite. To find true love, she says to begin with cultivating love for yourself within, and “transcend the shallow fantasy of love you’ve been sold for so long.”

Lots of people talk about the need to be physically fit, but mentally fit? Not as much. Radio host Gus Worland is trying to change that by helping people develop the skills and “emotional muscle” needed to recognize when they’re struggling, learn how to talk about it and be vulnerable enough to ask for help. With his nonprofit Gotcha4Life, Worland is spreading this work in the hopes of ending suicide and breaking the stigma around mental health issues. He shares the story of his best friend and mentor, who took his own life years ago and issues a call to everyone to “look after their own villages” and check in on the most important people in their lives – today. Where to start? It can be as simple as sending this text message to the people that mean the most to you, Worland says: “I love you. I miss you. See you soon xoxo.”

Who are you, and how do you transform in the face of change? Cognitive scientist Maya Shankar shares three questions you can ask to find out who you are when the world feels like it’s shifting under your feet. First: “How does this change change what you’re capable of?” Next, “How might this change change what you value?” And third: “How might this change change how you define yourself?” Shankar shares stories — and the science behind change — of people who stepped out of their comfort zones and rigid mindsets and found themselves changed for the better. Maybe through their experiences, and Shankar’s own story as well, a new, lesser-traveled yet more rewarding and expansive path rich with possibility awaits.

While we can track the minutiae of our bodies (heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and even whether we’re snoring too loud) via a host of wearables and other devices, there is very little technology that allows us to track our brain activity. All of that is about to change. Neurotechnology ethicist Nita Farahany demonstrates how we’re witnessing the dawn of technology that will allow us to record our most private data: the electromagnetic pulses that map our thoughts and desires. This information will then unlock (and, indeed, is already unlocking) the potential to self-program ourselves via brain stimuli that could help us treat everything from depression to epilepsy. There’s a catch, however. Who is collecting our brain data, and how will they use it? Farahany argues that without a recognized and protected “human right for cognitive liberty,” we could just as easily benefit from healing as we could also fall prey to microtargeting, surveillance and manipulation.

Years ago, when he was a student at Parsons, neurotechnologist and inventor Conor Russomanno dreamed of peering into the workings of his own brain and created a low-cost, single-channel EEG machine to do just that. From this initial breakthrough, Russomanno has developed technology that utilizes not only the brain but also neglected muscles of the human body to create mind-blowing human-computer interfaces. With the help of collaborator Christian Bayerlein, who is wheelchair-bound due to a motor disorder, Russomanno demonstrates a system that allows Bayerlein to fly a drone over the astonished audience, using vestigial muscle control coupled with an optical headset equipped with neurosensors. Russomanno’s work emphasizes that his ultimate dream — a two-way brain-computer interface — depends as much on our entire nervous system (cognition, or “the mind”) as it does on the brain itself.

Imagining a pathway to a sustainable future: Notes on Session 5 of TED2023

How do we strike a balance between sounding the alarm about the devastation wrought by climate change and telling the story of an actual pathway forward? Session 5 of TED2023 sought to stem the despair and cultivate hope and action on the most pressing issue of our time.

The event: Talks from Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson

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

Speakers: Hannah Ritchie, Garry Cooper, Nicole Rycroft, Shane Campbell-Staton, George T. Whitesides, Steve Long, Wanjira Mathai

The talks in brief:

According to a recent international survey, more than half of young people think humanity is doomed. But environmental data scientist Hannah Ritiche says that far from being the “last generation,” as some climate activists call themselves, today’s youth have the opportunity to be the first generation in human history to achieve true sustainability. For Ritchie, this would mean both protecting our environment and providing a good life for everyone alive today. In the past, improving human lives came with an environmental price tag, but Ritchie says that no longer has to be true. With technological advances, such as the rapid acceleration of solar power, we now have the capacity to improve life globally while also stewarding Earth for future generations. To do so, we must push for zero emissions and frame sustainability as an opportunity, not a sacrifice.

Cities are a great place to initiate new economic models. Circular economy builder Garry Cooper cites Chicago, for instance, as a place already working to transform its traditional linear economy into a circular one. This means creating a system of sharing resources and repurposing items that are no longer needed, from basic materials to furniture and beyond. To transition any city toward a circular economy, Cooper lays out three main steps: first, establish a digital infrastructure (like universal access to internet) so that all can be involved; second, build a tried-and-true way to operationalize reusing and recycling materials (think Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, but expanded); and third, incentivize every person and business to participate through smart public policy. Circular economies can create a better future though reinventing economic opportunity, strengthening community ties, uplifting citizens and protecting the climate, says Cooper. “We’re all neighbors, not competitors, not strangers. We need each other and whatever city or town we reside in.”

Every year, billions of trees are cut down for the production of paper packaging or fabrics like rayon and viscose. If we’re going to beat climate change, we need to make these supply chains more sustainable, says 2023 Audacious Project grantee and biodiversity champion Nicole Rycroft. Her organization, Canopy, partners with key industry leaders to overhaul their supply chains in favor of next-generation wood pulp alternatives, such as used cotton fabric, microbial cellulose or agricultural residues like leftover wheat straw. With these substitutes, Canopy has already shifted more than 50 percent of global viscose production out of the world’s ancient and endangered forests, setting a transformative precedent for the future of pulp production — and creating a sustainable playbook for other industries in need of reform. “For every sector, there is a more sustainable path forward,” says Rycroft.

Wildfires like those in Santa Rosa in 2017 and Australia in 2020 are a large and growing global challenge — and fire experts say things are likely to get worse before they get better. Billions of dollars are being spent to fight this blazing issue, explains George T. Whitesides, who left a successful aerospace career to take on megafires, or those that burn more than 100,000 acres. Working with experts across disciplines, from firefighters and tribal communities to scientists and policymakers, Whitesides cofounded Megafire Action, an organization dedicated to building fire-adapted communities. He shares three emerging solutions to this alarming problem: (1) build resilient communities that design with fire safety in mind, (2) take measures to control fire spread, like reducing the amount of overgrowth in landscapes, and (3) innovate fire-management technologies that can rapidly detect and put out fires.

We tend to think of evolution as a slow, gradual process playing out over thousands or millions of years. But evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell-Staton shows how evolution is now rapidly reshaping life in response to the world humanity has built. Small lizards in Puerto Rico have evolved longer limbs and larger toe pads to use buildings as perches, for example, while the genome of wolves living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone appears to be changing in response to decades of radiation exposure. “We live in a time when we are literally etching our decisions into the DNA of the species that live in, on and around us,” Campbell-Staton says. Now the question is: When we consider the story that we’re writing, what do we want our chapter in this grand book of life to say?

Photosynthesis is one of the most important processes on the planet: it helps produce the air we need to survive. For more than a decade, crop sustainability scientist Steve Long has used genetic simulations and experimental farms to make this process more efficient. But why haven’t millions of years of evolution already optimized photosynthesis? Because our crops did not evolve to thrive in our now carbon-rich atmosphere, nor can they adjust to light fluctuations in densely cultivated fields, Long says. His team has genetically optimized crops like soybean to account for these human-driven changes, sometimes increasing yields by more than 20 percent. By boosting photosynthesis, Long hopes we can start a 21st-century green revolution: improving food access for the 10 percent of humanity experiencing food insufficiency — while also reducing carbon emissions. 

2023 Audacious Project grantee Wanjiri Mathai recalls that her mother, Nobel laureate and Green Belt Movement founder Wangari Maathai, used to tell her: “Nature is the source of everything good.” Today, the lush landscapes Wangari Maathai knew in Kenya have been denuded and degraded; overall, 60 percent of the soil in Africa is unproductive. But, relying on local leadership and local wisdom, a continent-wide coalition of stakeholders and entrepreneurs is working to revitalize Africa’s land. This coalition, AFR100, has an ambitious goal: the restoration of 100 million hectares on the continent by 2030. By re-greening Africa, Mathai said, AFR100 can help secure livelihoods, mitigate climate change and secure communities against the worst effects of our changing climate.

Ideas that are way, way out there: Notes on Session 4 of TED2023

In a session that was by turns soul-stirring, uproariously funny, deadly serious and brilliantly colorful, seven speakers transported the TED audience to a solar engineering project in outer space, a 24-hour concert and performance, a movement to prove that birds aren’t real and more.

The event: Talks from Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by comedian Pardis Parker and TED’s head of curation Helen Walters

When and where: Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Yara Shahidi, Ali Hajimiri, Nadya Tolokonnikova, Tavares Strachan, Machine Dazzle, Doris Mitsch, Peter McIndoe

The talks in brief:

You may know actor and producer Yara Shahidi from the hit shows black-ish and grown-ish. Sure, she may be in a unique position, but like anybody growing up, she juggles multiple interests, passions and jobs. From her vantage point, she sees that the best way to create a truly fulfilling life is to lead with curiosity — and she invites us all to join her in recommitting to wherever our minds and hearts take us. Don’t second-guess what “distracts” you, she says: that’s your curiosity coming through, an act of creation in itself. Denying your imagination only limits the infinite possibilities just over the horizon.

From laptops to phones and AirPods, wireless technology permeates modern life. What if the energy powering these technologies was also wireless? Space solar-power experimenter Ali Hajimiri sees this future, once the stuff of science fiction, on the near horizon. By exploiting the interference property of waves, we can already direct energy from a generator to a wireless light bulb. Now imagine scaling up this capability: the generator becomes a solar panel orbiting Earth, the light bulb a remote village or a war-torn city with power outages. Recently, Hajimiri’s team made a key step toward this vision, launching a rocket that will unfold in space into an array of flexible solar panels designed to transmit energy to Earth. 

In a quick, fascinating talk, TED community member Terry Moore discusses the mathematics behind what’s known as Penrose tiling, a type of design characterized by aperiodicity, where simple patterns expand infinitely in any direction without ever repeating. He shows how, when you take a closer look, this type of design shows up in human cultures across millennia (long before Roger Penrose “invented” it in 1974). The takeaway? This pattern is like life — complicated, impossible to predict, unfolding differently based on every decision — yet, underlying everything, there’s a hidden unity that holds things together. “When we see these amazing designs, we can know they’re not decorations,” Moore says. “They’re a statement, they’re a message. Look, listen. You can hear their voices.”

In 2012, conceptual artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova and her resistance group, Pussy Riot, were sentenced to two years in prison for speaking out against Vladimir Putin’s regime. Since her release, she’s founded the independent investigative news agency Mediazona and organized support for a number of international art and women’s movements. While she now lives in exile, Tolokonnikova stands as a leading voice in the fight for freedom in Russia, named a top enemy of Putin simply because, in her words, “courage is contagious.” Now she calls for everyone to embrace the courage within themselves and delivered a powerful message to Putin himself: “You have already lost. You know it. … The world is with Ukraine.”

Conceptual artist Tavares Strachan has always been hungry for uncovering and sharing novel experiences. On his journey to the Arctic, he learned about the lesser-known travels of African American explorer Matthew Henson, who was part of the first human crew to reach the North Pole, sparking a pivot in his artwork towards a quest to tell lost stories. Strachan created the Encyclopedia of Invisibility, a 3,000-page leather-bound book with more than 17,000 entries on things often left out of history courses, from Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the mother of rock and roll, to the Minos, an all-female military regiment from the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin), and many more. He also shares the story of Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first Black astronaut, for whom Strachan worked with SpaceX to produce a satellite and blast a golden bust called ENOCH with the astronaut’s likeness into space — launching his legacy to the stars.. “If you really pay attention, you start to see these lost stories all around you,” says Strachan. “When you find them, you realize that they can speak with a very loud mouth.”

“My approach is maximal,” says Machine Dazzle, a self-described radical, queer, emotionally driven, instinct-based concept artist and thinker. He takes us on a stunning tour of his boundary-pushing work — including costumes such as a bouffant made out of metallic pipe cleaners, a dress made of hot dogs and barbwire and a headdress made out of dynamite and toilet paper (to name just a few) — and demonstrates the power of tapping into the full complexity of yourself. He’s joined onstage by his friend Matty Crosland, who undergoes a costume-fueled transformation as Machine Dazzle speaks.

Have you ever been curious about what the world gets up to as it passes you by? Not the world you know, but the one outside human perception and awareness. Design-minded artist Doris Mitsch invites us into the wonder and awe of nature’s everyday feats — the ones that surpass humanity’s five senses — through her dazzling photography. Starlings in flight and formation, trout tracking their way by waves of light, bats that shriek louder than we can hear. Hidden, invisible intelligence that redraws the maps of our own understanding of the world when we stumble upon the truths of our fellow earthlings. In that spirit, Mitsch encourages us to embrace their otherness and revel in the experience. In the words of the poet and naturalist Jarod K. Anderson: “Bats can hear shapes. Plants can eat light. Bees can dance maps. We can hold all these ideas at once and feel both heavy and weightless with the absurd beauty of it all.”

In 2018, bird truther Peter McIndoe founded a movement behind a fake conspiracy theory claiming that birds aren’t real but are instead robots created by the government in the middle of the 20th century to spy on all of us. As he fed the lie — hiring actors to play retired CIA agents speaking out, holding rallies populated by thousands of “bird truthers” — McIndoe learned about the power behind a conspiracy theory and why people will go so far for a story others find completely, ridiculously false. He explores the loneliness and polarization that he believes leads people to find community wherever they can (even in movements defined by outrageous claims) and offers steps we can take as a society to increase our collective empathy, build constructive community and combat the growth of harmful conspiracies. “Let’s direct our attention to the crisis of belonging, and then maybe we’ll understand the crisis of belief,” he says.

Leaping boldly into new global realities: Notes on Session 3 of TED2023

From climate change to aging to geopolitics, Session 3 of TED2023 surveyed big issues with worldwide implications.

The event: Talks from Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington-Rodgers

When and where: Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Jennifer D. Sciubba, Piyachart Phiromswad, Chip Conley, Ashif Shaikh, Barbara F. Walter, Keyu Jin, Ian Bremmer

The talks in brief:

Despite decades of (justified) warnings against the dangers of overpopulation, the world is facing a once-unthinkable possibility: declining population growth, fueled by aging, lower fertility rates and depopulation. But the solution to an aging, shrinking world (and diminished economy) isn’t to have more babies. Instead, says political demographer Jennifer D. Sciubba, we must learn to invest in the health and the welfare of the living, build a resilient global workforce and create sustainable systems that can survive dramatic demographic shifts.

Continuing with the theme of understanding and improving our relationship to aging, economist Piyachart Phiromswad explores the technology that can help seniors overcome the physical, mental and societal barriers to employment. Tools like full-body exoskeletons can support people as they lift heavy objects, while robotic arms can steady shaky hands, helping seniors with advanced training and knowledge continue their work with precision. Other technology can set reminders to aid a failing memory or allow seniors to work from home, avoiding strenuous travel. These tools would help the senior population remain active, reduce the financial burden on pension and aid programs, increase economic production and help to eradicate the false assumption that older people can no longer be productive members of society.

“What if we rethought midlife such that it’s not a crisis but a chrysalis?” asks entrepreneur and TED community member Chip Conley. Providing a fresh perspective on a time of life that’s often misunderstood, Conley suggests a new way to the way we think about our 40s, 50s and 60s, tracing the invention of the term “midlife crisis” back to the relatively recent date 1965 and offering an alternative narrative that paints midlife as a transitional stage between adulthood and new stage of life, the way a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.

Hundreds of millions of migrant workers leave everything they know behind to seek out means of survival — and climate change will only exacerbate this movement. Migrant advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Ashif Shaikh shares how he and his team at Jan Sahas’ Migrants Resilience Collaborative are building a social safety net by making benefits accessible to vulnerable groups and simultaneously establishing a feedback loop between communities and governments to improve existing systems and policies. He shares a video that shows the real-world impact that this two-pronged approach has had in India and other parts of South and Southeast Asia. “Without a safety net, one job loss, one health emergency, can undermine years of effort and keep [migrants] trapped in the cycles of poverty,” Shaikh says.

We understand the playbook anti-democratic forces use to foment and ignite civil war. Why don’t governments have a similar playbook for preserving stable institutions, civic cooperation and diverse representation? Civil wars expert Barbara F. Walter looks at the United States, which is facing not only degradation to its democratic process through challenges to its elections but also attacks from the hostile demographic groups fading from power, and shares how to respond to these early warning signs of impending trouble.

We associate innovation with big breakthroughs, but no one innovates new applications and processes for existing tech better than China, says economist Keyu Jin. American companies brought us the iPhone and the first mass-market electric vehicles (EVs), but China’s EV infrastructure has since vastly outpaced the US, and Chinese smartphone models now dominate in Africa and are gaining popularity across the globe. Jin explains China’s special sauce — political centralization, economic decentralization — and makes an impassioned case for viewing the US and China systems as complementary, not opposed.

Ask political scientist Ian Bremmer who runs the world and he’ll tell you that today we live in a leaderless world. Bremmer chalks up current geopolitical tensions and conflicts to three things: Russia’s lack of integration into Western institutions and its residual anger as it declines; China’s integration into US-led institutions with the presumption that it’d make the country more American (spoiler: it did not); and finally, millions across the world in wealthy democracies feeling left behind by globalization. So what comes next for the world order? That can be broken into three categories: a global security order (the US and its allies), a global economic order (the US, China, the EU, India) and a new, up-and-coming digital order, run by technology companies (think of social media platforms already powering wars, spreading misinformation, promoting conspiracy theories). Bremmer sounds the alarm on the influence of these technology companies and the power they hold through the almighty algorithm, ending on a simple question aimed at those who run those companies: Are you fine with the fact that what you’ve created destroys democracies, or are you going to do something about it?

The astounding new era of AI: Notes on Session 2 of TED2023

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.

“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.

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 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.

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.”

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.

Off with a bang: Notes on Session 1 of TED2023

It’s time for TED! In an eclectic and interdisciplinary opening session, artists, scientists, activists, entrepreneurs and more explored the breadth of transformative possibilities that lie ahead of us, from understanding animal communication to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence to the theory of the “adjacent possible.”

The event: Talks from Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson, Helen Walters and Whitney Pennington Rodgers

When and where: Monday, April 17, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Angus Hervey, Stuart Kauffman, Jennifer Doudna, Golshifteh Farahani, Tom Graham, Karen Bakker, Wangechi Mutu, Benjamin Zander

Opening performance: AI opera Song of the Ambassadors, created by Refik Anadol and K Allado-McDowell, kick off the session and beckon us into a new era of opera, co-created by humans and artificial intelligence, presenting a hymn to nature and existence.

The talks in brief:

Why are we so good at reporting bad news and so bad at reporting good news? That’s a question journalist Angus Hervey spends a lot of time thinking about as the editor of Future Crunch, a newsletter that cuts through the usual doom and destruction we see on news channels and reports on stories of progress. Delivering a mock newscast from the TED stage, Hervey takes us on a whirlwind tour of the “good news” stories you might have missed from the past year — from the acceleration of the world’s clean energy transition to advancements in public health, human rights, astronomy and more — and clarifies why, if we want to change the story of humanity this century, we have to start changing the stories we tell ourselves.

Theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman thinks we can explain the historical pattern of long periods of nothing happening followed by explosive growth (from the Cambrian explosion to hockey-stick growth of global GDP to the present computing revolution) through math — what he calls the theory of the “adjacent possible.” Tracing the arc of human history through the tools and technologies we’ve invented, Kauffman explains that humanity has so far used its creativity to bring about the Anthropocene and the destruction of the biosphere, and provides examples in soil regeneration for how we can reverse the damage and feed the world in the process.

A brave new world is upon us, and in its dawn emerges a collaboration between two breakthrough technologies — metagenomics and the Nobel Prize-winning technology CRISPR — to birth a new field of science: precision microbiome editing. Jennifer Doudna, co-inventor of CRISPR and a 2023 Audacious Project grantee with the Innovative Genomics Institute, details the deep potential of this new science and its focus on not just one organism but entire populations of organisms called microbiomes that exist in every living thing, influencing things like the development of asthma, obesity, diabetes and Alzheimer’s in the human body and methane production in cows. The opportunities to improve the future health of humanity and the planet are here now, and precision microbiome editing is the way forward, Doudna says.

“I am the raised fist of young girls with their hair flowing in the wind,” says actor, musician and activist Golshifteh Farahani. In a moving tribute to individuals who have lost their lives during protests in response to the death of Mahsa Amini in her home country of Iran, Farahani draws connections between those fighting for freedom in Iran and the other places in the world where ignorance and fear separates instead of unites humanity.

In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, AI developer Tom Graham explores how AI-generated content that looks and sounds exactly like the real world (known as “deepfakes”) will come to permeate our lives over the next decade. He offers a proof of concept directly from the stage: a startlingly realistic deepfake of Tom Cruise outside TED2023 in Vancouver, and then a real-time demo of Anderson’s face overlaid first on Graham’s head and then on TED community member Sunny Bates, seated in the first row of the TED Theater. Together they discuss the creative and educational potential of this technology — along with its risk for exploitation — and explain the new legal rights we’ll need to ensure we maintain control over our photorealistic AI avatars.

Conservation technology researcher Karen Bakker uncovers how the animal kingdom communicates in ways as complex as our own human speech – from microscopic coral larvae listening for the sounds of their home reef to the varying dialects in the dictionary of elephants’ trumpeting. Much of nature’s acoustics are ultra- or infra-sonic, lying outside our natural ability to hear (consider a bat’s shrill speech or a hydrothermal vent’s deep hum), but technological breakthroughs are changing that, allowing us to tune into a world previously unheard. Scientists are even able to translate some variations of animal speech, while generative AI is able to imitate some of these sounds, allowing us to communicate with nature like never before – and bringing along some difficult challenges, too. “In nature, sound is everywhere and silence is an illusion,” Bakker says.

“We’ve left messages for each other using art. Messages that travel across vast expanses of time and culture, reminding us of where we came from,” says visual artist Wangechi Mutu. From ancient carvings deep in the Sahara to her own chimeric art, Mutu traces evolving representations of divine femininity and the presence of women in African art. She shares her otherworldy sculptures that merge nature, history and lore, pointing to how art gives voice to those rendered invisible — and reminds us of the freedom found in creation.

In a rousing talk and piano performance to close out the opening session, legendary conductor Benjamin Zander (watch his 2008 TED Talk) explains his view on the difference between “positive thinking” and “possibility,” saying, “Positive thinking is a fraud, and possibility is a language of creation.” And he waxes lyrical about Beethoven, asking us to listen a little deeper to the very familiar “Moonlight Sonata” and inviting the audience to a sing-along (in German) of the original words to “Ode to Joy.”

Experience TED2023 live from anywhere — with TED Live

TED Live brings the excitement of our flagship conference, TED2023: Possibility, to you — wherever you choose to watch. 

Access a can’t-miss lineup of diverse thinkers, creators, scholars and changemakers unlocking new possibilities and creating a brighter future. Explore radical shifts in technology, art and culture through this global convening of builders and doers — right from your home.

With TED Live, you can watch the entire conference minute-by-minute as it happens (including talks and surprise moments that may not be posted online), or watch the on-demand archive when it’s convenient for you, year-round.

Register now »

Announcing the speaker lineup for TED2023: Possibility

TED has unveiled an exceptional speaker lineup for this year’s flagship conference, themed “Possibility.”

TED2023 is all about possibilities. It’s a space to explore, together, a strange and beautiful space called the adjacent possible. We’ll be guided there by dreamers, inventors and creatives. Innovators, entrepreneurs and builders. Explorers and change-makers. Visionary thinkers and doers from every field of human endeavor.

Here’s just a handful we can’t wait to watch live:

• Yara Shahidi, actor, producer (Black-ish, Grown-ish)
• Greg Brockman, AI pioneer (Cofounder, OpenAI — creators of ChatGPT)
• Nadya Tolokonnikova, conceptual artist, activist (Founder, Pussy Riot)
• Melissa Villaseñor, actor, comedian (first Latina cast member of Saturday Night Live)
• Luis von Ahn, educational equity technologist (CEO, Duolingo)
• And so many more!

Browse the full lineup here >>

Can’t make it Vancouver? Watch every talk, every speaker, live and unedited, right from your living room with TED Live. Learn more here.

Awe: Notes from Session 11 of TED2022

What a week! Eleven mainstage sessions of TED Talks, two sessions of TED Fellows talks, an incredible array of on-site activations, countless Discovery Sessions, parties, dinners and more made TED2022 a triumphant return to Vancouver. The closing session of the conference capped off the week with world-changing ideas from the mountains of Nepal to the Amazon rainforest to Mars and beyond.

The event: Talks from Session 11 of TED2022, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson, Helen Walters and Whitney Pennington Rodgers

When and where: Wednesday, April 14, 2022, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Leo Lanna and Lvcas Fiat, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bedouine, Elon Musk, Shreya Joshi, Michael Schur, Sara Lomelin, Sarah Kay

Music: With striking vocals and guitar, singer-songwriter Bedouine performed “Nice and Quiet” and “One Of These Days,” fusing her beautiful lyrics and sumptuous melodies.

Conference wrap-up: Poet Sarah Kay and piano virtuoso Samora Pinderhugh sent the conference off with a stirring tribute to the week through the ideas of paying attention, being astonished and telling about it — inspired by Mary Oliver’s iconic poem “Sometimes.”

The talks in brief:

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, spiritual leader

Big idea: Meditation is an act of awareness, wisdom and self-compassion that, if done with patience and acceptance, can bring us the peace and joy that we seek.

How? A blissed-out state of nothingness is often the image we associate with meditation, but Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche knows there’s so much more to it. After dealing with panic attacks for many years, spending time at Tibetan retreats and consulting with his father, a meditation master, he realized that there are a few misunderstandings we have about the practice. We assume, for example, that if we try to force problems out of our minds they’ll go away; we sit lotus in a dead silent room trying to arrive at peace and calm, only to find that the more we go looking for them, the more difficult they are to find. Inviting us to adopt a more fulfilling approach to meditating, Rinpoche shares three core principles that could help us tap into our inner zen:
with awareness, the “essence” of meditation, we could engage with the world through sensory stimuli — like sound — to be present in any moment; with wisdom, we could realize that no matter how strongly negative emotions affect us, there’s always a state of calm to return to; and finally, with self-compassion, we could give ourselves the grace to let negativity come and go, and become better equipped to handle the challenges of day-to-day life. Conjuring up an image of mother nature, he calls on us to remember our inner strength.

---

Leo Lanna, artistic entomologist, and Lvcas Fiat, designer and explorer

Big idea: We lack efficient tools to survey parts of Amazonia, where the core of the world’s biodiversity (like more than 2,500 species of mantises) can be found or is yet to be discovered. By employing creative uses of technology as part of contemporary science practices, scientists like the environmental conservation group Projeto Mantis, can explore the Amazon’s biodiversity and help preserve it for future generations.

How? Two winners of the TED Idea Search: Latin America 2021, Leo Lanna and Lvcas Fiat work at the intersection of science, conservation and design to learn about the Amazon. Through Projeto Mantis, an independent agency devoted to research, conservation and wildlife photography, Lanna and Fiat are devoted to studying praying mantises and their environment. Their approach may be unconventional in philosophy — Lanna and Fiat live closely with the insects and look after every mantis collected for research until its natural death — but it’s also innovative in technique, as Projeto Mantis attempts to explore the Amazon using modern technology, like drones, UV light and nighttime explorations to learn about the world that emerges when the sun goes down. Thankfully, Lanna and Fiat do not fear the dark. Instead, they are alarmed by the rapid destruction of the rainforest. By marrying technology, art and science, the two believe “the age of exploration on planet Earth is far from over. And in the nights of the rainforests, it is just beginning.”

---

Bryce Dallas Howard, multi-hyphenate creator

Big idea: As anyone who has experienced fame knows, private life is precious. In the social media age, we should all protect and cultivate our private lives with the same enthusiasm that we post and promote in public.

How? All of us live in public now, says actor and filmmaker Bryce Dallas Howard — but some more willingly than others. Howard’s father was a star in The Andy Griffith Show, so she grew up with the same feeling of exposure that so many of us now experience because of social media. From assigning rustic chores like sheep-shearing to covering the mirrors in the house, Howard’s mother took extreme measures to protect her children from the perils of their father’s fame. Along the way, she taught Howard the secret to living a fulfilling life in the public eye. From her, Howard learned it is our private lives that make our public lives worth living. Inspired by this philosophy, Howard now protects her private life with two simple rules: 1) whatever you are experiencing, soak it in for 48 hours before posting or sharing, and 2) keep yourself honest by asking “why” before you decide to share.

---

Shreya Joshi, future leader

Big idea: The solution to political polarization? Listen to opposing perspectives and talk to people with whom you disagree.

How? Most of us have a tendency to gravitate toward people who look, think and act like us. This affinity can offer comfort — but it can also be harmful, says 17-year-old youth leader Shreya Joshi. The negative impact is clear across society: hate groups, screaming cable news pundits and politicians who strike down bills just because they come from across the aisle. But the root of this polarization isn’t just a difference of opinion, Joshi says: it’s the product of seeing the “other side” as malevolent, hateful and holding a hidden agenda. That’s why Joshi launched Project TEAL, a teen-led initiative dedicated to helping young people engage with the political process and bring people with opposing perspectives into the same room. While the conversations can get uncomfortable, she admits, the benefits are enormous: we better understand other people’s beliefs and learn to better advocate for our own. So look for a group — whether it’s with coworkers, a book club at your library or a PTA group at your school — and have a tough conversation. You might be surprised by what happens when you enter a conversation with the intent to listen and learn, not to win or agree.

---

Michael Schur, television writer, producer

Big idea: Understanding ethical theories helps us make better, kinder decisions.

How? In 2005, TV writer and producer Michael Schur and his wife got into a fender bender. No one was hurt, and both cars looked fine, but a few days after the accident, the man whose car they bumped sent them a bill for 836 dollars to replace his entire fender. The incident incensed Schur, who didn’t want to pay for a mark he could barely see, but it also sent him down a rabbit hole into the realm of ethical decision-making. He consulted heavy-hitting philosophers like Kant, T.M. Scanlon and John Stuart Mill and explored their schools of thought. After much research, Schur realized he was in the wrong; he apologized and paid the man. But his story illustrates what we can all learn from ethical theories about right and wrong — and what we owe one another as people who share the planet.

---

Elon Musk, serial entrepreneur

In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Elon Musk digs into the recent news around his bid to purchase Twitter and gets honest about the biggest regret of his career, how his brain works, the future he envisions for the world and a lot more. Watch the unedited interview here »

---

Sara Lomelin, philanthropy disruptor

Big idea: Often, philanthropy is imbalanced, with a select few deciding which people or what projects should (or shouldn’t) get funding. By democratizing philanthropy through “collective giving” — a people-powered, inclusive model that invites everyday donors to participate– we can make giving back an intentional, collaborative, joyful and accessible process.

How? Sara Lomelin is the founding CEO of Philanthropy Together, a global initiative that works to disrupt philanthropy through collective giving. Lomelin is a proponent of giving circles — a gathering of people with shared values (like friends, family or colleagues) who come together to make change. There are all kinds of circles — artist circles, circles focused on climate change, circles with Latinx LGBTQ+ folks, Black men’s giving circles. The philosophy is that anyone can be a donor, no matter their identity, background or wealth status. The key in hosting a circle lies in taking the time to build deep relationships by cultivating a sense of belonging, a culture of discourse and a sense of trust and abundance. Whether members are giving five dollars or 50,000, collective circles are successful, meeting year over year, because people realize that together we have a much bigger impact. “Giving by, for, and with the communities we represent is the future of philanthropy — and each and every one of us belong in this movement,” Lomelin says.

---

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

The TED Fellows program is built around a deep belief in and commitment to socially engaged innovation and human ingenuity. The mission: to shift the balance of power by supporting whole individuals, both personally and professionally. At Session 1 of TED Fellows talks at TED2022, 11 speakers and two performers shared world-changing ideas and innovations from the fields of astrophysics, conservation, social change, art and so much more.

The event: Talks from Session 1 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022, hosted by TED’s Shoham Arad and Lily James Olds

When and where: Sunday, April 10, 2022, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Jessie Christiansen, Adetayo Bamiduro, Gautam Shah, Micaela Mantegna, Ryan Gersava, Enzo Romero, Bree Jones, Lam Ho, Kyra Gaunt, Bektour Iskender, Constance Hockaday

Music: Visual artist and composer Paul Rucker put his strikingly masterful cello technique on display with a haunting yet meditative rendition. And musician “Blinky” Bill Selanga thrilled the audience with his Afrocentric beats and dynamic energy, performing “Kilamu” and “Ama Aje”.

The talk in brief:

Jessie Christiansen, planet hunter

Big Idea: The discovery of 5,000 exoplanets (and counting) is more than impressive; their data could answer timeless questions about our very existence.

How? When Jessie Christiansen joined NASA’s Kepler mission in 2010, she’d already spent four years combing through 87,000 stars, searching for an exoplanet. On her second day of the mission, she’d found her first and second. As of March 2022, 5,000 exoplanets have been found, and the new data means we can finally ask bigger questions: Can planets exist without a star? Can they orbit each other? How many are like Earth? How are planets made? And perhaps most famously: Where do we come from, and how did we get here? “There’s a saying that this generation was born too late to explore the Earth and too soon to explore space. That’s not true anymore,” Christiansen says.

---

Adetayo Bamiduro, motorcycle financing entrepreneur

Big idea: Africa is being left behind in the transition to clean mobility. Motorcycles are the secret to a cleaner, more profitable future for the continent.

How? By 2050, Lagos, Nigeria will outgrow many cities in the world including New York City and Mexico City, becoming home to more than 32 million people. Currently, Lagos and other African mega-cities like it suffer from inadequate road infrastructure, pollution, congestion and poor conditions. One of the many impacted by these issues is the African motorcycle taxi driver, who is excluded from the formal economy, left to the mercy of polluting vehicles and high costs due to exploitative loans sharks. At MIT, Bamiduro met his business partner, and together they embarked on a fix: an integrated approach to the design, manufacturing and financing operations targeted at highly vulnerable informal groups. Broken down into three parts, their solution provides motorcycle taxi drivers with access to electric vehicles and batteries, maintenance and insurance and emergency assistance, helping more than 15,000 drivers renew their livelihoods. By 2025, their goal is to provide electric mobility solutions to 150,000 drivers, paving the way towards a more sustainable and prosperous future for the world’s youngest and fastest-growing continent.

---

Gautam Shah, conservationist

Big idea: Wildlife conservation efforts could be more successful if we create and strengthen our relationships with other species. Advanced technologies like the metaverse could play an essential role.

How? “If we want to preserve all life on Earth, we need to create relationships with all life on Earth,” says Gautam Shah, whose combined passion for wildlife and technology makes him acutely aware of the disconnect between humans and other species. Technology has helped us collect lots of data about our fellow non-human inhabitants of Earth, but Shah observes that this data hasn’t been fully contextualized for the millions of people around the world who express interest in wildlife. His solution? A unique digital identity for animals that allows them to exist in virtual spaces like the metaverse, bringing their stories closer to us. By digitally recreating the events that happen in nature — from elephant migration to deforestation — Shah believes that humans could use the metaverse to feel less detached from and more engaged with their natural environment.

---

Micaela Mantegna, video game lawyer

Big idea: How do we save the metaverse from becoming a bad internet sequel? Basic human qualities of kindness and connection.

How? “The metaverse is here and is already on fire,” says Micaela Mantegna. At a cross-section between augentmented and physical reality, the metaverse has the frightening potential of inheriting the worst traits of the internet, with VR and neurotechnology using involuntary data to create, as Mantagna puts it, “a capitalism of corporeal surveillance.” To save us from this fate, a coordination of engineering and law, based on kindness and connection, must be implemented to ensure content portability across different software environments and identical legal standards throughout. “It’s not every day that humanity has the chance to create new a reality, so, my invitation to you: let’s make it a good one,” she says.

---

Ryan Gersava, social innovator, educator

Big idea: Building a world where all people — including those with disabilities and chronic illnesses — can find belonging starts with healing. 

How? Social innovator, educator Ryan Gersava is one of the nearly billion people worldwide living with a disability, which often leads to chronic illness and decreased chances of employment, lack of social protection and extreme poverty. His healing journey led him to start an online vocational school in the Philippines, Virtualahan, which provides training to people with disabilities, recovering addicts and others who struggle to find employment. So far they’ve graduated hundreds of people in more than 60 cities and provinces all over the Philippines, setting them up to earn an average of 40-60 percent above minimum wage. Now he’s calling on organizations to invest in talent with disabilities, and for all of us to investigate our biases around disability and chronic illness, which makes it difficult and painful for people to disclose their conditions. “There’s no need to suffer in silence anymore,” Gersava says. “I invite you to be part of this movement.”

---

Enzo Romero, bionic innovator

Big idea: Prosthesis for developing nations should be designed locally, with the needs of the communities they are built for in mind.

Why? As a child born without his right hand, Enzo Romero was astonished and inspired by the prosthetics he would see his favorite movie characters (like Luke Skywalker) wearing. But in his home country of Peru, they are far too expensive for the majority of amputees. With the intent of creating functional and affordable options, Romero and his team at LAT Bionics isolated the most used occupational gestures: pinch, cylindrical and lateral, and designed mechanical and myoelectric prostheses around them. Their devices, such as the Maki, which runs on mechanical activation, and the Pisko, which runs on electronic activation, cost a fraction of what imported tech does. Why? The parts are 3D printed with materials mainly sourced from recycled plastic bottles. “We have the capacity to develop our own technology, having the necessities of our people in mind, so then people with disabilities and limited resources can live life again,” Romero says. 

---

Bree Jones, equitable housing developer

Big idea: Development and homeownership opportunities in overlooked neighborhoods are possible — without the displacement of existing residents.

How? Systemic barriers like redlining have (and continue to) keep Black communities from building wealth through real estate and other assets. Housing advocate Bree Jones explains how developing neighborhoods often are subjected to two trajectories: people move away and the area is deemed a risky investment, so either the quality of life there decays or the neighborhood is gentrified and new residents capitalize off of the distress of legacy residents by scooping up undervalued real estate and selling it back at a higher price. To end these toxic cycles of the racial wealth gap, Jones founded Parity, a nonprofit that creates upfront demand for homeownership in neighborhoods experiencing hyper vacancy by tapping into existing social networks. They’re doing this by leading the purchase and construction of vacant homes and selling them at affordable prices; helping people attain creditworthiness; and preventing displacement, allowing current residents to accrue wealth they can pass on to the next generation. “We’re healing the social fabric of the neighborhood as we’re rebuilding the built environment,” Jones says.

---

Lam Ho, legal aid activist

Big idea: The way the American legal system works needs to change. Clients deserve to have agency over their own cases in court – and lawyers should support them with their knowledge of the law. 

How? As a lawyer, Lam Ho witnessed the same thing happen in courtrooms across the US: clients aren’t given the chance to contribute their perspective during their own legal proceedings. Ho’s mother didn’t have a say in her divorce because she didn’t have an attorney and Ho thought by becoming a lawyer he could help people like her but instead, Ho realized he became a part of the problem. Instead of forcing families with limited resources to accommodate lawyers and their voices being silenced, Ho wants the dynamic of the US legal system to flip. He founded Beyond Legal Aid so lawyers can change the system from within by allowing clients to be participants in the process –  rather than be subjected to it. By inviting clients to tell their own stories in court, their own way, justice can be created – even when the law is wrong. “We can give advice and empower them to navigate the law, but ultimately follow their lead and defer to their decisions.” says Ho. 

---

Kyra Gaunt, ethnomusicologist

Big idea: Musical play could be an empowering experience for young Black girls through which they can learn to love their own voices and disrupt the trends of anti-Black, patriarchal music.

How? As an ethnomusicologist, Kyra Gaunt studies the consequences of intimate bedroom musical play in Black girls, trying to understand how they could preserve the integrity of their own voices while technology and the media often misrepresent them. After years of viewing thousands of viral dance videos posted to the internet, she has made a few disturbing realizations, like the fact that many girls perform to songs that are produced, engineered and written by men, singing along to lyrics that often express anti-Black, patriarchal sentiments. Music and dance are therapeutic in many ways, particularly for Black girls whose musical play happens during their formative years, but many songs topping today’s charts are peppered with musical mansplaining that can have damaging implications for girls as they grow up to navigate situations like dating. Gaunt believes that Black girls could disrupt the stereotypes and stigmas created by algorithms on online platforms by learning to love their own voice. Whether this means producing their own dance songs or supporting female musicians, they could chart their own revolution in sound.

---

Bektour Iskender, independent news publisher

Big idea: Journalism is a sword and shield against international crime and its leaders.

How? What makes criminal organizations strong? Their strong cross-border connections. They operate over long distances, build efficient logistics and hide their wealth across man jurisdictions. Iskender is one of the founders of Kloop, a self-described, very unusual media organization that reveals these secret operations. Initially a new website and journalism school, Kloop evolved as its students grew older and more ambitious alongside the stories they sought to cover — and became part of an expansive media network reporting on international organized crime. Their investigations put Central Asia on the map like never before. His organization’s work uncovered a corruption scandal that rocked his home country of Kyrgyzstan and sparked protests that eventually forced the president himself to resign, among several other revelations. The story Iskender shares only exemplifies the takeaways he’d like the world to understand. First, journalism networks are incredibly efficient, important and provide safety. Two, support local media organizations all around the world for their unique insights and connections. Recently, Kloop had started to branch out, making a second home in Ukraine. Highlighting his points, Iskender posits that a better linked and funded local journalism collaboration could have saved many lives preceding Russia’s war in Ukraine. Which leads to his third and final point: We must expand the cross-border networks outside of the media world, too. Because every exposed corrupt official, every organized crime leader is a chance to protect our world not only from smugglers and thieves, but also dictators and warmongers.

---

Constance Hockaday, artist

Big idea: To achieve our hopes and goals individually and as a society, we need to fundamentally remodel our leadership styles to be more inclusive, collaborative and compassionate.

How? Though we live in a diverse and ever-changing world, our leadership models are archaic, narrow-visioned and stagnant. To illuminate new modes of leadership, Constance Hockaday invited artists from various backgrounds to design, write, create and perform public addresses as part of her Artists In Presidents project. She learned that leadership begins when one can express their autonomy, agency and desires: we need to be able to believe that our hopes and ambitions for a better world are possible. Belief does not form in a vacuum and it cannot be sustained alone—it’s crucial that we come together to share and build our interconnected dreams. Leadership, Hockaday says, is the ability to listen to these hopes and goals, however fragmented or vague, and guide people towards the truth of what they want and how they can achieve it. Leadership is a commitment to people; it is a way to help those around us understand how their individual dreams for the future are aligned with community-created, shared visions for a better world.

Elon Musk talks Twitter, Tesla and how his brain works at TED2022

Watch Elon Musk’s exclusive interview at TED2022:

In this unedited conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Elon Musk digs into the recent news around his bid to purchase Twitter and gets honest about the biggest regret of his career, how his brain works, the future he envisions for the world and a lot more.

The TED Theater at TED2022, in photos

A visual feast from the TED Theater in Vancouver, BC, Canada during TED2022: A New Era, April 10-14, 2022. Read our live coverage of the conference and watch TED Talks from TED2022.

TED2022 Photo Team: Ella DeGea, Mike Femia, Callie Giovanna, Bret Hartman, Ryan Lash, Erin Lubin, Stacie McChesney, Jason Redmond, Gilberto Tadday, Jasmina Tomic and Elizabeth Zeeuw