The Way We Work: Practical wisdom for your career

How can you best communicate your work experience, succeed at your current job and secure the future of your career? The Way We Work, a TED original video series, helps business leaders and innovative thinkers answer those questions and more.

Whether you’re starting a new job, freelancing or want to future-proof your career, season six of The Way We Work offers practical wisdom on how you can best pitch your ideas and connect with your coworkers. It also delves into how other facets of your life tie into your job, like caregiving and resting. 

Here’s how to make a great first impression at your new job:

Have great ideas? Here’s how to pitch them:

What skills are you building for future work?

5 tips on finding fulfillment and stability while freelancing:

Connecting with your coworkers is an important part of any fulfilling work-life — here’s how:

When it comes to productivity and creativity, rest matters just as much as work:

How can your job help support your caregiving responsibilities — and why they should:

Flipside futures: The talks of TED@BCG 2023

Today is good, but tomorrow can always be better. There are new possibilities for our future if we use our uniquely human creativity. In a day of talks and performances, 16 leading minds gathered to flip expected thinking on its head and map out how we might build a brighter future.

The event: TED@BCG: Flipside Futures is the fourteenth event TED and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have co-hosted to uplift forward-thinking speakers from around the globe. Hosted by TED’s head of media and curation Helen Walters.

When and where: Thursday, November 16, 2023 at the BCG office in Paris, France

Speakers: Catalina Lotero, Adam Whybrew, Jessica Apotheker, Diarra Bousso, Hanjo Seibert, David Kwong, Sylvester Chauke, Annalee Newitz, Adriann Negreros, Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju, Slava Balbek, Paul Hudson, Beth Viner, Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, Sagar Goel, Bonnie Hancock

Opening and closing remarks: Francois Candelon, the global director of the BCG Henderson Institute and TED@BCG 2018 speaker, welcomes the audience while Olivier Scalabre, the head of BCG France and TED@BCG 2016 speaker, closes out the day.

The talks in brief:

Catalina Lotero, purposeful designer

What might Latin America look like if colonization hadn’t broken the evolution of its ancient iconography? Catalina Lotero presents stunning images of “Pre-Columbian futurism” that infuse Latin American design with Indigenous symbolism — a testament to the power of aesthetics to rewrite historical narratives and envision new futures.

Adam Whybrew, depression truth-teller

We can’t get rid of anxiety and depression, so we might as well talk about it, says Adam Whybrew. He shares how talking about his own debilitating mental health struggles with his coworkers created unexpectedly positive outcomes, offering a comforting message of hope for those in need of support. 

Jessica Apotheker, marketing expert

Research shows AI is poised to explode marketers’ performance — but there’s a problem, says Jessica Apotheker. AI may make marketers more productive but, if not harnessed correctly, it might also homogenize and clog the marketing landscape.

Diarra Bousso, designer, mathematician

Growing up in Senegal, getting a new outfit for Diarra Bousso was never an impulse purchase; her clothes were made to order by local artisans and designed to last. Through her brand, Diarrablu, she’s working to bring this sustainable fashion model to modern e-retail, using digital tools to crowdsource designs, limit excess inventory and reduce overconsumption and waste.

Hanjo Seibert, economic crime fighter

Hanjo Seibert spends his time fighting economic crime, a wide field ranging from drug trafficking and human trafficking to fraud, cybercrimes, tax evasion and more. He explains how gangsters, criminals and terrorists launder their money through this shady underground economy — and how all of us can take small steps to make it harder for them to do so.

David Kwong, magician 

“We live in a time that’s more wondrous than our ancestors ever could have imagined, and technology isn’t the barrier to unlocking that wonder: it’s the key,” says David Kwong. He explores how tech elevates our capacity for bewilderment — and invites an audience member to the stage for some ChatGPT-powered magic.

Sylvester Chauke, branding disruptor

After years of brand building, marketing veteran Sylvester Chauke realized that his industry had sold the world on overconsumption, with devastating consequences. He shares how marketers could instead promote sustainability and responsible consumerism with “honest ads.”

Annalee Newitz, journalist, sci-fi author

“Escapist stories allow us to reimagine our relationship with the places we live,” says Annalee Newitz. Inviting you to the whimsical world of sci-fi, cosplay (short for “costume play”) and goblincore (an internet-born aesthetic that celebrates the “ugly” side of nature), Newitz shares why, sometimes, the best way to solve our problems is to escape them.

Adriann Negreros, change management expert

Nearly three billion people have frontline jobs: work that requires them to be in person, whether it’s as baristas, Uber drivers, factory floor workers or anything else. Adriann Negreros is on a mission to make these jobs more rewarding by getting employees what they need but often lack – like respect, better pay, more flexibility and safety gear that actually fits.

Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju, food systems advocate

Sub-Saharan Africa needs more meat consumption to solve its nutrition challenges, says Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju. Instead of building feedlots, she makes a case for scaling meat and milk production in the region by supporting its millions of nomadic livestock herders. 

Slava Balbek, architect, humanitarian

The Russian invasion of Ukraine forced architect Slava Balbek to rethink the nature of his craft. From a tool that develops localized blueprints to rebuild your home to the construction of comfortable, stylish temporary housing, Balbek and his team are exploring the healing power of architecture with a simple motto: “Dignity no matter what.”

Paul Hudson, healthcare innovator, in conversation with Lindsay Levin, the head of TED Countdown

Rather than resisting AI, Paul Hudson has welcomed the opportunity to let it completely disrupt Sanofi, the healthcare and pharmaceutical company he leads. In conversation with Lindsay Levin, he discusses how AI can propel daily decision-making, its impact on data transparency and the role it might play in decarbonizing the pharmaceutical industry.

Beth Viner, culture strategist

We often venerate dreamers: the innovators who smash through barriers. But for every dreamer, says Beth Viner, a team of doers works hard to transform that vision into reality. The best companies succeed by harnessing this synergy.

Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, economist 

Economic models always seem to predict disaster, creating financial losses that could have been avoided if shoppers and business owners were more rationally optimistic, says economist Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak. He calls for everyone to be their own judge, evaluate the doomsday narratives with a careful eye and embrace the inevitable uncertainty.

Sagar Goel, skill-building strategist

People are worried that AI will replace them at work — but upgrading skills and lifelong learning can help. Sagar Goel shares insights from a partnership with the Singaporean government on a digital reskilling program that helped people gain experience for jobs for which they previously wouldn’t have qualified.

Bonnie Hancock, Ironwoman, paddler, record breaker

In 2020, Bonnie Hancock began paddling her sea kayak in a clockwise loop around Australia. It took her 254 days to circumnavigate the continent, breaking the previous world record by more than two months. She shares the ups and downs of her 12,700-kilometer journey — including brushes with crocodiles, sharks and hypothermia — and how she learned to find resilience and beauty in the toughest moments.

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.

The Way We Work: Practical workplace wisdom, in partnership with Upwork

Work is a big part of our lives, so how can we bring our best selves to it, and how can we create workplaces that help employees thrive?

The Way We Work is a TED original video series where leaders and thinkers offer practical wisdom and insight into how we can adapt and thrive amid changing workplace conventions. The series is made possible with the support of Upwork.

Whether you’re looking to boost your productivity, help employees with disabilities excel, calm your anxiety, be a team player or establish healthy boundaries, the fifth season of The Way We Work brings in innovative workplace heroes to share their top tips. They offer advice on how to navigate some trickier situations, like quitting a job without burning bridges or thriving in a hybrid work culture. Learn how to adopt new ways of working — and how to talk about your own impact.

Looking to launch something new at work? Here’s how to make sure it’s a lasting change:

Want to leave your job but don’t know where to start? This is how you quit well:

Burnt out by collaboration overload? Here’s how to reclaim your peace of mind:

A playbook on setting healthy boundaries at work:

Could your anxiety be transformed into something useful?

We all procrastinate sometimes — here’s how to design for it instead of fighting against it:

You have a personal brand, here’s how to shape it:

A guide on how to make hybrid workplaces actually work:

Here’s what workplaces can do to help all employees excel:

More than $1B catalyzed for 2023 Audacious Projects

Today, The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED, announced that more than one billion dollars has been committed to its newest cohort of projects. This is a significant funding milestone in the initiative’s five-year history and comes at a critical time on key issues such as climate change, migrant rights and criminal justice reform.

The 2023 Audacious Project grantees are:

• CAMFED: Helping girls in Sub-Saharan Africa thrive in school — and beyond
• Canopy: Scaling the use of next-generation pulp in key supply chains to conserve endangered forests
• Clean Slate Initiative: Clearing arrest and conviction records to unlock opportunity
• Global Fishing Watch: Leveraging the power of data to safeguard the ocean by making the invisible visible
• Innovative Genomics Institute: Engineering microbiomes with CRISPR to improve our climate and health
• Jan Sahas’ Migrants Resilience Collaborative: Unlocking life-enhancing benefits and services for India’s domestic migrant workers
• ReNew2030: Accelerating renewable energy for a climate-secure future
• Restore Local, A project of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), led by the World Resources Institute: Accelerating locally-led land restoration of Africa’s vital landscapes and forests
• Think of Us: Transforming foster care in the US through the power of lived experience
• Upstream USA: Increasing equitable access to high-quality contraceptive care across the US

“With our 2023 Audacious Project cohort, some of the most complex and challenging problems we’re facing right now – transitioning to renewable energy, increasing access to reproductive health care, transforming our foster care system and more – are being met by some incredible idea-makers,” said Anna Verghese, Executive Director of The Audacious Project. “Each one offers an approach to shift the status quo and the systems they operate in, and will hope to breathe possibility and transformation into these critical issues.”

Each year, The Audacious Project scours the globe for big, bold ideas and collaborates with social entrepreneurs and philanthropists to drive impact on a grand scale. It is an effort that goes beyond funding, pushing for transformative change, systems overhaul and collaboration across multiple sectors. This new cohort will present their big ideas onstage at TED2023, joining an existing portfolio of 39 Audacious projects. Since 2018, more than four billion philanthropic dollars has been catalyzed to support these projects’ visions.

“We started The Audacious Project five years ago as an experiment to see what could happen when we invite changemakers around the world to dream as big as they dare, and then shape their boldest ideas into viable plans,” said Chris Anderson, Head of TED. “It’s absolutely thrilling to see this much money raised for these projects. I’m in awe of the teams behind them — and of the donors who are funding them. Our experiment is gaining traction, and we believe it can achieve even more in the coming years.”

Read more about The Audacious Project and its five years of impact.

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ABOUT THE AUDACIOUS PROJECT

 

Launched in April 2018, The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding initiative that’s catalyzing social impact on a grand scale. Housed at TED, the nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, and with support from leading social impact advisor The Bridgespan Group, The Audacious Project convenes funders and social entrepreneurs with the goal of supporting bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. The funding collective is made up of respected organizations and individuals in philanthropy, including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ELMA Philanthropies, Emerson Collective, MacKenzie Scott, Skoll Foundation, Valhalla Foundation and more.

Each year The Audacious Project supports a new cohort. The 2023 grantees are CAMFED, Canopy, Clean Slate Initiative, Global Fishing Watch, Innovative Genomics Institute, Jan Sahas’ Migrants Resilience Collaborative, ReNew2030, Restore Local, Think of Us and Upstream USA.

In the Green: Visions of a sustainable future from TED Countdown and the Climate Pledge

What does it actually take to run a sustainable business?

Hear from trail-blazing business leaders on how they’re transforming their industries by committing to a net zero future. In the Green: The Business of Climate Action is a TED series presented by TED Countdown and The Climate Pledge where leaders share hard-won wisdom from companies addressing humanity’s most urgent mission: fighting climate change.

When it launched back in February, In the Green explored decarbonizing buildings, reducing the environmental impact of electronics and what nature can teach us about sustainable business. Back with new experts, the three latest episodes of the series explore industry-transforming solutions that tackle the wastefulness of standard freight truck logistics, the partnerships global businesses need to run on 100-percent renewable energy and a lightweight transportation alternative to cars.

Can we reduce the emissions of millions of freight trucks?

What are the steps to running a global business on 100-percent renewable energy?

What does it take to get more people to drive less?

How a letter by Pope Francis became a movement, a TED Talk and now a film

In October 2020, for the launch of TED’s climate initiative, Countdown, HH Pope Francis gave a TED Talk (his second) on the moral imperative to act on climate change. It was inspired by his encyclical letter (book) Laudato si’, “On caring for our common home.”

An excerpt from that TED Talk is now featured in a new documentary film centered on the Pope’s message.

First published in 2015, Laudato si’ became a rare papal encyclical that permeated mainstream discourse. It hit a nerve and became a global sensation, widely commented on (and criticized).

It also gave rise to the Laudato si’ Movement, which has now brought together a stellar production team (whose previous works include the global hit My Octopus Teacher) to make the new film called The Letter – A message for our Earth. (See the trailer). It is supported by YouTube Originals, where it will premiere on October 4 at 9am US Pacific time and 6pm Central European time.

We have asked Tomás Insua, the executive director of the Laudato si’ Movement and executive producer of the film, to tell us about it.

Why turn Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato si’ into a movie?

Pope Francis wrote Laudato si’ not only for Catholics but, as he says, “to all men and women of good will.” Indeed, this letter’s message comes from a deep reflection, listening to his predecessors, leaders from other denominations, and numerous scientists, philosophers, theologians and civic groups. Since not everyone is able to read a full, dense book, we decided to tell the Laudato si’ story in a different way, to spread the immensity and urgency of the challenge we face.

The film doesn’t follow the structure of the book: it rather tries to bring its essence into a dialogue between Pope Francis and voices from the world.

This idea of dialogue is central to Pope Francis’s letter, in which he says he wants to “enter a dialogue with all people about the future of our common home.” He’s so humble and willing to listen – which is in marked contrast with many of the world’s most powerful people, who continue to lead us closer to planetary collapse and are not interested in listening.

Sadly, even many who are committed to environmental solutions often don’t listen, and true dialogue with people of different perspectives is astonishingly rare. Supporting dialogue between Pope Francis and the communities that often go unheard seemed like a good way to reflect the world the Pope is calling for.

Who are those voices and how did you pick them?

The voices that are present in the dialogue documented in the film come from communities of the Indigenous, poverty, youth and science.

Cacique Odair “Dadá” Borari comes from the Borari people in Brazil’s Amazon region, where he has led groundbreaking work on environmental defense in a very dangerous place.

Arouna Kandé comes from Saint Louis in Senegal, a city he was forced to move to as a climate refugee. He now studies sustainability in order to bring new solutions to his village.

Ridhima Pandey comes from Haridwar in India, where she has led youth movements for the climate since the age of nine. Now 14 years old, she is in school and continues her leadership.

Scientists Greg Asner and Robin Martin come from Hawai’i in the United States, where they have developed an innovative technique to map underwater heat waves that kill coral reefs.

No one person is completely representative of millions of other people. But by listening to these frontline champions describe their experiences, we hope that viewers will have some sense of the world beyond them.

That gives an interactive angle to the project.

Yes, through the film’s website we also ask viewers to respond, access more information, and support the people in the film.

The five participants traveled to Rome, and then to Assisi. What happened there?

None of the people described above is traditional Catholic. And they hadn’t met before the trip. Before speaking with Pope Francis, they sat down for several days of conversation and broke bread together. During the meeting with the Pope, there was lots of laughter and even a few tears. The group then traveled to Assisi to reflect on their experiences. Tragically, while they were there one of them received devastating news about an event related to the planetary crisis that had taken place in his home territory at that very moment. In the film, we see him receive the news and how the others rallied to support him. They truly became friends. They are aware of each other’s stories, and they trust each other. They continue talking and supporting each other to this day. That kind of empathy and closeness is so important for everyone who is working on climate.

What learnings do you think they brought home from the experience chronicled in the film?

Probably one of the biggest learnings is that they have more power than they knew. All of these leaders developed incredible initiatives in their home regions long before traveling to the Vatican. But they left that meeting with Pope Francis with an even greater sense of how much they matter. They are people who are protecting this planet on behalf of all humanity. Pope Francis spent more time with them than he usually spends with heads of state and visiting dignitaries. After the meeting, which was reported by the media in his region, Cacique Dadá, the Borari leader who has been a powerfully effective land defender in a very dangerous place, said: “They will think twice before trying to kill me now.”

Tell us about the title, The Letter.

Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato si’ is addressed to “every person living on this planet.” It is meant for all of us. In the film, the Vatican invites these grassroots champions through letters sent to them. We see the letters traveling along rural roads across the world. We see the letters arriving in the hands of these people whom we will come to know so well through the film. The letters connect them, and they connect us as viewers in a wider dialogue. We are called to respond to this letter.

What do you expect viewers to take away from the film?

Let me answer by quoting two very important things Pope Francis says in Laudato si’. The first is that everything is connected. What I do is based on how I value the people who will be affected by my actions. Nothing is in isolation. The second is that “we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” This realization that the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor are one and the same is transformative.

Who filmed and produced the movie?

The film was produced by the Laudato si’ Movement, along with an Oscar- and BAFTA-winning team at Off the Fence (which has produced many great documentaries, including the global hit My Octopus Teacher). It is presented by YouTube Originals.

Tell us about the Laudato si’ Movement.

The mission of the Laudato si’ Movement is to inspire and mobilize the Catholic community to care for our common home and achieve climate and ecological justice. Like Pope Francis, we are truly worried about the state of the climate. We do believe in the power of the Laudato si’ message and believe that showing it through a movie is a great way to inspire people.

You started this project before the pandemic and had to suspend it during it. What impact did that have on the final story?

The pandemic was definitely a big challenge. Every place we worked in was very vulnerable to the virus, as we worked in places that were either isolated or had very limited healthcare services. Our production partners at Off the Fence could not in good conscience send camerapeople and staff to those locations. Instead, we sent cameras in. Over messages and video calls, we trained the local people in the use of cameras, and we gave them salaries. These constraints forced us to be creative, to go beyond what frankly had been our own limited ways of thinking. We developed much deeper and more real relationships that ultimately flowered in the film and beyond.

Has Pope Francis seen the film?

Pope Francis is a humble person. He makes it a practice to never watch films about himself.

Future-facing ideas from emerging leaders: TED Talks from the Bezos Scholars

The first-ever TED Salon co-created in partnership with the Bezos Family Foundation featured incredible ideas from the Bezos Scholars — extraordinary young people thinking about the future of education, human rights, financial systems and more — as well as some special TED Fellows guests. The result of a years-long collaboration between the Bezos Scholars and TED Fellows, this energetic, future-facing TED session showcased the organizations’ shared belief in and commitment to socially engaged innovation and human ingenuity.

The event: TED Talks from the Bezos Scholars, hosted by TED Fellows co-director Lily James Olds and senior program manager Leonie Hoerster

When and where: Friday, September 9, 2022, at TED World Theater in New York City

Comedy: From TED Fellow and comedian Negin Farsad, who opened the salon with a stand-up set that hilariously tracked what’s happened over the last couple of pandemic-fueled years.

Music: From TED Senior Fellow, cellist and classical rockstar Joshua Roman and Bezos Scholar and violist Matthew Garcia, who closed out the session with a stirring rendition to the first movement of Beethoven’s Eyeglasses Duo.

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The talks in brief:

Joel Baraka, refugee education innovator

Big idea: Gamifying school curricula can help get students in refugee camps get excited about learning.

How? Going to school in a refugee camp is complicated: students encounter crowded classrooms, a rigid curriculum and limited access to teachers. Joel Baraka grew up in the Kyangwali refugee camp in western Uganda and remembers that what he liked best about his school years were the hours he spent outside the classroom playing soccer with his friends or the card game Spades. That’s why as an entrepreneur, Baraka wanted to find a way to “gamify” the learning experience for other refugee students. He presents the educational board game he created, 5 STAZ, that schools in Kyangwali now use as a daily part of schoolwork to help students master their curriculum – and have fun while doing it.

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Meghan Hussey, disability inclusion advocate

Big idea: Despite the global conversation around inclusive societies and workplaces for all races and genders, people with disabilities are still routinely excluded from education and employment. Making up an estimated 15 percent of the world’s population, their potential contributions remain unknown and unexplored. It’s time to build an inclusive future for people with all different kinds of abilities.

How? Meghan Hussey, a disability inclusion advocate and Global Development and Government Relations Director for the Special Olympics, believes that everyone benefits when people with disabilities are allowed to thrive — and the only thing holding them back from that is our own attitudes towards “those people.” According to Hussey, an inclusive future is four steps away. First, we must re-examine our assumptions and stereotypes around disability. These arise from the lack of disabled people in our everyday lives, and that lack is largely due to a lack of accommodations. Second, we must actively remove barriers and invite people with disabilities into our lives and organizations. Third, we should recognize how other exclusion issues — gender-based violence, health care accessibility — intersect with each other. And finally, we must listen to the voices of people with disabilities, because they will tell us what’s needed to remove the barriers keeping them from mainstream society.

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Matthew Garcia, education equalizer

Big idea: To break down racial, class and geographic barriers, nonprofits should think virtual.

Why? A Latinx son of immigrants from a small Texas border town, Matthew Garcia grew up loving to play the viola but living far away from classical music meccas like New York and Chicago. Through years of intense practice and community support, Garcia overcame the odds, traveling with other elite young musicians to tour four continents and play Carnegie Hall – but then he hit a wall. One of the best violists in the world told him he would never succeed as a professional musician: he hadn’t started early enough and hadn’t gotten the private lessons he’d needed, the violist explained. He had missed out on key resources that gave his peers an edge. Garcia never gave up the viola, but this devastating advice changed his life and spurred him to action. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he founded a virtual nonprofit that provides free virtual private lessons to thousands of youth outside of major US cities. By broadening our ideas about what nonprofits can accomplish in the digital age, Garcia says, we can break down geographic, economic and racial barriers to historically exclusive fields like classical music, art and research.

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Miguel Goncalves, impact investor

Big idea: Millennials and Gen Z are set to become the richest generations in history — inheriting 30 trillion dollars’ worth of economic rewards in the coming years. But they’ll also inherit climate change impacts, global instability and a huge and growing wealth gap. Investor Miguel Goncalves believes that wealth can be leveraged to solve these problems through ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investments, which weigh environmental and social costs and benefits in their return calculations. But how can investors overcome the inertia and bias that many old-guard investors hold towards ESG investments?

How? Recent data suggests that about half of institutional investors consider the benefits of ESG investing to be unproven at best, or unclear at worst. Goncalves thinks that institutional investors are guided by expectations as much as by data, and when it comes down to it, “expectations create reality” — in other words, ESG investing won’t work if people don’t believe in it. To change expectations, Goncalves believes analysts could alter financial metrics to focus on what really matters to each industry, rather than cherry-picking the data that makes companies look good. In addition, financial forecasts should weigh potential blowback from environmental irresponsibility, social scandal or wealth inequality. But what Goncalves believes we really need to make ESG investing work is trust: a belief that companies that do good will be around longer, perform better and, in the end, create sustainable wealth.

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Okong’o Kinyanjui, pan-African LGBTQIA+ advocate

Big idea: In many African countries, outdated colonialist laws make it dangerous for LGBTQIA+ people to share their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. In response, online communities are becoming vital safe spaces to combat hate and help people find the support and resources they need to thrive. 

How? Okong’o Kinyanjui co-created the Queer African Network, an online platform aiming to provide every queer African with access to verified opportunities, mentorship, fundraising and support. Through a three-week probation period on the network, community leaders are able to authenticate account holders, keeping bots and blackmailers out of private group chats and events. Once safety is established, the community can offer connections and mentorship, moving people closer to financial stability, without sacrificing their identity. There’s also space for queer Africans to share their stories, creating an archive of their lived experiences that can be used to allocate resources. Through constructive online spaces, communities can challenge oppressive systems and create new structures that prioritize collaboration over discrimination.

Cities: Notes from Session 9 of TED2022

The future of cities is inextricably tied to the future of humanity. They’re sites of innovation, culture, community building — and, at the same time, home to some of the world’s most intractable problems, like homelessness and pollution. In Session 9 of TED2022, six speakers explored an intentionally provocative whiplash of ideas tied to city life, from ancient, leaderless metropolises to future cities on Earth and Mars.

The event: Talks from TED2022, Session 9: Cities, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson

When and where: Wednesday, April 13, 2022, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Marvin Rees, Thomas Heatherwick, Alyssa-Amor Gibbons, Scott Fitsimones, Melodie Yashar, David Wengrow

The talk in brief:

Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, UK

Big idea: Cities are a major contributor to the climate crisis, but global collaboration among climate-concious mayors can make cities key to the solution.

How? To avoid the worst of the climate crisis, we need to reimagine our world’s cities, says Marvin Rees, mayor of Bristol, UK. Today, cities occupy three percent of the world’s land and are responsible for around 75 percent of CO2 emissions. But the same quality that makes them such large emitters — their dense populations — also creates unique opportunities for combatting climate change. From London to Kampala, cities around the world are working together to meet the moment: waste management systems are turning food waste into fertilizer, net-zero housing is combatting urban sprawl and ambitious infrastructure projects are designing out car dependency. But to unlock the full potential of cities, Rees says, we need to collaborate across borders to fund green infrastructure, viewing cities as global assets rather than national possessions.

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Thomas Heatherwick, designer

Big idea: We’re living through an epidemic of “meh” architecture.

How? New buildings built today are, frankly, boring, monotonous, uninspired, dull, characterless, inhuman … the list goes on. Sure, “form follows function,” but that saying is a century old. What about the function of emotion in design, asks Thomas Heatherwick; for the ability of a building to have meaning and evoke connection? This isn’t just a pet peeve or personal vendetta, but a researched fact: bland architecture is bad for our mental, physical and societal health. But not all is lost. There are designers around the world attempting to address this dearth of emotion in our built surroundings: Sou Fujimoto’s apartment building in France, Francis Kéré’s health center in Burkina Faso, Lina Gotmeh’s housing complex in Lebanon, Acme Studio’s city center buildings in the UK, to name but a few. Heatherwick also shares some examples of how his own studio is reinvigorating historical structures in South Africa, bringing life to higher education in Singapore, humanizing hospital areas in the UK and collaborating locally on an artistic park in China. Heatherwick underscores that there is no single language or approach to deal with this epidemic (or “meh”-pidemic, if you will) of boring, but his goal is simple: to trigger a global humanizing movement that no longer tolerates soulless, short-lasting places. What if, instead, we built structures that we wanted to last for centuries?

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Alyssa-Amor Gibbons, resilience designer

Big idea: Architecture cannot be passive to the realities of climate change. For useful climate solutions, look to Indigenous building designs.

How? As an architectural designer, Alyssa-Amor Gibbons creates structures that hold a deep reverence for nature, while also protecting people from the most extreme aspects of it. Looking to traditional building methods used in her native Barbados, which is afflicted by heavy hurricane seasons, Gibbons points to the brilliance and resilience of low-tech, endemic designs. For example, “jalousie” windows funnel powerful winds through houses (as opposed to trying withstand the force) while stilted designs elevate structures during torrential downpours. By embracing Indigenous knowledge and merging it with well-performing, modern techniques, architecture can be resilient by design.

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Scott Fitsimones, experimental urbanist

Big idea: DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations, have the potential to increase economic opportunity, but are they also the key to building new cities?

How? Fitsimones describes DAOs as “internet-native, blockchain-governed, collectively-owned” organizations where members contribute capital, skills and proposals in order to debate and make decisions as a group. DAOs have achieved some democratization of ownership and financial opportunity, including the purchasing of fine art, the donation of millions to defense in Ukraine and, for Fitsimones, the chance to purchase land in the hopes to develop a new city. Frustrated by the constrictive bureaucracy in San Francisco, Fitsimones began CityDAO with a simple Tweet that led to intitial funding raised through governance tokens bought on the open market or with cryptocurrency. At CityDAO, a purchased citizenship token comes with the right to vote, and contributors collectively decided to purchase land in Wyoming, where there’s currently DAO legislation. Now its citizens will vote on what gets built on the land, who gets to use it and when, working towards a city where things like permitting, budgets, laws and records are all transparent on a blockchain and smart contracts speed up transactions. While DAOs pose some challenges — consensus-building and uncharted regulatory waters among them — they’re hoping to expand ownership and opportunity traditionally held by wealthy individuals and corporations. “Today, DAOs let us work together, trust each other and coordinate in a fairer way on larger-scale problems than ever before,” Fitsimones says. “And maybe one day, a DAO can even build the next great city.”

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Melodie Yashar, space architect

Big idea: By designing habitats for extreme, off-world environments, architects are learning to reimagine construction technologies and building practices here on Earth.

How? Mars is an extreme and unforgiving environment. If humans want to survive there, says Melodie Yashar, they’ll need shelters that protect against solar radiation, galactic cosmic rays and extreme temperature swings. As a space architect, Yashar’s job is to design these shelters and figure out how to build them using autonomous robots, 3D printers and local resources like water and dirt. A Mars expedition may be years away, but NASA is already putting Yashar and her team’s ideas to the test with a 3D-printed shelter called Mars Dune Alpha. For one year, four crew members will live and work inside this 1700-square-foot structure at the Johnson Space Center. This work might seem far removed from our daily life, but Yashar believes projects like hers will help uncover radical solutions to problems on Earth that seem beyond our grasp today — like CO2-related construction emissions or urban housing shortages.

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David Wengrow, archaeological historian

Big idea: We’re taught to believe that inequality is the necessary price of civilization. Modern archaeology tells us otherwise.

How? The generally accepted story is that with the invention of agriculture came attachment to and defense of land, labor demand, classes to perform that labor (while others were free to think and create) and the assumption that inequality was the inevitable consequence of technological innovation and population growth. However, archaeologists like David Wengrow know there was a period of 4,000 years after the invention of agriculture, in regions all over the world, in which knowledge was expanded and technology innovated without rigid social classes or evidence of kings, bureaucrats or standing armies. While none of these societies were perfectly egalitarian, in comparison to fifth-century Athens, which was founded on chattel slavery, they were drastically more equal: concentric neighborhoods in modern-day Ukraine are evidence of well-organized cities thousands of years before democracy, and uncovered palaces in the Valley of Mexico were standard housing for 100,000 people. Modern archaeological science tells us our assumptions — about agriculture as the end of egalitarian Eden, about large-scale groups requiring top-down management, about inequality as a consequence of civilization — are false. “Perhaps it’s not too late to learn from all this new evidence of the human past — even to begin imagining what other civilizations people might yet create if we can just stop telling ourselves that this particular world is the only one possible,” Wengrow says.

Play: Notes from Session 7 of TED2022

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

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

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

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

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

The talk in brief:

Catherine Price, recovering science journalist

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

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

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Agnes Larsson, game director

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

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

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James Hodge, data-driven technologist

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

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

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Noah Raford, futurist

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

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

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Ryan Heffington, dancer, choreographer

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

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

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Alexis Nikole Nelson, foraging enthusiast

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

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

Vision: Notes from Session 5 of TED2022

In a classically wide-ranging Session 5 of TED2022, six speakers shared their vision for the future — from building the world’s most powerful telescope to the next generation of the creator economy to finding ways to bridge divides and create peace through unlikely collaborations.

The event: Talks from TED2022, Session 5: Vision, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson

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

Speakers: John C. Mather, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Jennifer Heldmann, Adam Mosseri, Cordae, Georgette Bennett

The talks in brief:

John C. Mather, telescope builder

Big idea: The James Webb Space Telescope will reveal the secrets of the universe and help to answer the question: “Are we alone?”

How? Launched on Christmas morning 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the most powerful telescope ever built. Situated at a specific point in space about a million miles from Earth and featuring a hexagonal, 21-foot, gold-coated mirror that’s protected by a five-layer metalized plastic sunshade the size of a tennis court, JWST will allow scientists to see the universe in unprecedented detail. The telescope is so sensitive that it could see a bumblebee across the distance of the Earth to the moon. It’s intended to operate for 20 years, during which time it will study places in our solar system, like Europa and Titan, that we think might harbor life, as well as Earth-like exoplanets further out in the universe. “Astronomers travel with the speed of light and with the speed of imagination,” Mather says.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, theoretical physicist

Big idea: The cosmos that we know, with its luminous stars and orbiting planets, largely consists of elements that we can’t actually see and therefore don’t fully understand — like dark matter. With the help of a new generation of telescopes and the enduring curiosity of the world’s most brilliant space scientists, we could be on the brink of demystifying our universe in unprecedented ways.

How? “The universe is more queer and fantastical than it looks to the naked eye,” says theoretical cosmologist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, who invites us into the fantastical world of dark matter. She and her team are using mathematical models, computer simulations and planned observations to test hypotheses about this colorless particle that makes up 80 percent of normally gravitating matter in the universe — a particle whose name isn’t the only counterintuitive thing about it. While dark matter presents questions that stretch the boundaries of modern astrophysics, Prescod-Weinstein notes that highly sophisticated telescopes and facilities like those at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile are supporting an exciting frontier of exploration that will help us gain clarity on its mysterious nature. Describing what could be the ultimate tag team of discovery, she explains that while these telescopes help to provide a high-level overview of dark matter, she and others are working to determine which minuscule particles — like axions — give it substance. From her perspective, this dedicated research could have far-reaching implications not just for science but for us as cosmic beings, too. “I expect the universe to force us to reevaluate what we thought we knew,” she says. “When we honor the land and sky as our galactic relations and their indigenous stewards, it becomes possible for us to imagine new ways of being good in relations with each other.”

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Jennifer Heldmann, planetary scientist

Big idea: We’re about to explore space in a bold new way.

How? For the first time ever, humans will explore space using a super-sized spacecraft. The Starship vehicle, developed by SpaceX, promises to shuttle more payload and power than any previous spacecraft — and it’s reusable. Historically, rockets are one-and-done, but with Starship, missions could evolve past the singular boutique and bespoke-style specialty expeditions to mass-produced, large-scale operations thanks to SpaceX’s non-traditional approach to rocketry. Heldmann highlights real-life examples that Starship would be perfect for, such as investigating galactic ocean worlds for signs of life and seeding large telescopes through the cosmos to collect crucial data to answer deep, scientific questions. In the long walk of human history, we are on the cusp of matching our technological capability with our scientific know-how as it applies to building a future away from our home planet. Heldmann outlines how this could become a reality on Mars, but says the opportunities Starship affords is more than that: it has the potential to usher in a moment where we’ll answer life’s biggest questions across the solar system.

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Adam Mosseri, design thinker

Big idea: The next decade will see a dramatic shift in power online, away from large tech platforms and towards creators.

How? Adam Mosseri expects that web3 — a new iteration of the internet built on blockchain and encompassing ideas such as cryptocurrency, NFTs, smart contracts, DAOs and more — will empower creators over the platforms that host their content. Currently, creators can use platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Patreon, Substack and many more to host content and get paid, but they’re still beholden to the whims of each individual platform. With blockchain-enabled technologies, creators could fully own their relationship with their fans: just as people invest in startups, so too could fans “buy a share” of their favorite creators through terms codified in a smart contract, removing the need for a platform as the intermediary. This would help creators build a community of people directly invested in their long-term success, Mosseri says, shifting power away from the internet’s gatekeepers and towards the people themselves. No single company can build this model alone: it’ll take people across the tech industry, alongside the experimentation of pioneering creators, to get to scale. But if it happens, Mosseri says, “We will have helped to realize the great promise of the internet.”

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Cordae, hip hop artist

Big idea: A “hi-level mindset” helps you pursue positive thinking and channel it into your desires with disciplined action.

How? “These misfortunes are just gonna make my triumph story a lot cooler.” That powerful thought set Cordae on the path to developing what he calls a “hi-level mindset.” Well, that and the original creator, his mom. How you handle trying times is what defines your destiny, he says. From being voted “Most Likely To Be Famous” in high school to a rocky freshman year of college, it took choosing positivity to get through the highs and lows of dropping mixtapes that didn’t immediately match his expectations of blowing up. Two Grammy nominations later, he’ll tell you that making the most out of your life takes intention and action. You can’t be hi-level if you don’t know what you want, he says. Whether it’s making a vision board or just writing down your goals, Cordae believes that it comes down to is discipline and removing negativity. So buckle down, he says, and get rid of the negativity in your life. “We only have one life to live, 110 years maximum if you’re a health guru and you have great health insurance,” he says. “How are you gonna maximize your time on this Earth?”

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Georgette Bennett, peace builder

Big Idea: Establishing peace isn’t always easy, but it is possible. When encountering a conflict, look for an entry point, identify a gap and find something doable to fill that gap.

How? As the child of Holocaust survivors and a World War II refugee herself, Georgette Bennett deeply resonated with the suffering of those attempting to survive as their homes and cities were destroyed during the Syrian civil war. Bennett first found an entry point: she mobilized religious communities in the US into the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees. Then, she identified the gap: people in the southwestern part of Syria desperately needed help, but due to regime blockades, it was nearly impossible for aid organizations to reach them. However, it would be very easy to enter that part of Syria through the Golan Heights in Israel. Now that there was a clear goal, Bennett and a small group of Israeli and Syrian civilians began to meet with world leaders in 2015 to convince them to set up humanitarian aid delivery routes from Israel directly into Syria. Despite the fact that Syria and Israel have been stuck in a perpetual war since 1948, Israel launched Operation Good Neighbor in the fall of 2016, officially opening the border so aid could flow into Syria. This international collaboration helped stabilize the region, delivering more than 120 million dollars in aid, including medical equipment, medicine, food and clothing. They even built an industrial bakery! Bennett’s three-step formula has worked for her in other contexts, too, like in 1971 when she worked with the New York Police Department to establish the first sex crimes unit in the country. Finding the path to peace is rarely easy, but it’s always necessary, she says.

Capitalism: Notes from Session 2 of TED2022

You can credit capitalism for pretty much everything you’ve touched, eaten or worn today. But you can also blame it for some of the world’s worst problems. Is it broken? Or in dire need of reimagining?

Session 2 of TED2022 featured five thought-provoking talks that took us to some interesting corners of the debate around capitalism — from deep rethinks of the government’s role in financial systems to rejuvenation projects in South Bronx, New York to the world of crypto. It also featured follow-up questions from past TED speakers Shari Davis, Maja Bosnic, Michael Tubbs and more, who challenged the session’s speakers after their talks.

The event: Talks and performances from TED2022, Session 2: Capitalism, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson and Whitney Pennington Rodgers

When and where: Monday, April 11, 2022, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Katherine Mangu-Ward, Aaron Bastani, Majora Carter, Michael Novogratz, Manish Bhardwaj

The talks in brief:

Katherine Mangu-Ward, libertarian journalist

Big idea: Government meddling makes capitalism less effective.

How? Capitalism is not a designed system; it’s an emergent one, says Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor-in-chief of Reason magazine. Just as random mutations in a species produce successful new traits, “weirdos” with insane-sounding ideas solve problems that push capitalism — and society — forward. Mangu-Ward credits capitalism with humanity’s material progress over the past two centuries; it was free markets, after all, that encouraged and rewarded the risky schemes that led to cheap artificial fertilizers, electric light, vaccines, personal mobile phones and commercial aviation. She admits that capitalism has also produced plenty of bad ideas and failed projects, but she argues that failure is a necessary process of evolution. Big governments tend to disagree with Mangu-Ward and often interfere with the markets to prevent large, powerful corporations from going under. She asks us to reconsider our qualms about failure, corporate death and capitalism, using General Motors (who she thinks should’ve been sold for parts years ago) and Facebook (who craftily shrunk their company to avoid regulation) as examples of companies whose fates could have been decided better by the markets than by government intervention.

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Aaron Bastani, journalist

Big idea: We need state action — specifically universal basic services — to enable our self-determination in the face of technological change.

How? “We live in a world where capitalism has completely prevailed,” says journalist Aaron Bastani. But the current state of economic liberalism just is not working; what we know of as the pursuit of happiness and freedom of self-determination is severely limited for most of the global population. His solution lies in free, universal public services funded through progressive taxation. In the face of dizzying technological change and a worsening climate crisis, Bastani identifies housing, transport, education and health care as the four key areas where governments must install such programs. He makes the case for leveraging the technological revolution to confront global challenges — but only with intervention for the sake of the public good. And he envisions a world after capitalism, with rewilded forests, free schooling and self-driving electric buses. “Liberal ends of self-authorship, of determining how your life should unfold, require socialist means,” he says. “The state must get involved.”

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Majora Carter, urban revitalization strategist

Big idea: Economic growth and development in low-status communities can be enhanced using tools of capitalism, like talent retention, in order to ensure people don’t have to move out of their neighborhoods to live in better ones. 

How? In communities like the South Bronx, New York, where urban revitalization strategist Majora Carter grew up, there is a dire need for inclusive local development — a need made clear by the fact that many basic necessities like schools, hospitals and career opportunities are worse in some parts of town than others. Carter explains that the strategies being employed to improve livelihoods in these communities (gentrification and poverty maintenance among them) perpetuate the idea that they either can’t be improved or need outside intervention for any development to occur. She analyzes this dilemma through a historical lens, pointing to the trillion-dollar racial wealth gap in the US that results from the exploitative practices of slavery and the destruction of Black wealth. Under the weight of these trends, many people have left their neighborhoods in search of greener pastures, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Carter believes that through restorative economics, policymakers could encourage more people and talent to stay in the places they call home by building lifestyle infrastructure (think: cafes, bars, restaurants) that fosters positive community interaction, encourages real estate and business ownership and educates property owners on the true value of their assets. “There’s no sense in rebuilding the wheel,” she says. “The same tools of capitalism that were used to build white wealth can be used to build Black wealth.”

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Michael Novogratz, investor

Big idea: Cryptocurrency is a decentralized, transparent revolution that can help restore trust amidst a broken financial system. 

How? Since the 2008 financial crash, distrust in the system has grown massively, as once-trusted institutions have become tarnished by their contributions to the climate crisis, inequality and opaque economic markets. Michael Novogratz believes the decentralized, empowering nature of cryptocurrency can restore that lost trust on a global scale. By unlocking access to digital private property, these assets can expand to all markets, transparently and inclusively. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, can take this radical expansion of value one step further, Novogratz explains, making ownership possible over virtually any property on the web. Artists have used this as a means of explosive creativity, trusting their work cannot be stolen thanks to each piece having its own unique code on the blockchain. Novogratz points to decentralized platforms like Uniswap that are flipping capitalism on its head by redistributing power amongst people, and rewarding them for everything they own, trade and stake. He paints a liberating vision that untethers value from the material world.

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Manish Bhardwaj, moral leader

Big idea: In order to undo the damage that capitalism has caused in the world, we need to integrate morality into business frameworks at the foundational level.

How? Capitalist modes of living and commerce have wreaked havoc worldwide, exacerbating oppression and injustice. Though models like stakeholder capitalism seek to rectify these inequities, it simply isn’t enough. Manish Bhardwaj believes we must invest in developing and incorporating moral clarity into our business structures. Moral clarity, he says, is about doing the right thing because it is right, and not out of fear of repercussions or in expectation of a reward. While stakeholder capitalism seeks diverse workplaces for the sake of employee retention, greater profit margins and innovation, moral clarity allows us to see that diverse workplaces are necessary because they are morally just. Importantly, Bhardwaj clarifies that moral clarity is not moral perfection — instead it is an awareness and a willingness to create space for moral language and arguments in business. The good news is that moral clarity works: Bhardwaj’s organization for neonatal and maternal health in rural India was able to cut neonatal mortality rates in half by centering the most vulnerable in all of their work. Though it won’t be easy, moral clarity requires us to shift perspectives: our business goals should never supersede the moral responsibilities we have to each other, ourselves and the world.

Introducing The Audacious Project’s new cohort

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

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

The 2021-22 Audacious Project grantees are: 

• Code for America: Harnessing technology to transform the US social safety net
• Center for Tech and Civic Life: Strengthening local election administration in the US
• ClimateWorks: Drive Electric: Accelerating the end of the polluting tailpipe and transition to clean transportation
• Glasswing International: Building critical mental health support in Central America’s Northern Triangle
• The International Refugee Assistance Project: Unlocking legal rights so that refugees can resettle safely
• myAgro: Equipping smallholder farmers with the power to invest in themselves 
• Noora Health: Training family caregivers to help their loved ones heal
• The Tenure Facility: Securing land for Indigenous peoples — for justice and our climate
• Woodwell Climate Research Center: Integrating permafrost into our global solution for climate change

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

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

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

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

In the Green: A series on climate action from TED Countdown and The Climate Pledge

From emitting less carbon to using green materials, businesses across the world are committing to measurable climate action — but what exactly are they doing, and why? In the Green: The Business of Climate Action is a TED series, presented by TED Countdown and The Climate Pledge, that gives an inside look at the thinking, steps and vision that goes behind building more sustainable companies.

Tune in and meet senior leaders from around the business world as they share important lessons on reducing climate impact that can be applied to workplaces everywhere. In the first three episodes, delve into the environmental impact of buildings, how the seemingly mundane devices we use daily determine our footprint on the planet and how we can redesign business with nature in mind.

What does it take to decarbonize the buildings we spend the majority of our time in?

Electronics have a big role to play in the climate – here’s how to reduce their impact.

What can businesses learn from nature about greener practices?

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

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

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

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

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

Reuben Jonathan Miller, sociologist, writer

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

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

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Nyra Jordan, social impact investor

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

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

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Brittany K. Barnett, attorney, entrepreneur, author

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

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

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

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

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

A TED series rethinks the way we work

Have you ever dealt with meeting overload, struggled to create a solid work-life balance or felt stuck on the same rung of the career ladder?

In the fourth season of TED’s original video series The Way We Work, business leaders and thinkers offer direct, practical wisdom and insight into how we can adapt and thrive amid changing workplace conventions.

These eight brief, engaging episodes take a holistic view of work and the emotional, cultural and social factors that shape our day-to-day lives. Steering away from one-size-fits-all advice, The Way We Work is about the way you work best.

These experts explore the benefits of paternity leave (for everyone), reducing bias in the workplace and helping yourself (and others) succeed. They offer advice on dealing with meeting overload and an “always-on” work culture, as well as tips on how to negotiate. Check out all eight episodes below:

Which bad habits are stopping us from getting what we need out of our free time? How do we set boundaries that stick?

 

Here’s how to advocate for your own success — and uplift others in the process:

 

Here’s how to make your schedule work for you, not against you:

 

A new perspective on paternity leave:

 

Bias is damaging to the workplace — here’s how to identify and reduce it:

 

Have a business idea? Here’s how to help it succeed:

 

This is what parents really need from their workplaces:

 

Trying for a raise? These negotiation tips might help:

Imagining: Notes from Session 2 of Countdown Summit

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There’s a lot of information on what we’re doing wrong when it comes to climate, and what the world would look like if we keep up the damage. But there’s very little information on what life could look like if we all did our job to repair the planet.

At Session 2 of the Countdown Summit, seven speakers stretched our imaginations — envisioning what it will take to create a different, better future and exactly how far (or close) we are from realizing it.

The event: Countdown Summit: Session 2, hosted by Paris Climate Agreement architect Christiana Figueres and TED’s Bruno Giussani, with facilitation by Leaders’ Quest’s Jayma Pau and Carolina Moeller, at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland on Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Speakers: Solomon Goldstein-Rose, Tzeporah Berman, Dan Jørgensen, Vandana Singh, Enric Sala, Thomas Crowther, Nicola Sturgeon

The talks in brief:

Solomon Goldstein-Rose, climate author

Big idea: To really power our grid from clean energy, we must build more production capacity than we think we need — a lot more. Although many estimates show that we need two and a half times more green production than we currently have, Solomon Goldstein-Rose says we need five times that: a grand total of 12 times today’s clean energy production. Where can we get all this power?

An answer: To go net-negative (not net-zero), to electrify everything with renewables in all parts of the world (not just the wealthy ones) and to power things that can’t be electrified (like airplanes), climate author Solomon Goldstein-Rose affirms that we need more than a green revolution in production. To get where we need to go, the world needs an entirely new electricity grid. As he puts it, we should be “building new things that we’ve barely ever built before, in massive amounts, to create a new system entirely.” Although it’s a tall order, the benefits of such a transformation go far beyond survival: if we can reimagine our power production, we will also create a healthier, cleaner and more prosperous world for everyone.

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Tzeporah Berman, environmental campaigner

Big Idea: The fossil fuel industry has gone largely unregulated. It’s time to wind down its rampant production with a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty for the future of our planet.

How? As climate policy experts negotiate policies set to reduce carbon emissions, the fossil fuel industry continues to grow and pollute for the sake of oil, gas and coal, says environmental campaigner Tzeporah Berman. “Our governments are only regulating emissions and not production of fossil fuels,” she says. As a decades-long advocate for the protection of Canada’s Great Northern Forest, Berman has spent years reaching out to CEOs of oil companies and studying climate policies and has come to a crucial conclusion: without a single mention of “fossil fuels” in the 2015 Paris Agreement, fossil fuel production has escaped regulation. “We are currently on track today to produce 120 percent more fossil fuels in the next decade than the world should burn to stay below 1.5 degrees,” she says. It’s time to stop relying on future technologies that are not yet at scale to solve the problems we’re facing today and begin curbing destructive processes now. The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty can help us get there.

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Dan Jørgensen, Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities of Denmark

Big idea: Wind energy will be the cornerstone of the green transformation the world needs.

How? Over the last two decades, the wind energy industry has grown at a dizzying pace. (Fun fact: one wind turbine’s single rotation generates enough electricity to charge 1,314 cell phones.) Building off of this exponential growth, Dan Jørgensen, Denmark’s Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities, lays out his country’s decision to cut 70 percent of its emissions by 2030 and close down the nation’s oil industry by 2050. Their aim is to direct all investment and innovation towards a fossil-free future and create the world’s first “energy islands”:” think scaled-up wind farms that can generate enough electricity for 10 million European households. Offshore wind power could supply the world’s entire electricity demand 18 times over, Jørgensen says, making it a true game-changer in the fight against climate change.

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Vandana Singh, climate imagination fellow

Big idea: Science and speculative fiction can support new narratives about our climate future — and inspire action instead of dread.

How? Earlier this year, Countdown partnered with the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University and to create the Climate Imagination Fellowship. In collaboration with ClimateWorks and the United Nations, the fellowship aims to support visionary thinkers who engage with the climate crisis by imagining vibrant futures. Speculative fiction writer and physics professor Vandana Singh is one of four inaugural Climate Imagination Fellows. On the TED stage, she shares an excerpt from her latest work: a captivating tale of how collective dreaming could help humans recognize our interdependence with the planet — and take action to protect it.

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Enric Sala, marine ecologist

Big idea: As a diver in the 1970s, Enric Sala saw once-lush oceanscapes reduced to underwater deserts — but later, in marine preserves like the Medes Islands in Spain and Cabo Pulmo in Mexico, he also witnessed the ocean’s power to rejuvenate itself when left to its own natural devices. Could “rewilding” the planet help us restore biodiversity and reduce the impacts of climate change?

How? Marine preserves demonstrate how quickly the environment — land or sea — can rebound from the ravages of overuse and global warming. Trees, grasslands, kelp forests and the biodiversity they shelter are our best weapons against climate change, says marine ecologist Enric Sala — but only work if we allow them to do their work undisturbed by human activity. At present, only seven percent of Earth’s oceans and less than a fifth of land are protected as wilderness. In 2018, Sala and his colleagues at National Geographic partnered with the Wyss Institute to target the biodiversity powerhouses most worth preserving, with the aim of “30 by 30”: rewilding 30 percent of the Earth’s surface and of the ocean floor by 2030.

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Thomas Crowther, ecosystem ecology professor

Big Idea: An online, open-data platform to support and connect the global restoration movement can bring transparency to humanity’s footprint on the planet. 

How? There are hundreds of thousands of local communities, Indigenous populations and more working to protect and revitalize nature — making connectivity between these efforts of utmost importance. Enter Restor, a powerful platform in development that ecosystem ecology professor Thomas Crowther describes as “a Google Maps for restoration.” With about 72,000 sites in its database, Restor holds information about thousands of projects around the world, across every imaginable ecosystem, available to explore, learn about and connect with. Crowther gives a tour of this incredible tool, showing how you can learn about native species, environmental conditions and geology to try and predict information about local ecologies. And he shares his vision for the future of Restor and a world where, thanks to data collection, supply chains become so transparent that consumers can know the exact environmental impact of products before they ever leave the store.

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Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland

Big idea: When we talk about tackling climate change, it’s often about bigger countries like the US or China. We must recognize the ambition, leadership and action of small countries, too.

Why? Small countries have no time for small objectives, says First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon. For example, countries like Himalayan nation of Bhutan are leading the way towards a positive climate future, with 130 countries now following in its footsteps towards carbon neutrality; or the tiny island nation of Fiji, which played host the UN climate conference in 2017. Scotland has a special responsibility, considering its rich industrial history, to offset its disproportionate contributions to climate change. And it’s already made big steps, Sturgeon says, like decarbonizing faster than any other G20 nation and establishing a climate justice fund. When large countries fail to act, it’s the smaller regions, states and nations that keep the climate action momentum going — but that can’t always be the case. Countries of all shapes and sizes must step up to the challenge. “We cannot allow our size to be something that we hide behind when it comes to tackling climate change,” she says. “We must think big in our ambition. We must act big in what we do, and we must be big when it comes to the impact we make.”

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

Better. Smarter. Wiser. Notes from Session 7 of TEDMonterey

We’re all looking for ways to become better, smarter and wiser versions of ourselves. In a spectacularly eclectic Session 7, six speakers share their hard-won wisdom on educating, listening — and even twerking — their way towards a more inclusive world, where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

The event: TEDMonterey: Session 7, hosted by TED’s Helen Walters on Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Speakers: Adrian K. Haugabrook, Katherine Maher, Hrishikesh Hirway, Steven Johnson, Pardis Parker, Lizzo

Adrian K. Haugabrook, higher education executive

Big idea: It’s possible to bring down the barriers higher education upholds and create an environment where anyone can earn a degree with intention and accessibility in mind.

How? The majority of higher education functions like a fortress with high walls — like costs, proximity and excess of time — that students are expected to surmount in order to graduate. This often makes the opportunity accessible to the privileged few. Haugabrook has devoted his entire career to breaking down those obstacles and has identified three approaches to reimagine and redesign the process: in time, place and teaching. He suggests institutions offer academic credit for skills and life experience, attained in work or otherwise, assessed by a university evaluator; that we tap into the potential of local communities as a thriving part of the learning ecosystem; and that universities not mess with the magic of teaching, but make it more accessible by embracing and scaling for online learning. By redefining success and dedication in higher learning, Haugabrook calls for universities, companies and governments to invest deeply in a superhighway of education that allows for fluidity and transferability beyond borders and boundaries — where all roads lead to a degree.

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Katherine Maher, strategist, technologist and policy expert

Big Idea: How can we have productive conversation around disagreement and decision-making without making one shared truth our baseline? Use the Wikipedia model.

How? Wikipedia was (and still is) a radical experiment in self-governance, volunteerism and engrained transparency — and that is what uniquely prepares it for the changing world, says Maher. As the internet’s de-facto encyclopedia, it harbors information on everything from light, niche topics (animals with fraudulent degrees) to weightier, more divisive matters (like religion and politics). The secret is that those who write the articles aren’t focused on the truth or even seeing eye-to-eye, but on collective understanding rather than value, identity and what we believe versus what can be known. What gets messy in everyday conversations is that people often merge facts about the world with their own beliefs. Our reverence for the truth — not to be misconstrued, Maher clarifies that truth does exist and is important — might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and taking action on issues like climate change. So, how do we unite minds and disparate views? Instead of seeking one key truth, we must shift to a minimum viable truth. This means getting it right enough, enough of the time to be useful enough to enough people — while setting aside our own belief systems and dropping perfectionism. Only through collaboration, productive friction, consulting widely and inclusively and weighing difficult decisions with candor (and a large helping of humility) can we create systems that endure and build trust to weather uncertainty.

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Hrishikesh Hirway, musician, podcast creator

Big idea: If you want to go deeper in your conversations, listen to others like you’d listen to a song.

How? ​​Hrishikesh Hirway is interested in what you miss when you listen to a song for the first time. You might notice the bass part or the lyrics or the cello solo, but what you don’t hear, he says, are all the things the musician lived through to get that music to exist. He compares the experience to staring at a house from the outside. Hirway hosts the podcast (and Netflix series) Song Exploder. On his show, he gets musicians like Fleetwood Mac, The Roots, Billie Eilish, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Yo-Yo Ma to talk about their work and guide listeners through the hidden layers and depths in their songs. While having these conversations, Hirway realized that if he listened to people like he listened to songs, he could get “inside the house.” He could explore hidden rooms of thought and experience the richness of another person’s ideas. If you want to try his technique, here’s what he suggests: Be open to learning something new; Quit multitasking; and use non-verbal communication to let the other person know you’re engaged without shifting the focus away from them and onto yourself.

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Steven Johnson, author

Big idea: Life expectancy at birth has doubled in the last century, from a global average of 35 years old in 1921 to 70 years today, thanks to scientific advances and policies set in place to protect human health — but these benefits need to be distributed equally.

How? Throughout most of human history, life was short and Steven Johnson explores the policies and advances that have changed that. One of the simplest but most effective advancements being the pasteurization of milk which helped slash childhood mortality (due to contamination) rates in the mid 19th century. But science cannot drive change by itself. It took 50 years for pasteurization to become the standard in the American food supply. Johnson explains that when looking at our track record of life-lengthening advancements, it usually takes them a while to become mainstream. He reminds us that, somewhat counter-intuitively, change is often driven by large bureaucratic regulatory institutions like the FDA requiring proof of safety and efficacy in our new technology. As scientists push the boundaries of longevity, at a rate where the hype sometimes outstrips reality, Johnson wonders how we can ensure the benefits of technology are equally distributed. He calls for regulations of the future to close the gaps that keep the entirety of humanity from enjoying the revolutionary advances in human health.

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Comedian Pardis Parker delivers an uproarious standup set centered on a problem he has with a central tenet of modern culture: the “grind”. While our mythologies focus on the shining chimera of endless wealth, little love goes to those for whom life is nasty, brutish and short, who never get to taste the rewards of leisure. In this sardonic but funny talk, Pardis dissects the ugly truths lying beneath the facade of conspicuous consumption (and the assumptions that lie beneath them) — and exposes the absurdity of some of our foundational beliefs.

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Lizzo, singer, rapper, songwriter, flutist

Big idea: Twerking is more than just a dance — it’s unique to the Black experience. Understanding its roots helps safeguard Black culture against erasure.

How? “Twerking is good for humanity,” says superstar Lizzo. Tracing its roots to a traditional West African dance called mapouka, she introduces the TED audience to twerking’s long and lesser known history. Women would circle their hips and pop their behinds in a dance of religious worship, joyful celebration — or even to show interest in marriage. Through time and across the transatlantic slave trade, Black women passed twerking down to the next generation, where the moves permeated Black culture from blues and jazz to modern rap and hip-hop. Twerking found its way to the likes of famed blues singers Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and became a cultural moment when Beyoncé debuted “The Uh Oh” dance for her 2003 single “Crazy in Love.” Nowadays, twerking is everywhere, and it’s at risk of being co-opted, appropriated and misunderstood, Lizzo says. So, if you’re going to partake, it’s important you understand its origins, development and contribution to Black culture before you shake that ass.

The ZigZag Project launches from the TED Audio Collective

ZigZag, a business podcast about being human hosted by Manoush Zomorodi (who also hosts TED Radio Hour with NPR), returns March 25 with its sixth season in the form of The ZigZag Project. The latest iteration of the show takes listeners on a journey to discover new ways to align business ambitions with systemic change that’s good for the world.

Inspired by the massive overhaul of our lives due to COVID-19, The ZigZag Project offers a six-step boot camp that’s been beta-tested by listeners and features insights from luminaries who have helped Manoush Zomorodi stay the course throughout her career. The interactive experience combines audio storytelling with written exercises and a companion newsletter to align listeners’ personal values with their professional ambitions. 

With six new episodes, this season will help listeners better understand their personal and professional purpose and the tools needed to translate them into their next zig or zag. The season culminates in a commencement episode that includes excerpts from Manoush’s conversation with Stacey Abrams on TED Radio Hour. Additional guests this season include MIT humanist chaplain Greg Epstein, conflict resolution specialist Priya Parker and former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, among others.

“The world is changing, and many of my listeners say they’re at a crossroads, too,” said host Manoush Zomorodi. “I’m so thrilled to offer this fun, interactive process to help folks figure out how they can move forward in their career while also sticking to their values.”

New episodes of The ZigZag Project will air every other week on Thursdays, starting March 25. 

The ZigZag Project comes from Stable Genius Productions in collaboration with the TED Audio Collective. TED’s collection of podcasts includes shows co-developed by TED and its speakers as well as shows developed and produced independently by inspiring thinkers and creators. The growing list of podcasts ranges from TED originals like TED Talks Daily and Far Flung with Saleem Reshamwala to independent series like Design Matters with Debbie Millman and Conversations with People Who Hate M‪e from Dylan Marron.  

This season of ZigZag is made possible with the support of our partner JobsOhio, a private nonprofit organization dedicated to business development and expansion in the state of Ohio. Learn more about TED Partnerships here.

Listen to The ZigZag Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Impact: A day of talks in partnership with DWEN

Everything you do boils down to impact. Whether personal or professional, you build, design and imagine in pursuit of creating lasting change for the wider world. So, how do you make it happen? At TED Salon: Impact, a virtual event presented by TED and Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN), four speakers and one performer explored the driving force behind the decisions and actions that move women’s entrepreneurship forward.

The event: TED Salon: Impact, presented in partnership with DWEN, hosted by TED technology curator Simone Ross and director of speaker coaching Briar Goldberg, with opening remarks from Vice President of Dell Global Field Marketing Kristen Nolte.

Music: From her stoop in Brooklyn, singer-songwriter Madison McFerrin performs “TRY” — a synth-infused invitation to chase your dreams, despite what others say.

The talks in brief:

Julia Dhar, business strategist, champion debater

Big idea: Every conversation (or disagreement) you have can be a productive one, if you approach it with curiosity. 

How? As a world debate champion, Julia Dhar is no stranger to having conversations with people she disagrees with. Rather than viewing these encounters as a chance to change someone else’s mind, she instead approaches them as opportunities to find common ground and strengthen the resilience of her own point by learning from other perspectives. “We need to figure out how we go into conversations not looking for the victory, but the progress,” Dhar says. She shares three essential features of having productive disagreements: go in with curiosity; be adaptable with your idea; and focus on the common ground. The end result? Constructive conversations that sharpen your argument — not the relationship.

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Patty McCord, consultant

Big idea: The COVID-19 pandemic taught us that, despite previous resistance, it’s possible to improve the way we work.

How? Patty McCord believes we can finally change our professional lives for the better. The COVID-19 pandemic shuttered offices and strong-armed a reliance on remote work, teaching companies important lessons about their employees and their businesses. On the one-year anniversary of the start of the coronavirus lockdown, McCord reflects on four essential learnings that have the potential to improve work-life for everyone — even after the pandemic is over. After taking Zoom calls alongside our kids at the kitchen table, we’ve learned that separating work from family life is crucial to our productivity. Additionally, bosses have gained trust in their employees working from home, allowing them to make more autonomous decisions and focus on the results that matter. Companies have thrown “best practices” out the window and begun developing better business structures. And everyone has learned the true value of clear communication, which ensures efficiency. By understanding these key learnings, we can begin to rethink all the ways we work — and create new practices that work for everyone.

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Natsai Audrey Chieza, biodesigner

Big idea: Through design, we have the power to imagine a future where people and nature can thrive together —  powered by multidisciplinary, nuanced and systemic solutions.

How? When Natsai Audrey Chieza was in school, she participated in a time-capsule project where she and her friends visualized a green, equitable world. Now 20 years later, in the face of decades of global inaction, many obstacles still block our path to those imagined futures — but Chieza is still exploring how we can get there. She founded Faber Futures, an innovation lab and creative agency that brings together experts from different disciplines to explore the intersection of biology, design and technology. She shares creations that came from unexpected collaborations — between Afro-futurists and astrobiologists, food researchers and Indigenous campaigners. And she invites us to ask ourselves what kind of world we wish for — and what systemic changes and collaborations need to happen for them to exist.

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Esther Perel, therapist, speaker, consultant

Big question: How do we effectively deal with stress in our daily lives and work a year into the COVID-19 pandemic?

Some answers: The first step is to recognize that stress is multidimensional, says Esther Perel. We wrap up a lot of different feelings into the word “stress”: isolation, grief, anger, economic insecurity, existential anguish, prolonged uncertainty. So we must start by breaking it down into parts, naming and framing the different aspects. A major one, Perel says, is the loss of “eros”: the serendipity, surprise and mystery that lit up our pre-pandemic lives. (People are working hard to recapture eros at home, Perel says, with activities like baking bread and adopting puppies.) Likewise, the boundaries that once demarcated our lives — between work and home, coworker and spouse — have evaporated, leaving us without a sense of groundedness. So what are we to do? Be intentional about creating routines, rituals and boundaries, Perel says, and work to integrate these multiple realities, rather than hiding them. (For instance: don’t stress if your kid walks on camera during a work meeting and says hello. It’s natural!) What’s more, Perel says she’s noticed a shift towards “anti-small talk” at work: things people normally didn’t talk about at the office, like family and mental health, are now regularly entering into conversation. That’s good, she says: we’ll only get through this pandemic with mass mutual reliance, a deep sense of interdependence and social connection — our greatest source of resilience.

TED launches TED Audio Collective for podcasts

On February 22, 2021, TED launches the TED Audio Collective to house its growing collection of podcasts.

While broadly known for its global conferences and signature TED Talk videos, TED is also one of the top podcast publishers in the world. TED podcasts are downloaded 1.65 million times per day in virtually every country on earth. Our shows have been consistently ranked by Apple Podcasts as “most downloaded” of the year, and TED Talks Daily was the second most popular show globally on Spotify in 2020. Now the TED Audio Collective expands upon that foundation, creating a home for shows co-developed by TED and our speakers as well as shows developed and produced independently by inspiring thinkers and creators.

The podcasts in the TED Audio Collective are for listeners curious about everything from philosophy and psychology to science, technology, business and unexpected pathways in between — all curated through TED’s lens of “ideas worth spreading.” Here’s a sneak peek of exciting new content to expect over the coming months.

New in the TED Audio Collective:

Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter

Dr. Jen Gunter is on a mission to make us experts on the way our bodies work. Body Stuff is an original show developed by TED that aims to demystify the systems of the body while debunking medical myths along the way. Did you know that you don’t actually need eight glasses of water a day? That you can’t “boost” your immune system?

With humor and wit, Dr. Jen Gunter, a celebrated OB/GYN, pain medicine physician and TED speaker, aims to share accurate, evidence-based medical information in a fun and accessible way.

(Season 1 launches May 2021)

Lost Birds with Mona Chalabi

From COVID to electoral politics, people are turning to data to make sense of the world as never before. But how well do we understand what those numbers actually mean? Interpreting data has never been more timely or relevant to fight misinformation and understand the world around us.

In this original, sound-rich series, data scientist Mona Chalabi will take listeners on an inquiry into the central question: How can we use data to make sense of our lived experiences, and what are the limits of that data? Along the way, she will tackle urgent, random and sometimes deeply personal questions: How does Google calculate walking speeds? What happens when cities get louder? When will my heartache end?

(Season 1 launches June 2021)

Conversations with People Who Hate Me 

TED alum Dylan Marron is joining the TED Audio Collective to continue exploring what happens when online feuders step out from behind the keyboard and get to know the human on the other side of the screen.

In an internet era characterized by comment section wars, devastating clapbacks and anonymous vitriol, Dylan Marron connects people who have clashed online — from old friends to complete strangers — to explore why we believe what we believe, how we relate to each other on the internet and just what a phone call can accomplish. Don’t be fooled by the title! It’s actually a loving show that fosters unlikely connections in an age of increasing digital isolation. 

(New episodes launching Fall 2021)

Design Matters 

The iconic Design Matters with Debbie Millman pulls back the curtain on how incredibly creative people design the arc of their lives. It’s the world’s first podcast about design — an inquiry into the broader world of creative culture through wide-ranging conversations with designers, writers, artists, curators, musicians and other luminaries of contemporary thought. Design Matters joined the TED Audio Collective in October 2020 and is produced independently, with TED amplifying the podcast to its global audience. 

(New episodes every Monday. Watch out for upcoming conversations with Adam Grant, Jacqueline Woodson, Nick Cave and many more.)

Plus, new episodes from:

ZigZag 

Hosted by Manoush Zomorodi, ZigZag is a business show about being human. Manoush takes listeners on a journey to discover new ways we can align our business ambitions with systemic change that’s good for our fellow human beings and the world. In March 2021, Manoush will release season six: “The Zig Zag Project.” Over six weeks, she’ll lead a boot camp for listeners who want to make big changes in their work life by finding ways to align their personal values with their professional ambitions.

(Season 6 launches March 2021)

TED Business 

Columbia Business School professor Modupe Akinola hosts TED Business, a show that explores the most powerful and surprising ideas that illuminate the business world. After hearing a TED Talk, listeners get a mini-lesson from Modupe on how to apply the ideas from the talk to their own lives. Because whatever your business conundrum — how to land that new promotion, set smarter goals, undo injustice at work or unlock the next big thing — there’s a TED Talk for that.

(New episodes every Monday)

WorkLife with Adam Grant 

WorkLife with Adam Grant is back with its fourth season! Organizational psychologist Adam Grant takes listeners inside the minds of some of the world’s most unusual professionals to explore the science of making work not suck. Season four kicks off with a bonus episode where JJ Abrams interviews Adam Grant about his new book, Think Again. 

• Taken for Granted: TED is also launching a companion series inspired by Adam’s popular long-form interviews with luminaries like Esther Perel. Starting with Brené Brown, Malcolm Gladwell, Jane Goodall and Glennon Doyle, he’ll sit down with his favorite thinkers about the opinions and assumptions we should all be revisiting. 

(Season 4 launches March 2021, and Taken for Granted launches February 2021)

The TED Interview 

In The TED Interview, Head of TED Chris Anderson speaks with some of the world’s most interesting people to dig into the most provocative and powerful ideas of our time. From Bill Gates to Monica Lewinsky, Chris follows his curiosity across myriad topics and disciplines, diving deep with the most compelling thinkers from the TED stage and beyond. Entering the sixth season of the show this year, Chris investigates “The Case for Optimism” and why there’s still reason for tremendous hope in these trying times.

(Season 6 launches April 2021, featuring interviews with climate activist Xiye Bastida, inventor of CRISPR Jennifer Doudna and many more.)

TED Radio Hour

In each episode of TED Radio Hour, host Manoush Zomorodi explores a big idea through a series of TED Talks and original interviews, inspiring us to learn more about the world, our communities and, most importantly, ourselves. TED Radio Hour is a co-production of NPR and TED.

(New episodes every Friday. Watch out for an exciting episode in March called “Through The Looking Glass” about the tools that scientists, physicians and artists use to extend our perception of what we can see and our boundaries of consciousness — featuring TED speakers Emily Levesque, Ariel Waldman, Rick Doblin and more.)

Our Partners: TED Partnerships, working in collaboration with the TED team and podcast hosts, strives to tell partner stories in the form of authentic, story-driven content developed in real-time and aligned with the editorial process — finding and exploring brilliant ideas from all over the world. Past and current partners are wide-ranging and diverse, including Accenture, Bonobos, Unilever, Hilton, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Lexus, Marriott Hotels, Morgan Stanley, Warby Parker, Verizon, Women Will, a Grow with Google program and more. Learn more here. 

Other podcasts in the TED Audio Collective: Far Flung with Saleem Reshamwala, Sincerely, X, Checking In with Susan David, TED Talks Daily, TED Health, How to Be a Better Human, TEDx SHORTS, TED en Español and TED in Chinese.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TED launches season 3 of “The Way We Work”

Almost overnight, 2020 changed the way we work. Businesses and governments moved online, parents everywhere worked from kitchen tables alongside their kids, and essential frontline workers showed true heroism in the course of their everyday jobs. In TED’s third season of The Way We Work, business leaders and thinkers advise on how to navigate the shifting sands of work these days — whether brought on by the pandemic or not.

This eight-episode series offers practical wisdom on how to bring your best self to work, online or in-person. Each brief episode gets straight to the point, whether you’re feeling burnt out from remote work, trying to support your busy partner, hoping to nail your next interview or find the best candidate, or planning to grow your freelance business and better manage your team during a crisis. This series is made possible with the support of Dropbox.

Feeling burnout from working remotely? Here’s what you can do:

 

Tips to up your freelance game:

 

A cheat sheet on being a leader right now:

 

What interviewers really care about: 

 

The hiring process needs a makeover. Here’s how:

 

It’s possible to have a great career and a great relationship:

 

Inclusive leadership means really listening to junior staff:

 

Need to have a personal conversation at work? Here’s how:

Check out the full The Way We Work playlist on TED.com.

Breakthroughs: Notes from Session 4 of the Countdown Global Launch

Countdown is a global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. Watch the talks, interviews and performances from the Countdown Global Launch at ted.com/countdown.

The world around us is mainly made of two things: nature and the materials that we extract from it. To fight climate change, we need to protect and regenerate nature and transform materials into low- or zero-carbon alternatives. Session 4 explored the nexus of protection, regeneration and transformation, using powerful examples.

This penultimate session was hosted by digital content creators Hannah Stocking and Prajakta Koli, who highlighted the global span of Countdown and the innovative climate solutions already in existence. The session also featured a TED-Ed Lesson, created by educator Brent Loken, which asked: Can we create the “perfect” farm? And finally, we heard from TEDx organizers across the globe — including Kampala, Uganda; Putalisadak, Nepal; Almaty, Khazikstan; Darlinghurst, Australia; Rome, Italy; and Sana’a, Yemen, among others — who are hosting TEDx Countdown events today. In total, more than 600 TEDx Countdown events are happening across 86 countries.

The talks in brief:

Thomas Crowther, ecosystem ecology professor

Big Idea: Across the world, people are working together to restore the natural glory of biodiverse ecosystems. By gathering and openly sharing these projects, we can unite a robust movement of responsible environmental stewardship and restoration.

How? Restor is a data platform that aims to connect and share the learnings of environmental conservationists who are developing micro- or macro-level projects that reintroduce biodiversity to essential landscapes worldwide. It evolved from another climate change solution — the Trillion Trees movement, which Thomas Crowther helped bring to the mainstream. Research showed that planting a trillion trees worldwide could help capture up to 30 percent of the excess carbon in the atmosphere; however, following criticism that the Trillion Trees movement sought to simply offset carbon emissions, Crowther realized that solving the climate crisis is going to take more than planting trees. We need solutions as diverse as our ecosystems themselves. With Restor, conservationists can learn about key biodiversity restoration projects from around the world, and with machine learning, we can glean insights that will help us develop more resilient and effective solutions.

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Ernestine Leikeki Sevidzem, climate and gender activist

Big idea: We need to care for and live in harmony with the environment.

How? By nurturing a generation — young and old — to protect the nature that provides for them: a forest generation, as Sevidzem calls it. In her native Cameroon, she teaches her community a nature-first dedication to restoring the 20,000-hectare Kilum-Ijim forest that sustains and supplies livelihood for hundreds of thousands of people. Her organization also helps develop gender equality by training people as beekeepers to harness the economic opportunities present in harvesting and selling products from honey and beeswax. In educating both children and adults on what it means to love and preserve the Earth, Sevidzem stands by the need for all of us to foster generations that will inherit a mindset that works with nature, not against it. “We can’t fight the climate emergency if we can’t protect and regenerate our land,” she says.

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John Doerr, engineer and investor, in conversation with Hal Harvey, climate policy expert

Big idea: Humanity has to act globally, at speed and at scale, if there’s any hope of cutting the world’s carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030. 

How? While it’s difficult to remain optimistic in the face of ever-increasing carbon production, countries like Germany and China have implemented energy policies that have reduced solar costs by 80 percent and wind by half. As a result, it’s now cheaper to generate clean energy than it is to burn dirty fossil fuels. If the 20 largest-emitting countries — which are responsible for 75 percent of the world’s emissions — commit to green grids, electric transportation and efficient homes and factories, then scalable energy solutions could become a global reality. Although Doerr estimates that we only have 70-80 percent of the energy technology we need to avoid climate catastrophe, he and Harvey believe that committed governments and investment in amazing entrepreneurs could turn things around. “The good news is it’s now clearly cheaper to save the planet than to ruin it,” Doerr says. “The bad news is we are fast running out of time.”

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Karen Scrivener, cement researcher

Big idea: We can cut down the CO2 emissions of concrete — the second most-used substance on Earth (behind water), responsible for eight percent of the world’s carbon footprint.

How? If concrete were a country, it would rank third for emissions, after China and the USA, says Karen Scrivener, who is working on new, greener ways to make this crucial building material. When concrete cools after it’s mixed, the limestone that helps hold it together breaks down, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And while we can’t make concrete without a bonding material, it’s possible we could replace concrete with things like LC3 — a concrete-like mixture of calcine clay, limestone and cement that doesn’t require heating the limestone, slashing concrete’s carbon emissions by 40 percent. Despite its enormous emissions, concrete is still the lowest-impact building material we have, emitting less carbon than iron, steel or bricks. “The possibility to replace portland cement with a different material with [the] same properties … but with a much lighter carbon footprint, is really crucial to confront climate change,” Scrivener says. “It can be done fast, and it can be done on a very large scale, with the possibility to eliminate more that 400 million tons of CO2 every year.”

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Tom Schuler, cement entrepreneur

Big idea: Over the last 2,000 years, the art of mixing cement and using it to bind concrete hasn’t changed very much — but the sad truth is that concrete, which is all around us, is one of the biggest emitters of carbon, both when it’s made and when it’s destroyed. But there’s an opportunity to take the carbon out of our infrastructure.

How? One of the key ingredients of concrete is cement, and portland cement is made of limestone — which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when it breaks down as it is heated and cured (or destroyed). Tom Schuler’s company has figured out a way to use less limestone in making cement — and even repurpose waste carbon dioxide as a catalyst for curing concrete. This innovation could potentially save trillions of gallons of water, use existing processes and factories, and even make concrete carbon negative, cutting emissions from concrete by as much as 70 percent.

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Rahwa Ghirmatzion and Zelalem Adefris, climate activists, in a video narrated by actor, author and director Don Cheadle

Big idea: Under-resourced communities are the most vulnerable to the instability of climate change — and the best equipped to create new, sustainable, resilient solutions for those challenges.

How? The rising threats of natural disasters, extreme temperatures and polluted environments are driving up energy costs and exacerbating housing insecurity across the United States. In response, marginalized communities across the country are coming together to design people-powered projects that address the issues of climate catastrophe and social inequality. These problems are all connected, and the solutions will be too, says Don Cheadle, introducing social and climate justice advocates Rahwa Ghirmatzion and Zelalem Adefris. In Buffalo, New York, Ghirmatzion shows how the nonprofit PUSH Buffalo mobilized 800 residents to transform an abandoned school into a solar-powered community center, offering affordable housing units to the elderly and mutual aid resources throughout the pandemic. And at Catalyst Miami in Florida, Adefris shares how she’s helping to build a coalition of local partners working to ensure housing is affordable and energy-efficient. One collective, Konscious Kontractors, formed in 2017 to help restore and fortify neighborhoods devastated by Hurricane Irma. To mitigate the impacts of the changing climate, we will need to work alongside our neighbors in our communities to create solutions that are inclusive, innovative and long-lasting.

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Prince William, The Duke of Cambridge

Big idea: Fixing climate change is possible if we urgently focus human ingenuity and purpose on repairing our planet.

How: Speaking from beneath a nearly 1,000-year-old oak tree on the grounds at Windsor Castle, Prince William issues a challenge to every person around the globe: to show leadership on climate change. With just 10 years to fix the climate before its effects damage the Earth beyond repair, he calls this new decade the most consequential period in history, saying, “The science is irrefutable. If we do not act in this decade, the damage that we have done will be irreversible. And the effects felt not just by future generations but by all of us alive today.” But the same speed of human innovation that accelerated climate change is precisely what makes him optimistic about our future. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s audacious “Moonshot” mission, Prince William now calls on us to rise to our greatest challenge ever: the Earthshot. A set of ambitious goals targeted across industries and sectors, they include: protecting and restoring nature, cleaning the air, reviving oceans, building a waste-free world and fixing the climate … all in the next decade. To do it, we will need people in every corner of the globe working together with urgency, creativity and the belief that it is possible. If we succeed, we win the health of our planet for all. Watch the full talk on TED.com.

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Norwegian singer-songwriter Sigrid, standing in front of a stunning view of a forest lake, delights with uplifting vocals, warm guitar strums and delicate melodies in a performance of her songs “Home to You” and “Don’t Kill My Vibe.”

The Audacious Project expands its support of pandemic relief and recovery work

The Audacious Project, a funding initiative housed at TED, is continuing its support of solutions tailored to COVID-19 rapid response and long-term recovery. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop, The Audacious Project is committed to targeting key systems in crisis and supporting them as they rebuild better and with greater resilience. In this phase, more than 55 million dollars have been catalyzed towards Fast Grants, an initiative to accelerate COVID-19 related scientific research; GiveDirectly, which distributes unconditional cash transfers to those most in need; and Harlem Children’s Zone, one of the pioneers in neighborhood-specific “cradle-to-career” programs in support of low-income children and communities in the United States.

“Accelerating our scientific understanding of COVID-19 and providing immediate relief to communities hardest hit by the virus are just two of the myriad challenges we must address in the face of this pandemic,” said Anna Verghese, Executive Director of The Audacious Project. “With our COVID-19 rapid response cohort, we are supporting organizations with real-world solutions that are actionable now. But that aid should extend beyond recovery, which is why we look forward to the work these organizations will continue to do to ensure better systems for the future.” 

Funding directed toward these three new initiatives is in addition to the more than 30 million dollars that was dedicated to Partners In Health, Project ECHO and World Central Kitchen for their COVID-19 rapid response work earlier this year.

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Announcing three new projects in the Audacious COVID-19 response cohort

Fast Grants

The big idea: Though significant inroads have been made to advance our understanding of how the novel coronavirus spreads, and encouraging progress is underway in the development of vaccines and treatments, there are still many unknowns. We need to speed up the pace of scientific discovery in this area now more than ever, but the current systems for funding research do not meet this urgent need. Fast Grants is looking to solve that problem. They have created and are deploying a highly credible model to accelerate funding for the development of treatments and vaccines and to further scientific understanding of COVID-19. By targeting projects that demand greater speed and flexibility than traditional funding methods can offer, they will accelerate scientific discovery that can have an immediate impact and provide follow-on funding for promising early-stage discoveries.

How they’ll do it: Since March, Fast Grants has distributed 22 million dollars to fund 127 projects, leveraging a diverse panel of 20 experts to vet and review projects across a broad range of scientific disciplines. With Audacious funding, they will catalyze 80 to 115 research projects, accelerate timelines by as much as six to nine months and, in many cases, support projects that would otherwise go unfunded. This will accelerate research in testing, treatments, vaccines and many other areas critically needed to save lives and safely reopen economies. They will also build a community to share results and track progress while also connecting scientists to other funding platforms and research teams that can further advance the work. 

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GiveDirectly

The big idea: The COVID-19 pandemic could push more than 140 million people globally into extreme poverty. As the pandemic hampers humanitarian systems that typically address crises, the ability to deliver aid in person has never been more complicated. Enter GiveDirectly. For nearly a decade, they have provided no-strings-attached cash transfers to the world’s poorest people. Now they are leveraging the growth in the adoption of mobile technologies across Sub-Saharan Africa to design and deploy a breakthrough, fully remote model of humanitarian relief to respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

How they’ll do it: Over the next 12 months, GiveDirectly will scale their current model to provide unconditional cash transfers to more than 300,000 people who need it most. GiveDirectly will enroll and identify recipients without in-person contact, first using the knowledge of community-based organizations to identify and target beneficiaries within their existing networks, and second by leveraging data from national telephone companies to target those most in need. GiveDirectly will also systematize the underlying processes and algorithms so that they can be deployed for future disasters, thereby demonstrating a new model for rapid humanitarian relief.

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Harlem Children’s Zone

The big idea: In the United States, the coronavirus pandemic is disproportionately affecting Black communities. Not only are Black people being infected by the virus and dying at greater rates, the effects of the economic crisis are also hitting hardest vulnerable communities that were already facing a shrinking social safety net. At the onset of the pandemic, Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), one of the leading evidence-based, Black-led organizations in the US, pioneered a comprehensive approach to emergency response and recovery. The model is focused on five urgent areas: bridging the digital divide, preventing learning loss, mitigating the mental health crisis and providing economic relief and recovery.

How they’ll do it: Based in Harlem, New York, HCZ is leveraging deeply rooted community trust and best-in-class partners to deploy vital emergency relief and wrap-around support, including: health care information and protective gear to keep communities safe from the virus; quality, developmentally appropriate distance-learning resources, while developing plans for safe school reentry; and the provision of cash relief. They are also equipping backbone organizations across the US with the capacity to execute on a community-driven vision of their model nationally. They will be working side-by-side with leading, anchor institutions in six cities — Minneapolis, Oakland, Newark, Detroit, Chicago and Atlanta — to supercharge efforts to address Black communities’ most urgent needs and support recovery.

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To learn more about The Audacious Project, visit https://audaciousproject.org.

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

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

Kiah Williams, cofounder of SIRUM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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David Gruber, marine biologist, explorer, professor

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

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

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Andrew Youn, social entrepreneur

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Audacious Project announces new efforts in response to COVID-19

In response to the unprecedented impact of COVID-19, The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED, will direct support towards solutions tailored to rapid response and long-term recovery. Audacious has catalyzed more than $30 million towards the first three organizations in its COVID-19 rapid response cohort: Partners In Health will rapidly increase the scale, speed and effectiveness of contact tracing in the US; Project ECHO will equip over 350,000 frontline clinicians and public health workers across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America to respond to COVID-19; and World Central Kitchen will demonstrate a new model for food assistance within US cities. Each organization selected is delivering immediate aid to vulnerable populations most affected by the novel coronavirus. 

“Audacious was designed to elevate powerful interventions tackling the world’s most urgent challenges,” said Anna Verghese, Executive Director of The Audacious Project. “In line with that purpose, our philanthropic model was built to flex. In the wake of COVID-19, we’re grateful to be able to funnel rapid support towards Partners in Health, Project ECHO and World Central Kitchen — each spearheading critical work that is actionable now.”

Announcing The Audacious Project’s COVID-19 rapid response cohort 

Partners In Health has been a global leader in disease prevention, treatment and care for more than 30 years. With Audacious support over the next year, Partners In Health will disseminate its contact tracing expertise across the US and work with more than 19 public health departments to not only flatten the curve but bend it downward and help stop the spread of COVID-19. They plan to customize and scale their programs through a combination of direct technical assistance and open source sharing of best practices. This effort will reduce the spread of COVID-19 in cities and states home to an estimated 133 million people.

Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) exists to democratize life-saving medical knowledge — linking experts at centralized institutions with regional, local and community-based workforces. With Audacious investment over the next two years, ECHO will scale this proven virtual learning and telementoring model to equip more than 350,000 frontline clinicians and public health workers to respond to COVID-19. Working across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, the ECHO team will build a global network of health workers who together can permanently improve health systems and save lives in our world’s most vulnerable communities. 

Chef José Andrés‘ World Central Kitchen has provided fresh and nutritious meals to those in need following disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes since 2010. In response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, World Central Kitchen has developed an innovative solution to simultaneously provide fresh meals to those in immediate need and keep small businesses open in the midst of a health and economic crisis. World Central Kitchen will demonstrate this at scale, by expanding to employ 200 local Oakland restaurants (roughly 16 percent of the local restaurant industry) to serve nearly two million meals by the end of July — delivering a powerful proof of concept for a model that could shift food assistance around the world.

The Audacious Coalition

The Audacious Project was formed in partnership with The Bridgespan Group as a springboard for social impact. Using TED’s curatorial expertise to surface ideas, the initiative convenes investors and social entrepreneurs to channel funds towards pressing global issues.

A remarkable group of individuals and organizations have played a key role in facilitating the first edition of this Rapid Response effort. Among them ELMA Philanthropies, Skoll Foundation, Scott Cook and Signe Ostby of the Valhalla Charitable Foundation, Chris Larsen and Lyna Lam, Lyda Hill Philanthropies, The Rick & Nancy Moskovitz Foundation, Stadler Family Charitable Foundation, Inc., Ballmer Group, Mary and Mark Stevens, Crankstart and more.

To learn more about The Audacious Project visit audaciousproject.org/covid-19-response.

Fragility, resilience and restoration at TED2020: The Prequel

It’s a new, strange, experimental day for TED. In a special Earth Day event, TED2020: The Prequel brought the magic of the TED conference to the virtual stage, inviting TED2020 community members to gather for three sessions of talks and engaging, innovative opportunities to connect. Alongside world-changing ideas from leaders in science, political strategy and environmental activism, attendees also experienced the debut of an interactive, TED-developed second-screen technology that gave them the opportunity to discuss ideas, ask questions of speakers and give real-time (emoji-driven) feedback to the stage. Below, a recap of the day’s inspiring talks, performances and conversations.

Session 1: Fragility

The opening session featured thinking on the fragile state of the present — and some hopes for the future.

Larry Brilliant, epidemiologist

Big idea: Global cooperation is the key to ending the novel coronavirus pandemic.

How? In a live conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, epidemiologist Larry Brilliant reviews the global response to SARS-CoV-2 and reflects on what we can do to end the outbreak. While scientists were able to detect and identify the virus quickly, Brilliant says, political incompetence and fear delayed action. Discussing the deadly combination of a short incubation period with a high transmissibility rate, he explains how social distancing doesn’t stamp out the disease but rather slows its spread, giving us the time needed to execute crucial contact tracing and develop a vaccine. Brilliant shares how scientists are collaborating to speed up the vaccine timeline by running multiple processes (like safety testing and manufacturing) in parallel, rather than in a time-consuming sequential process. And he reminds us that to truly conquer the pandemic, we must work together across national boundaries and political divides. Watch the conversation on TED.com » 

Quote of the talk: “This is what a pandemic forces us to realize: we are all in it together, we need a global solution to a global problem. Anything less than that is unthinkable.”

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Huang Hung, writer, publisher

Big idea: Individual freedom as an abstract concept in a pandemic is meaningless. It’s time for the West to take a step toward the East.

How? By embracing and prizing collective responsibility. In conversation with TED’s head of curation, Helen Walters, writer and publisher Huang Hung discusses how the Chinese people’s inherent trust in their government to fix problems (even when the solutions are disliked) played out with COVID-19, the handling of coronavirus whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang and what, exactly, “wok throwing” is. What seems normal and appropriate to the Chinese, Hung says — things like contact tracing and temperature checks at malls — may seem surprising and unfamiliar to Westerners at first, but these tools can be our best bet to fight a pandemic. What’s most important now is to think about the collective, not the individual. “It is a time to be together rather than to try to pull the world apart and crawl back into our own nationalistic shells,” she says.

Fun fact: There’s a word — 乖, or “guai” — that exists only in Chinese: it means a child who listens to their parents.

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Oliver Jeffers, artist, storyteller

Big idea: In the face of infinite odds, 7.5 billion of us (and counting) find ourselves here, on Earth, and that shared existence is the most important thing we have.

Why? In a poetic effort to introduce life on Earth to someone who’s never been here before, artist Oliver Jeffers wrote his newborn son a letter (which grew into a book, and then a sculpture) full of pearls of wisdom on our shared humanity. Alongside charming, original illustrations, he gives some of his best advice for living on this planet. Jeffers acknowledges that, in the grand scheme of things, we know very little about existence — except that we are experiencing it together. And we should relish that connection. Watch the talk on TED.com »

Quote of the talk: “‘For all we know,’ when said as a statement, means the sum total of all knowledge. But ‘for all we know’ when said another way, means that we do not know at all. This is the beautiful, fragile drama of civilization. We are the actors and spectators of a cosmic play that means the world to us here but means nothing anywhere else.”

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Musical interludes from 14-year old prodigy Lydian Nadhaswaram, who shared an energetic, improvised version of Gershwin’s “Summertime,” and musician, singer and songwriter Sierra Hull, who played her song “Beautifully Out of Place.”

 

Session 2: Resilience

Session 2 focused on The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED that’s unlocking social impact on a grand scale. The session saw the debut of three 2020 Audacious grantees — Crisis Text Line, The Collins Lab and ACEGID — that are spearheading bold and innovative solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Their inspirational work on the front lines is delivering urgent support to help the most vulnerable through this crisis.

Pardis Sabeti and Christian Happi, disease researchers

Big idea: Combining genomics with new information technologies, Sentinel — an early warning system that can detect and respond to emerging viral threats in real-time — aims to radically change how we catch and control outbreaks. With the novel coronavirus pandemic, Sentinel is pivoting to become a frontline responder to COVID-19.

How? From advances in the field of genomics, the team at Sentinel has developed two tools to detect viruses, track outbreaks and watch for mutations. First is Sherlock, a new method to test viruses with simple paper strips — and identify them within hours. The second is Carmen, which enables labs to test hundreds of viruses simultaneously, massively increasing diagnostic ability. By pairing these tools with mobile and cloud-based technologies, Sentinel aims to connect health workers across the world and share critical information to preempt pandemics. As COVID-19 sweeps the globe, the Sentinel team is helping scientists detect the virus quicker and empower health workers to connect and better contain the outbreak. See what you can do for this idea »

Quote of the talk: “The whole idea of Sentinel is that we all stand guard over each other, we all watch. Each one of us is a sentinel.”

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Jim Collins, bioengineer

Big idea: AI is our secret weapon against the novel coronavirus.

How? Bioengineer Jim Collins rightly touts the promise and potential of technology as a tool to discover solutions to humanity’s biggest molecular problems. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, his team combined AI with synthetic biology data, seeking to avoid a similar battle that’s on the horizon: superbugs and antibiotic resistance. But in the shadow of the present global crisis, they pivoted these technologies to help defeat the virus. They have made strides in using machine learning to discover new antiviral compounds and develop a hybrid protective mask-diagnostic test. Thanks to funding from The Audacious Project, Collins’s team will develop seven new antibiotics over seven years, with their immediate focus being treatments to help combat bacterial infections that occur alongside SARS-CoV-2. See what you can do for this idea »

Quote of the talk: “Instead of looking for a needle in a haystack, we can use the giant magnet of computing power to find many needles in multiple haystacks simultaneously.”

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Nancy Lublin, health activist

Big idea: Crisis Text Line, a free 24-hour service that connects with people via text message, delivers crucial mental health support to those who need it. Now they’re going global.

How? Using mobile technology, machine learning and a large distributed network of volunteers, Crisis Text Line helps people in times of crisis, no matter the situation. Here’s how it works: If you’re in the United States or Canada, you can text HOME to 741741 and connect with a live, trained Crisis Counselor, who will provide confidential help via text message. (Numbers vary for the UK and Ireland; find them here.) The not-for-profit launched in August 2013 and within four months had expanded to all 274 area codes in the US. Over the next two-and-a-half years, they’re committing to providing aid to anyone who needs it not only in English but also in Spanish, Portuguese, French and Arabic — covering 32 percent of the globe. Learn how you can join the movement to spread empathy across the world by becoming a Crisis Counselor. See what you can do for this idea »

Quote of the talk: “This will be strangers helping strangers around the world — like a giant global love machine.”

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Music and interludes from Damian Kulash and OK Go, who showed love for frontline pandemic workers with the debut of a special quarantine performance, and David Whyte, who recited his poem “What to Remember When Waking,” inviting us to celebrate that first, hardly-noticed moment when we wake up each day. “What you can plan is too small for you to live,” Whyte says.

 

Session 3: Restoration

The closing session considered ways to restore our planet’s health and work towards a beautiful, clean, carbon-free future.

Tom Rivett-Carnac, political strategist

Big idea: We need stubborn optimism coupled with action to meet our most formidable challenges.

How: Speaking from the woods outside his home in England, political strategist Tom Rivett-Carnac addresses the loss of control and helplessness we may feel as a result of overwhelming threats like climate change. Looking to leaders from history who have blazed the way forward in dark times, he finds that people like Rosa Parks, Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi had something in common: stubborn optimism. This mindset, he says, is not naivety or denial but rather a refusal to be defeated. Stubborn optimism, when paired with action, can infuse our efforts with meaning and help us choose the world we want to create. Watch the talk on TED.com »

Quote of the talk: “This stubborn optimism is a form of applied love … and it is a choice for all of us.”

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Kristine Tompkins, Earth activist, conservationist

Big idea: Earth, humanity and nature are all interconnected. To restore us all back to health, let’s “rewild” the world. 

Why? The disappearance of wildlife from its natural habitat is a problem to be met with action, not nostalgia. Activist and former Patagonia CEO Kristine Tompkins decided she would dedicate the rest of her life to that work. By purchasing privately owned wild habitats, restoring their ecosystems and transforming them into protected national parks, Tompkins shows the transformational power of wildlands philanthropy. She urgently spreads the importance of this kind of “rewilding” work — and shows that we all have a role to play. “The power of the absent can’t help us if it just leads to nostalgia or despair,” she says. “It’s only useful if it motivates us toward working to bring back what’s gone missing.”

Quote of the talk: “Every human life is affected by the actions of every other human life around the globe. And the fate of humanity is tied to the health of the planet. We have a common destiny. We can flourish or we can suffer, but we’re going to be doing it together.”

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Music and interludes from Amanda Palmer, who channels her inner Gonzo with a performance of “I’m Going To Go Back There Someday” from The Muppet Movie; Baratunde Thurston, who took a moment to show gratitude for Earth and reflect on the challenge humanity faces in restoring balance to our lives; singer-songwriter Alice Smith, who gives a hauntingly beautiful vocal performance of her original song “The Meaning,” dedicated of Mother Earth; and author Neil Gaiman, reading an excerpt about the fragile beauty that lies at the heart of life.

Ignite: The talks of TED@WellsFargo

World-changing ideas that unearth solutions and ignite progress can come from anywhere. With that spirit in mind at TED@WellsFargo, thirteen speakers showcased how human empathy and problem-solving can combine with technology to transform lives (and banking) for the better.

The event: TED@WellsFargo, a day of thought-provoking talks on topics including how to handle challenging situations at work, the value of giving back and why differences can be strengths. It’s the first time TED and Wells Fargo have partnered to create inspiring talks from Wells Fargo Team Members.

When and where: Wednesday, February 5, 2020, at the Knight Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina

Opening and closing remarks: David Galloreese, Wells Fargo Head of Human Resources, and Jamie Moldafsky, Wells Fargo Chief Marketing Officer

Performances by: Dancer Simone Cooper and singer/songwriter Jason Jet and his band

The talks in brief:

Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez, sales and trading analyst

Big idea: As an immigrant, learning to thrive in America while watching other immigrants struggle oddly echoes what flight attendants instruct us to do when the oxygen masks drop in an emergency landing: if you want to help others put on their masks, you must put on your own mask first.

How? At age 15, Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez found herself alone in the US when her parents were forced to return to Mexico, taking her eight-year-old brother with them. For eight years, she diligently completed her education — and grappled with guilt, believing she wasn’t doing enough to aid fellow immigrants. Now working as a sales and trading analyst while guiding her brother through school in New York, she’s learned a valuable truth: in an emergency, you can’t save others until you save yourself.

Quote of the talk: “Immigrants [can’t] and will never be able to fit into any one narrative, because most of us are actually just traveling along a spectrum, trying to survive.”

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Matt Trombley, customer remediation supervisor

Big idea: Agonism — “taking a warlike stance in contexts that are not literally war” — plagues many aspects of modern-day life, from the way we look at our neighbors to the way we talk about politics. Can we work our way out of this divisive mindset?

How: Often we think that those we disagree with are our enemies, or that we must approve of everything our loved ones say or believe. Not surprisingly, this is disastrous for relationships. Matt Trombley shows us how to fight agonism by cultivating common ground (working to find just a single shared thread with someone) and by forgiving others for the slights that we believe their values cause us. If we do this, our relationships will truly come to life.

Quote of the talk: “When you can find even the smallest bit of common ground with somebody, it allows you to understand just the beautiful wonder and complexity and majesty of the other person.”

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Dorothy Walker, project manager

Big idea: Anybody can help resolve a conflict — between friends, coworkers, strangers, your children — with three simple steps.

How? Step one: prepare. Whenever possible, set a future date and time to work through a conflict, when emotions aren’t running as high. Step two: defuse and move forward. When you do begin mediating the conflict, start off by observing, listening and asking neutral questions; this will cause both parties to stop and think, and give you a chance to shift positive energy into the conversation. Finally, step three: make an agreement. Once the energy of the conflict has settled, it’s time to get an agreement (either written or verbal) so everybody can walk away with a peaceful resolution.

Quote of the talk: “There is a resolution to all conflicts. It just takes your willingness to try.”

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Charles Smith, branch manager

Big idea: The high rate of veteran suicide is intolerable — and potentially avoidable. By prioritizing the mental health of military service members both during and after active duty, we can save lives.

How? There are actionable solutions to end the devastating epidemic of military suicide, says Charles Smith. First, by implementing a standard mental health evaluation to military applicants, we can better gauge the preliminary markers of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression. Data is a vital part of the solution: if we keep better track of mental health data on service members, we can also predict where support is most needed and create those structures proactively. By identifying those with a higher risk early on in their military careers, we can ensure they have appropriate care during their service and connect them to the resources they need once they are discharged, enabling veterans to securely and safely rejoin civilian life.

Quote of the talk: “If we put our minds and resources together, and we openly talk and try to find solutions for this epidemic, hopefully, we can save a life.”

Rob Cooke, premier banker

Big idea: Work-related stress costs us a lot, in our lives and the economy. We need to reframe the way we manage stress — both in our workplaces and in our minds.

How? “We tend to think of [stress] as a consequence, but I see it as a culture,” says Rob Cooke. Despite massive global investments in the wellness industry, we are still losing trillions of dollars due to a stress-related decrease in employee productivity and illness. Cooke shares a multifaceted approach to shifting the way stress is managed, internally and culturally. It starts with corporations prioritizing the well-being of employees, governments incentivizing high standards for workplace wellness and individually nurturing our relationship with our own mental health.

Quote of the talk: “We all know retirement is all about saving more now, for later. What if we treated our mental health and overall well-being in the same capacity? Develop and save more of you now, for later in life.”

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Aeris Nguyen, learning and development facilitator

Big idea: What would our world be like if we could use DNA to verify our identity?

Why? Every year, millions of people have their identities stolen or misused. This fact got Aeris Nguyen thinking about how to safeguard our information for good. She shares an ambitious thought experiment, asking: Can we use our own bodies to verify our selves? While biometric data such as facial or palm print recognition have their own pitfalls (they can be easily fooled by, say, wearing a specially lighted hat or using a wax hand), what if we could use our DNA — our blood, hair or earwax? Nguyen acknowledges the ethical dilemmas and logistical nightmares that would come with collecting and storing more than seven billion files of DNA, but she can’t help but wonder if someday, in the far future, this will become the norm.

Quote of the talk: “Don’t you find it strange that we carry around these arbitrary, government assigned numbers or pieces of paper with our picture on it and some made-up passwords to prove we are who we say we are?  When, in fact, the most rock-solid proof of our identity is something we carry around in our cells — our DNA.”

France Villarta, communications consultant

Big idea: Modern ideas of gender are much older than we may think.

How? In many cultures around the world, the social construct of gender is binary — man or woman, assigned certain characteristics and traits, all designated by biological sex. But that’s not the case for every culture. France Villarta details the gender-fluid history of his native Philippines and how the influence of colonial rule forced narrow-minded beliefs onto its people. In a talk that’s part cultural love letter, part history lesson, Villarta emphasizes the beauty and need in reclaiming gender identities. “Oftentimes, we think of something as strange only because we’re not familiar with it or haven’t taken enough time to try and understand,” he says. “The good thing about social constructs is that they can be reconstructed — to fit a time and age.”

Quote of the talk: “To anyone reeling from forces trying to knock you down and cram you into these neat little boxes people have decided for you — don’t break. I see you. My ancestors see you. Their blood runs through me as they run through so many of us. You are valid. And you deserve rights and recognition. Just like everyone else.”

Dean Furness, analytic consultant

Big idea: You can overcome personal challenges by focusing on yourself, instead of making comparisons to others.

How? After a farming accident paralyzed Dean Furness below the waist, he began the process of adjusting to life in a wheelchair. He realized he’d have to nurture and focus on this new version of himself, rather than fixate on his former height, strength and mobility. With several years of rehabilitation and encouragement from his physical therapist, Furness began competing in the Chicago and Boston marathons as a wheelchair athlete. By learning how to own each day, he says, we can all work to get better, little by little.

Quote of the talk: “Take some time and focus on you, instead of others. I bet you can win those challenges and really start accomplishing great things.”

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John Puthenveetil, financial advisor

Big idea: Because of the uncertain world we live in, many seek solace from “certainty merchants” — like physicians, priests and financial advisors. Given the complex, chaotic mechanisms of our economy, we’re better off discarding “certainty” for better planning.

How? We must embrace adaptable plans that address all probable contingencies, not just the most obvious ones. This is a crucial component of “scenario-based planning,” says John Puthenveetil. We should always aim for being approximately right rather than precisely wrong. But this only works if we pay attention, heed portents of possible change and act decisively — even when that’s uncomfortable.

Quote of the talk: “It is up to us to use [scenario-based planning] wisely: Not out of a sense of weakness or fear, but out of the strength and conviction that comes from knowing that we are prepared to play the hand that is dealt.”

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Johanna Figueira, digital marketing consultant

Big idea: The world is more connected than ever, but some communities are still being cut off from vital resources. The solution? Digitally matching professional expertise with locals who know what their communities really need.

How? Johanna Figueira is one of millions who has left Venezuela due to economic crisis, crumbling infrastructure and decline in health care — but she hasn’t left these issues behind. With the help of those still living in the country, Figueira helped organize Code for Venezuela — a platform that matches experts with communities in need to create simple, effective tools to improve quality of life. She shares two of their most successful projects: MediTweet, an intelligent Twitter bot that helps Venezuelans find medicinal supplies, and Blackout Tracker, a tool that helps pinpoint power cuts in Venezuela that the government won’t report. Her organization shows the massive difference made when locals participate in their own solutions.

Quote of the talk: “Some people in Silicon Valley may look at these projects and say that they’re not major technological innovations. But that’s the point. These projects are not insanely advanced — but it’s what the people of Venezuela need, and they can have a tremendous impact.”

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Jeanne Goldie, branch sales manager

Big idea: We’re looking for dynamic hotbeds of innovation in all the wrong places.

How? Often, society looks to the young for the next big thing, leaving older generations to languish in their shadow until being shuffled out altogether, taking their brain power and productivity with them. Instead of discarding today’s senior workforce, Jeanne Goldie suggests we tap into their years of experience and retrain them, just as space flight has moved from the disposable rockets of NASA’s moon launches to today’s reusable Space X models.

Quote of the talk: “If we look at data and technology as the tools they are … but not as the answer, we can come up with better solutions to our most challenging problems.”

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Rebecca Knill, business systems consultant

Big idea: By shifting our cultural understanding of ability and using technology to connect, we can build a more inclusive and human world.

How? The medical advances of modern technology have improved accessibility for disabled communities. Rebecca Knill, a self-described cyborg who has a cochlear implant, believes the next step to a more connected world is changing our perspectives. For example, being deaf isn’t shameful or pitiful, says Knill — it’s just a different way of navigating the world. To take full advantage of the fantastic opportunities new technology offers us, we must drop our assumptions and meet differences with empathy.

Quote of the talk: “Technology has come so far. Our mindset just needs to catch up.”

Anastasia Penright, business consultant

Big idea: No workplace is immune to drama, but there are steps we can follow to remove ourselves from the chatter and focus on what’s really important.

How? No matter your industry, chances are you’ve experienced workplace drama. In a funny and relatable talk, Anastasia Penright shares a better way to coexist with our coworkers using five simple steps she’s taken to leave drama behind and excel in her career. First, we must honestly evaluate our own role in creating and perpetuating conflicts; then evaluate our thoughts and stop thinking about every possible scenario. Next, it’s important to release our negative energy to a trusted confidant (a “venting buddy”) while trying to understand and accept the unique communication styles and work languages of our colleagues. Finally, she says, we need to recognize when we’re about to step into drama and protect our energy by simply walking away.

Quote of the talk: “We have to learn to accept where people are and adjust ourselves to handle those situations … to recognize when it is time to professionally walk away from someone.”

Truth Tellers: Notes from Session 1 of TEDWomen 2019

The stage is set for TEDWomen 2019: Bold + Brilliant! In the opening session, we heard from an extraordinary lineup of truth tellers. Six speakers and two performers shined a light on issues ranging from immigration to leadership and inclusion — and how we can shatter the glass ceiling once and for all — sharing new ways to look at old problems.

The event: TEDWomen 2019, Session 1: Truth Tellers, hosted by Pat Mitchell, Helen Walters and Kelly Stoetzel

When and where: Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 5pm PT, at La Quinta Resort & Club in La Quinta, California

Speakers: H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Sister Norma Pimentel, Yifat Susskind, Gina Brillon, Heather C. McGhee, Eve Ensler

Opening: Reid D. Milanovich, Vice Chair of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, welcomes TEDWomen attendees to the Cahuilla Valley, which has been his tribe’s ancestral homeland for thousands of years.

The talks in brief:

H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nobel laureate, former President of Liberia

Big idea: A nation needs women leaders to prosper. We must work together to remove the barriers that have kept them from achieving full equality and political representation.

How? When H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf began her 12-year presidency of Liberia in 2006, she inherited the challenges of a country harmed by years of conflict: economic collapse, infrastructure destruction and institutional dysfunction. Most challenging of all was the damage women and children endured during the civil war, she says. Though Sirleaf helped steward financial growth and the reconstruction of the nation’s infrastructure, there’s still work to be done. On the TEDWomen stage, she announced the recent launch of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development, which aims to elevate women into strategic government positions and break through the structural barriers that allow inequality thrive. Only by working towards full gender equity can we ensure peace and prosperity for all, she says.

Quote of the talk: “I was the first woman president of an African nation, and I do believe more countries ought to try that.”

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Sister Norma Pimentel, religious leader, sister with the Missionaries of Jesus, licensed professional counselor

Big idea: We must see that immigrants are a part of the same human family as the rest of us. If not, we stand to lose our own humanity.

Why? In her work at detention facilities at the US-Mexico border, Sister Norma Pimentel has learned that the people there simply want what all of us desire: safer, better lives for themselves and their families. While the humanitarian response has been impressive and supported by many dedicated volunteers, the policies and procedures in place cause great suffering — particularly for separated children and parents. We need to put aside our prejudices and fears and treat migrants in a respectful and compassionate manner.

Quote of the talk: “It’s important to be able to see [migrants] as people, to be able to have a personal encounter when we can feel what they feel, when we can understand what they’re hurting. … It is then that we are present to them and we can make their humanity a part of our own humanity.”

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Yifat Susskind, human rights activist

Big idea: In a time of global strife and uncertainty, we can secure a brighter future by “thinking like a mother” — with optimism and empathy.

Why? When you think like a mother, you imagine a better world and act to make it possible, says Yifat Susskind. Because mothers are versed in a vital language: the language of love. When love drives our actions, we feel empowered to repair the world and protect those in need. Empathy and optimism are powerful tools, she says, both in our own lives and across public policy. By thinking like mothers and acting with care, we can prioritize the most vulnerable and forge a luminous, resilient path forward.

Quote of the talk: “Love isn’t just an emotion, it’s a capacity. A verb. An endlessly renewable resource.”

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A comedic interlude: Comedian Gina Brillon commanded the stage with an uproarious stand-up performance, poking fun at everyday annoyances and interactions. “Have you ever had somebody say something wrong with such confidence that it made you question how you’ve been saying it your whole life?” she joked.

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Heather C. McGhee, writer, advocate

Big idea: Racism is bad for everyone — even the people set up to benefit from privilege.

Why? Heather C. McGhee is a self-proclaimed “public policy wonk.” She investigates problems in the American economy: rising household debt, declining wages and shortfalls in infrastructure investment. Through her research and travels across the US, she’s come to a chilling conclusion: racism is making our economy worse — and not just in ways that disadvantage people of color. “It turns out it’s not a zero sum,” she says. “Racism is bad for white people, too.” Take, for example, the subprime mortgages that precipitated the 2008 recession. African Americans and Latinos were three times as likely as white people to be sold these toxic loans, even if their credit was as good. Stereotypes blinded many policymakers to this reality, keeping them from stopping the crisis even when there was still time. McGhee says the way forward is to hold accountable the people selling racist ideas for profit — and start recognizing that we’re all on the same team.

Quote of the talk: “It’s time to reject that old paradigm and realize that our fates are linked. An injury to one is an injury to all.”

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A special performance: Artistic director Alice Sheppard speaks about the work of her dance company Kinetic Light, which creates movement that challenges conventional understandings of disabled and dancing bodies. As she puts it: disability is the spark for artistry, aesthetic and innovation. She’s joined onstage by her choreographic collaborator Laurel Lawson, in a stunning performance.

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Eve Ensler, author, playwright

Big idea: After calling abusers out, we now have to call them in. We need to invite them to take responsibility for their actions, to apologize and change. 

How? Eve Ensler waited most of her life for an apology. As a child, she was sexually and physically abused by her father. Nearly 31 years after his death, she sat down to write the apology that he never gave her — expressing, from his perspective, the words she needed to hear. Now, in the wake of the Me Too and Times Up movements, she shares how the incredible power of apologies could offer us a way forward. It boils down to abusers taking four crucial steps: admit your wrongdoing in detail; ask yourself why you did it; sit with the suffering and hurt you’ve caused; and take responsibility and make amends. An apology, she says, is the only way for both the victim and the abuser to be free. Let’s create a better process that invites abusers to repent and become someone different along the way.

Quote of the talk: “We don’t want men to be destroyed, we don’t want them to only be punished. We want them to see us, the victims that they have harmed, and we want them to repent and change.”

The TED Interview podcast kicks off season 3

The TED Interview launches its newest season on October 9, 2019. Last season notably featured Bill Gates, Monica Lewinsky and Susan Cain — and you can expect another thoughtful lineup of scientists, thinkers and artists for the new season.

Season 3 features eight episodes, during which head of TED Chris Anderson will continue to inspire curiosity with in-depth conversations on our consciousness, the ways we navigate community and the power of embracing paradox.

During Season 3, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert expands on his TED Talk concerning the science of happiness; Turkish-British author Elif Shafak deconstructs storytelling and global community; and Michael Tubbs, one of the world’s youngest mayors, makes a case for universal basic income.

Listen to the first episode with happiness expert Dan Gilbert on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

With a diverse lineup of global thought leaders, TED’s podcasts are downloaded in more than 190 countries (nearly every place on Earth!). “Just like the ideas we explore, The TED Interview continues to grow with even more thoughtful and challenging conversations this season,” says Chris Anderson. “We’ve hit our stride and will be delving deeper into the minds of some of TED’s most remarkable speakers.”

More speakers will be unveiled throughout the season, and you can listen to them on The TED Interview for free on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. New hour-long episodes air every Wednesday. 

TED’s content programming extends beyond its signature TED Talk format with six original podcasts. In August 2019, TED was ranked among Podtrac’s Top 10 Publishers in the US.

The TED Interview is proudly sponsored by Lexus, whose passion for brave design, imaginative technology and exhilarating performance enables the luxury lifestyle brand to create amazing experiences for its customers.

We the Future 2019: Talks from TED, the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation

At “We the Future,” a day of talks from TED, the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation at the TED World Theater in New York City, 18 speakers and performers shared daring ideas, deep analysis, cautionary tales and behavior-changing strategies aimed at meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the global goals created in partnership with individuals around the world and adopted at the United Nations in 2015.

The event: We the Future, presented by TED, the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation to share ingenious efforts of people from every corner of the globe

When and where: Tuesday, September 24, 2019, at the TED World Theater in New York, NY

Music: Queen Esther with Hilliard Greene and Jeff McGlaughlin, performing the jazzy “Blow Blossoms” and the protest song “All That We Are”

The talks in brief:

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David Wallace-Wells, journalist

Big idea: The climate crisis is too vast and complicated to solve with a silver bullet. We need a shift in how we live: a whole new politics, economics and relationship to technology and nature.

Why? The climate crisis isn’t the legacy of our ancestors, but the work of a single generation — ours, says Wallace-Wells. Half of all the emissions from the burning of fossil fuels in the history of humanity were produced in the last 30 years. We clearly have immense power over the climate, and it’s put us on the brink of catastrophe — but it also means we’re the ones writing the story of our planet’s future. If we are to survive, we’ll need to reshape society as we know it — from building entirely new electric grids, planes and infrastructures to rethinking the way the global community comes together to support those hit hardest by climate change. In we do that, we just might build a new world that’s livable, prosperous and green.

Quote of the talk: “We won’t be able to beat climate change — only live with it and limit it.”

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Kristen Wenz, legal identity expert

Big idea: More than one billion people — mostly children — don’t have legal identities or birth certificates, which means they can’t get vital government services like health care and schooling. It’s a massive human rights violation we need to fix.

How? There are five key approaches to ensuring children are registered and protected — reduce distance, reduce cost, simplify the process, remove discrimination and increase demand. In Tanzania, the government helped make it easier for new parents to register their child by creating an online registration system and opening up registration hubs in communities. The results were dramatic: the number of children with birth certificates went from 16 to 83 percent in just a few years. By designing solutions with these approaches in mind, we can provide better protection and brighter opportunities for children across the world.

Quote of the talk: “When the cost of inaction is that innocent children are left unprotected, unvaccinated, unable to go to school … trapped in a cycle of poverty, exclusion and invisibility, it’s on us to take this issue out of darkness and into the light.”

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Don Gips, CEO of the Skoll Foundation, in conversation with TEDWomen curator and author Pat Michell

Big idea: Don Gips turned away from careers in both government and business and became CEO of the Skoll Foundation for one reason: the opportunity to take charge of investing in solutions to the most urgent issues humanity faces. Now, it’s the foundation’s mission to identify the investments that will spark the greatest changes.

How?

By reaching deeper into communities and discovering and investing in social entrepreneurs and other changemakers, the Skoll Foundation supports promising solutions to urgent global problems. As their investments yield positive results, Gips hopes to inspire the rest of the philanthropic community to find better ways to direct their resources.

Quote of the interview: “We don’t tell the changemaker what the solution is. We invest in their solution, and go along on the journey with them.”

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Alejandro Durán, artist

Big Idea: Art can spotlight the environmental atrocities happening to our oceans — leaving viewers both mesmerized and shocked.

Why? From prosthetic legs to bottle caps, artist Alejandro Durán makes ephemeral environmental artworks out of objects he finds polluting the waters of his native region of Sian Ka’an, Mexico. He meticulously organizes materials by color and curates them into site-specific work. Durán put on his first “Museo de La Basura or Museum of Garbage“ exhibition in 2015, which spoke to the horrors of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and he’s still making art that speaks to the problem of ocean trash. By endlessly reusing objects in his art, Durán creates new works that engage communities in environmental art-making, attempting to depict the reality of our current environmental predicament and make the invisible visible.

Quote of the talk: “By making aesthetic, some might say beautiful, arrangements out of the world’s waste, I hope to hook the viewer, to draw in those that are numb to the horrors of the world, and give them a different way to understand what is happening.”

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Andrew Forrest, entrepreneur, in conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson

Big idea: The true — and achievable! — business case for investing in plastic recycling.

How? Since earning his PhD in marine ecology, Forrest has dedicated his time and money to solving the global plastic problem, which is choking our waterways and oceans with toxic material that never biodegrades. “I learned a lot about marine life,” he says of his academic experience. “But it taught me more about marine death.” To save ourselves and our underwater neighbors from death by nanoplastics, Forrest says we need the big corporations of the world to fund a massive environmental transition that includes increasing the price of plastic and turning the tide on the recycling industry.

Quote of the talk: “[Plastic] is an incredible substance designed for the economy. It’s the worst substance possible for the environment.”

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Raj Panjabi, cofounder of medical NGO Last Mile Health

Big idea: Community health workers armed with training and technology are our first line of defense against deadly viral surges. If we are to fully protect the world from killer diseases, we must ensure that people living in the most remote areas of the planet are never far from a community health worker trained to throttle epidemics at their outset.

How? In December 2013, Ebola broke out in West Africa and began a transborder spread that threatened to wipe out millions of people. Disease fighters across Africa joined the battle to stop it — including Liberian health workers trained by Last Mile Health and armed with the technology, knowledge and support necessary to serve their communities. With their help, Ebola was stopped (for now), after killing 11,000 people. Panjabi believes that if we train and pay more community health workers, their presence in underserved areas will not only stop epidemics but also save the lives of the millions of people threatened by diseases like malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea.

Quote of the talk: “We dream of a future when millions of people … can gain dignified jobs as community health workers, so they can serve their neighbors in the forest communities of West Africa to the fishing villages of the Amazon; from the hilltops of Appalachia to the mountains of Afghanistan.”

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Tashka and Laura Yawanawá, leaders of the Yawanawá in Acre, Brazil

Big idea: To save the Amazon rainforest, let’s empower indigenous people who have been coexisting with the rainforest for centuries.

Why? Tashka Yawanawá is chief of the Yawanawá people in Acre, Brazil, leading 900 people who steward 400,000 acres of Brazilian Amazon rainforest. As footage of the Amazon burning shocks the world’s consciousness, Tashka and his wife, Laura, call for us to transform this moment into an opportunity to support indigenous people who have the experience, knowledge and tools to protect the land.

Quote of the talk: “Indigenous people have the answer. If we want to save the Amazon, we have to act now.”

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Alasdair Harris, ocean conservationist

Big idea: To the impoverished fishers that rely on the sea for their food, and who comprise 90 percent of the world’s fishing fleet, outside interference by scientists and marine managers can seem like just another barrier to their survival. Could the world rejuvenate its marine life and replenish its fish stocks by inspiring coastal communities rather than simply regulating them?

How? When he first went to Madagascar, marine biologist Alasdair Harris failed to convince local leaders to agree to a years-long plan to close their threatened coral reefs to fishing. But when a contained plan to preserve a breeding ground for an important local species of octopus led to rapid growth in catches six months later, the same elders banded together with leaders across Madagascar to spearhead a conservation revolution. Today, Harris’s organization Blue Ventures works to help coastal communities worldwide take control of their own ecosystems.

Quote of the talk: “When we design it right, marine conservation reaps dividends that go far beyond protecting nature — improving catches, driving waves of social change along entire coastlines, strengthening confidence, cooperation and the resilience of communities to face the injustice of poverty and climate change.”

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Bright Simons, social entrepreneur and product security expert

Big idea: A global breakdown of the trustworthiness of markets and regulatory institutions has led to a flurry of counterfeit drugs, mislabeled food and defective parts. Africa has been dealing with counterfeit goods for years, and entrepreneurs like Bright Simons have developed myriad ways consumers can confirm that their food and drug purchases are genuine. Why are these methods ignored in the rest of the world?

How? Bright Simons demonstrates some of the innovative solutions Africans use to restore trust in their life-giving staples, such as text hotlines to confirm medications are real and seed databases to certify the authenticity of crops. Yet in the developed world, these solutions are often overlooked because they “don’t scale” — an attitude Simons calls “mental latitude imperialism.” It’s time to champion “intellectual justice” — and look at these supposedly non-scalable innovations with new respect.

Quote of the talk: “It just so happens that today, the most advanced and most progressive solutions to these problems are being innovated in the developing world.”

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LaToya Ruby Frazier, artist 

Big Idea: LaToya Ruby Frazier’s powerful portraits of women in Flint, Michigan document the reality of the Flint water crisis, bringing awareness to the ongoing issue and creating real, positive change.

How? Frazier’s portraits of the daily lives of women affected by the Flint water crisis are striking reminders that, after all the news crews were gone, the people of Flint still did not have clean water. For one photo series, she closely followed the lives of Amber Hasan and Shea Cobb — two activists, poets and best friends — who were working to educate the public about the water crisis. Frazier has continued collaborating with Hasan and Cobb to seek justice and relief for those suffering in Flint. In 2019, they helped raise funds for an atmospheric water generator that provided 120,000 gallons of water to Flint residents. 

Quote of the talk: “Water is life. It is the spirit that binds us from sickness, death and destruction. Imagine how many millions of lives we could save if [the atmospheric water generator] were in places like Newark, New Jersey, South Africa and India — with compassion instead of profit motives.”

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Cassie Flynn, global climate change advisor

Big idea: We need a new way to get citizen consensus on climate change and connect them with governments and global leaders.

How? The United Nations is taking on an entirely new model of reaching the masses: mobile phone games. Flynn shares how their game “Mission 1.5” can help people learn about their policy choices on climate change by allowing them to play as heads of state. From there, the outcomes of their gameplay will be compiled and shared with their national leaders and the public. Flynn foresees this as a fresh, feasible way to meet citizens where they are, to educate them about climate change and to better connect them to the people who are making those tough decisions.

Quote of the talk: “Right now, world leaders are faced with the biggest and most impactful decisions of their entire lives. What they decide to do on climate change will either lead to a riskier, more unstable planet or a future that is more prosperous and sustainable for us all.”

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Wanjira Mathai, entrepreneur

Big Idea: Corruption is a constant threat in Kenya. To defeat it there and anywhere, we need to steer youth towards integrity through education and help them understand the power of the individual.

Why? In 1989, the Karura Forest, a green public oasis in Nairobi, Kenya, was almost taken away by a corrupt government until political activist Wangari Maathai, Nobel Prize recipient and founder of the Greenbelt Movement, fought back fiercely and won. Continuing Maathai’s legacy, her daughter Wanjira explains how corruption is still very much alive in Kenya — a country that loses a third of its state budget to corruption every year. “Human beings are not born corrupt. At some point these behaviors are fostered by a culture that promotes individual gain over collective progress,” she says. She shares a three-pronged strategy for fighting corruption before it takes root by addressing why it happens, modeling integrity and teaching leadership skills.

Quote of the talk: “We cannot complain forever. We either decide that we are going to live with it, or we are going to change it. And if we are going to change it, we know that today, most of the world’s problems are caused by corruption and greed and selfishness.”

It’s not about privacy — it’s about power: Carole Cadwalladr speaks at TEDSummit 2019

Three months after her landmark talk, Carole Cadwalladr is back at TED. In conversation with curator Bruno Giussani, Cadwalladr discusses the latest on her reporting on the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal and what we still don’t know about the transatlantic links between Brexit and the 2016 US presidential election.

“Who has the information, who has the data about you, that is where power now lies,” Cadwalladr says.

Cadwalladr appears in The Great Hack, a documentary by Karim Amer and TED Prize winner Jehane Noujaim that explores how Cambridge Analytica has come to symbolize the dark side of social media. The documentary was screened for TEDSummit participants today. Watch it in select theaters and on Netflix starting July 24.

Learn more about how you can support Cadwalladr’s investigation into data, disinformation and democracy.

Trailblazers: A night of talks in partnership with The Macallan

The event: TED Salon: Trailblazers, hosted by TED design and arts curator Chee Pearlman and TED science curator David Biello

When and where: Thursday, June 27, 2019, at the TED World Theater in New York City

The partner: The Macallan

Music: Sammy Rae & The Friends

The talks in brief:

Marcus Bullock, entrepreneur and justice reform advocate

• Big idea: Over his eight-year prison sentence, Marcus Bullock was sustained by his mother’s love — and her photos of cheeseburgers. Years later, as an entrepreneur, he asked himself, “How can I help make it easier for other families to deliver love to their own incarcerated loved ones?”
  Communicating with prisoners is notoriously difficult and dominated by often-predatory telecommunications companies. By creating Flikshop — an app that allows inmates’ friends and families to send physical picture postcards into prison with the ease of texting — Marcus Bullock is bypassing the billion-dollar prison telecommunications industry and allowing hundreds of thousands of prisoners access to the same love and motivation that his mother gave him.
• Quote of the talk: “I stand today with a felony, and just like millions of others around the country who also have that ‘F’ on their chest, just as my mom promised me many years ago, I wanted to show them that there was still life after prison.”

Becca McCharen-Tran, founder and creative director of bodywear line CHROMAT

• Big idea: Fashion designers have a responsibility to create inclusive designs suited for all gender expressions, ages, ability levels, ethnicities and races — and by doing so, they can shatter our limited definition of beauty.
  From day one in school, fashion designers are taught to create for a certain type of body, painting “thin, white, cisgender, able-bodied, young models as the ideal,” says fashion designer Becca McCharen-Tran. This has made body-shaming a norm for so many who strive to assimilate to the illusion of perfection in fashion imagery. McCharen-Tran believes creators are responsible for reimagining and expanding what a “bikini body” is. Her swimwear focused clothing line CHROMAT celebrates beauty in all its forms. They unapologetically counter the narrative through inclusive, explosive designs that welcome all of the uniqueness that comes with being a human.
• Quote of the talk: “Inclusivity means nothing if it’s only surface level … who is making the decisions behind the scenes is just as important. It’s imperative to include diverse decision-makers in the process, and it’s always better to collaborate with different communities rather than trying to speak for them.”

Amy Padnani, editor at the New York Times (or, as some of her friends call her, the “Angel of Death”)

• Big idea: No one deserves to be overlooked in life, even in death.
  Padnani created “Overlooked,” a New York Times series that recognizes the stories of dismissed and marginalized people. Since 1851, the newspaper has published thousands of obituaries for individuals like heads of state and celebrities, but only a small amount of those obits chronicled the lives of women and people of color. With “Overlooked,” Padnani forged a path for the publication to right the wrongs of the past while refocusing society’s lens on who’s considered important. Powerful in its ability to perspective-shift and honor those once ignored, “Overlooked” is also on track to become a Netflix series.
• Fun fact: Prior to Padnani’s breakout project, the New York Times had yet to publish obituaries on notable individuals in history such as Ida B. Wells, Sylvia Plath, Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing.

Sam Van Aken, multimedia contemporary artist, art professor at Syracuse University in New York and creator of the Tree of 40 Fruit

• Big idea: Many of the fruits that have been grown in the US were originally brought there by immigrants. But due to industrialization, disease and climate change, American farmers produce just a fraction of the types available a century ago. Sam Van Aken has hand-grafted heirloom varieties of stone fruit — peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines and cherries — to make the “Tree of 40 Fruit.” What began as an art project to showcase their multi-hued blossoms has become a living archive of rare specimens and their histories; a hands-on (and delicious!) way to teach people about conservation and cultivation; and a vivid symbol of the need for biodiversity in order to ensure food security. Van Aken has created and planted his trees at museums and at people’s homes, and his largest project to date is the 50-tree Open Orchard — which, in total, will possess 200 varieties originated or historically grown in the region — on Governor’s Island in New York City.
• Fun fact: One hundred years ago, there were over 2,000 varieties of peaches, nearly 2,000 varieties of plums, and nearly 800 named apple varieties grown in the United States.
• Quote of the talk: “More than just food, embedded in these fruit is our culture. It’s the people who cared for and cultivated them, who valued them so much that they brought them here with them as a connection to their homes, and it’s the way they passed them on and shared them. In many ways, these fruit are our story.”

Lee Thomas, broadcast journalist

• Big idea: Despite having a disease that left him vulnerable to stares in public, Lee Thomas discovered he could respond to ignorance and fear with engagement and dialogue.
  As a news anchor, Lee Thomas used makeup to hide the effects of vitiligo, an autoimmune disorder that left large patches of his skin without pigmentation. But without makeup, he was vulnerable to derision — until he decided to counter misunderstanding with eye contact and conversation. Ultimately, an on-camera story on his condition led him to start a support group and join others in celebrating World Vitiligo Day.
• Quote of the talk: “Positivity is something worth fighting for — and the fight is not with others, it’s internal. If you want to make positive changes in your life, you have to consistently be positive.”

TED original podcast The TED Interview kicks off Season 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A new mission to mobilize 2 million women in US politics … and more TED news

TED2019 may be past, but the TED community is busy as ever. Below, a few highlights.

Amplifying 2 million women across the U.S. Activist Ai-jen Poo, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza and Planned Parenthood past president Cecile Richards have joined forces to launch Supermajority, which aims to train 2 million women in the United States to become activists and political leaders. To scale, the political hub plans to partner with local nonprofits across the country; as a first step, the co-founders will embark on a nationwide listening tour this summer. (Watch Poo’s, Garza’s and Richards’ TED Talks.)

Sneaker reseller set to break billion-dollar record. Sneakerheads, rejoice! StockX, the sneaker-reselling digital marketplace led by data expert Josh Luber, will soon become the first company of its kind with a billion-dollar valuation, thanks to a new round of venture funding.  StockX — a platform where collectible and limited-edition sneakers are bought and exchanged through real-time bidding — is an evolution of Campless, Luber’s site that collected data on rare sneakers. In an interview with The New York Times, Luber said that StockX pulls in around $2 million in gross sales every day. (Watch Luber’s TED Talk.)

A move to protect iconic African-American photo archives. Investment expert Mellody Hobson and her husband, filmmaker George Lucas, filed a motion to acquire the rich photo archives of iconic African-American lifestyle magazines Ebony and Jet. The archives are owned by the recently bankrupt Johnson Publishing Company; Hobson and Lucas intend to gain control over them through their company, Capital Holdings V. The collections include over 5 million photos of notable events and people in African American history, particularly during the Civil Rights Movement. In a statement, Capital Holdings V said: “The Johnson Publishing archives are an essential part of American history and have been critical in telling the extraordinary stories of African-American culture for decades. We want to be sure the archives are protected for generations to come.” (Watch Hobson’s TED Talk.)

10 TED speakers chosen for the TIME100. TIME’s annual round-up of the 100 most influential people in the world include climate activist Greta Thunberg, primatologist and environmentalist Jane Goodall, astrophysicist Sheperd Doeleman and educational entrepreneur Fred Swaniker — also Nancy Pelosi, the Pope, Leana Wen, Michelle Obama, Gayle King (who interviewed Serena Williams and now co-hosts CBS This Morning home to TED segment), and Jeanne Gang. Thunberg was honored for her work igniting climate change activism among teenagers across the world; Goodall for her extraordinary life work of research into the natural world and her steadfast environmentalism; Doeleman for his contribution to the Harvard team of astronomers who took the first photo of a black hole; and Swaniker for the work he’s done to educate and cultivate the next generation of African leaders. Bonus: TIME100 luminaries are introduced in short, sharp essays, and this year many of them came from TEDsters including JR, Shonda Rhimes, Bill Gates, Jennifer Doudna, Dolores Huerta, Hans Ulrich Obrest, Tarana Burke, Kai-Fu Lee, Ian Bremmer, Stacey Abrams, Madeleine Albright, Anna Deavere Smith and Margarethe Vestager. (Watch Thunberg’s, Goodall’s, Doeleman’s, Pelosi’s, Pope Francis’, Wen’s, Obama’s, King’s, Gang’s and Swaniker’s TED Talks.)

Meet Sports Illustrated’s first hijab-wearing model. Model and activist Halima Aden will be the first hijab-wearing model featured in Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue, debuting May 8. Aden will wear two custom burkinis, modestly designed swimsuits. “Being in Sports Illustrated is so much bigger than me,” Aden said in a statement, “It’s sending a message to my community and the world that women of all different backgrounds, looks, upbringings can stand together and be celebrated.” (Watch Aden’s TED Talk.)

Scotland post-surgical deaths drop by a third, and checklists are to thank. A study indicated a 37 percent decrease in post-surgical deaths in Scotland since 2008, which it attributed to the implementation of a safety checklist. The 19-item list created by the World Health Organization is supposed to encourage teamwork and communication during operations. The death rate fell to 0.46 per 100 procedures between 2000 and 2014, analysis of 6.8 million operations showed. Dr. Atul Gawande, who introduced the checklist and co-authored the study, published in the British Journal of Surgery, said to the BBC: “Scotland’s health system is to be congratulated for a multi-year effort that has produced some of the largest population-wide reductions in surgical deaths ever documented.” (Watch Gawanda’s TED Talk.) — BG

And finally … After the actor Luke Perry died unexpectedly of a stroke in February, he was buried according to his wishes: on his Tennessee family farm, wearing a suit embedded with spores that will help his body decompose naturally and return to the earth. His Infinity Burial Suit was made by Coeio, led by designer, artist and TED Fellow Jae Rhim Lee. Back in 2011, Lee demo’ed the mushroom burial suit onstage at TEDGlobal; now she’s focused on testing and creating suits for more people. On April 13, Lee spoke at Perry’s memorial service, held at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank; Perry’s daughter revealed his story in a thoughtful instagram post this past weekend. (Watch Lee’s TED Talk.) — EM

Possibility: Notes from Session 7 of TED2019

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

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

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

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

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

The talks in brief:

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

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

Rob Reid, entrepreneur and cyberthriller author

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

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

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

Ella Al-Shamahi, paleoanthropologist and standup comedian

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

Victor Vescovo, undersea explorer

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

Hannah Gadsby, serious comedian

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

In Case You Missed It: Highlights from day 2 of TED2019

Here’s what happened on Tuesday of TED2019. A few news-making highlights first:

Jack Dorsey proposed a new way Twitter could work — by following topics and not individual people and brands. Hmm. Also, fun fact: If he had it to do over again, he would not have built the Like button. Watch for Jack Dorsey’s Q&A with Chris Anderson and Whitney Pennington Rodgers on TED.com today.

Digital Domain’s Doug Roble showed, for the first time outside his studio, a jaw-dropping digital animation tool mapped to a live human actor. This avatar-creating wonder tool could revolutionize filmmaking … and also your next video chat.

The Audacious Project unveiled eight ambitious projects to change the world — from a data-backed approach to fighting racist activity, to a sweeping global drive to breed plants that are better for the planet. Between them — and thanks to a good old-fashioned fund drive last night — they raised a collective $283 million, and each project now has enough seed funding to launch. But they’re only halfway to a collective goal of — wait for it — $567m.

And some larger themes emerged …

Changing, fast and slow: In Chris’s indelible image, Twitter is a ship, Jack Dorsey is the captain, and a few of the passengers have come up from steerage to ask if Dorsey might consider, perhaps, turning away from the path of the iceberg. As Chris says: “You’re showing this extraordinary calm, but we’re all standing outside saying, Jack, turn the f*cking wheel.” Jack’s response: “Quickness will not get this job done.” He’s looking for deeper, systemic change (including a few suggested moves that some Twitter users did not love). Rafael Casal had the same question — “How fast should change happen?” — after he touched off a Twitter firestorm around an issue of racial unfairness. He made one brief point on the platform; it gained traction over a weekend; and it got ugly real fast. Now, he asks: Is social media just too quick on the trigger to allow for nuanced discussion of social change? Working at another timescale altogether, Safeena Husain spoke about a deep investment in the far future — by educating young girls today, starting with the 1.4 million girls in India who never go to school. Investing now, today, in the potential of these girls could have a material effect on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, aimed at creating a better world by 2030. Why not start now?

Playing with personas: As Doug Roble demos his jaw-dropping tool to create detailed, real-time digital renderings of a person — in this case, Doug himself, plus an alternate personality named Elbor — a thought arises: Will this next-gen avatar lead to more deepfakes, more fraudulent online personalities? (The likely answer: Yes, but honestly, what won’t?) Meanwhile, from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Roger Hanlon told us about shape-shifting cephalopods who change their skin color and texture in a blink, to hide, to mate, to blow human minds. Hanlon suggests their smart skin, and their ability to deploy it in sophisticated ways and in a flash, is an alternative form of intelligence, driven by their strange and wonderful and very, very large brains.

Service and meaning: Matt Cutts worked at Google for almost 17 years, and he took what he thought would be a six-month break to join the US government’s digital service. Three-plus years later, he’s still in government, finding deep meaning and satisfaction in solving problems that affect real people’s lives. At TED Unplugged, he makes the case to his fellow technologists that if you want to really make an impact, you should leave Silicon Valley, wave goodbye to those crazy perks and free meals, and enter a world where office furniture isn’t a given — but the impact is. Julius Maada Bio, the president of Sierra Leone, offered his own take on the meaning of service. He first took power in a military coup, but his goal, he says, was always to return the country to democratic rule. His other major goal: “Sierra Leone must be a secure, peaceful and just society where every person can thrive and contribute.” Over the past decades, he’s moved steadily toward that objective. Plant biologist Joanne Chory is committed to an equally large and far-seeing goal: developing plants that capture carbon better and for longer than common crops do now which will help mitigate our planet’s creeping carbon levels. Her vision, her sense of mission and her nothing-can-stop-me persistence are genuinely inspiring.

Curiosity makes us human: Educator Brittany Packnett meditates on confidence, the hidden skill that powers many of our other skills. Confidence is what helps you put plans into action, and what helps you keep moving even after you fail. What builds confidence? One key factor, she says, is curiosity, the desire to push beyond who you are and what you know. Mentalist Derren Brown taps into the curiosity of the audience by guessing our innermost questions (and even one guy’s password). How did he do it? He’ll never tell. Appearing via robot, David Deutsch meditates on another force that moves us: the drive for new “explanatory knowledge.” As humans, we desire to understand things and explain them and change them and make them new. As he says: “From the human perspective, the only alternative to that living hell of static societies is continual creation of new ideas, behaviors, new kinds of objects.”

Watch the first TED Talk released from TED2019: Carole Cadwalladr.

Audacity: 8 big, bold ideas for global change unveiled in Session 4 of TED2019

In the program guide for Session 4 of TED2019, “Audacity,” a group of eight mysterious figures stands silhouetted in black. That’s because the speakers in this session were a total surprise — to those in TED audience and to those tuning in via Twitter Live from around the world. These eight speakers all have big, bold ideas for global change — and they’re representing eight projects that are receiving the support of The Audacious Project in 2019. Over the next three to six years, these ideas have the potential to change broken systems and impact millions of lives in a positive way. And each needs your support. After each idea, find out how you can get involved.

The event: Session 4 of TED2019, hosted by Chris Anderson, Head of TED, and Anna Verghese, Executive Director of the Audacious Project

When and where: Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 5pm, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC

Speakers: Phillip Atiba Goff, Joanne Chory, Claudia Miner, David Baker, Safeena Husain and Julie Cordua, with special videos on ideas from Ellen Agler and Mark Tercek

Music: Emeli Sandé singing three beautiful songs: “You Are Not Alone,” “Extraordinary Being” and “Read All About It Part III”

The talks in brief:

Phillip Atiba Goff, behavioral scientist and president of the Center for Policing Equity

• Big idea: In the US, Black people are two to four times more likely than white people to be targets of police force. The problem, says Phillip Atiba Goff, is that we think of racism as contaminated hearts and minds — when racism is really about behaviors. “When we change the definition of racism from attitudes to behaviors, we transform that problem from impossible to solvable,” says Goff. “Because you can measure behaviors.” Like any other organization, police departments can set goals for more equitable behavior — and hold themselves accountable to reaching them.
• The Audacious project: Goff and his team at the Center for Policing Equity work with police departments and communities, city by city, to collect data on police behavior and set goals to make it more fair. They’re building a CompStat for Justice — a data system that shows police departments where they’re going, who they’re arresting and much more. The data that CPE collects can help police chiefs develop strategies for changing their department’s behaviors, and to date, they’ve seen staggering results. So far, CPE has delivered products to 25 cities, leading to an average of 33 percent fewer force incidents. Over the next five years, the Center for Policing Equity hope to bring their tools to police departments that collectively serve 100 million people across the US, effectively reaching one in three Americans.
• Quote of the talk: “I’ve experienced the fear of seeing an officer unclip their gun, and the panic of realizing someone might mistake my 13-year-old godson as old enough to be a threat. So when a chief — or a pastor or an imam or a mother — calls me after an officer shoots another unarmed Black child, I understand the pain in their voice.” See what you can do for this idea »

Joanne Chory, plant biologist and director of the Plant Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies

• Big idea: To most of us, CO₂ is a villain, the greenhouse gas responsible for rising global temperatures. But to Joanne Chory, one of the world’s most prominent plant biologists, CO₂ is simply the thing that plants take in during photosynthesis, and convert into oxygen and sugars. For millions of years, plants have kept Earth’s CO₂ levels in check — and Chory believes they can do it now, even as human beings release more CO₂ into the atmosphere than ever before. Plants could help us fight climate change.
• The Audacious project: Chory’s team at the Salk Institute wants to train plants to sequester carbon better, and for longer. They’re developing the science to create plants with more of a natural polymer called suberin in their roots, as this cork-like substance works as a stable carbon-storage device. They’re also looking to grow plants with deeper, more robust root systems, to really amplify their sequestering ability. Salk will start by creating these traits in model plants, and then will be able to transfer them to major crop plants like corn, soybean and cotton. If these superstar plants could occupy fields around the world, they could hold massive amounts of carbon in the ground, to achieve a 20 to 46 percent reduction of excess CO₂ every year.
• Quote of the talk: “I’ve come to appreciate plants as the amazing machines they are — they literally suck CO₂ out of the air. They’ve been doing it for 500 million years, and they’re really good it!” See what you can do for this idea »

Ellen Agler, public health leader, CEO of the END Fund and author of Under the Big Tree

• Big idea: Parasitic worms have been around for thousands of years, causing disease and limiting human potential. Today, more than 1.5 billion people in the world are at risk for worms, 600 million of them in Africa. And yet worms are very easy to treat — it takes just one to three pills, given once or twice a year. Ellen Agler and her team at the END Fund know that governments across Africa want to gain traction on this problem. By amplifying work already in progress, the END Fund thinks we can be the generation that ends disease from worm infections for good.
• The Audacious Project: Over the next six years, the END Fund will deliver deworming treatment to 100 million people. But that’s really just the start. The END Fund looks at the problem of delivering deworming treatments through a systems lens, bringing together the right partners, lowering the cost of treatment, focusing on prevention, helping with monitoring and evaluation, and treating overlooked people, like young children and women of reproductive age. Every step of the way, the END Fund will support governments and nurture local leadership, creating a roadmap toward local ownership of deworming programs.
• Quote of the video: “If the World Health Organization’s 2020 goals for worm control are met, African economies would see a $35 billion boost in productivity within ten years.” See what you can do for this idea »

Claudia Miner, historian, education entrepreneur and executive director of Waterford’s UPSTART project

• Big idea: Fifty years ago, the United States achieved a watershed moment when it started bringing early education to low-income children through Head Start. Today, however, there are still 2.2 million children in the US — half of all 4-year-olds — who don’t have access to an early education program, because they live too far from one, speak another language or face a financial or logistical hardship. On day one of kindergarten, these children may already be years behind their peers. And they may not ever catch up.
• The Audacious project: At Waterford.org, Claudia Miner and her team have created a kindergarten readiness project called UPSTART that bridges these access gaps. In just 15–20 minutes a day, children without access to in-person early education engage with personalized software that lets them learn at their own pace, from home. This isn’t mindless screen time — UPSTART lessons are educational and engaging, and the program coaches parents to take on the role of their children’s first teacher. UPSTART has a 90 percent completion rate, and a longitudinal study has shown that the gains students make last well into third and fourth grade. UPSTART has been piloted in 15 states so far, and several have opted to fund it because it’s been so effective. Over the next five years, Waterford will pilot UPSTART in all 50 states, serving a quarter of a million children, and make deep inroads toward state funding.
• Quote of the talk: “Our Audacious idea is to make UPSTART available across the country — not to replace anything. We want to serve children who otherwise would not have access to early education.” See what you can do for this idea »

David Baker, professor of biochemistry and director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine

• Big idea: “Proteins carry out all of the essential functions in our bodies,” says David Baker. These miniature machines digest our food, contract our muscles, fire our neurons and so, so much more. But proteins are also tricky. They’re built of long strings of amino acids that “fold up” into specific shapes that allow them to do their job. And because scientists haven’t been able to crack the code of how proteins fold, we’ve only been able to make small modifications to proteins that already exist. Being able to create new proteins would open up incredible possibility.
• The Audacious project: Baker’s research team at the Institute for Protein Design has developed the ability to design new proteins. And they want to launch the protein design revolution. Their goal is to become the Bell Laboratories of this new field, doubling their faculty and attracting top talent to train the next generation of scientists. Specifically, IPD will work toward five grand challenges: (1) universal vaccines for flu, HIV and cancer, (2) advanced medications for chronic pain, (3) protein nano-containers that bring medicines to specific cells, (4) smart protein therapeutics that recognize unhealthy cells, and (5) next-generation nanoengineering for solar energy capture. They stand to change the world of medicine and so much more.
• Quote of the talk: “Humans have only been able to harness the power of proteins by making very small changes to the amino acid sequences of the proteins we’ve found in nature. This is similar to the process that our Stone Age ancestors used to make tools and other implements from the sticks and stones they found around them.” See what you can do for this idea »

Mark Tercek, global environmental leader and CEO of The Nature Conservancy

• Big idea: Island and coastal nations need to protect their waters in order for our oceans, globally, to stay healthy. But these countries hold high debt loads and often aren’t able to prioritize ocean protection over other needs. Mark Tercek and his team at The Nature Conservancy see a way to solve both problems at once. Their idea is to buy a nation’s debt at a discount and restructure it to give them lower debt payments, in exchange for the government’s commitment to protect 30 percent of its coastal areas.
• How: The Nature Conservancy has been a pioneer in debt-for-nature conservation, working since 2001 to negotiate deals like this for the protection of tropical forests. In 2016, they tried this approach in the Seychelles, restructuring $22 million in debt in exchange for the protection of 400,000 square kilometers of ocean — an area the size of Germany. It’s been incredibly successful, but the deal took years to complete. Now The Nature Conservancy plans to build a team that can close these deals much more quickly. Over the next five years, they will negotiate deals in 20 island and coastal nations, and together create more than 4 million square kilometers of marine-protected areas.
• Quote of the video: “If you refinance your house to take advantage of a better interest rate, maybe you use the savings to insulate your attic. That’s what Blue Bonds for Conservation do, for entire coastal countries.” See what you can do for this idea »

Safeena Husain, social entrepreneur and executive director of Educate Girls

• Big idea: Working in India, Safeena Husain has met girls named Aa chuki (“not wanted”), Antim Bala (“the last girl”) because that’s what her family hoped she’d be, and Naraz nath (“angry”) because her community was so angry she was born a girl. It’s not just poverty and cultural norms that bar girls from receiving an education: it’s collective mindsets. Even though girls’ education has been shown to have a long list of positive effects — it impacts nine of the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals –many girls in the world are still barred from receiving an education. India is home to one of the largest populations of out-of-school girls, with more than 4.1 million girls outside the classroom.
• The Audacious project: Husain and her team at Educate Girls work in remote regions in India, going door-to-door to find all out-of-school girls. They do individual counseling with parents, and hold neighborhood and village meetings to change those mindsets. Their Team Balika (“team for the girl”) volunteers use an app to collect data — and their predictive model reveals that just five percent of India’s villages are home to 40 percent of the out-of-school girls. Their plan is to work specifically in these 35,000 villages for amplified impact. By doing this, they will enroll a staggering 1.6 million girls in school in the next five years. And they will work to keep them there.
• Quote of the talk: “I believe that girls’ education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet to help solve some of the world’s most difficult problems.” See what you can do for this idea »

Julia Cordua, social entrepreneur and CEO of Thorn

• Big idea: Thorn works on a problem that isn’t easy to talk about: the sexual abuse of children in images and videos on the internet. This is clearly a human problem. But it’s also, says Julie Cordua, a technology problem. In the late 1980s, child pornography was nearly eliminated — because of tighter laws, it was too risky for abusers to trade it through the mail. But with the advent of the internet, both supply and demand skyrocketed. In 2018, there were 45 million reports of child sexual abuse content in the US alone — twice the number of reports of the year before. “Law enforcement focuses on just their jurisdiction. Companies look at just their platform,” says Cordua. “Whatever they learn along the way is rarely shared.” A unified response is necessary.
• The Audacious project: Thorn is building technology to connect the dots between the law enforcement agencies, NGOs and tech companies who are the responders in this invisible crisis. Their tools collect the hashes of known sexual abuse content — essentially, the digital fingerprint of each file — and catalog it. As they collect more and more hashes of known content, it will allow law enforcement to spot new material quickly, and swing into action to try to find the child being abused. And the system will only get smarter — when a company sees a known hash posted, for example, they can scrub that user’s account and potentially discover hashes for other unknown material. Thorn’s goal is to be able to identify new material in seconds — which will open the door to eliminating this content from the internet altogether.
• Quote of the talk: “The abusers win when we look at one piece of the puzzle at a time. … This Audacious project is a declaration of war against one of humanity’s darkest evils.” See what you can do for this idea »

And with these eight projects revealed, it’s time for the audience to get involved. Each project has a significant gap between what’s been committed to it so far and what’s needed to complete it. Anderson and Verghese called on the audience at the TED Conference and watching online to donate to the projects that most moved them, and pledges started rolling in, scrolling on the screens on stage.

Together, these eight projects will require $567 million in funding. And between presentations to donor groups earlier in the year and pledges made tonight, they have now raised $283,561,215. Each project is at least halfway funded, and will able to launch. Now … to watch them in action.

Discover 8 big ideas for global change — as they’re revealed live at TED2019

You’ve watched lots of TED Talks. But have you ever watched a full session of the TED Conference, from beginning to end?

On Tuesday, April 16, 2019, at 8pm ET/5pm PT, you’re invited to join us for a full session of talks from TED2019, beamed live to you from our theater in Vancouver, British Columbia. This session, themed “Audacity,” is a very special one — during it, we’ll be revealing the eight projects for global change that will receive support through The Audacious Project. These ideas are big: The projects and the amazing human beings who will tell you about them have been distilled from 1,500 applications, and they take on some of the toughest challenges humanity faces. We believe that, collectively, they stand to change entire systems and transform million of lives for the better.

Come join us for this session — watch on Twitter @TEDTalks and chime in on the conversation with TED fans and others around the world. Hear these powerful talks and find out how you can get involved in putting these ideas into action.

Watch the session here on April 16 at 8pm ET/5pm PT »

One year in, The Audacious Project ideas make ever-bigger waves

One year ago, TED launched The Audacious Project — an initiative to help change-makers with big, bold ideas for tackling global challenges find the support to make their visions a reality. What’s happened since has been amazing. Thousands of people in the US are awaiting trials at home rather than in jail cells now because of the work of The Bail Project … almost a million farm families are enjoying better harvests in Sub-Saharan Africa because of One Acre Fund’s efforts … and read on for more stories like these. Put simply, these seven ideas are affecting lives around the world.

Our next group of audacious ideas will be revealed at TED2019 — watch live on Tuesday, April 16, at 8pm ET/5pm PT through AudaciousProject.org to discover the change-making ideas that will achieve liftoff this year. In the meantime, enjoy the latest updates from the 2018 projects.

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4,000 bails paid — and quickly counting

The Bail Project’s bail disruptors are now working in 11 sites across the US, where collectively they have paid bail and provided pretrial support for more than 4,000 people. They are working with their clients to ensure they can return to court, get access to any social services they need, and remain with their families and communities while awaiting trial. In the video above, some of these disruptors share why this work is so meaningful to them. “After eight and a half months of sitting in jail, I decided to take a plea bargain for time served just so I could go home,” said David Gaspar, now a bail disruptor in Indianapolis. “When I found out about The Bail Project, I just remember wishing I had someone like that in my corner.”

Over the next few months, The Bail Project will launch in several new sites, including Chicago and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Check out the latest media coverage in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, which looks at the beginnings of The Bail Project in the Bronx, where one of the jails residents are sent to is New York City’s massive floating jail barge. And don’t miss the second episode of BET’s new docu-series Finding Justice, which features the joint efforts of local activists, formerly incarcerated people, and The Bail Project’s St. Louis team to close the “The Workhouse,” the city’s infamous jail.

 

MethaneSAT having impact long before liftoff

MethaneSAT, the satellite to track invisible methane emissions, is on track to launch in 2021. Technical and science advisory groups have been assembled for the project, and two leading aerospace industry companies are now under competitive contract to refine the design. The team is also moving forward on a project that will help build global consensus around the validity of the satellite’s data — by flying over areas where methane emissions are known, scientists from Harvard and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory will test and refine the algorithms MethaneSAT will use for emission detection.

But even before MethaneSAT’s launch, EDF is driving toward its goal of curbing oil and gas methane emissions. The organization is actively working with oil and gas companies to encourage them to prioritize lowering their methane emissions. With EDF’s encouragement, Shell, ExxonMobil and BP have all announced their support for stronger methane regulations and urged the Trump administration and the US Environmental Protection Agency not to weaken current restrictions as planned. “It’s the right thing to do for the planet,” said Susan Dio of BP America. MethaneSAT will be a key tool for encouraging this kind of corporate accountability, helping companies and governments take action on this dangerous greenhouse gas.

 

Living Goods + Last Mile Health focus on partnership

Living Goods and Last Mile Health’s partnership is bringing quality health care to the doorsteps of millions of people in East and West Africa who haven’t had access to traditional clinics. In 2018, the two organizations empowered 12,000 community health workers with the technology and training to deliver care to an astonishing 7.9 million people. For Last Mile Health, an area of focus was malaria, which has been the leading cause of sickness and death in Liberia. With improvements in prevention, diagnosis and treatment — including CHWs bringing care to rural areas — malaria cases have been reduced by about one-third across the country. Living Goods, meanwhile, is helping CHWs begin to provide family planning and immunization services across Uganda and Kenya, while treating common childhood illnesses and supporting pregnant mothers. They also focused on leveraging the data CHWs collect to inform government systems and policies, and optimize how CHWs are supported and supervised.

Both organizations stress the importance of working with governments to implement community health worker programs, and in 2019 they’re hoping to bring this idea to other countries too. Registration is now open for the first course of the Community Health Academy, “Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs to Deliver Primary Care.” The course is offered in partnership with HarvardX and edX. “It’s taught by a network of faculty from around the world,” Raj Panjabi said in an interview this week. “We sent film crews to Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Liberia so health systems leaders can learn from other health systems leaders. Enrollment for the course began earlier this month, and already, people from over 90 countries have signed up.”

 

One Acre Fund offering small-scale farmers choice

One Acre Fund believes in treating the small-scale farmers they work with as clients. In a blog post, they shared a bit more about what this means: giving farmers choices on what to buy for their homes and farms, giving them the credit to pay over time, and allowing them to think through how they want to diversify and build their business. This ethos shows in the video above too, with the story of Rwandan farmer Drocella Yandereye, who has chosen to invest in quality seeds and in a solar light to help her and her children move about the house in the evenings. These investments have not only helped Drocella make enough income to buy livestock, but they’ve helped her to build a new home for her family.

While One Acre Fund’s growth continues to be healthy — in this op-ed from the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Andrew Youn looks at The Audacious Project’s effect on that — there’s also reason for concern. Farmers in countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda are already feeling the effects of climate change that scientists predict years down the road in other regions. The organization is working to help make farmers more resilient in the face of droughts and volatile weather.

 

A third expedition to the ocean’s twilight zone

A team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Ocean Twilight Zone project have just returned from a mission aboard OceanX’s research vessel, the M/V Alucia, off the coast of the Bahamas. Their goal was to explore a new region of the twilight zone (previous cruises were in the Northwest Atlantic and Northeast Pacific) in order to examine how life can differ by location. Scientists conducted biological sampling, made submersible dives to observe organisms in their natural habitat, and collected water samples from various depths to perform eDNA analysis, a forensic tool that allows scientists to look at what might be in the water even if they weren’t able to physically catch the animals themselves. The team worked with OceanX to share their journey through video diaries and photographs. And Quartz Media was also on board, showing others what the twilight zone holds.

A special issue of WHOI’s Oceanus magazine is dedicated to the science, people and technology involved in its exploration of the twilight zone. Sign up for a free one-year subscription to get the special issue. As it was coming off the press, a team from WHOI attended the Second Session of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC2) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction at the UN. In addition to introducing delegates to the twilight zone, WHOI laid the groundwork for the twilight zone to be included in a treaty governing marine resources outside of any nation’s exclusive economic zone. When IGC3 rolls around in August, they hope to make the twilight zone the subject of a side event that will explore its importance more fully.

 

GirlTrek on the road to Selma

GirlTrek is making the final stops of its Road to Selma revival wellness tour, with events in Los Angeles on April 4 and Chicago on April 6. Over the past year, they have visited 50 cities in the US, holding teach-ins to get attendees thinking about their health, and to train them to organize walking groups in their communities. GirlTrek has reached an incredible number of women along the way. In just 10 days in February — as they made stops in Sacramento, Oakland and Atlanta — they trained nearly 1,000 new organizers.

GirlTrek’s goal is to train 10,000 organizers to lead a movement of one million Black women walking daily. They will continue with a three-day Summer of Selma training event, taking place Memorial Day weekend 2019, in the Alabama city that’s sacred ground for the Civil Rights movement. In 2020, GirlTrek will hold the first Summer of Selma festival, with attendees retracing the historic 54-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery, then joining a three-day celebration. Last week, Vanessa Garrison appeared on Buzzfeed News’ AM to DM to talk about the event and the importance of starting with that iconic walk. “At this moment in our country, we have to recognize that we have been here before,” she said. “For us, it’s important that we remember our history and that we … pull from the power of our ancestors and our foremothers and the powerful organizers who came before us, so we can start to address the problems of today. This is nothing compared to the road we have already traveled.”

 

Sightsavers has resources to begin work in 12 countries

Over the past year, with funding from The Audacious Project and other sources, Sightsavers has raised an unprecedented $105 million to take on the ancient eye disease trachoma. In a blog post, Richard Branson shared why he’s proud Virgin Unite is a part of the effort, as it will help end blinding trachoma in 10 countries and accelerate progress in several others. “It’s a goal that’s achievable through teamwork by bringing together affected communities with governments, donors, pharmaceutical companies and international organizations,” said Branson.

UK Aid Match is also helping Sightsavers achieve this vision. Through May 15, 2019, they will be matching every pound donated to Sightsavers, up to £2 million. While the donations themselves will be used to support work wherever need is greatest, the matched funds will go toward work to prevent and treat trachoma in Tanzania, where images for the video above were taken. “Everyone who donates to Sightsavers’ End Is in Sight appeal could help us get one step closer to consigning this awful disease to the history books,” says Sightsavers head Caroline Harper.

Brené Brown plans a Netflix special, and more TED news

The TED community is busy as ever! Below, a few highlights.

Brené Brown special planned for Netflix. As she announced on Instagram, vulnerability expert Dr. Brené Brown has partnered with Netflix for a one-hour special: The Call to Courage. In the show, Dr. Brown will explain how to embrace vulnerability as a source of power and choose “courage over comfort in a culture defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty.” According to Oprah Magazine, Dr. Brown will also share lessons and feedback from her hugely popular 2010 TEDx Talk, The power of vulnerability. The special was filmed in front of a live audience at UCLA, and will premiere on Netflix on April 19. (Watch Dr. Brown’s 2012 TED Talk on shame.)

A new headscarf collection from Halima Aden. In collaboration with Turkish clothing brand Modansia, model and activist Halima Aden will launch a new collection of hijabs at the 2019 Istanbul Modest Fashion Week in April. This collection marks Aden’s first foray into fashion design following her groundbreaking modeling career and humanitarian work. “I’m focused on the next generation. I want to one day see a hijabi at the Met Gala. I want to see a hijabi being a lead actress,” she said in a profile with Paper. “Think of all the many firsts that are still out there. What can I do to encourage girls to dream big, to bring it home?” (Watch Aden’s TED Talk.)

Helping to train better child welfare workers. Social scientist Jessica Pryce will join the newly established National Child Welfare Workforce Institute’s advisory board, in addition to her role as the director of the Florida Institute for Child Welfare. As a member of the national board, Pryce will help design curriculum to better train child welfare professionals. As Pryce said in a statement: “Serving on the advisory board will be a wonderful opportunity to engage with other leaders from around the country while being at the forefront of workforce innovation.” (Watch Pryce’s TED Talk.)

UK Royal Mint debuts Stephen Hawking–inspired coin. The physicist Stephen Hawking has been honored on a new commemorative 50-pence coin in the United Kingdom. Designed by Edwina Ellis, the coin was inspired by Hawking’s significant discoveries researching black holes; the face features Hawking’s name, a minimalist rendering of a black hole and the Bekenstein–Hawking equation, Hawking’s famed theorem that describes the entropy of a black hole. The coin will not be circulated in public currency; it is available for purchase on the UK Royal Mint website. Hawking passed away at 76 years old in 2018. (Watch Hawking’s TED Talk.)

Esther Perel named Vivid Ideas Festival Game Changer. Psychotherapist and relationship guru Esther Perel will give a keynote speech on modern love and the digital age at the Vivid Ideas Festival in Sydney, Australia, in June 2019. Festivalgoers can expect to gain some insight into “modern love, lust, our desire for connection and delicate matters of the heart” from Perel’s unique experience and perspective. The annual festival, which spans nearly three weeks, celebrates the intersection of art, technology and commerce; built around an extravagant light show, the festival boasts concerts, workshops and lectures. (Watch Perel’s TED Talk.)

Have a news item to share? Write us at contact@ted.com and you may see it included in this round-up.