TED Idea Search: Meet the thinkers competing for a spot on the biggest stage for ideas

Over the past year, TED has been traveling the world (literally!) in search of powerful ideas — and the people bold enough to share them.

The result? A 9-part series that pulls back the curtain on what it’s actually like to deliver a TED Talk.

In each episode, you’ll step into a new city and meet the speakers bringing their ideas to the red circle and competing for a spot on the main stage at TED2026 in Vancouver. You’ll go backstage with them into rehearsal rooms and witness the nerves, the breakthroughs and the moments when an idea finally comes into focus. From a rock balancer and a disability specialist to a whale scientist and a bad-breath researcher, see the people shaping the future in their own communities — and learn what it takes to bring those ideas to the TED stage.

Sydney: Inside a theatre tucked in a library, a whale scientist and an Olympian took center stage — a reminder that compelling ideas can come from anywhere (and anyone).

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Mumbai: In this episode, speakers explore everything from rock balancing to healthcare innovation, reflecting the range of ideas that make it to the TED stage.

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Athens: Athens has celebrated big ideas for millennia — and it’s still not done. From the science of bad breath to the factories of the future, this episode moves from the deeply personal to the forward-looking.

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Lagos: With one of the most electric audiences of the series, Lagos delivered talks ranging from renewable energy to the art of tailoring that celebrates a small town’s craft.

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London: From a civil engineer revealing the invisible infrastructure shaping our cities to a classical singer uncovering the erased history of women in music, the speakers in London prove that the most powerful ideas are both deeply personal and impossible to ignore.

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Singapore: In Singapore, a diver-turned-ocean-restorer, a scientist growing building materials out of fungus, and a government insider reimagining public institutions make the case that the most transformative ideas are already taking root

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Chicago: A chemist saving endangered species with precision medicine, a journalist building tools for hard conversations, a runner mapping every street of a divided city: these are the kinds of ideas 10 Chicagoans bring to the red circle.

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Buenos Aires: In a warehouse full of opera sets, 10 speakers deliver ideas as bold Buenos Aires itself, from a reframing of “brain rot” as diplomacy to the future of robotic medicine.

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Amman: Inside a 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater, a mountaineer who turned grief into motivation, a therapist rewriting the Arab world’s language around mental health and other incredible speakers make the case that the best ideas can come from anywhere.

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Watch the full series of TED Idea Search on YouTube and TED.com.

The Audacious Project reveals its 2025 cohort and $1B catalyzing change

The Audacious Project, the collaborative funding platform within TED, is thrilled to announce its newest cohort of grantee innovators. This new cohort extends the vital on-the-ground work of Audacious grantees on key global issues, including reducing the flow of plastics to rivers and oceans, improving reproductive care, preventing homelessness and investing in low-income and first-generation college students. 

Since 2018, The Audacious Project has invited visionary social entrepreneurs to propose their boldest ideas to solve the world’s greatest challenges, and collaborated with them to transform their ambitions into achievable and audacious, multi-year plans. 

Audacious has reached new heights — with more than $1 billion committed by the Audacious community at the end of 2025 to provide the flexible, long-term funding to launch and scale these bold ideas.

Audacious has also launched a reinvestment pilot program, providing a secondary funding round to previous grantees that demonstrated significant results after their initial five years of funding. The Audacious donor community has committed nearly $50 million in total follow-on funding to three selected organizations to scale their work and sustain their impact. This pilot demonstrates a commitment to flexible, long-term funding — and to the value of providing a longer runway for organizations creating transformational change. 

The 2025 Audacious cohort includes:

• Arc Institute, led by Silvana Konermann: Creating the world’s first high-utility virtual cell, an AI model accelerating medical breakthroughs toward cures for intractable diseases
• Braven, led by Aimée Eubanks Davis: Closing the college-to-career gap for low-income and first-generation college students in the United States by partnering with higher education and employers to prepare students for the workforce
• Imagine Worldwide, led by Rapelang Rabana: Scaling solar-powered, offline edtech learning solutions to reach students across Malawi, Sierra Leone and Tanzania
• Ipas, led by Anu Kumar and Jean-Claude Mulunda: Preventing unsafe abortion in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South Asia by removing systemic, legal and social barriers to care
• Plastic Solutions Fund, led by Nicky Davies: Reducing plastic production and fostering a reuse-based, circular economy in partnership with the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement.
• Pure Earth, led by Drew McCartor: Protecting children from lead poisoning by helping 22 low- and middle-income countries implement proven approaches to prevent exposure and reduce health risks
• Destination: Home’s “Right at Home,” led by Jennifer Loving: Stopping homelessness before it starts by scaling a proven prevention model across the country, redefining how the United States responds to the housing affordability crisis
• Solutions for Our Climate, led by Joojin Kim: Transforming maritime trade into an industry  that drives global decarbonization
• The Ocean Cleanup, led by Boyan Slat: Stopping plastic from flowing into our oceans by intercepting and removing the waste accumulating in rivers
• Tiko, led by Serah Malaba: Empowering and protecting girls across Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Burkina Faso from HIV, unintended pregnancy and sexual violence by connecting them to free care and services

The Audacious Project reinvestment organizations include: 

• Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), led by Rebecca Firth: Establishing an Open Mapping Marketplace that connects trained and certified local mappers with decision-makers needing high-quality geospatial data to strengthen livelihoods and planning
• Last Mile Health, led by Lisha McCormick: Saving the lives of women and children across the African continent by partnering with governments to train community health workers to deliver cost-effective primary care and transform health financing  
• Thorn, led by Julie Cordua: Hardwiring child safety into the fabric of the internet by equipping technology companies and law enforcement with AI-driven tools to combat child sexual abuse, protect children at scale and outpace emerging threats

“This year’s cohort represents what happens when humanity’s toughest problems are met with courage. It is also a declaration of what they imagine is still entirely possible. Whether they are charting paths to plastic‑free oceans, unlocking access to life-saving health services for women and girls globally or harnessing AI to prevent disease, the breadth and depth of these interventions is awe-inducing,” said Anna Verghese, executive director of The Audacious Project. “We’re humbled yet again by what the Audacious community makes possible.”

“Daring ideas matter most when they become achievable,” said Chris Anderson, founder of The Audacious Project and TED chairman. “These grantees prove what’s possible when we come together to dream big, take risks and build a more hopeful future.”

Through its unique model, The Audacious Project brings together dedicated philanthropists to give in community with one another, allowing funders to connect with groundbreaking projects that aim to solve humanity’s biggest challenges. 

“The world’s problems are huge — they require audacious thinking and people willing to work together to solve them. I feel a real responsibility to give back and to support some of these immense issues through philanthropy. The Audacious Project helps me do that by connecting me with organizations that have big, bold plans and the vision to actually pull them off,” said Reed Hastings, founder and chairman of the board of Netflix and CEO of Powder. “What makes it unique is how it brings together diverse partners with serious, flexible capital to back the most visionary leaders out there. It’s an honor to be part of this community driving real systemic change.”

“Audacious brings together a community of grantees and funders who are optimistic, hopeful and believe that change is possible. As funders, we have a responsibility to be good stewards of philanthropic dollars, and to back grantee-led solutions to the problems that communities are facing. Amazing leaders deserve to be supported — and it’s our job to support them as future leaders of the world,” said Tegan Acton, founder and principal of Wildcard Giving.

Over the past eight years, the Audacious donor community has committed $4.6 billion in support of 70 bold projects spanning health, climate and community-led innovation, each one grounded in real-world work and designed to turn urgency into action. Audacious grantees have subsequently leveraged an additional $3 billion from other funders, catalyzing $7.6 billion in total funding. These figures point to the distinct power of collaborative philanthropy, when bold ideas and possibility are matched with a committed community that acts with purpose.

Audacious grantees have transformed educational systems worldwide, enrolling millions of girls in school, and have helped millions of people lift themselves out of ultra-poverty. They have driven medical breakthroughs — developing the world’s first computer-generated protein medicine, revolutionizing COVID-19 response systems and repurposing medicines to cure rare diseases. From developing the first whale language model to transforming how we track methane emissions, year after year, these projects redefine what is achievable in our world.

What these leaders imagine is possible. And we feel so lucky, together, to see a better future with them.

Announcing AI-adapted multilingual TED Talks, unblocking language barriers

Imagine the world’s most captivating TED Talks at your fingertips, voiced in your own language.

At TED, we believe that ideas are universal and that they should be accessible to everyone. Yet language barriers often hinder access to our talks, many of which are delivered in English. To tackle this issue head-on, we’re expanding our multilingual initiatives, building on the success of TED’s subtitling program by combining human and artificial intelligence. This approach aims to enhance inclusivity and enrich the experiences for TED’s diverse global audiences.

Launching TED’s pilot program

By integrating generative AI, including voice-cloning and lip-syncing capabilities, in collaboration with Panjaya.ai and TED’s global Translators community, we’ve created the first AI-adapted TED Talks, delivered in multiple languages while preserving each speaker’s unique voice and style. Unlike traditional dubbing methods, which can feel awkward and clunky, TED’s AI adaptation prioritizes a seamless viewing experience. This marks a new era in multilingual content delivery.

Speakers’ voices adapted to multiple languages

A key aspect of this initiative is prioritizing the individuality of our diverse speakers’ voices. To achieve this, we worked closely with each speaker to obtain their consent and ensure that their message is faithfully conveyed in multiple languages, allowing their talks to resonate with audiences worldwide. The pilot launches in Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Italian and Spanish with plans to expand to more languages soon.

Environmental awareness

Mindful of the environmental impact, we prioritize sustainability while minimizing our ecological footprint. Unlike real-time AI products, our approach focuses on one-time AI adaptation, reducing our environmental impact while delivering an innovative solution.

Join us in experiencing a new way of unlocking knowledge across languages and cultures. Watch the world’s first AI-adapted multilingual TED Talks, and share them with your friends around the world!

Watch TED’s first AI-adapted multilingual TED Talks and share them with others!

Lera Boroditsky: How language shapes the way we think

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Guy Winch: How to fix a broken heart

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Lisa Bu: How books can open your mind

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Angelica Dass: The beauty of human skin in every color

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Terry Moore: A mysterious design that appears across millennia

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Chris Anderson: It’s time for infectious generosity. Here’s how

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Monica Araya: How cities are detoxing transportation

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Manoush Zomorodi: How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas

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

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

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

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

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

The talks in brief:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TED Idea Search: Southeast Asia 2022 winners selected

From July through September, the TED Idea Search: Southeast Asia 2022 applications were open to anyone living in or descended from Southeast Asia. Applicants were required to create a two-minute video as a part of their submission.

After sorting through hundreds of applications, the TED team selected nine finalists to participate in two virtual TED Membership events, where the finalists talked more about their ideas and participated in a Q&A with TED Members. After each Q&A, TED Members had the opportunity to vote on each finalist’s idea and speaking style.

Thanks to those ratings, the TED team selected three winners who will be invited to give a TED Talk, either virtually or in person. Those winners are:

Hong Hoang, climate activist, based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Hoang finds creative ways to conduct climate activism in politically challenging contexts.

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Piyachart Phiromswad, economist, based in Bangkok, Thailand

Phiromswad studies the technological, social and economic ways we can unleash the true power of a globally aging population.

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Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh, entomologist, based in Subang Jaya, Malaysia

Jusoh studies the wonders of fireflies — and even discovered a new species of firefly.

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Each winner will be paired with a TED curator to develop their idea in the lead-up to their moment onstage or direct-to-camera talk. Stay tuned for those published talks on TED.com!

Past TED Idea Search winners

Check out a selection of speakers who were discovered during past TED Idea Searches:

TED Idea Search: Africa 2022 winners selected

From April through June 2022, the TED Idea Search: Africa 2022 applications were open to anyone living in or descended from the African continent. Applicants were required to create a two-minute video as a part of their submission. 

After sorting through hundreds of applications, the TED team selected ten finalists to participate in two virtual TED Membership events, where the finalists talked more about their ideas and participated in a Q&A with TED Members. After each Q&A, TED Members had the opportunity to vote on each finalist’s idea and speaking style.

Thanks to those ratings, the TED team selected three winners who will be invited to give a TED Talk, either virtually or in person. Those winners are: 

Chinyanta Kabaso, dancer, based in Glasgow, Scotland

Kabaso studies the roots and meanings of traditional African dance styles and performs dances from across the continent of Africa.

Diarra Bousso Gueye, fashion designer and mathematician, based in Dakar, Senegal

Gueye uses mathematics to design clothing patterns and encourages her customers to vote on which designs are manufactured.

Why Africa?

TED is committed to a global mindset. We seek to source ideas from everywhere and to make them widely and freely accessible. Powerful ideas, expressed and distributed with care, can bring different groups together and create a shared vision of a future worth pursuing. It is with that global mindset that we are focusing on different regions of the world for several idea search events — most recently Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Past TED Idea Search winners:

TED Audio Collective adds “Your Undivided Attention” to its roster of podcasts

Your Undivided Attention, a podcast from Center for Humane Technology, has joined the TED Audio Collective, a collection of podcasts for the curious.

Co-hosts Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin explore the incredible power that technology has over our lives — for good and for bad. Featuring in-depth conversations with academics, activists, and experts discussing the impact of technology in political, social and economic change, Your Undivided Attention centers around the urgent need for humane technology that supports our shared well-being and ability to tackle complex global challenges.

“The current technology ecosystem profits from attention, polarization and deepening extremism, but it doesn’t have to be this way,” said Tristan Harris, co-host of Your Undivided Attention and co-founder of Center for Humane Technology. “At Center for Humane Technology, we believe that technology that protects our well-being and unleashes the very best of humanity is possible. That’s why we’re thrilled that Your Undivided Attention is joining the TED Audio Collective so we can share our learnings from inspiring leaders across sectors on what we can do together to catalyze a more humane future.”

Co-hosts Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, along with Randima Fernando, also founded Center for Humane Technology, a nonprofit organization dedicated to radically reimagining our digital infrastructure and driving a comprehensive shift toward humane technology that supports our collective well-being, democracy and shared information environment. Harris and Raskin were featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, which explored the machinations of social media and its grip on civilization.

TED’s director of audio Michelle Quint shares, “We’re excited to support the urgent and essential mission of Your Undivided Attention and proud the show has chosen the TED Audio Collective as its new home.”

Your Undivided Attention will remain ad-free as a part of the TED Audio Collective.

Have an idea to share? Apply to our TED Idea Search: Latin America 2021

Do you have a TED Talk to share with the world? TED is hosting its second idea search of 2021 with a mission to hear big, bold ideas — this time specifically from Latin America. 

TED Idea Search: Latin America 2021 is open to anyone living in or descended from South America, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Applicants are required to create a two-minute video as a part of their submission. The deadline for submissions has been extended to July 26, 2021 at 11:59pm ET. At this time, we are only able to accept applications in English.

Why Latin America?

TED is committed to a global mindset. We seek ideas from everywhere and aim to make them widely and freely accessible. Powerful ideas, expressed and distributed with care, have the potential to bring diverse groups together and create a shared vision of a future worth pursuing. It is with that global mindset that we are focusing on different regions of the world for the next few idea search events.

Application process

Applicants who are selected for round two will be invited to a virtual event where they will have the opportunity to talk more about their idea and participate in a Q&A with members of the TED community.

Winners will be invited to give a TED Talk, either virtually or in person.

Learn more and submit your application!

TED Global Idea Search 2021 winners

In the meantime, learn more about the TED Global Idea Search 2021 winners from earlier this year whose TED Talks are scheduled to be published on TED.com by the end of the year:

Saad Bhamla, chemical engineer and professor at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Talk topic: How insects pee — and what we can learn from them

Andrea Berchowitz, cofounder and CEO of Vira Health in London, UK

Talk topic: How to make the workplace more menopause-friendly

Robert A. Belle, accountant in Nairobi, Kenya

Talk topic: The surprising information about ourselves that accounting can uncover

Sophia Kianni, student and activist in Mclean, Virginia, USA

Talk topic: Tackling climate change by translating critical climate information from English to other languages

Past TED Idea Search winners

And check out just a selection of speakers who were discovered during past idea searches:

Adie Delaney: An aerialist on listening to your body’s signals

Adeola Fayehun: Africa is a sleeping giant — I’m trying to wake it up

Ariel Waldman: The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica’s ice

Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle: What Saturn’s most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life

Tamekia MizLadi Smith: How to train employees to have difficult conversations

Zak Ebrahim: I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace

Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with the lions

Want to give a TED Talk? Apply to our Global Idea Search

Do you have a TED Talk to share with the world? TED is hosting two global idea searches in 2021 with a mission: to hear big, bold ideas from every corner of the globe! We’re looking for people who can offer new, unique insights and fresh ways of thinking to a very large audience.

Applications for the first 2021 Global Idea Search are now open. You’ll be required to create a two-minute video as a part of your submission, and the deadline for this round is January 31, 2021 (11:59pm ET).

Applicants who are selected for round two will be invited to a virtual event where they’ll talk more about their idea and participate in a Q&A with members of the TED community.

Winners will be invited to give a TED Talk, either virtually or in person.

Learn more and submit your application!

Not ready to apply yet? That’s OK — the second global idea search of 2021 will open in June.

In the meantime, check out just a selection of speakers who were discovered during past idea searches:

Adie Delaney: An aerialist on listening to your body’s signals (444k views)

Adeola Fayehun: Africa is a sleeping giant — I’m trying to wake it up (1.5 million views)

Ariel Waldman: The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica’s ice (1.1m views)

Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle: What Saturn’s most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life (1.3m views)

Tamekia MizLadi Smith: How to train employees to have difficult conversations (2m views)

Zak Ebrahim: I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace (6.4m views and a TED Book)

Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with the lions (2.6m views)

Leadership: Notes from Session 2 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 climate crisis demands leadership at every level. Governments, cities and businesses are three key players in designing and implementing the necessary transition. In Session 2 of the Countdown Global Launch, cohosted by climate advocate Al Gore and actor, musician and activist Jaden Smith, speakers discussed putting climate back on the political and social agenda, rethinking cities and what businesses can do to transform.

Gore and Smith opened the session by talking about how young people are at the forefront of climate activism, and discussed the global art collaboration between Countdown and Fine Acts: ten public artworks on the topic of climate change, аll launching on 10.10.2020 in ten cities around the world, all created by TED Fellows.

The talks in brief:

Severn Cullis-Suzuki, environmental educator

Big idea: Nearly 30 years ago, 12-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki spoke at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit in hopes of reversing the planet’s slide into ecological disaster. Some at the summit listened, producing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, among other then-radical documents. But for the rest of the world, it was business, politics and full-steam-ahead economic growth. Now in 2020, with the Paris Agreement once again stoking the fervor to fight climate change, it’s time to make sure governments actually listen. 

How? Cullis-Suzuki believes that crises can show us not only the potential for societies to react decisively against existential threats, but also expose the inequities, injustices and weaknesses of our infrastructure. COVID-19 is one such crisis: it has sparked calls for social justice and shown just how deadly indecision can be. Cullis-Suzuki believes it’s a warning. She reminds us that if we don’t change, next time could be far worse. This time, if we can make our actions reflect our words around climate change, we can work towards a better world for our children.  

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Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission

Big idea: The European Union has committed to becoming the first carbon-free continent by 2050, with the goal of reducing emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030. These ambitious goals are vital — and possible — and they require everyone’s participation. 

How? The evidence of climate change is unfolding before us: melting glaciers, forest fires, unpredictable weather. This is only the beginning. Such extreme circumstances call for extreme action, and that is exactly what Ursula von der Leyen has laid out in response. Resolving not to be derailed by COVID-19, the EU’s commitment to climate action milestones is now stronger than ever, von der Leyen says. She details some of the 50 actions in the European Green Deal aimed at building a more sustainable world, such as planting trees, creating a circular economy, recycling and more. With the crisis escalating every day, she calls for action from every direction.

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Olafur Eliasson, artist

Big idea: Known for big, attention-grabbing installations — like his four towering waterfalls in New York’s East River — Olafur Eliasson has scaled down his latest project: an art platform for kids designed to spur budding climate activists to lead discussions on some of the biggest issues on the planet.

How? Inspired by world-shaping movements helmed by the planet’s youngest environmentalists, Eliasson built Earth Speakr, an app that helps concerned kids get serious messages in front of adults in a fun, novel way. The app uses AR to let kids animate photos of anything — trees, rocks, water — and record a message from nature, speaking in their own voices. These recorded messages help get the word out about the issues kids care about most — conservation, climate change, pollution and more.

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Rebecca Henderson, capitalism rethinker

Big idea: Capitalism is driving climate change — but for-profit businesses can also help fix it. 

How? “We let capitalism morph into something monstrous,” says economist Rebecca Henderson. Companies emit massive amounts of greenhouse gases that wreck the environment and harm human health, and governments don’t hold them accountable to pay for the damages. If governments won’t do it, Henderson says, it’s time for businesses themselves to step up on their own. Sound counterintuitive? Henderson thinks it may be the only option: it’ll be hard to stay in business if the world continues to be rocked by the negative effects of climate change. She’s confident that business leaders can start to marshal change with a four-pronged framework: start paying for the climate damage they cause; persuade competitors to do the same; let investors know there’s money to be made in a clean economy; and convince governments to implement these changes far and wide. “The truth is: business is screwed if we don’t fix climate change,” Henderson says.

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Elif Shafak, novelist and political scientist

Big idea: There is a sublime art at the heart of storytelling: the art of foregrounding silence, bringing to light things that we don’t talk about, and using these things to “speak louder than demagoguery and apathy.” Writers can learn to voice the unspoken loudly enough to inspire action.

How? “One of the many beauties of the art of storytelling is to imagine yourself inside someone else’s voice,” says writer Elif Shafak. Surprisingly, we can learn a lot from imagining the voices of trees, whose experience of time, stillness and impermanence are utterly different than our own. Listen to the trees, she says, and discover that “hidden inside [their] story is the past and the future of humanity.” 

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Jesper Brodin, CEO of Ingka Group (IKEA), in conversation with Pia Heidenmark Cook, CSO of Ingka Group (IKEA)

Big idea: Success in business doesn’t mean being at odds with the Earth. What’s good for climate can be good for business, too. 

How? Jesper Brodin and Pia Heidenmark Cook discuss the company’s ambitious commitment to go climate positive (going beyond net-zero emissions by actually removing carbon from the atmosphere) by 2030 — and still remain profitable. The popular Swedish furniture and design company is rethinking how to make their entire business sustainable, from their raw materials and supply chain and to their products’ disposal. Their plan includes sourcing sustainable cotton for fabrics, buying wood from solely sustainable sources by the end of 2020 and committing to fully renewable and recycled materials for all their products by 2030. They’re also thinking about how to extend the life of products, once people have already bought them, through reuse, repurposing or recycling. The exciting part about their plan, Brodin and Cook say, is that none of these innovations will affect the quality, form, function and affordability of their products.

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Dave Clark, SVP of worldwide operations at Amazon, and Kara Hurst, head of worldwide sustainability at Amazon

Big idea: Amazon is making a commitment to sustainability across its expansive array of businesses — and inviting other companies to do the same.

How? In 2019, Amazon cofounded the Climate Pledge, a commitment to become a net-zero carbon company by 2040. Dave Clark and Kara Hurst discuss how they’re working together to reduce Amazon’s carbon footprint across all aspects of business, from embedding sustainability teams throughout the organization to rethinking entire supply chains. For instance, last year Amazon ordered 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from the startup Rivian in an effort to begin converting the company’s fleet to renewable energy. The scale of transformation will be massive, Clark and Hurst say, and they’re encouraging other companies to follow suit. “One thing we know about the scale of the urgent challenge we have in front of us is that it’s going to take everyone. We cannot do it alone,” Hurst says, “It’s going to take companies and governments, communities and individuals, to come up with solutions, new innovations and technologies.”

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Aparna Nancherla, comedian

Big idea: Taking out the trash can be fun.

Why? If you love garbage, you can get an endless supply with “the stuff that our modernist, consumer, carbon-powered culture makes us buy endlessly, and often for no good reason,” says Aparna Nancherla. She runs through the pleasure and pain of garbage, from “micro-decluttering” by throwing things away, to the fact that only 10 percent of our plastic gets recycled. Nancherla shares the dire state of our recycling industry (imagining the Pacific garbage patch as a wedding destination), but there’s also plenty of humor around just how hard it is to stay green in a world that’s choking on ever-larger piles of trash.

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Carlos Moreno, scientific director, Panthéon Sorbonne University-IAE Paris

Big idea: Urban areas should be built to function as “15-minute cities,” so that inhabitants have access to all services they need to live, learn and thrive within their immediate vicinity.

How? City life has become more inconvenient than ever, with long commutes, underutilized spaces and lack of access. Our acceptance of this dysfunction has reached a peak. Carlos Moreno invites us to ask ourselves: “What do we need to create a 15-minute city?” This would mean access to necessities like school, work, parks, cultural centers, shops and living space all within a 15-minute walk, at all times. Moreno’s ideas to create cities like this are guided by four principles: ecology, proximity, solidarity and participation, with inhabitants actively taking part in their neighborhoods’ transformations. He calls for urban areas to adapt to humans, not the other way around. 

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Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone

Big idea: Trees offer us a crucial way to trap carbon and save the climate. Get planting.

How? Driving home one day outside Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr gazed out at the landscape in horror. The lush green forest she used to know had disappeared, replaced with barren hills. The shock wasn’t merely visual. Without trees standing as a critical bulwark against land erosion, the citizens of Freetown — where more than 70 informal settlements have sprung up in the last two decades — are at great risk of catastrophic effects of climate change, a fact driven home in August 2017, when a massive landslide killed 1,000 people there in less than five minutes. In that moment, Aki-Sawyerr vowed to save her city in the most direct way she could — she ran for mayor, won and has now committed to making Freetown a “tree town” once again. She’s on track to increase vegetation cover in the city by 50 percent by the end of her term in 2022, planting one million trees along the way. Freetown citizens have planted half a million seedlings so far, all tracked using a custom app, setting the stage for a safer environment and stirring collective civic pride. “A million trees is our city’s small contribution to increasing the much-needed global carbon sink,” Aki-Sawyerr says.

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Actress and musician Yemi Alade joins the show to close out the session, singing and dancing to the upbeat tune “True Love.”

Beauty everywhere: Notes from Session 6 of TED2020

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

Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle, planetary scientist 

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

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

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Ethan Hawke, actor, writer, director

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

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

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

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Julia Watson, architect, landscape designer, author

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

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

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

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Titus Kaphar, artist

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

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

Want to speak at TED2020? Enter our worldwide Idea Search

If you have an idea the world needs to hear, put your name forward to speak at next year’s TED conference! We’ve just opened applications in our TED2020 Idea Search, a worldwide hunt for the next great idea.

The theme of TED2020 is UNCHARTED. The future is more uncertain than it’s ever been; we’re looking for people who will give us a clue as to where we’re heading — and how we’ll get there.

Are you working on an invention, design or vision that will really change the way things are done?
Do you have a thoughtful approach to the world’s shared frustrations?
Are you an explorer who’s discovered something strange and amazing?

If any of these questions resonate with you, apply today!

Wherever you are, whatever your time zone, you can beam in to the TED World Theater to share your idea during several upcoming events. Applications are open now, with the first deadline on May 29, 2019.

Want inspiration? Here are just a few speakers who were discovered during past talent searches:

Richard Turere: My invention that made peace with the lions (2.3m views)
Ashton Applewhite: Let’s end ageism (1.4m views)
OluTimehin Adegbeye: Who belongs in a city? (2.2m views)
Zak Ebrahim: I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace (5.2m views and a TED Book)

And some past Idea Search talks that went viral on TED.com:

Christopher Emdin: Teach teachers how to create magic (2.27 million views)
Lux Narayan: What I learned from 2,000 obituaries (1.65m views)
Lara Setrakian: 3 ways to fix a broken news industry (1.1m views)
Todd Scott: An intergalactic guide to using a defibrillator (1.1m views)

“Ideas That Matter”: A new partnership with CBS This Morning and popular TED speakers

The American news show CBS This Morning and TED announced today that they will collaborate on an ongoing series called “Ideas That Matter.” The monthly series, which launches in January, will invite a TED speaker onto the broadcast to talk with the anchors. The series aims to highlight the individuals and ideas shaping our world and lives.

As Chris Anderson, curator and head of TED, said about the partnership: “Today’s all-consuming political headlines risk distracting us from the exciting and potentially world-changing ideas all around us. This segment will take the ideas we believe could change our world and give them a better shot at being heard, understood—and perhaps even acted on.”

The first guest in the series will be Jan Rader, the fire chief of Huntington, West Virginia,  who has been on the front lines of dealing with her town’s opioid epidemic. Her recent TED talk shared her unique solutions to dealing with this challenge. Rader will appear on CBS This Morning on January 2, and her TED Talk will be released the same day. Additional speakers will be announced.

The “Ideas That Matter” partnership was featured on CBS This Morning today by Chris Anderson, curator and head of TED. You can watch the announcement here or on Facebook.

More about CBS This Morning: Each weekday morning, Gayle King, Norah O’Donnell, John Dickerson and Bianna Golodryga deliver two hours of original reporting, breaking news and newsmaker interviews in an engaging and informative format that challenges the norm in network morning news programs. Like TED Talks themselves, the broadcast has earned a prestigious Peabody Award; CBS This Morning has also earned a Polk Award, three News & Documentary Emmys, three Daytime Emmys and the 2017 Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Newscast.

Meet the Fall 2018 class of TED Residents

On September 12, TED welcomed its latest class to the TED Residency program, an in-house incubator for breakthrough ideas. These 21 Residents will spend 14 weeks in TED’s New York headquarters working and thinking together. The class includes exceptional people from all over the map — from Bulgaria to South Africa, Canada to Kansas.

New Residents include:

• A rabbi helping to bring centuries-old wisdom to modern-day social media
• An underwater photographer depicting the surprising variety of wildlife in urban waters
• A former banker who inherited a plot of land and is now learning how to farm
• A journalist seeking transparency in the US healthcare system
• A rapper helping others find their voice

Heidi Boisvert, PhD, is an interdisciplinary artist and creative technologist building an open-source biometric lab and AI system to understand humans’ emotional reactions to media. Her goal: to figure out what makes media truly affecting and effective, so the knowledge can be used for good and to safeguard against manipulation.

TED Fellow and human rights activist Yana Buhrer Tavanier — based in Sofia, Bulgaria — is the co-founder of Fine Acts, which bridges human rights and art to instigate social change. In 2017, she launched Fine Acts Labs, bringing activists, and artists and technologists together in one space to tackle one social issue.

Recognizing that history-book narratives are Eurocentric, Glenn Cantave’s organization Movers and Shakers wants to paint a fuller picture using augmented reality. His team is working with local educators to create an AR book on the true story of Christopher Columbus. He also plans to launch neighborhood walking tours that depict digital landmarks of black and brown people in the US. He calls the project a “Pokemon-Go for contextualized history.”

Maria Adele Carrai is a sinologist and political scientist finishing a book about sovereignty in China, and how its infrastructure initiatives are changing the country’s place in the world.

Luz Claudio, PhD, is an environmental health research scientist, author and educator who develops innovative tools for research and the mentoring of young scientists. She is also developing new ways to translate discoveries from the environmental health sciences into practical actions—like writing a children’s book!

Keith Ellenbogen is an acclaimed underwater photographer who focuses on environmental conservation. His work dives into New York’s surprisingly vibrant and diverse marine ecosystems.

Diane Henry is a tech seed investor and startup strategist dedicated to finding, funding and amplifying visionary founders who believe in building ethics into tech as it evolves.

Muhammed Y. Idris is putting his PhD in social data analytics to good use through his app, Atar — a mobile platform that gives refugees seeking asylum information about their rights and available services. For now, the app is limited to people in Montreal but in the last year he has partnered with the UNHCR to expand his work further.

Azadeh (Azi) Jamalian is an entrepreneur and cognitive science PhD building invention hubs and communities for kid inventors. Her mission is to create a world in which all children dare to act on their dreams.

Keith Kirkland is an industrial designer, CEO and cofounder of WearWorks, a company that makes haptic navigation products for the blind. Their product, Wayband, helped the first blind person ever navigate the 2017 NYC Marathon without sighted assistance.

TEDx organizer Kelo Kubu started her career in finance and later founded a design studio, but then inherited farmland as restitution from apartheid but didn’t know what to do with it. She’s launching an ag-tech accelerator focusing on urban female farmers so they can all learn to profit from their land.

Kemi Layeni is an artist focusing on the stories and experiences of people of African descent. She is working on a multimedia project about slavery “through a speculative, Afro-futuristic and Afro-surreal lens.”

Entrepreneur and graduate of The Second City, Mary Lemmer is applying improv comedy training to help people become better leaders.

Mordechai Lightstone is a Chasidic rabbi, the social media editor at Chabad.org and the founder of Tech Tribe. He is passionate about using new media to further Jewish identity and community building.

Jullia Suhyoung Lim designs technology to tackle challenges in education and medicine. She is currently designing an AR app to help autistic children identify abstract concepts in real life.

Samy el-Noury is an actor and LGBTQ+ advocate developing his first full-length play, about the life of a historical transgender activist. His goal is to recognize trans people in history and create more opportunities for working trans artists.

Jeanne Pinder demands radical transparency from the US healthcare system. Although price opacity is often drowned out by the noisier debate about policy and politics, the effects on real people are huge and growing, she says. Her award-winning startup, ClearHealthCosts, reports on and crowdsources true costs of medical procedures and makes the data public.

Originally from Colombia, Mariana Prieto designs scalable solutions to solve complex wildlife conservation challenges.

Savannah Rodgers is a documentary filmmaker from Kansas City. She wanted to make movies after seeing her favorite film, Chasing Amy (1997), for the first time at age 12. Now she’s making a documentary about the film and its enduring, controversial LGBTQ+ legacy.

Julie Scelfo is a journalist and social justice activist whose stories about society and human behavior reframe popular ideas and ask us to rethink basic assumptions. The author of The Women Who Made New York says she believes Donald Trump is onto something when he talks about “fake news” — although she would define it differently.

Raegan Sealy is a poet, singer, rapper and the founder of Sound Board NYC. An advocate of social change through the arts, Raegan and her work draw on her own experiences of overcoming domestic violence, sexual abuse and addiction.

Two members of this class, Kemi Layeni and Savannah Rodgers, won their seats in the Adobe Project 1324 TED Residency challenge, for young creatives (aged 18 to 24) with big ideas to share. The TED team chose the winners; Adobe is generously picking up the tab for their travel, room and board.

The fall Residency will culminate with a program of TED Talks in December. Would you or someone you know like to become a Resident? Applications for the Spring 2019 Residency (February 25–May 31) open October 1 and will close December 3, 2018. You can learn more at ted.com/residency.