2006 TED Prize winners, from left: filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, architect Cameron Sinclair, Dr. Larry Brilliant
Jehane Noujaim
Filmmaker documenting her search for truth
Two weeks before the US invasion in Iraq, Jehane went to Qatar, gained access to both Al Jazeera and the US military’s Central Command offices, and caught the onset and outbreak of the Iraqi war on film. The result: Control Room, her controversial, gutsy documentary that lays out the divergent ways the war was reported by the Arabs and the West. Being raised between Egypt and the US, the exploration of culture is one of Jehane’s driving forces.
Her reason for making the film: “It’s important for everyone, simply as individuals, to try to understand different people and different cultures, but it’s especially important for people in the United States because we affect so much of the world beyond our borders.”
Before Control Room, Jehane produced and directed Startup.com in association with Pennebaker Hedgedus Films. The acclaimed feature-length documentary follows two New Yorkers on the dot.com roller coaster as they attempt to start up Govworks, a web site linking citizens and their local governments. Before culture even begins to shift, Jehane is there with her camera, trusting that the story to unfold is one that will change us.
Click here to see the results of Jehane Noujaim's wish.
Cameron Sinclair
Architect solving global, social, and humanitarian crises with design
Cameron’s mantra: Design like you give a damn. He is the cofounder of Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit that seeks architecture solutions to humanitarian crises and brings design services to communities in need. For the past six years his team has initiated and implemented programs including housing ideas for returning refugees in Kosovo; mobile health clinics to combat HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa; mine clearance programs and playground building in the Balkans; and disaster recovery assistance in Grenada, India, Iran and Sri Lanka.
In his words, his challenge is “to encourage the design profession to respond to the 98% of the world that do not benefit from our services and to foster public appreciation for the many ways that architecture and design can improve lives.” Cameron and co-founder Kate Stohr fund the projects through individual donations and design contest entry fees. Working as a two-person team, they raised $120,000 for Kosovo relief and $500,000 for Sri Lanka.
After the tsunami, it became clear how much Sinclair was needed when he received 4,000 e-mails in a week from people seeking to help.
Click here to see the results of Cameron Sinclair's wish.
Dr. Lawrence Brilliant
Medical doctor, epidemiologist, technologist, activist, author who is healing the world
Board-certified in preventive medicine and public health, Larry lived in India for ten years, first at a Himalayan monastery studying with Neem Keroli Baba, and later as a diplomat working for the United Nations. He was one of the leaders of the successful World Health Organization smallpox eradication program.
When he came back to the United States, he became a professor of international health at the University of Michigan and later co-founded, with Stewart Brand, The Well, a legendary online community. Time and WIRED magazines call him a “technology visionary.” Larry was also the founder and is chair of the international health nonprofit the Seva Foundation. Seva’s projects in Tibet, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Tanzania, Mexico and Guatemala have given back sight to more than 2 million blind people through innovative surgery, self-sufficient eye care systems, and low-cost manufacturing of intraocular lenses.
Brilliant, a technology patent holder, has been CEO of two public companies and other venture-backed startups. He spent the first half of 2005 as a volunteer helping out in the tsunami in Sri Lanka and working in India with WHO in the campaign to eradicate polio. As his nominator sums it up, “‘Dr. Brilliant’ is a name to live up to, and he has.”
