The only way to get things done—set your eyes on the goal, tilt forward, start running, and build momentum. That is the wisdom behind the theme for TEDWomen 2015: Momentum. TEDWomen 2015 will be held May 27-29, 2015, in Monterey, California, and will bring together a community of thinkers, doers and dreamers from around the world to hear tal...

(TED is on its annual two-week vacation. During the break, we’re posting playlists from the TEDTalks archive. We’ll be back with new talks on August 29th.) To propel us into the week: four speakers whose infectious high energy animates what they have to say. 1) Clifford Stoll captivates his audience with a wildly energetic sprinkling of an...

Every day, 450,000 people log on to TED.com. But where are they located? And what are they watching—our newest offerings or our classic talks? In the spirit of visual data artists like Hans Rosling and David McCandless, TED web engineer Alex Dean created a map of the United States which shows when and where TEDTalks were viewed on September 1...

“Africa is doomed to be poor” -- that wrongheaded statement is an example of the destiny instinct, the belief that innate characteristics determine the destinies of countries or cultures, says the late global health expert Hans Rosling. Here’s why it happens and how to overcome it. On May 12, 2013, I had the great privilege of addressing 500 wo...

In celebration of our billionth video view, TED reached out to some of our favorite players in the worlds of technology, entertainment and design, asking which TED Talks they find themselves going back to again and again. To see the famous faces who’ve told us so far -- from Bill Gates to Barbra Streisand -- head to our guest-curated playlis...

Tuesday afternoon at the TEDx Africa Skype station, host Kelo Kubu chatted with TEDx events in South Africa, Ghana and Ethiopia. It was on the verge of midnight in Johannesburg when Bongi Mkhabela of TEDxSoweto talked with TEDWomen attendees about the importance of listening to different perspectives -- a strong theme in Session 1. Halla Tom...

Over the past week, we’ve noticed a lot of TED-related news items in the ether. Here, some highlights: TED Prize winner JR (watch his talk) has shared this stunning timelapse video of 6,000 people stopping by his Inside Out photo truck in New York City, and pasting their photos on the sidewalk in Times Square. Elizabeth Gilbert (watch h...

TED is dedicated to ideas worth spreading. And that leaves many wondering exactly which ideas have been spread the most widely in the six years that TEDTalks videos have been available online. Here, a list of the 20 most-watched talks on all the platforms we track: TED.com, YouTube, iTunes, embed and download, Hulu and more, as of November 2...

Here, some staff picks of smart, funny, bizarre and cool stuff on the interwebs this week, with a light Valentine's Day theme: Suleika Jaouad, who writes about being young with cancer, talks about the embarrassing but very real prospect of being a sexually active cancer patient. [The NYTimes Well Blog] For other unconventional responses to...

Over the weekend, we asked the TED community on Facebook this question: "If you wanted to show a TEDTalk to open the school year, which one would you choose?" It's inspired by a question tweeted from the #jed21 conference. On Facebook, almost 1,000 responses flowed in. The job of tallying the results -- given in freeform comments -- fell to our...

UPDATED: To see all these talks at one click, check out our updated Playlist: The 20 Most Popular Talks of All Time. As 2013 draws to a close, TED is deeply humbled to have posted 1600+ talks, each representing an idea worth spreading. So which ideas have had the most widespread impact? Below, a look at the 20 most-watched talks as of Dec...

It may be the age of big data, but it’s still very hard to know how many children were born in Bolivia or Botswana last year, or to know something as simple as which clinics in the developing world have medicine and which don’t. Until recently, there was only one way to find answers to questions like these -- to send a group of workers out i...

We all lead lives that move 1,000 miles per minute. In his TED Book, The Art of Stillness, Pico Iyer posits a bold idea: that in our chaotic time, the greatest luxury is actually the ability to go nowhere and do nothing. To Iyer, it’s this time for quiet, inward, still reflection that snaps all of our experiences into focus. This got us c...

A collaboration between TED and Japanese public broadcaster NHK is bringing TEDTalks to TV for the first time in Japan -- for Super Presentation! It's a series that harnesses TED speakers' persuasive ideas to teach English, empower a new generation of independent thinkers, and build hope one year after the Japanese tsunami. Friday night a...

With three weeks to go before the event, we're proud to present the TEDWomen speaker lineup for the event happening Dec. 7-8, 2010, in Washington, DC. Our theme is "Reshaping the Future" -- and the program highlights women as powerful innovators and architects of change. Along with TED's curatorial partner The Paley Center for Media, we...

What's happening in this picture above? Ask Mohammed Abu Zeinab, a TEDx speaker and member of the onsite documentary crew WTYSL: As I walked in, I saw a crowd had gathered, with Lara, our own TEDx Director, even standing on a coffee table to see the center of everyone's attention, the real show. I knew what it was. It was Hans. I swerv...

TED Talks are available in 97 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our translators. So far, more than 8,800 volunteers have created the upwards of 34,000 translated talks. To celebrate this huge accomplishment, every week the TED Blog will be bringing you a Q&A with one of our most prolific translators. Toda...

We're thrilled to announce today the launch of TED Conversations, a new social platform on TED.com that connects people for conversation, collaboration and debate. TED Conversations was designed and built from the ground up to foster meaningful conversation among the global community who watch, share and discuss TEDTalks. Anyone who part...

TED Talks are available in 94 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our translators. So far, more than 8,500 volunteers have created the upwards of 33,500 translated talks. To celebrate this accomplishment, every week the TED Blog is bringing you a Q&A with one of our most prolific translators. Today, mee...

Last week we announced our first-ever video audition for TED. Make a one-minute application video to get started -- video deadline is April 25, 2011, at 11:59pm Eastern. Finalists will be invited to our May 24 audition in New York City. (Get more details, and learn how to enter.) As the entries start coming in, TED's Content Director, Kelly...

Step with me for a minute into an internet time machine. The date: June 27, 2006. The event: the first six TED Talks being posted online. “Today, for the first time ever, we’re thrilled to present some of the most remarkable talks from TEDs past,” reads a blog post from Chris Anderson written on that day. (The image above shows exactly wh...

In 2015, 60 Minutes aired a story called "When TED talks, people listen," to show what happens when TED Talks are shared across the world. The segment focuses on a few key speakers, including Bryan Stevenson, Maysoon Zayid, Amy Cuddy and Monica Lewinsky, and you can watch a playlist of highlighted TED Talks here. But many of you said: You wa...

TEDxSummit Opening Night marked the start of a week-long global gathering of 650 TEDx organizers from over 90 countries, to celebrate "The power of x". “X began as a superscript”, TED curator Chris Anderson explained, “to denote an independently organized event, but now it has come to signify a multiplier”. The multiplier effect encompasses i...

The stars of your favorite TED Talks have been busy over the past week. Below, a few newsy highlights. Inside the mind of a murderer. What makes murderers do what they do? A BBC piece revealed that some murderers have reduced activity in their prefrontal cortex, which controls emotional impulses, and over-activity in their amygdala, which gen...

Bill Nye the Science Guy (watch his TED-Ed lesson) will be joining the cast of “Dancing with the Stars.” New York Magazine says of Nye’s inclusion in the lineup -- alongside Snooki, Valerie Harper and Jack Osbourne — that he is “the big get.” How long do we think it will be before he and his partner dance to “She Blinded Me With Science?” ...

Over the past five days, the TED2017 conference has explored the theme “The Future You.” This has spanned an incredible number of ideas on a huge array of topics. Below, a tour through some of the key themes that emerged -- through the week and in the double-stuffed session of day 5. All eyes on AI. How will artificial intelligence reshap...

Some TED Talks are memorable for their big, overarching themes. Others we remember for the small details -- a random anecdote, the speaker's facial hair. The anthropologist who swallowed a sword? The talk with huge photos of people's faces everywhere? The famous writer who runs into the house to write down an idea before it's lost forever? B...

Yesterday, nearly every seat of the theatre at the Admiralspalast was filled for the TEDBerlin Salon, the first official TED event in Germany (and, with TEDGlobal's move to Rio in October, the only one taking place in Europe this year). In two sessions hosted by Bruno Giussani, 15 speakers and performers covered an eclectic array of topics, wh...

The first TED was held in 1984, the year George Orwell imagined in his classic novel. The second was held in 1990. In 2006, TED Talks were offered online for the first time, free to anyone across the world who wanted to watch. In 2009, TED moved to its current home in Long Beach, California. As we prepare for TED2013 -- the anticipation of th...

Melissa Marshall has a message for scientists and engineers: Contrary to popular belief, the general public is interested in your work and does want to hear the details of your research. The trick is that you must communicate your ideas clearly, because they will start snoring in their seats if you assault them with a slew of jargon and detail...