The MacArthur Foundation revealed its list of 2015 Fellows this morning. Twenty-four people received the “genius grant,” a $625,000 no-strings-attached stipend -- and two of them are TED Fellows: Patrick Awuah and LaToya Ruby Frazier. Patrick Awuah founded Ashesi University, a college in his home country of Ghana dedicated to educating Af...

Ruby Wax bounds onto the stage with a beaming smile and a glint in her eye. Then she says firmly, "One in four people have mental illness." She looks down at the audience mischievously. She counts out. "You, sir, with the weird teeth. It's you." She points behind him. "That whole row isn't right. Hi. Don't even look at me." Wax is here to...

One in four people have some form of mental illness, and Ruby Wax wants to talk about it. Watch her TEDTalk, posted today and inspired by her show Losing It, to start the conversation. One project she didn't get to mention onstage at TEDGlobal: This winter, Wax started up the Black Dog Tribe, an online network for people with mental illness ...

Kitra Cahana doesn’t really live anywhere. The photojournalist has been on the road since she was young, the oldest in a family of five with parents who often traveled for months on end. Says the TED Fellow by phone (appropriately, from the road), “It engrained in me the notion that I can live anywhere, that there are no borders.” It was natu...

Photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier’s new book The Notion of Family is a powerful visual chronicle of historic steel town, Braddock, Pennsylvania. It’s also an intimate portrait of the artist’s own family, Braddock natives who witnessed its boom, decline and -- in recent years -- its rebranding as an icon of Rust Belt renewal and destination for th...

It was the day of my TED Talk, worried about stumbling on stage. What if my slides don't work? What if I completely black out on the words that I passionately wanted to share? I was about to step onto that stage, declaring the fullness of my womanhood; my journey as a trans person from the Philippines. People have since asked, “why come 'out...

Click to watch the session-opening animation We're going through a revolution is neuroscience and psychology, gaining new insights into how the brain works, and what happens when parts go wrong. All that insight is producing applications in a crucial area: understanding mental illness. And that understanding is one that holds the promise of...

On the TEDGlobal 2012 stage this summer, guest curator Sarah Caddick hosted the session “Misbehaving Beautifully,” a deep dive into a near-taboo subject: mental health and mental illness. Today, Oct. 10, happens to be World Mental Health Day, and TED.com is premiering the final talk Sarah curated for the stage, Ruby Wax’s “What’s so funny ab...

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 ...

On Monday, June 25, the curtain rises on TEDGlobal 2012: Radical Openness. More than 70 speakers -- scientists, artists, technologists, students and visionaries -- will take the TED stage over four days in Edinburgh, Scotland, to explore the intriguing theme of openness of all kinds, in politics, science, art, private life ... We'll be...

  Teens, tweens and kids are often referred to as “digital natives.” Having grown up with the Internet, smartphones and tablets, they’re often extraordinarily adept at interacting with digital technology. But Mitch Resnick, who spoke at TEDxBeaconStreet, is skeptical of this descriptor. Sure, young people can text and chat and play games, he ...

When biologist E.O. Wilson won the TED Prize in 2007, he wished that we all “work together to help create the key tool that we need to inspire preservation of Earth's biodiversity." With that, the Encyclopedia of Life began the outrageous task of cataloguing all of the Earth's known species. Cynthia Parr spoke at TED2012 to give updates o...

Today, we're thrilled to announce the TEDGlobal 2012 speaker lineup -- exploring the theme "Radical Openness." As the world becomes ever more interconnected, the ways we relate, the means by which we learn about one another and develop mutual understanding, and the rules about what we hide and what we share are changing. That's the inspir...

Please enjoy your weekly roundup of news briefs from members of the TED community: A 21st-century break-in. Security futurist Marc Goodman knows that technology can make both life and crime easier. In a post on Boing Boing excerpted from his book Future Crimes, he tells the story of an auto trading company that installed tiny remote-controlled ...

Rita Pierson is the kind of teacher you wish you had. An educator for 40 years, she is funny, sharp and simply has a way with words -- so much so that today’s talk feels a bit like a sermon. In this talk, Pierson shares the secret to teaching students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds -- make personal connections with them. ...

Sarah Caddick is a neuroscientist who’s obsessed with the way that science and, in particular, the brain, are understood by those who don’t spend most of their lives inside a lab. She is the Neuroscience Advisor to David Sainsbury and a senior advisor to the Gatsby Charitable Foundation -- a big funder of scientific research, based in London...

Photo: James Duncan Davidson The old adage goes: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. However, speakers during Day 2 of TEDGlobal 2012—the annual conference where thinkers in a variety of fields present their ideas—made it clear that there’s a lot out there in need of fixing. Giving a range of examples -- from the data that telephone companie...

There’s something so cool about finding a new podcast to love -- each little download opens a door to new ideas, new jokes, new ways of seeing the world. Working at TED, as you might guess, many of us have strong opinions about this. Beyond the podcasts we all love: This American Life, Radiolab, The Moth, Serial, and of course our own TED Ra...

littleBits founder Ayah Bdeir wants you to snap the internet to anything you want. How might the Internet of Things make the world a better place? To find out, we asked TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir, an engineer, artist and founder of the modular electronic circuit toy-slash-tool littleBits. (Watch her TED Talk, "Building blocks that blink, beep and ...

Mental health suffers from a major image problem. One in every four people experiences mental health issues -- yet more than 40 percent of countries worldwide have no mental health policy. Across the board it seems like we have no idea how to talk about it respectfully and responsibly. Stigma and discrimination are the two biggest obstacles t...

On March 6, TED welcomed its latest class to the TED Residency program. As an in-house incubator for breakthrough ideas, Residents spend four months in the TED office with other exceptional people from all over the map. Each has a project that promises to make a significant contribution to the world, across several different fields. The new R...

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This picture was worth all the words I had -- it rendered me speechless. It’s an image of six Black women, smiling and hugging, taken by Ryan Lash at the TED2015 conference. There we were --  LaToya, Somi, Aomawa, Camille, Danielle and myself -- in all of our various and sundry Black Woman-ness. ...

There are moments when the world begins to shift beneath our feet. Sometimes slowly, sometimes dramatically. Now more than ever we are living and working in an era of exponential technological advancement. How we address rapid change, what collaborative relationships we create, how we find our humanity -- all this will determine the future w...

We are thrilled to announce the new class of Fellows for TED2015. These 21 game-changing thinkers represent 15 countries—including, for the first time in our program, Vietnam, Romania and Tunisia. They work across disciplines, at the forefront of their fields. They include a South African physicist using lasers to target HIV and cancer; a Germ...

The tables in bookstores can be overwhelming: Every book cover looks appealing, every blurb glows with praise. Sometimes, you just need a recommendation from a human, someone you trust. Below, 10 members of the TED community -- with very different points of view -- share the books they think you’ll enjoy this summer. Their selections are won...

In Session 2 of the TED Fellows talks, we learn about the FBI's use of informants in counterterrorism operations, how giant pouched rats are helping to save lives, laser-delivered HIV drugs, how Silicon Valley companies are working to protect our privacy -- and that's not to mention the piano solo, percussive dance and opera! Sri Lankan o...

Whether you're staying put or going away, summer can be a great time to relax and try new things. So we asked TED speakers to recommend podcasts, books, TV shows, movies and more that have nourished their minds, spirits and bodies (yes, you'll find a link to a recipe for olive-cheese loaf below) in recent times. You can use the links here to ju...