In art, drones can be magical. It's a simple story: a man working too late at night starts to see things. He's not sure if they're real or a sleep-induced fantasy. But since it's 2014, of course that dream is actually drones. Following an electrical outage, a nameless lamp repairman finds himself completely in the dark. As he lights a ...

One billion is certainly in the zeitgeist. V-day, the global campaign founded by four-time TED speaker Eve Ensler to end violence against women and girls, recently unveiled its One Billion Rising initiative. The name comes from the horrifying statistic that 1 in 3 women will be beaten or abused in their lifetime — on a global scale, 1 bill...

TED Fellow Lars Jan, the director of the multi-disciplinary art lab Early Morning Opera, is seeking everyday personal rituals from collaborators -- perhaps, you? -- for a work-in-progress called HOLOSCENES. This public-performance installation -- inspired by humanity's relationship with climate change and flooding -- will be made up of three...

You have an idea. A good one – one that will make people think. But giving a TED Talk on a stage in front of an audience? Well, that doesn’t quite feel like the right way to express it. If giving a traditional TED Talk isn’t your style, you may be excited to hear about The OpenTED Project — a new experimental initiative launching today to uncov...

We're thrilled to announce opening of registration for TED2012: Full Spectrum. Under this theme, we are assembling our most diverse group of speakers ever, with just this in common: they have something remarkable to share, and they are able to share it in a remarkable way. We're inviting them to develop "full spectrum" presentations: blizzar...

Before you can create a new world, you have to imagine new possibilities. The speakers in this session are the visionaries who propose that which couldn't be seen before, and suggest new paths that not only haven't been traveled yet -- but haven't been thought of. Here are the speakers in this session. Click their name to read a recap of thei...

In the early ‘80s, before MTV turned its attention to reality TV, David Bowie, Madonna and the Pretenders lit up small screens, using a new medium to showcase their songs: the music video. Recently, we’ve seen a resurgence of this art form as cinematographers, musicians and artists join together to supersize their visual creativity. But now, ins...

TED is about speakers stepping on a stage and sharing an idea in 18 minutes or less. But throughout our annual conference, short films play a vital part in the program too -- opening sessions and providing moments of pause, reflection and laughter between talks. The short films shown during the conference are selected by Anyssa Samari and...

How does TED complement a program of speakers sharing bold ideas, tough truths and jaw-dropping creative visions at TEDGlobal 2017 in Arusha? With interstitials: the beautiful, funny, inspiring, silly, short video breaks screened in between speakers. Pulling from a global pool of creativity, talent and thoughtfulness, this year's TEDGlobal in...

Here, your weekly recap of TED-related news: You see their work every time you start a TED Talk: the video firm Psyop created our water-drop titles (among lots of other work you’ll recognize). Now they’ve released their very first iOS and Android game -- a game for social good called “Nightmare: Malaria.” It comes from their nonprofit wing, E...

NEW: Video auditions are closed; thank you for entering! This year we're holding the first-ever audition for TED Talks. It will take place in New York in front of a live audience made up of TED staff and members of the TED community. The audition will be recorded, and the best talks could either be posted on TED.com or win an invitation f...

As of this week, more than 20,000 TEDxTalks have been given at 5,000+ events held in 137 countries around the globe. With the mass scale of the program, it’s a little unpredictable which talks will gain a steady following of fans on the TEDxTalks website and YouTube channel, and which talks will skyrocket into public consciousness practicall...

Every day at every workplace around the world, employees engage in a ballet. Each of us has a role to play, and we alternate between solo moments and collaborative interludes, between scripted choreography and improv. While the members and the steps may change over time, as long as the business continues, the ballet goes on. Well, if wor...

Artist JR’s latest project turns the floor of the David H. Koch Theater, home of the New York City Ballet, into a swirl of bodies. For it, JR photographed the company’s dancers and assembled their portraits into a 6,500-square-foot mural that stretches the length of the lobby. Walking on the floor is surreal, as each dancer appears life-size...

Dark, isolated and largely unexplored, caves help astronauts prepare to do extra-terrestrial science. You’re isolated, confined and enveloped in darkness. You gradually lose your sense of time. You can’t afford to lose your bearings. And then there's the risk of exposure to radioactive gas. “You have high radiation levels in the space station, ...

At TED2019, as we explored concepts, research findings and insights bigger than us (you see what we did there?), these conference shorts cleansed our mental palettes between TED Talks and helped playfully introduce sessions throughout the week. Enjoy these hand-picked videos from curators CC Hutten and Jonathan Wells that capture the kaleidos...

The British neuroscientist Adrian Owen has developed ways to connect with patients in a vegetative state. It's amazing work -- with complicated implications. Adrian Owen has been studying the minds of vegetative patients for more than two decades, and to this day their flashes of awareness astound him. “They are often laying down memories just ...

Mentored from childhood by Gregory Hines and Savion Glover, Andrew Nemr has tap-danced his way through life. Now, with the Tap Legacy Foundation, he's using new technology to augment oral tradition, passing on the craft he learned at the knees of the old masters. Tell us about your life as a dancer. I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, where...

Artist Janet Echelman constructs massive fiber art pieces to encourage people to stop, look up and wonder. Standing beneath one of Janet Echelman’s giant, airy, uplifting pieces, you might just think a group of groovy extraterrestrial spiders have come to pay us a visit. The pieces, woven from strong, light fibers and tinted in rainbow color...

By Courtney E. Martin and John Cary Curating the program for TEDCity2.0 -- a one-day conference about the future of cities that takes place, gulp, today -- was a true honor for us. The two of us come at cities from very different angles. John is trained as an architect, but has spent his career building the public interest design moveme...

Step inside an experimental economy with no money -- but lots of exchange. You're walking down the street in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on a lazy summer afternoon. A signboard announces a performance in a former auto repair shop, and it's that kind of open-ended day, you and your friend look at each other and say, Why not? and step inside. ...

On March 12, TED welcomed its latest class to the TED Residency program, an in-house incubator for breakthrough ideas. These 19 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, including Brazil, the Netherlands and Korea. The new Reside...

In session 1 of TED2013, we are meeting many new robots. First, we watched the amazing clip above of a troupe of tiny humanoid Nao robots dancing intricate choreography in unison. (They were presented by Bruno Maisonnier of Aldebaran Robotics at TEDxConcorde and beamed straight to the TED stage.) Next, Rodney Brooks unveiled Baxter, the huma...

Remember TED Talks by Joshua Prager, John McWhorter, Sleepy Man Banjo Boys and Hannah Brencher? All fantastic finds from previous talent searches. Now, we're running a similar event once again. Known as TED@NYC, the evening event will be held on October 8. It's a chance to find fresh voices to ring out on the TED main stage and be heard on t...

By Asha de Vos, with photos by Jon Lowenstein Monterey Bay is a marine biologist’s dream. It is arguably one of the most dynamic coastlines in the world and, for someone from the tropics like me, it opens up a whole new world for learning and adventure. In recent months, Monterey Bay -- located along the central coast of California -- h...

By training kids to interview their teachers, film them, and elicit their wisdom, Deepak Ramola is helping them gain valuable new skills and new appreciation for their elders. At a primary school in northern India, the tables have been turned on the typical teacher-student dynamic. As a student sits across from her instructor, she gently asks,...

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. Transforming big systems is a huge task. Energy, transportation, industry and infrastructure all pose their own challenges. And yet that transformation is alrea...

Imagine 20-foot-tall shadows -- animated by live performers -- that pop out right next to you. TED Fellow Christine Marie creates an immersive, experimental theater of shadows that layers textured, colored light into wordless storytelling. But while her productions involve 3D stereoscopic effects and feel amazingly cinematic, it's all done witho...

So, you want to hire the best employee for the job? Or perhaps you’re the employee looking to be hired. Here’s some counterintuitive and hyper-intuitive advice that could get the right foot in the door. Expand your definition of the “right” resume Here’s the hypothetical situation: a position opens up at your company, applications start rolling ...

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. ...