On Sunday night, Ben Affleck accepted the Academy Award on behalf of his film Argo as it was named the Best Picture of 2012. And today, he appeared on the TED2013 stage kicking off Session 10, "Secret Voices." "This is not a TED Talk. I will not be interesting or funny. This will not be exciting in any way," he said. "Though I feel a litt...

HIV is a serious problem in the DR Congo, and aid agencies have flooded the country with free and cheap condoms. But few people are using them. Why? "Reformed marketer" Amy Lockwood offers a surprising answer that upends a traditional model of philanthropy. (Some NSFW images.) (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2011, July 2011, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Durat...

Bandi Mbubi has conflicting feelings about his cell phone. On the one hand, Mbubi -- who fled his native country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as a student activist fearing for his safety -- has seen firsthand the ability of cell phones to connect people in the formerly cut-off part of the world. In this moving talk from TEDxExeter...

Often, discussions about equality center around leaning in, or whether or not the glass ceiling has got cracks in it. But for many women, the focus is on surviving everyday violence, assault and rape -- a daily struggle that plays a part in keeping a billion people locked into poverty. Gary Haugen (TED Talk: The hidden reason for poverty the wor...

Congratulations to the winners of the 72nd annual Peabody Awards! All of you have created incredible work that adds so much to the landscape of radio, television and electronic media. But TED would like to raise our glasses to toast two winners in particular. At TED2013, multimedia producer Jacky Myint shared the storytelling process that w...

For four years, artist Naomi Natale’s social art practice, the One Million Bones project, has used education, hands-on artmaking and public art installation to raise awareness of ongoing genocide and mass atrocities. On June 8, Naomi and the One Million Bones team will be joined by thousands of volunteers to lay down the one million human “b...

In the image above, one million handmade bones -- made by schoolchildren and artists around the world -- have been methodically laid across the National Mall in Washington, DC, from the US Capitol building all the way to the Washington Monument. The culmination of a five-year project from TED Fellow Naomi Natale (read our interview with her abou...

The watch looks both futuristic and retro at the same time. A swirl of visible gears and carefully calibrated dials, it charts time in an unusual way — the hour jumps into place at the top, the minute is marked in a semicircle along the bottom, and the seconds swoop above. It’s a statement watch, the kind of piece that people inevitably ask ...

Want to know what's going to happen next in the worlds of science, art, tech and more? Get to know the 2012 class of TEDGlobal Fellows and Senior Fellows in our downloadable guide (PDF). Some 55 TEDGlobal Fellows and Senior Fellows will attend TEDGlobal next week. As director Tom Rielly writes: Our Fellows truly embody this conference’...

“Imagine yourself standing on a beach, looking out at the ocean -- waves crashing against the shore, blue as far as your eyes can see." This is the opening line of Scott Gass’ TED-Ed lesson, “How big is the ocean?” But the animated video gives you much more to think about than sand between your toes and waves tickling a white sandy paradise. I...

This weekend, thousands gathered in Washington, DC, to help lay one million handmade representations of human bones -- 1,018,260 bones, to be exact -- on the National Mall. This breathtaking installation created a haunting river of bones leading to the US Capitol, and represents the culmination of a nearly five-year social activism project imagi...

The theme of Session 4 is Field Work -- and we're hearing from people who get outside, who work in the field and hear what's really going on. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim is a professor at the University of Mauritius, and she’s here this morning to show us five plants unique to where she works and lives: the Mascarene Islands. She introduces us to...

In the second part of our conversation with Dr. Deborah Rhodes (read Part One), we talk about the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and her partnership with the Panzi Hospital, which serves victims of sexual violence there. She tells the incredibly disturbing story that got her involved, and discusses what can be done to help Am...

Uganda is an eye-opening example of how displaced people can lift up a nation, say economics professor Paul Collier and refugee researcher Alexander Betts. Uganda hosts more than 500,000 refugees, making it the third-largest host country in Africa (after Ethiopia and Kenya). Its refugees come from a wide variety of unsettled neighboring countri...

Saki Mafundikwa founded the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts, ZIVA, a Bauhaus-style school focused on African heritage. (“Vigital” denotes visual arts taught using digital tools.) It's the first graphic design and new media college in the nation, and he wanted his students to understand the power of design--and in particular to understand ...

As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights. A solo crossing of Antarctica. With chilling detail, Ben Saunders documents his journey across Antarctica as he attempts to complete the first successful solo, unsupported and unassisted crossing. The journey is a way of honoring his friend Henry Wors...

  [embed]https://www.ted.com/talks/ray_dalio_how_to_build_a_company_where_the_best_ideas_win[/embed] The past few weeks have brimmed over with TED-related news. Below, some highlights. Exploring the ocean like never before. A school of ocean-loving TED speakers have teamed up to launch OceanX, an international initiative dedicated to di...

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...

Experimental, organic, and polymathic, the TED Fellows program continues to provoke, inspire – and defy convention. The initiative was inspired by the success of 100 groundbreaking Fellows from around Africa at TED Global in 2007, which included Alexandra Graham, cofounder of Lagray Chemicals, the first vertically integrated pharmaceutical man...

Earlier this month, the Queen announced legislation to clamp down on corporate secrecy in her speech at the opening of Parliament in the United Kingdom. This may be news to the rest of the world, but it was a hard-won victory for the campaigners at Global Witness, an international non-governmental organization known for hard-hitting field in...

JR is an artist with a desire to transform our collective streets -- from French public houses to Brazilian favelas. As he describes in his talk from TED2011, JR headed to the barrier wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories for his project “Face 2 Face,”  pasting massive portraits the size of houses on either side of the wall. Th...

"TED Prize winners are heroes," says longtime TEDster Jeff Skoll, as he introduces this year's TED Prize winner. "They often go on to exceed even their own most audacious goals." Watch Charmian Gooch's TED Talk >> This year, by sheer coincidence, the Skoll Foundation and TED chose to honor the same person with their annual awards—Charm...

Their ideas are big — aimed at impacting millions of lives or creating sweeping global change. Three months after the first project leaders of The Audacious Project stood on the TED stage and shared their ambitious plans, things are already starting to happen. Below, enjoy the latest news. The drive to end trachoma When Sightsavers and its...

When an earthquake shook Costa Rica in September of 2012, it took 60 seconds for the tremors to travel 250 kilometers north to Managua, Nicaragua. And yet just 30 seconds later, the first message about the earthquake appeared on Twitter. In today’s talk, filmed at TEDSalon London 2012, Markham Nolan of Storyful.com shares why this represe...

By Lisa Katayama In a developed country where the dialogue around human rights is very charity-minded, it's rare to find young people with visions of engaging rural farmers in developing countries as equals. That's why Tokyo native Doga Makiura stands out. When Doga was 13, he left his home in Japan and enrolled himself in a boarding school in...

Millions of women singlehandedly raise their children in the war-torn country, but their stories are rarely told in the media. Photographer Kiana Hayeri captures their struggles and strength in these photos. Malika is 28 years old. Just 14 when she was married off by her family, she lives with her five children in a small room in the Wazir Abad...

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...

TED is known for its inspiring talks. And all of the previous sessions before this have been inspiring, you have no idea. Humans, however, shall not live by endorphins alone. Sometimes, we need a stern lecture. Or a biting sermon. Sometimes, we need to reflect on a somber piece of art or music. Sometimes, we need to be told the truth. Someti...

When we talk about corruption, certain types of individuals come to mind, says Charmian Gooch, co-founder of watchdog NGO Global Witness. She gives some familiar examples of the type. There's the (former) Soviet megalomaniac -- such as Saparmurat Niyazov, the all-powerful leader of Turkmenistan, whose indulgences included erecting a 40-foot-...

Welcome the class of TED2017 Fellows! Representing 12 countries, one tribal nation and an incredible range of disciplines, this year's Fellows are all leaders in their fields who constantly find new ways to collaborate and bring about positive change. Among those selected are an Ecuadorian neurobiologist working to uncover the neural circuit...