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Fellows Friday with Meklit Hadero
Meklit Hadero’s soulful songs have launched her explosive rise in the music world. Her sound draws from jazz, West Coast folk, and her Ethiopian roots. Meklit’s performances and community outreach projects -- in North America, Africa, or where the winds take her -- continue to enrich her music and be an integral part of its evolution.
Are you a...
Posted July 8, 2011
TEDx Skype station: Connecting TEDWomen with Africa
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...
Posted December 8, 2010
Take the Community Health Academy's first course
More than a billion people in the world lack access to basic health care. It’s a hard truth that Raj Panjabi pointed to as he accepted the TED Prize in 2017 — globally, there’s a shortage of accredited health workers, and many people living in remote areas are all but cut off from care. There’s a proven way to making sure they get it: Train l...
Posted March 5, 2019
Celebrating the cultural in-between: Fellows Friday with musician Meklit Hadero
Meklit Hadero's voice is earthy and soulful, sinuous and untethered, and she's about to unleash a new album on the world. She has just launched a crowdfunding campaign for her second solo recording, We Are Alive, and is currently touring the East Coast of the United States.We caught up with her between shows to ask about her musical vision an...
Posted January 17, 2014
"A place of joy": NextEinstein welcomes the first postgrad class at AIMS Senegal
Congratulations to the first class of admitted students at AIMS Senegal, the newest AIMS center and the latest achievement from cosmologist and TED Prize winner Neil Turok and his NextEinstein Initiative.
In 2008 Turok wished for the TED community to help “unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa, so that within our lifetimes ...
Posted November 1, 2011
The Next Einstein Forum begins
Why did Albert Einstein have such a unique scientific mind? Because he came from a disadvantaged background, says TED Prize winner Neil Turok.
“When new cultures enter science, especially disadvantaged cultures, transformation can happen,” he said today in his opening remarks at the Next Einstein Forum Global Gathering 2016. “I believe th...
Posted March 8, 2016
The Art of Stillness in an age of distraction
The “T” in TED stands for technology. So it might sound counterintuitive that we would release a book about the need to unplug.
But we live in a madly accelerating world, where new technologies -- for all their benefits -- are making our lives more crowded, more chaotic and noisier than ever. There’s never been a greater need to slow dow...
Posted November 4, 2014
A keeper of seeds hopes to save the world from starvation
If you ever find yourself in the northernmost town in the world, look carefully. Built into the side of a sandstone mountain is a glowing blue façade on top of a concrete tunnel; it might be the door to the secret headquarters of a Bond villain. And like Bond’s greatest villains, its purpose is at once deeply pessimistic and oddly hopeful.
...
Posted May 2, 2014
Meet the TED2012 Fellows!
Today, TED is thrilled to announce the 25 new members of 2012's TED Fellows class and 12 new Senior Fellows. A Lebanese open-source hardware inventor, a French computational architect and the founder of Skillshare.com are among 25 members of 2012's class of new TED Fellows. Twelve new Senior Fellows from seven countries, selected for two mor...
Posted October 25, 2011
Growing up a child of the state: Lemn Sissay tells much more of his story
Harry Potter, Pip of Great Expectations, Superman, Cinderella, Lisbeth Salander, Batman, Jane Eyre, Matilda, Moses, Luke Skywalker, Oliver Twist, Celie of The Color Purple.
As Lemn Sissay points out in this powerful talk from TEDxHousesofParliament, literature and popular culture is rife with characters who grew up without their biological ...
Posted October 24, 2012
Why Africa is booming: Further watching and reading on the economic turnaround of the continent
In today’s talk, economist Charles Robertson turns up the heat on an idea that’s been simmering for several years: that Africa is seeing rapid economic growth. Looking at statistics and at the precedents set by China and India, Robertson brings this idea to a full boil, saying that economists haven’t been nearly optimistic enough in their pr...
Posted October 22, 2013
Otherworldly photos that show us what our religions have in common
After decades spent documenting faith communities around the world, photographer Monika Bulaj understands that our religions are more similar than we realize.
Polish photographer Monika Bulaj was sorting through her archive in early 2017 when she discovered an image she’d accidently exposed twice. Back in 2005, she had taken two photographs on ...
Posted February 1, 2018
How can countries help refugees while also raising their GDP? Let them work.
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...
Posted September 8, 2017
Protect what we cherish from the coming climate changes: Vicki Arroyo at TEDGlobal2012
Vicki Arroyo knows a thing or two about climate change. A lawyer by training, she is the executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center, which works on policies to help government leaders (and the world) deal with climate change’s inevitable disruptions. But that's not the only reason she's familiar with climate change. As she tells us,...
Posted June 27, 2012
What if you could get WiFi and school tuition in exchange for your plastic trash?
You can -- at a visionary social enterprise called Plastic Bank, which is not only improving people’s lives but keeping junk from going into the ocean.
Imagine a store where you could buy what you need using your plastic garbage. Not just food or household items like detergent but valuable goods such as minutes for your cell phone, WiFI, school...
Posted April 20, 2018
Back to tech's future: Nicholas Negroponte at TED2014
Today, Negroponte is back to open TED, to reflect on predictions he's made in the past and to spin some new ones for the future. His point is that when someone tells you that you are "dead wrong," that you just might be onto something.
Negroponte takes us on a lightning-paced tour of his career, beginning in the 1960s when he worked on comp...
Posted March 17, 2014
Beyoncé gives a donation to a TED Fellow that could save 1,900 babies
Jane Chen knew that, for her low-cost baby incubator to save lives, moms would need to love it. But she had no idea that one of the world’s most famous moms—Beyoncé—would become one of her biggest supporters.
Last week, Beyoncé announced a $125,000 donation to Embrace Innovations, Chen’s organization that makes the low-cost infant warmer,...
Posted June 9, 2014
Great shorts: The lineup of short films and video played at TEDGlobal 2017
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...
Posted August 30, 2017
How do you film a School in the Cloud? Q&A with documentarian Jerry Rothwell
By Courtney E. Martin
What do sperm donation, marathon runners, disabled rockstars, and yacht racing have in common? They’ve all been subjects of the careful eye and artistic vision of British director Jerry Rothwell, the winner of the first annual Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award, who has received $125,000 to spend the next ...
Posted June 13, 2013
One year in, The Audacious Project ideas make ever-bigger waves
One year ago, TED launched The Audacious Project — an initiative to help change-makers with big, bold ideas for tackling global challenges find the support to make their visions a reality. What's happened since has been amazing. Thousands of people in the US are awaiting trials at home rather than in jail cells now because of the work of The...
Posted April 5, 2019
Last week for YOU to apply to be a TED2015 Fellow
Dear [Your Name Here],
At the TED Fellows program, we look for extraordinary young innovators, inventors and leaders—like you—from many categories of human endeavor: scientists of all sorts, engineers, artists, filmmakers, photojournalists, entrepreneurs, NGO founders, technologists, inventors, human rights activists and more. Our goal is...
Posted September 17, 2014
6 things we can learn from how women leaders have handled the pandemic
Times of crisis can foster innovation and illumination.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on the ability of world leaders to respond to its enormous and interlocking challenges. Some have stumbled, while some have risen to the occasion.
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox -- the CEO of 20-first, a global gender-balance consultancy based in the UK ...
Posted September 24, 2020
Wisdom from attendees: TED University Session 2 at TEDGlobal 2013
TED University Session 2 began with a difficult challenge, especially for 8:45 in the morning: describe yourself in six words. After several TEDGlobal 2013 attendees bravely took the stage to share their introductions, Kelly Stoetzel urged her co-host June Cohen to share her own six-word self-description. Cohen, who runs TED’s Media Team, ra...
Posted June 11, 2013
What links the top 0.1 percent and the bottom billion? Rent
Paul Collier studies the poorest people on earth -- the 1 in 9 humans living in dysfunctional countries with broken economies, places whose income gaps are so wide it's hard for westerners to wrap their minds around it. In 2007, his book The Bottom Billion broke down the problems facing this group of people, stuck in failed and failing state...
Posted June 3, 2014
The challenges of bringing health care to everyone, everywhere
Physicians Raj Panjabi and Seth Berkley are on a mission to ensure that every person in the world has access to decent medical care. In a conversation, they discuss the obstacles standing in their way and the bold ideas that could help overcome them.
Around the world right now, more than one billion people don’t have access to basic health care...
Posted June 8, 2017
The world’s refugees need all the help they can get. Here are 7 ways that businesses can support them
Want to do something to help the world’s more than 25 million refugees? Any business -- no matter its size -- can give them a boost, says Melissa Fleming, chief spokesperson for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
On Saturday, June 9, I had the honor of co-hosting the first-ever TEDx event held at a refugee camp -- it took place at Kenya’s Kakuma Cam...
Posted June 15, 2018
The TED Gift Guide
Buying gifts? It is HARD. Especially when so many gift guides offer up ideas for what to get your dad, co-worker or sister without taking into account what actually interests those specific people in your life. A better way to locate the perfect gift? Think about what captures a person’s curiosity, and then seek ideas from people in that field. ...
Posted December 9, 2014
Are we irrationally pessimistic? A deep-dive Q&A with Steven Pinker
After his mainstage talk on the opening night of TED, psychologist Steven Pinker sat down with Chris Anderson to dive into his new book, Enlightenment Now. The two examined some criticisms of the book and the thesis behind it, dug into the data, and then threw the floor open for questions, in a session that offered the luxury of time to real...
Posted April 13, 2018
Somi unveils an odyssey of song and soul in 'The Lagos Music Salon'
This week, East African singer Somi releases her first major-label album, The Lagos Music Salon, in the United States. Already, it is #1 on the iTunes Jazz Chart, #1 on the Amazon Jazz Vocal Chart, and #1 on the Amazon Pop Vocal Chart. The TED Blog caught up with the jazz-soul vocalist and songwriter—who was was born in Illinois to Rwandan and...
Posted August 8, 2014