A year ago, political scientist Tarig Hilal captivated the audience at TEDxKhartoum with the story of the Sudan he saw -- not a place of violent strife, political unrest or pervasive poverty, but a country of beautiful natural landscapes, a rich history and a hopeful generation of changemakers ready to turn a new chapter in their country’s histo...

On a gorgeous San Francisco night, the TEDWomen community gathered to kick off our 2016 conference, “It’s About Time,” with an evening of global food, music and connection around ideas. On the terrace of the City View at Metreon, overlooking Yerba Buena Gardens, a dozen artisan groups have gathered from around the world to show off gorgeous wa...

Ten years ago, epidemiologist Chikwe Ihekweazu helped fight an outbreak in South Sudan. This TED Fellow now runs the health consultancy EpiAFRIC, writes about public health issues in his native Nigeria, and is soon to start a four-week rotation on the ground fighting the Ebola epidemic. So as the outbreak continues, he sat down for a Q&A...

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...

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...

At TED, speakers aren't the only celebrities; some of the biggest heroes sit in the audience. Case in point: Our volunteer TED Translators, who donate their free time to translate TED Talks into their local languages, making the talks accessible to millions of people every day. Ahead of TEDGlobal 2017 in Tanzania, we invited these translator...

From the Atlantic, this fascinating essay on Google Translate at an interesting point in its growth: Last week Google Translate announced that it now has more than 200 million monthly users. As Alexis Madrigal noted, this means that Google is now translating as much in a day as all professional human translators combined complete in a year --...

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...

Today’s TED Talk is brought to you by 10-, 14-, and 15-year-old brothers known as the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys. Not your typical bluegrassers, these guys delivered rollicking good tunes at the New York stop of the TED Talent Search. Inspired by these young brothers and the recent TEDx blog post called “9 incredible musical performances by ki...

“What would happen if you wanted a bunch of people to come with you on a journey?” TED Curator Chris Anderson asked this to a crowd of 100+ TEDx organizers from 43 countries — including Sudan, South Africa, France, China and Egypt — during his talk at the TEDx Workshop on Sunday, June 9, at TEDGlobal 2013 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Anderson was ...

When Giles Duley left behind life as a music and fashion photographer and began criss-crossing the globe, photographing forgotten people -- those with mental illness, living on the streets, residing in refugee camps and surviving in the crossfire of war -- he felt a certain level of separation from his subjects. But then something happened t...

Journalist Janine di Giovanni has covered wars in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Iraq and most recently in Syria -- and, yet, she has noted that they all seem to begin in the same way. “This is how war starts—one day you’re living your ordinary life. You’re planning to go to a party, you’re taking your children to school, you’re m...

Ivan Krastev’s TED book asks probing and difficult questions about democracy in societies that do not trust their leaders. For example, while Americans cling to the belief that democray represents the highest form of political organization, they also rate members of Congress amongst the least trusted professions. In his book In Mistrust We T...

The spirit of the TEDx community shone brightly during the first TEDxGlobalDay in September. In this dynamic one-day initiative, more than 5,000 TEDxers from 230 cities in 76 countries set out to prove that local action can spark global conversations. The day was broken up into three parts, organized by local hosts who managed teams of aroun...

TED Conversations is a unique space where any member of the TED.com community can get feedback on an idea, pose an interesting question, or start a fascinating debate with fellow TEDizens from around the globe.  We've seen participants from Columbia to Palestine, Sudan to Nepal—a total of 114 countries in just the past 30 days.  See just whe...

Sylvia Earle is always on a mission. She launched the ocean conservation campaign Mission Blue in 2010 after winning the TED Prize, establishing protected marine “hope spots” around the world. And last weekend, Earle dove 63 feet beneath the ocean's surface to visit Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of legendary underwater explorer Jacques Coust...

TED Talks are available in 102 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our volunteer translators. So far, more than 10,000 volunteers have created nearly 45,000 talk translations — and today, the TED Blog brings you a Q&A with one of them. Here, meet French and Urdu translator Shadia Ramsahye. 1.     Where d...

This is the final week of nominations for the TED Prize, which means you only have three more days to nominate a person with a wish to inspire the world for the $1 million honor. Have a mentor who has molded your mind? A friend with an inspired idea? A neighbor with big plans? Tell us about them now, using the official nomination form. This ...

Cross-country skier Janine Shepherd was Olympics-bound in 1986, with many thinking that she was a strong contender to earn Australia’s first-ever medal at the winter games. But everything changed on a training bike ride through the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Shepherd was hit by a truck, and broke both her back and neck. Doctors did ...

Did you know that you -- as in, anyone -- can nominate a visionary leader for this year’s TED Prize? Do you have a mentor with an incredible track record? A former teacher with a big idea for change? A colleague doing incredible work that could reach new heights if given more resources? A friend with the ability to inspire collaborative acti...

In 2007, journalist Andrew Mwenda took the stage at TEDGlobal in Arusha, Tanzania, and decried the symptomatic disease affecting his home continent: aid. The surprising take certainly got the goat of some members of the audience, including U2 frontman Bono, who has devoted so much time to promoting the need for African aid and who spoke up from ...

From a speaker helping to contain the ebola outbreak to an America lawyer standing up for rights in Afghanistan to a journalist cracking open the Nigerian media, Session 11: Fighters was filled with crackling talks. A recap: Fred Swaniker kicks off the day with a bold vision for Africa’s future, which, he argues, rests squarely in the han...

As a New York Times article put it this morning, “The presidential campaign entered a delicate phase on Tuesday, suddenly becoming a sideshow to the hurricane.” In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, it’s hard to remember that in just a week, Americans will be heading to the polls and, with their presidential  selection, answering big question...

When artist JR started a project about the 1.2 million people held in limbo at the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital in the early 20th century, he couldn’t help but notice ghosts of the present. They stand in line, hands clasped in front of them or gripping the suitcases that contain their possessions. The women wear headscarves, the men thick co...

Architect Diébédo Francis Kéré (TED Talk: How to build with clay ... and community) designs with both people and sustainability in mind. Raised in Burkina Faso, though he’s now based in Berlin, Kéré is always keen to include community-oriented spaces that invite people to sit down and engage in thoughtful conversation. The central nature of ...

Fast-forward 20, 50, or even 100 years into the future -- what will our lives be like? Will flying cars and 3D-printed dinners be the norm, or will they remain mostly science fiction? On Saturday, November 14, kids and teens from all five boroughs of New York City explored these possibilities at the Brooklyn Museum. With 27 speakers and perf...

While it may result in tremendous good, empathy can also be narrow, biased and surprisingly insensitive, argues psychology professor Paul Bloom. Does empathy make the world a better place? It certainly looks like it. After all, empathy drives people to treat others’ suffering as if it were their own, which then motivates action to make the suff...

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...

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...

Want to take pictures that will make people gasp? Photographer David Yarrow shares his advice on how to avoid the played-out and zoom in on the unexpected. Over his 30-plus years in photography, David Yarrow (TEDxEton Talk: Wild Encounters--the story of what I do differently) has waded through the crocodile-infested Nile, taken a selfie reflect...