Biotech entrepreneur

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...

Lisa Harouni is the co-founder of Digital Forming, working in "additive manufacturing" -- or 3D printing.

TED Resident Beth Malone brings bold art to public spaces across the US, encouraging artists to have a sense of humor, to be vulnerable and take creative risks.

As an actor, filmmaker and founder of the online community HITRECORD, Joseph Gordon-Levitt seeks to inspire creativity through collaboration.

Jinha Lee wants to weave digital computing into the flow of our physical reality.

As "Captain of Moonshots" for X, Astro Teller oversees the secret projects that could reshape our lives in coming decades.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh is the cofounder and president of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA), the country's first and only girls' boarding school.

Vaitea Cowan wants to create a world where green hydrogen is readily available -- and fossil fuels are a thing of the past.

Dan Pallotta is on a focused mission to change the way the donating public thinks about giving.

Jan Wurzbacher is a pioneer of direct air capture (DAC) technology, which scrubs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in an effort to combat global warming.

As CEO of InteraXon, Ariel Garten works to close the gap between science, art, business and technology.

Lucy Marcil is providing fiscal services to low-income families in the doctor’s waiting room.

Rohan Pavuluri helps American families navigate an increasingly complex and expensive legal system.

About this event: I am the City 2.0 Dream Me. Build Me. Make Me Real. TEDxYekaterinoslavskyBoulevard arranges “Cities of the Future” international conference in Dnepropetrovsk on September 20, 2013. TEDxCity2.0 showcases the around the world. On September 20, 2013, TEDCity2.0 will commence at the TimesCenter in New York City from 9am-5pm EST. Co-curated and...

About this event: Thor Muller How to Make Serendipity Work For You and Your Business Regardless of our best-laid plans, it’s often the ideas and events that we least expect that end up mattering to us most. This has never been truer than in today’s chaotic, highly uncertain world. Serendipity—looking for one thing and finding another—is consequentially the ...

About this event: What will shape our futures? “Show me someone who doesn’t dream about the future and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t know where they are going” William Shakespeare Our Speakers "The next giant leap for mankind" Steve Menaa, a French man (originally from Tunisia) who lives in Ireland (Cork). The 45-year-old IT engineer has made a short- l...

Founder + Chairperson, Impact Investment Exchange

Africa has beautiful stories to tell, says Peace Anyiam-Osigwe. At 16 years old, the Nigerian published her own magazine. She later continued bringing a “voice to voiceless issues” as a talk show host and film producer. Founder of the African Movie Academy Awards, Peace now dedicates her time to building cinemas in rural Africa, and helping ot...

Adital Ela, founder of S-Sense Design sustainability design studio in Israel, believes in listening. She listens to indigenous philosophy, and incorporates it into sustainable design; when helping a community, she first listens closely to their needs; listening to her body's inner voice inspires her dancing. Working from a foundation of list...

Xavier Alpasa climbed out of poverty to the top ranks of the Philippines’ premier corporation -- and then realized he wanted to give it all back. As a seminarian, he helped women sewing scraps in a slum connect with top designers to create high-end fashion pieces. Now a Catholic priest, Father Xavier is working to support an ecotourism venture...

Jessica Mayberry is the founder of Video Volunteers, which trains rural Indians to use filmmaking to drive social change in their communities. The films have fostered some remarkable improvements in the villages, but according to Jessica, some of the most impressive changes are in the filmmakers themselves. Interactive Fellows Friday Feature!...

Through his organization, Baobab Health, Gerry Douglas has implemented a top-of-the-line electronic medical records system in Malawi. Many health centers in the developed world have not yet achieved what Baobab has. His secret weapons? Touch screen computers, super-high usability, and low power usage, just to name a few. Interactive Fel...

Sarah Jane Pell is making preparations to live in the ocean. That’s right, under the sea -- but not until after a jaunt to the Arctic. Never one to be satisfied with the ordinary, Sarah Jane founded the Aquabatics Research Team Initiative to explore water choreography, technology, and human behavior as works of live art. Her future projects wi...

Sean Gourley analyzed real-time data from the Iraq war and discovered a precise mathematical model underlying it. Now he’s expanding on that research at Quid, his startup that maps trends in technology. Having unearthed such powerful information, Sean takes time to help kids understand the importance of math, even while he grapples with the et...

About 20 miles east of the Blue Ridge Mountains and home to the University of Virginia, Charlottesville was a town divided in the early 1980s. The locals, many of whom lived in an economically depressed area, saw us students as rich and privileged. Some of them worked at UVA, where they seemed either invisible to students or served as objects...

After examining dozens of Ice Age cave sites across Europe, paleoarchaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger discovered our ancestors repeatedly used 32 signs. Why? She walks us through her eye-opening discoveries -- and their implications. The title for the world’s oldest dated cave art is currently held by an unassuming red disk, at least 41,000 ye...

With the non-profit Chirag, VK Madhavan tackles development issues in the Himalayas by helping recharge springs, attracting IT business, setting up cooperatives, and more. True to TED’s interdisciplinary nature, this Senior Fellow integrates interests as broad as traditional weather forecasting and mobile phone technology into his perspectives...

Maker + writer

Since we know TED speakers love to read, we asked them: What book could you not stop reading? Here are their eclectic picks, ready for sticking in your carry-on or for gifting. If you want to be transported to another place and time The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood This novel is set in the near future and tells a horrifying story of a...