Jedidah Isler dreamt of becoming an astrophysicist since she was a young girl, but the odds were against her: At that time, only 18 black women in the United States had ever earned a PhD in a physics-related discipline. In this personal talk, she shares the story of how she became the first black woman to earn a PhD in astrophysics from Yale -- ...

Ancient Peru was home to many cultures, most of them still quite mysterious to modern archaeologists. But as Sarah Parcak directs her citizen-science platform at the Peruvian landscape, the invisible past could make a comeback. A mummified macaw with orange and blue feathers. The body of an ancient priestess, whose arms and legs were covered in...

The stage is set. The lights are on. The audience of more than 600 people who have traveled from all over the world to be inspired is ready. And ready or not, the speakers are thrust onto the stage, one by one. This is the first session of TEDGlobal 2017, themed “a new map,” a phrase that suggests that in these first talks, we will catch ...

Books can entertain, sucking you like a tornado into incredible new worlds. Books can teach, giving you a richer understanding of time periods, people and ideas you’ve never been exposed to. But books can do so much more. In today’s talk, TED's own Lisa Bu introduces us to the concept of “comparative reading,” the practice of reading book...

It’s never easy to push against the current, to experiment with what’s never been done before, challenge uncomfortable truths. But 400 TED Fellows do it every day, all around the world. In the newly released free digital book Swimming Against the Tide: Adventures with the TED Fellows, dive into the wonder, kinship, curiosity, hope an...

Monika Bulaj’s stunning, painting-like photographs blur religious and cultural divisions, exploding stereotypes. In your photography and writing, one of your main themes is to explore the “borders of monotheism.” What does that mean? I often focus on Judaism, Christianity (mainly Eastern Christianity) and Islam, to explore areas where the ...

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...

About this event: TEDxNanjingSalon " Think about Journey" We cover distance to reach our destination. We go on a journey to make a change. From sailing across the Pacific Ocean on your own to touring the North Pole on a sleigh, from experiencing zero gravity in space to pushing human limits as a skydiver, a journey could be physical and spatial. Howeve...

There's no doubt that the speakers we invite to TEDWomen each year have amazing stories to tell. And many of them are published authors (or about to be!) whose work is worth exploring beyond their brief moments in the TED spotlight. So, if you're looking for some inspiring, instructive and provocative books to add to your summer reading list...

Squishy, vivid, frozen, frothy – architect and artist Antonio Torres's wildly colorful and whimsical built spaces are often created using membranes filled with gases, liquids and organic materials, inviting people to crawl in, jump, touch and play. Here, we ask him about his incredible works and where his inspiration comes from. Tell m...

Since he was 11 years old, Apurv Mishra has been accelerating change. Inventor of the Glabenator, a device that helps paralysis victims communicate, Apurv is dedicated to helping pioneers connect and work more efficiently. Today, Apurv is thrilled to launch Future.ly, a platform that maps the state of innovation across the world. Interact...

Designer + urban planner

Archaeology is a puzzle. For Sarah Parcak, trying to find ancient treasures is made exponentially easier by satellite imagery. Archaeologists have many tools at their disposal: shovels, trowels, satellites. If you are scratching your head at that final entry, check out how TED Prize winner Sarah Parcak uses satellite imagery to locate long-lost...

Time is precious, we know. Here, compiled from past reading lists, are suggestions for two dozen short but mighty books to pick up. fiction & literature The Summer Book by Tove Jansson The quintessential celebration of summer in Scandinavia -- 22 vignettes of a girl and a grandmother on an island. Jansson is best known as the creator of M...

TED is always looking for new voices with fresh ideas -- and earlier this winter, we opened a challenge to the world: make a one-minute audition video that makes the case for your TED Talk. More than 1,200 people applied to be a part of the Idea Search program this year, and on Wednesday night at our New York headquarters, 13 audition finali...

Like many parents, technology researcher Jordan Shapiro knew little about video games -- and what he knew, he didn't like. But that's what his kids wanted to play. Through exploration and experimentation, he found they can be used to teach valuable lessons and build togetherness. On afternoons when I have custody of my 11- and 13-year-old boys,...

Packed house, check. Excited buzz, check. It's time for TED2013 Fellows talks! Session 1 Tunde Jegede, composer Nigerian-British composer and musician Tunde Jegede opens the session with his kora, the West African 21-string bridge harp. Sitting curled around the instrument, his fingers deftly pluck the strings, making a sound like rain ...

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...

About this event: The term “Gordian knot,” commonly used to describe a complex or unsolvable problem, can be traced back to a legendary chapter in the life of Alexander the Great. As the story goes, in 333 B.C. the Macedonian conquerors marched his army into the Phrygian capital of Gordium in modern-day Turkey. Upon arriving in the city, he encountered an ancien...

Scratch the surface of online education, and you’re destined to run into the names of two men. The first, Salman Khan, never intended to be an education icon. Instead, he simply watched with increased interest as videos he had uploaded to YouTube to help his cousin learn math were seized upon by a world apparently eager to learn via his thou...

Here's a huge list of TED speaker-recommended books, with all the diversity of titles and topics you might expect. No matter your mood, preference or occasion, we’ve got you covered. When you’re lying in the sun Any book by Isaac Asimov I have stacks of collections of science-fiction short stories. I grab these before getting on a long f...

Written by the educators who created The Deep Ocean, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material. How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean. Arthur C. Clarke Planet Ocean In the late 1960s,...

Scratch the surface of online education, and you’re destined to run into the names of two men. The first, Salman Khan, never intended to be an education icon. Instead, he simply watched with increased interest as videos he had uploaded to YouTube to help his cousin learn math were seized upon by a world apparently eager to learn via his thou...

Here are the books that profoundly influenced women from our speaker community, and they’re just as wonderfully diverse as TED itself. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë When I read this book for the first time as a deeply odd fifth-grader (or, as Jane says, "poor, plain, and little"), it felt like grasping onto a life raft that had been flung to...

Elon Musk discusses his new project digging tunnels under LA, the latest from Tesla and SpaceX and his motivation for building a future on Mars in conversation with TED's Head Curator, Chris Anderson.

From tech to self-help via poetry, fiction and graphic novels, here are the books you need to read. What’s the one book you're always thrilled to discover that someone else has read? We posed that question to TED speakers -- and, well, they geeked out, offering us a list of hidden gems that wouldn’t typically crop up on a holiday shopping list....

Three stellar main stage sessions of talks -- including the launch of the Audacious Project -- plus workshops, exhibits and TED Unplugged, a session of talks given by audience members, made for a jam-packed day 2 at TED2018. Here are some of the themes we heard echoing through the opening day, as well as some highlights from around the co...

TED Fellows and Senior Fellows have just opened TED2015 with a bang in the beautiful Kay Meek theatre in Vancouver. In the first session, discover: how bacteria can be programmed to detect and treat cancer, a yellow legal pad that smuggles transgressive data into the halls of power, what makes non-state armed groups tick, hyperactive superma...

WorkLife with Adam Grant Ava DuVernay is Triumphant May 31, 2022 [Theme Music] [00:00:00] Adam Grant: Hey WorkLifers it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Taken for Granted, my podcast with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational psychologist. My job is to think again about how we work, lead, and live. Thanks to Deloitte for sponsoring thi...

Steve Boyes is passionately devoted to the preservation of wilderness, as well as to restoring and protecting species and landscapes already damaged by human intervention. At TED2014, the ornithologist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer spoke to the TED Blog about his work to save South Africa’s endangered Cape parrot and his campaign...