A handful of people working at a handful of tech companies steer the thoughts of billions of people every day, says design thinker Tristan Harris. From Facebook notifications to Snapstreaks to YouTube autoplays, they're all competing for one thing: your attention. Harris shares how these companies prey on our psychology for their own profit and ...

One of Google's earliest engineers, Chade-Meng Tan is now Google's Jolly Good Fellow -- the head of personal growth at the groundbreaking search company.

What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says we can train our minds in habits of well-being, to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfillment.

Working hard but not improving? You're not alone. Eduardo Briceño reveals a simple way to think about getting better at the things you do, whether that's work, parenting or creative hobbies. And he shares some useful techniques so you can keep learning and always feel like you're moving forward.

Attention isn't just about what we focus on -- it's also about what our brains filter out. By investigating patterns in the brain as people try to focus, computational neuroscientist Mehdi Ordikhani-Seyedlar hopes to build computer models that can be used to treat ADHD and help those who have lost the ability to communicate. Hear more about this...

Artist David Gurman's installations use live data feeds from conflict zones to trigger lights, tolling bells, shadows and more, connecting us to the rhythms and intensity of far-away violence in real time. How did you start thinking about conflict in art? I was interested in resonance and wave patterns and energetic exchanges as early as 1...

Our attention gets hijacked by everything from the stress in our lives to the ding of our phones. Neuroscientist Amishi Jha shows how we can cultivate the ability to focus on what really matters. “I think, therefore I am distracted.” If Descartes were writing today, this is what his famous aphorism might have become. We’re living in an age o...

Sister True Dedication is a Zen Buddhist nun ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh, the editor of several of his books and a leading voice in a new generation of young monastics.

About this event: TEDx Sunset Park, is a two-hour event that will focus on strategies of mindsight (Dan Siegel), mindfulness (Diana Winston) and metacognition (Alise Shafer Ivey). Each speaker will discuss insights into how these concepts can transform the way we live and act.

About this event: A fun evening featuring thought provoking talks on a variety of topics including: stress and mindfulness, art and design, the environment, volunteerism, computer science and psychology

About this event: Learn about the future of mindfulness, artificial intelligence, and the human language at TEDXYouth@Zurich on Saturday, March 10th. The event will take place at Zurich International School in Adliswil from 13.00- 16.30.

About this event: Join TEDxUniversityofPittsburgh for our first ever Salon. New this year, Salons will be a series of events meant to foster conversation around ideas worth spreading. Tickets: (This event is open only to students at the University of Pittsburgh. You must bring your Pitt ID). https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tedxuniversityofpittsburghsalon-mindfuln...

About this event: The theme of this year's TEDxPrincetonU is Catalyst. Our conference will feature catalysts—people and ideas aggressively changing their respective fields. From mindfulness to artificial organs, catalytic reactions permeate our lives. Join us, as we explore how catalysts are actively shaping our future.

About this event: You are cordially invited to the next TEDxTheHague salon! Our November edition — themed Being Present in the Moment— is curated by Yolanthe Smit. Yolanthe writes: "How do we become aware of being in the moment? How and when do we feel it and where? How does 'being present' relate to our concept of time? Tonight we will explore, in an experie...

About this event: "Mindfulness is paying attention here and now, with kindness and curiosity, so that we can change our behavior." This quote from Amy Saltzman’s A Still Quiet Place for Teens, is the focus of a TEDx Salon event on WEDNESDAY, March 28th at 5:30 pm at Worcester Idea Lab, 20 Franklin St. in downtown Worcester (See below for parking suggestions). ...

About this event: TEDxScarsdale launched on Sunday, March 11th, 2018 from 2-4 pm. Located in the Scarsdale High School Auditorium, the presentation included keynote talks from Alan Schwarz (SHS '86!), Suzanne Nossel (SHS '87!), Divya Narendra, Frank King, and Viktor Koen centered around the theme "Meaningful Mindfulness." Thank you for attending! We hope to see y...

Kiran Bedi's campaign to bring mindfulness to prisons was expressed in one amazing photo: 1,000 prisoners meditating in one room. Sheikha Al Mayassa (live via satellite from TEDxDoha) on cultural development in the Middle East: It must be done organically, from within the region. Naomi Klein: "Our underlying assu...

About this event: In today's fast-paced world filled with distractions, taking time to pause and reflect can improve our personal wellness, reshape our career trajectory, and bring our awareness back to ourselves and our community. This event will feature talks on a diverse array of topics including: ecological conservation in the Lackawanna watershed, the powe...

About this event: Our theme this year is “Dream,” which we have interpreted broadly to allow our speakers to consider their dreams of the past, present, and future. Today’s talks will cover a variety of topics from medicine adherence to learning math to mindfulness to college success. We hope you will leave inspired by these talks to take action in your communi...

About this event: Since the beginning of civilization, the campfire has been a place for people to come together - a place to tell stories, learn from each other, and gain a sense of belonging and community. We welcome you to our modern campfire, where we’ll share new ideas that will shape our future together. We’ll be having conversations about masculinity, rel...

About this event: The world is made up of interdependent relationships, some quite obvious and others less so. As daily participants in this system we often miss these interactions. TEDxSpokane: Connections and Intersections creates an environment of mindfulness and openness to find new meaning in seemingly unrelated ideas. This year’s event will explore the i...

Gratefulness isn't always something that comes easily. Below, some reading and watching to get you into a thankful headspace. Watch: "Want to be happy? Be thankful." This TED Talk from David Steindl-Rast is the perfect Thanksgiving appetizer. In it, the Benedictine monk and interfaith scholar talks about what, exactly, it means to be gratefu...

About this event: We live in a great time of dualities: digital and handmade, science and art, artificial intelligence and humanism, rural and urban, haves and have-nots, basic and abstract, internal and external, east and west, past and future. Openness and mindfulness is needed now more than ever to bring both sides of the equation together rather than choosing...

One in four people have some form of mental illness, and Ruby Wax wants to talk about it. Watch her TEDTalk, posted today and inspired by her show Losing It, to start the conversation. One project she didn't get to mention onstage at TEDGlobal: This winter, Wax started up the Black Dog Tribe, an online network for people with mental illness ...

It’s a complaint we’ve all heard about the internet: all the cat videos and incessant celebrity gossip sites are making us, as a culture, stupider. However, digital community expert Howard Rheingold, doesn’t think that’s the case. In fact, he believes that both designing and using digital media can actually improve our intelligence. As Rheing...

As the year comes to a close, the TED community is busy as ever. Below, a few highlights. Plant-robot hybrids are here. At the MIT Media Lab, researchers Pattie Maes and Harpreet Sareen have developed a new kind of “cybernetic lifeform”: a cyborg plant called Elowan that marries organic and digital technologies. Elowan’s robotic half track...

About this event: EDxWomen is an exciting opportunity to share some of the main stage TEDWomen talks. This year's theme of TEDWomen, "Bridges," speaks to the ways in which we build bridges, traverse them, and sometimes even burn them, for better or worse. On the 2nd of November we will host a stream with the most inspiring and captivating TEDWomen 2017 talks fro...

When Shaka Senghor (Watch: Shaka Senghor: Why your worst deeds don’t define you) was nineteen, he shot and killed a man — and was sentenced to spend the second nineteen years of his life in jail. At first, Senghor sat in his cold cell and rationalized his worst deeds. “In the hood where I come from,” he says, “it’s better to be the shooter than ...

  Sometimes technology isn’t the answer to every problem. Even at the TED conference. At TED2016, TED partnered with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to run a blue-sky workshop session on creating a new healthy school from scratch, imagining new solutions to problems that plague educators, students, schools, and the communities that ...

About this event: “Get Your Life in Sync”. There are a lot of things in life that pull us in different directions, with our everyday life increasing in speed and complexity. We want to seek balance and synchronize our life, integrate the personal with the professional and find a pathway to growth. As we are growing everyday, the desire to synthesize the variou...