Epidemiologist Chikwe Ihekweazu was in the inaugural TED Fellows class of TEDGlobal 2007 in Tanzania. Living in the UK at the time, writing articles on public health issues in his native Nigeria, Chikwe was profoundly affected by his TED experience. Now running an influential Nigerian public health blog, an alumni program for his alma mater,...

The possibilities life affords us are endless. We can find them everywhere, at the micro and macro levels and across all fields. Do you see them? Look closer: they are there every time we use our curiosity and imagination to explore and try new things. For a second year, TED and Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, have partnered to explore t...

The TED Interview How to predict the future with Jane McGonigal June 23, 2022 [00:00:00] Steven Johnson: Hi there. I'm Steven Johnson. Don't worry, you're in the right place. This is the TED interview and I am the new host. If you're curious about who I am and where Chris Anderson went, I'd really encourage you to listen to last week's episode....

WorkLife with Adam Grant Tuesday, April 26, 2022 [THEME MUSIC] [00:01:00] VOICE 1: Dear Adam, I have a great investment opportunity for you. Let me tell you about my startup. [00:06:87]VOICE 2: I know we've never met, but here's why you should endorse my book [00:00:12] VOICE 3: Is your team hiring? Cause I'd be a great fit. [00:00:22...

How to Be a Better Human How to get workplace gender equity now (with Sara Sanford) (Transcript) October 10, 2022 [00:00:00] Chris Duffy: You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today on the podcast, we’ve got equity expert Sara Sanford. Sara is the author of Inclusion, Inc.: How to Design Intersectional Equit...

The TED Interview Linda Villarosa on the hidden toll of racism on health (Transcript) November 18, 2022 [00:00:00] Steven Johnson: Welcome to the TED Interview. I'm your host Steven Johnson. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman.” The COVID crisis has made...

How to Be a Better Human How to embrace rejection (with Jia Jiang) (Transcript) August 22, 2022 [00:00:00] Chris Duffy: You're listening to How To Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Let me start off today's episode with a confession. Sometimes when I'm working on a new project, whether it is a joke or a script or any sort of new id...

Marc Goodman studies how to prevent future crimes -- not in the Minority Report sense, but by thinking about the ways that current and imagined technologies could be used to commit crimes. At TEDGlobal 2012 he gave a talk on some of the ways this could play out -- showing examples of how drug cartels and terrorists could (and already do) use...

Whether your weeks ahead contain travel, vacations or just longer and lazier days than usual, our list of recommendations from TED speakers has books for all moods, activities and tastes. When you want to understand why we humans do what we do Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely (TED Talk: Our buggy...

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....

If you’ve ever seen grainy old sports footage—for example, a boxing match from the late 1800s, a Princeton/Yale game from 1903, or Babe Ruth’s famous home run from 1932—you probably noticed how different the game looks compared to its modern counterpart. The equipment looks clunky, the uniforms impossibly baggy. Even the bodies of the players lo...

The current coronavirus pandemic is a truly global one; in fact, Antarctica is the only continent with no cases (although that could change). Most nations have responded with similar measures -- stay-at-home advisories, shutdown of non-essential businesses, social distancing -- but the scope of these changes has varied and so has the human impac...

Whether you're staying put or going away, summer can be a great time to relax and try new things. So we asked TED speakers to recommend podcasts, books, TV shows, movies and more that have nourished their minds, spirits and bodies (yes, you'll find a link to a recipe for olive-cheese loaf below) in recent times. You can use the links here to ju...

SETI researcher Seth Shostak bets that we will find extraterrestrial life in the next twenty-four years, or he'll buy you a cup of coffee. He explains why new technologies and the laws of probability make the breakthrough so likely -- and predicts how the discovery of civilizations far more advanced than ours might affect us here on Earth.

We're all against hate, right? We agree it's a problem -- their problem, not our problem, that is. But as Sally Kohn discovered, we all hate -- some of us in subtle ways, others in obvious ones. As she confronts a hard story from her own life, she shares ideas on how we can recognize, challenge and heal from hatred in our institutions and in our...

As a global community, we all want to end poverty. Mia Birdsong suggests a great place to start: Let's honor the skills, drive and initiative that poor people bring to the struggle every day. She asks us to look again at people in poverty: They may be broke — but they're not broken.

Do you think you're good at spotting fake videos, where famous people say things they've never said in real life? See how they're made in this astonishing talk and tech demo. Computer scientist Supasorn Suwajanakorn shows how, as a grad student, he used AI and 3D modeling to create photorealistic fake videos of people synced to audio. Learn more...

Do schools kill creativity? Back in 2006, Sir Ken Robinson posed this question to the TED audience -- and boy, did it touch a nerve. More than fifty million views and a decade later, head of TED Chris Anderson sits down with Sir Ken to dig into the changes and progress that have been made, and to see if the answer now is any different. How are e...

Violinist Sirena Huang gives a technically brilliant and emotionally nuanced performance. In a charming interlude, the 11-year-old praises the timeless design of her instrument.

We worry that IM, texting, Facebook are spoiling human intimacy, but Stefana Broadbent's research shows how communication tech is capable of cultivating deeper relationships, bringing love across barriers like distance and workplace rules.

Chance plays a far bigger role in life than we're willing to admit, says psychologist Barry Schwartz. Of course, working hard and following the rules can get you far -- but the rest could boil down to simple good fortune. Schwartz examines the overlooked link between luck, merit and success, offering an intriguing solution to equalize opportunit...

At 32, Jessica McCabe's ADHD brought her to the darkest point of her life thus far. At 34, she was thriving both personally and professionally, producing a successful Youtube channel about living with ADHD. In this deeply personal talk, Jessica describes how she turned things around through community and education.

A liberal arts education is critical to forming true leaders, says university head Patrick Awuah -- because it builds decision-making skills, an ethical framework and a broad vision. Awuah himself left a career at Microsoft in the US to found a liberal arts school in Africa: Ashesi University, in his home nation of Ghana. A passionate talk about...

Tod Machover of MIT's Media Lab is devoted to extending musical expression to everyone, from virtuosos to amateurs, and in the most diverse forms, from opera to video games. He and composer Dan Ellsey shed light on what's next.

Backed by research and personal anecdotes, Spanish professor Anna Babel reveals the intricate relationship between language and culture, showing how social categories and underlying biases influence the way we hear, regard and, ultimately, judge each other. A talk that will leave you questioning your assumptions about what it really means to spe...

What if your job didn't control your life? Brazilian CEO Ricardo Semler practices a radical form of corporate democracy, rethinking everything from board meetings to how workers report their vacation days (they don't have to). It's a vision that rewards the wisdom of workers, promotes work-life balance — and leads to some deep insight on what wo...

Physics doesn't just happen in a fancy lab -- it happens when you push a piece of buttered toast off the table or drop a couple of raisins in a fizzy drink or watch a coffee spill dry. Become a more interesting dinner guest as physicist Helen Czerski presents various concepts in physics you can become familiar with using everyday things found in...

Thousands of years ago, ancient Nubians drew pictures on tomb walls of a terrible disease that turns the eyelids inside out and causes blindness. This disease, trachoma, is still a scourge in many parts of the world today -- but it's also completely preventable, says Caroline Harper. Armed with data from a global mapping project, Harper's organi...

Why do people distrust vaccines? Anthropologist Heidi Larson explores how medical rumors originate, spread and fuel resistance to vaccines worldwide. While vaccines cannot escape the "political and social turbulence" that surrounds them, she says, the first step to stopping the spread of disease is to talk to people, listen and build trust.

The happiest and healthiest people are those who have warm connections with others, says psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, who leads the Harvard Study of Adult Development -- one of the longest-running studies of adult life ever conducted. Exploring the crucial link between social bonds and quality of life, he shares wisdom and insights into how to...