Since its founding in 1851, the "New York Times" has published thousands of obituaries -- for heads of state, famous celebrities, even the inventor of the sock puppet. But only a small percentage of them chronicle the lives of women and people of color. In this insightful talk, "Times" editor Amy Padnani shares the story behind "Overlooked," the...

As the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Thomas P. Campbell thinks deeply about curating—not just selecting art objects, but placing them in a setting where the public can learn their stories. With glorious images, he shows how his curation philosophy works for displaying medieval tapestries—and for the over-the-top fashion...

Our biases can be dangerous, even deadly — as we've seen in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, in Staten Island, New York. Diversity advocate Vernā Myers looks closely at some of the subconscious attitudes we hold toward out-groups. She makes a plea to all people: Acknowledge your biases. Then move toward, not awa...

On September 9th 1971, a spontaneous uprising began in a New York State prison. A group of prisoners overpowered guards, broke windows, started fires, and captured supplies, sparking the Attica Rebellion. Soon, over 1,200 prisoners had assembled with 42 hostages to demand better treatment and better living conditions. Orisanmi Burton details the...

Cities are becoming increasingly privatized: commercial real estate dominates the streets, carving up open space that once belonged to the public and selling it as a commodity to the highest bidder. Architect Elizabeth Diller explores the causes and effects of this growing threat -- and takes us on tour of her groundbreaking projects aimed at cr...

In this lively talk and performance, artist and TED Fellow Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin offers a sneak peek of her forthcoming musical "At Buffalo." Drawing on archival material from the 1901 Pan-American Exhibition, a world's fair held in Buffalo, New York, the show examines conflicting representations of Black identity exhibited at the fair --...

Legendary architect Renzo Piano -- the mind behind such indelible buildings as The Shard in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the new Whitney Museum of Art in New York City -- takes us on a stunning tour through his life's work. With the aid of gorgeous imagery, Piano makes an eloquent case for architecture as the answer to our dreams, as...

There are 600 million women in India -- yet they are rarely seen outdoors after sunset because of safety concerns like harassment and catcalls. On a mission to create safer public spaces, women's rights advocate Srishti Bakshi talks about how she embarked on a 2,300-mile walk across the length of India (a distance equivalent to traveling from Ne...

"Building a 30-foot-high concrete structure from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security," says Congressman Will Hurd, a Republican from Texas whose district encompasses two times zones and shares an 820-mile border with Mexico. Speaking from Washington, DC in a video interview with former state att...

TED Fellow Negin Farsad weaves comedy and social commentary to cleverly undercut stereotypes of her culture. In this uproarious talk/stand-up hybrid, Farsad speaks on her documentary, The Muslims Are Coming!, narrates her fight with the MTA in New York and offers a detailed breakdown of the different types of haters she's encountered in her work...

TED-Ed Weekend is a youth conference that brings together student leaders from around the world for a chance to take over TED Headquarters in New York City. TED-Ed Weekend 2020 February 8-9, 2020 New York, NY TED-Ed Weekend showcases and amplifies the voices of the next generation of TED. It’s an opportunity for youth leaders around the world ...

Music can amplify social issues and inspire people to care about new (and sometimes unexpected) topics. But can it take something as dire as climate change and make it mainstream? With artists MyVerse and Kristen Warren as an inspiring opening act, social entrepreneur Samir Ibrahim suggests hip-hop and its stars can help us move from talking abo...

With the Climate Reality Project, Al Gore is helping mold future leaders to build the movement for climate survival and social justice from the ground up. He introduces us to four of the Project's graduates, each of whom confronts climate change on their own terms: Ximena Loría, founder of Misión 2 Grados, an NGO influencing public policy in Cen...

Author A.J. Jacobs embarked on a quest with a deceptively simple idea at its heart: to personally thank every person who helped make his morning cup of coffee. More than one thousand "thank yous" later, Jacobs reflects on the globe-trotting journey that ensued -- and shares the life-altering wisdom he picked up along the way. "I discovered that ...

The world needs clean power, but decarbonization calls for a massive increase in the mining and extraction of minerals like lithium, graphite and cobalt. Environmental peacemaking expert Olivia Lazard sheds light on the scramble for these precious mineral resources -- and how the countries that control their supply chains (including China and Ru...

Mark Bezos works at Robin Hood, a poverty-fighting charity in New York City, and the assistant captain of a volunteer fire company in suburban New York.

Nobody really knows how much it would cost to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Yet historian Yuval Noah Harari's analysis, based on the work of scientists and economists, indicates that humanity might avert catastrophe by investing the equivalent of just two percent of global GDP into climate solutions. He makes the case that preventin...

Our lives depend on curbing climate change, but so many priorities seem to be in competition. What's the most urgent thing humanity can do right now? Social entrepreneur James Irungu Mwangi tells us why Africa could be the ideal home for scaling the latest and most ambitious climate technologies -- including in places like Kenya's Hell's Gate Na...

"Climate doom-ism," or a pessimistic outlook on the future of the planet, rivals climate denialism in holding up the fight against climate change, says activist Zahra Biabani. Illuminating how hope combats inaction, she takes us inside the world of eco-friendly content on TikTok -- and shows that we all have what it takes to make real change.

Michael Pemberton is a New York-based actor and singer/songwriter.

Parul Sehgal is an editor for "The New York Times Book Review."

Robin Nagle is anthropologist-in-residence at the Department of Sanitation and longtime resident of New York City. In this interview with Alison Prato, she describes a life dedicated to, well, trash. In 1982, Robin Nagle moved to New York City from Saranac Lake, in upstate New York, to become an actor. Today, she is the anthropologist-in-resi...

Trebor Scholz is an advocate of "platform cooperativism" and an associate professor at The New School in New York City.

In honor of Universal Children's Day, we are excited to announce TEDYouth -- November 19, 2011, at the Times Center in New York City. TEDYouth will coincide with more than 85 self-organized TEDxYouthDay events happening worldwide on November 19-21, 2011. The theme for our TEDYouth program is "Play, Learn, Build and Share." Be inspired a...

Sarah Kay is a writer, performer and educator from New York City.

New York is a playground of absurdity. I’ve lived here on and off for the past decade. Since I ate my first workday lunch in a “park” in downtown Manhattan, I've been blindly accepting everyone's inexplicable behavior in this city, not least of all the block-long cronut line I pass on my way to work every morning. So when I started curating ...

Matthew O’Reilly is a veteran emergency medical technician on Long Island, New York.

About this event: "New York, New York" is the theme that many time TED speaker, Rives, has selected for his TEDxEast Salon. Friday, November 18, from 6- 9 pm. Ticket price includes admission and light snacks, cash bar. Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable.

Johann Hari is the author of two "New York Times" best-selling books.

What will life be like in the year 2035? Will the typical classroom still be full of desks, or some kind of virtual wonderland? What are the issues everyone will be talking about? What kind of work will today’s students be doing? Adults have lots of ideas, but they don’t necessarily have all the answers. If you’re between the ages of 13 a...