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...

Taylor Wilson was 14 when he built a nuclear fusion reactor in his parents' garage. Now 19, he returns to the TED stage to present a new take on an old topic: fission. Wilson, who has won backing to create a company to realize his vision, explains why he's so excited about his innovative design for small modular fission reactors -- and why it co...

Roman Mars is obsessed with flags -- and after you watch this talk, you might be, too. These ubiquitous symbols of civic pride are often designed, well, pretty terribly. But they don't have to be. In this surprising and hilarious talk about vexillology -- the study of flags -- Mars reveals the five basic principles of flag design and shows why h...

About this event: This TEDxCanberraSalon will explore the theme Designing The Future. The Future. Unknown and unknowable. Or is it? No one can predict the future with certainty, but what steps can we take to design the kind of future we want and need? How can we use human ingenuity to design and influence the future? What are we doing now and what will the conse...

We know that innovative ideas, cutting-edge research and fresh approaches to challenging problems can be discovered inside visionary organizations around the world. The TED Institute helps surface and share these insights. What is the TED Institute? Every year, TED works with a group of select companies and foundations to identify internal ideat...

How did ancient civilizations move massive stones to build Stonehenge, the Pyramids and the Easter Island statues? In this quick, delightful talk, TED Fellow Brandon Clifford reveals some architectural secrets of the past and shows how we can use these ingenious techniques to build today. "In an era where we design buildings to last 30, maybe 60...

The hyperlink is the LEGO block of the internet. Here's the bizarre history of how it came to be, as told by user experience master Margaret Gould Stewart.

What if you never had to fill out paperwork again? In Estonia, this is a reality: citizens conduct nearly all public services online, from starting a business to voting from their laptops, thanks to the nation's ambitious post-Soviet digital transformation known as "e-Estonia." One of the program's experts, Anna Piperal, explains the key design ...

In this brand-new slideshow (premiering on TED.com), Al Gore presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists recently predicted. He challenges us to act.

About this event: The essence of design is thinking made visual. From traditional craft to computer design, from dress design to app design...they are all processes of thought becoming reality in a nexus of creativity. By breaking out of established patterns of thinking and doing, by tapping into our inner child and by not fearing failure, we can pierce the ordi...

How often does technology interrupt us from what we really mean to be doing? At work and at play, we spend a startling amount of time distracted by pings and pop-ups -- instead of helping us spend our time well, it often feels like our tech is stealing it away from us. Design thinker Tristan Harris offers thoughtful new ideas for technology that...

TED Resident Keith Kirkland and his team at WearWorks use haptic technology to develop products and experiences that communicate information through touch. In 2017, they were faced with a seemingly impossible challenge: quickly develop a device for a blind ultra-marathon runner to compete -- unaided and unassisted -- in the New York City Maratho...

About this event: There is so much that happens around us that is invisible. The influences of culture, politics, body language, neuroscience, feelings... all these seem invisible. But there is also the other type of invisible, being invisible in a room full of people, in a school full of children, in a book full of faces. This invisibility has profound effects o...

Prosthetics can't replicate the look and feel of lost limbs but they can carry a lot of personality. Designer Scott Summit shows 3D-printed, individually designed prosthetic legs that are unabashedly artificial and completely personal -- from macho to fabulous.

"Where does it hurt?" It's a question that activist and educator Ruby Sales has traveled the US asking, looking deeply at the country's legacy of racism and searching for sources of healing. In this moving talk, she shares what she's learned, reflecting on her time as a freedom fighter in the civil rights movement and offering new thinking on pa...

About this event: Do you say “No, but” a lot without giving it any thought? Your time and energy is limited, a practical approach seems more efficient and you can't say yes to all requests, right? But what would happen if you tried “Yes, and…” instead? In improv, the art of spontaneous, unplanned, unscripted performa...

More than half of the world's population already lives in cities, and another 2.5 billion people are projected to move to urban areas by 2050. The way we build new cities will be at the heart of so much that matters, from climate change to economic vitality to our very well-being and sense of connectedness. Peter Calthorpe is already at work pla...

Business school professor Amy Edmondson studies "teaming," where people come together quickly (and often temporarily) to solve new, urgent or unusual problems. Recalling stories of teamwork on the fly, such as the incredible rescue of 33 miners trapped half a mile underground in Chile in 2010, Edmondson shares the elements needed to turn a group...

Designer Alastair Parvin begins this Session 4 of TED2013 with the theme "Disrupt!" When we use the word architect or designer, Parvin suggests, we mean a professional, a person paid to design. And we believe it's only these people who can solve the world's biggest design problems. But he says firmly: That's wrong. When Parvin was abou...

When asked to build housing for 100 families in Chile ten years ago, Alejandro Aravena looked to an unusual inspiration: the wisdom of favelas and slums. Rather than building a large building with small units, he built flexible half-homes that each family could expand on. It was a complex problem, but with a simple solution — one that he arrived...

What could you do with the world's smallest 3D printer? Klaus Stadlmann demos his tiny, affordable printer that could someday make customized hearing aids -- or sculptures smaller than a human hair.

Very few of us hold jobs that line up directly with our past experiences or what we studied in college. Take TED Resident Jason Shen; he studied biology but later became a product manager at a tech company. In this quick, insightful talk about human potential, Shen shares some new thinking on how job seekers can make themselves more attractive -...

Calls for authenticity at work ask for passionate people with diverse, fresh perspectives who challenge old ways of thinking. But too often workplace culture fails to support the authenticity of professionals of color and other underrepresented groups, leading instead to backlash and fewer opportunities. Writer Jodi-Ann Burey outlines steps towa...

A third of the world watched live as the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001; a third more heard about it within 24 hours. (Do you remember where you were?) So exhibits at the soon-to-open 9/11 Memorial Museum will reflect the diversity of the world's experiences of that day. In a moving talk, designer Jake Barton gives a peek at ...

Jeff Han shows off a cheap, scalable multi-touch and pressure-sensitive computer screen interface that may spell the end of point-and-click.

What really causes addiction -- to everything from cocaine to smart-phones? And how can we overcome it? Johann Hari has seen our current methods fail firsthand, as he has watched loved ones struggle to manage their addictions. He started to wonder why we treat addicts the way we do -- and if there might be a better way. As he shares in this deep...

Bill Moggridge, director of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, has died. He was 69. Moggridge, who designed the first laptop computer and was the co-founder of the design firm IDEO, was an enormously influential figure in the worlds of design and technology, beloved by all who knew him. In fact, what’s most noticeabl...

It is, indeed, a monumental day here at TED Towers. We're winners! Or, as June Cohen, executive producer of TED Media, described this morning's news of our winning the 2013 National Design Award for corporate and institutional achievement: "We're thrilled!" "Design and design thinking has always been core to TED's mission. After all, it's...

The progress bar makes waiting more exciting... and mitigates our fear of death. Journalist Daniel Engber explores how it came into existence.

About this event: You are cordially invited to the next TEDxTheHague salon! Our April edition — themed Designing Well-being — is curated by TEDxTheHague regular Dorcas de Koning and generously hosted by Gallerie Lily's. Dorcas writes: "First-world countries are suffering from a new definition of 'poverty' in the health care domain. The way we choose to tackle...