Not since World War II have so many people been forcibly displaced by war and persecution. Talks on why it's important to help refugees thrive, and personal stories of starting over.

José Antonio Abreu is the charismatic founder of a youth orchestra system that has transformed thousands of kids' lives in Venezuela. He shares his amazing story and unveils a TED Prize wish that could have a big impact in the US and beyond.

At TEDMED, Eric Dishman makes a bold argument: The US health care system is like computing circa 1959, tethered to big, unwieldy central systems: hospitals, doctors, nursing homes. As our aging population booms, it's imperative, he says, to create personal, networked, home-based health care for all.

Anne Milgram is committed to using data and analytics to fight crime.

Treo creator Jeff Hawkins urges us to take a new look at the brain -- to see it not as a fast processor, but as a memory system that stores and plays back experiences to help us predict, intelligently, what will happen next.

Michael McDaniel is a graphic designer using his skills to help people in meaningful ways.

Consider the spot where you're sitting. Travel backwards in time and it might've been submerged at the bottom of a shallow sea, buried under miles of rock or floating through a molten landscape. But go back about 4.6 billion years, and you'd be in the middle of an enormous cloud of dust and gas orbiting a newborn star. What exactly is this cosmi...

Robert Neuwirth spent four years among the chaotic stalls of street markets, talking to pushcart hawkers and gray marketers, to study the remarkable "System D," the world's unlicensed economic network. Responsible for some 1.8 billion jobs, it's an economy of underappreciated power and scope.

How can a struggling country break out of poverty if it's trapped in a system of bad rules? Economist Paul Romer unveils a bold idea: "charter cities," city-scale administrative zones governed by a coalition of nations. (Could Guantánamo Bay become the next Hong Kong?)

Imagine it's late 1990, and you've just met a nice young man named Tim Berners-Lee, who starts telling you about his proposed system called the World Wide Web. Ian Ritchie was there. And ... he didn't buy it. A short story about information, connectivity and learning from mistakes.

Ancient monuments give us clues to astonishing past civilizations -- but they're under threat from pollution, war, neglect. Ben Kacyra, who invented a groundbreaking 3D scanning system, is using his invention to scan and preserve the world's heritage in archival detail. (Watch to the end for a little demo.)

COVID-19 will change everything -- and the way students learn is no exception. Nora Flanagan draws on her experiences as a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools system to share strategies on how educational institutions can pivot to meet the needs of students, teachers and parents amidst radical circumstances.

Nearly half a million people in the US are in jail right now without being convicted of a crime, simply because they can't come up with the money to pay cash bail. To try and fix this system, public defender and activist Robin Steinberg asked a straightforward question: What if we paid bail for them? In conversation with TED Radio Hour host Mano...

The path to better food is paved with data, says entrepreneur Erin Baumgartner. Drawing from her experience running a farm-to-table business, she outlines her plan to help create a healthier, zero-waste food system that values the quality and taste of small, local farm harvests over factory-farmed produce.

Donald Sadoway is working on a battery miracle -- an inexpensive, incredibly efficient, three-layered battery using “liquid metal."

Pawan Sinha details his groundbreaking research into how the brain's visual system develops. Sinha and his team provide free vision-restoring treatment to children born blind, and then study how their brains learn to interpret visual data. The work offers insights into neuroscience, engineering and even autism.

What's the secret to making content people love? Join BuzzFeed's Publisher Dao Nguyen for a glimpse at how her team creates their tempting quizzes, lists and videos -- and learn more about how they've developed a system to understand how people use content to connect and create culture.

Dictionaries and grammar "rules" don't have the final word on language -- and believing they do can harm more than help, especially for the trans community. Sociolinguist Archie Crowley deconstructs three common myths around language, demonstrating how it's a fluid system that naturally evolves in the direction of inclusion.

What if our bodies could help grow new life after we die, instead of being embalmed and buried or turned to ash? Join Katrina Spade as she discusses "recomposition" -- a system that uses the natural decomposition process to turn our deceased into life-giving soil, honoring both the earth and the departed.

David Bismark has co-developed an electronic voting system that contains a simple and reliable method of verification.

When humanity first landed on the moon in 1969, the typeface Futura was right there with them. In this fascinating history of typography, designer Douglas Thomas shares Futura's role in launching the Apollo 11 spacecraft -- and how it became one of the most used fonts in the world.

Articles I-III of the United States Constitution allow for three separate branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), along with a system of checks and balances should any branch get too powerful. Belinda Stutzman breaks down each branch and its constitutionally-entitled powers. [Directed by Johnny Chew, narrated by Belinda St...

There are over 100 billion animals in the global food system, taking an enormous collective toll on our health and the environment. In this eye-opening talk, animal advocate and social scientist Jacy Reese makes a compelling argument as to why (and how) we should relegate the factory farming of animals to history's scrap pile.

Inspiring talks from women who have pushed the boundaries in their field and are paving the way for the next generation of girls to earn their place in traditionally male-dominated professions. (Curated in partnership with the National Security Agency.)

On any given night, more than 450,000 people in the United States are locked up in jail simply because they don't have enough money to pay bail. The sums in question are often around $500: easy for some to pay, impossible for others. This has real human consequences -- people lose jobs, homes and lives, and it drives racial disparities in the le...

The most notable talks of 2018, chosen by TED Curator Chris Anderson.

How can an established company maintain a startup mentality? Intrapreneur Shoel Perelman argues that first it must retain its internal rebels. To do so, Perelman suggests a system inspired by online dating that matches rebels from big companies with small companies that need their skills and keeps the entrepreneurial spirit alive in the biggest ...

Physician and 2017 TED Prize recipient Raj Panjabi shares an update on Last Mile Health and the mission to build and scale a network of community health workers who provide essential medical services to their neighbors. Learn how the movement is creating fair, meaningful jobs -- and an equitable health care system that reaches everyone.

What if every home had an early-warning cancer detection system? Researcher Joshua Smith is developing a nanobiotechnology "cancer alarm" that scans for traces of disease in the form of special biomarkers called exosomes. In this forward-thinking talk, he shares his dream for how we might revolutionize cancer detection and, ultimately, save lives.

To study a system as complex as the entire universe, astrophysicists need to be experts at extracting simple solutions from large data sets. What else could they do with this expertise? In an interdisciplinary talk, TED Fellow and astrophysicist Federica Bianco explains how she uses astrophysical data analysis to solve urban and social problems ...