South African singer-songwriter Vusi Mahlasela dedicates his song, "Thula Mama," to all women -- and especially his grandmother.

Singer-songwriter Rei brings her mix of indie rock and blues to the TED stage in a performance of two songs, "my mama" and "BLACK BANANA."

When the Museum of Modern Art's senior curator of architecture and design announced the acquisition of 14 video games in 2012, "all hell broke loose." In this far-ranging, entertaining, and deeply insightful talk, Paola Antonelli explains why she's delighted to challenge preconceived ideas about art and galleries, and describes her burning wish ...

Mike's Picks: Our photo editor, Mike Femia, is sorting through tens of thousands of photos this week. He picks a favorite each day. Here's today's: I was blown away by the energy of the Mama Foundation Gospel for Teens. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Adults tend to think of kids as "future citizens" -- their ideas and opinions will matter someday, just not today. But kids make up a quarter of the population, so shouldn't they have a say in what the world they'll inherit will look like? Urban planner Mara Mintzer shares what happened when she and her team asked kids to help design a park in B...

Make a city beautiful, curb corruption. Edi Rama took this deceptively simple path as mayor of Tirana, Albania, where he instilled pride in his citizens by transforming public spaces with colorful designs.

Cellist Maya Beiser plays a gorgeous eight-part modern etude with seven copies of herself, and segues into a meditative music/video hybrid -- using tech to create endless possibilities for transformative sound. Music is Steve Reich's "Cello Counterpoint," with video from Bill Morrison, then David Lang's "World to Come," with video by Irit Batsry.

Maya Penn started her first company when she was 8 years old, and thinks deeply about how to be responsible both to her customers and to the planet. She shares her story -- and some animations, and some designs, and some infectious energy -- in this charming talk.

Maya Beiser commissions and performs radical new work for the cello.

Photos: James Duncan Davidson Vy Higginsen introduces the Gospel for Teens section of the Mama Foundation for the Arts, an organization she founded in 1998. The program is a way to teach teenagers the art of gospel music. "We want them to know who they are and where they come from musically," she explains, as the choir begins to hum b...

From 2000 to 2011 Edi Rama was the mayor of Tirana, where he implemented a series of reforms to take back the city for the people.

These young speakers encourage us to ask bold questions, think creatively and dream big. It’s spot-on life advice that adults may just want to listen to.

The first American to be ordained a Tibetan Monk by the Dalai Lama, Robert A.F. Thurman is a scholar, author and tireless proponent of peace.

Maya Penn makes eco-friendly clothes and accessories, which she sells on a site she built -- and gives away a percent of the profits.

Mara Mintzer thrives on engaging children, youth and underrepresented communities in participatory planning, an approach that aims to integrate the views of all community members into designing exemplary communities.

This year, the TED Prize has been given to a concept, The City 2.0. In this session, we reveal all, interspersed with a host of speakers who've dedicated their life and work to making our world's cities as excellent as they can be. In this session: We heard updates on Jill Tarter's wish to search for alien intelligence (you can help!) ...

On Wednesday night, join the world to watch Session 7 of TED2012 for free. In Session 7, the TED Prize wish for this year's winner, The City 2.0, will be revealed onstage, and you'll hear great speakers on the subject of cities ... updates from past TED Prize winners, including last year's winner, JR ... and inspiring music from the Mama Fou...

However, many of these cameras were captured during violent clashes. Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim -- who won the TED Prize in 2006 and wished for a global day of film -- seeks to tell the story of these protestors in her new documentary, The Square. The film combines the shocking and powerful footage taken by the protestors themselves, along with...

Yes, it’s possible to ask for what you want without coming across as a jerk, says social psychologist Adam Galinsky. Speaking up is hard to do. I understood the true meaning of this phrase last year, when my wife and I became new parents. After we took our child home from the hospital, we were unsure whether our baby was getting enough nutrient...

These extraordinary maestros bring you into the world of writing and conducting music.

From Chopin to Handel and everything in between -- immerse yourself in the world of classical music.

Some people might not take kindly to being called a knucklehead by their boss. Not Noah McQueen. But if your boss were President Barack Obama, you'd probably give him a pass, too. In a Storycorps interview that aired this morning, President Obama interviewed McQueen, an 18-year-old White House mentee in the My Brother's Keeper initiative,...

Alice Dreger gave a powerful talk at TEDxNorthwestern on how our changing perception of anatomical differences is also changing our democracy. She was in New York today, so we invited her to the TED office for a live Q&A, where she posed this question: The recent passage of gay marriage rights in New York demonstrates what I talked about in...

Vy Higginsen's Gospel Choir of Harlem is an influential source of education and self-development for young people.

Writer, teacher and MIT Media Fellow Shaka Senghor gives the last talk of Session 10: Passion at TED2014, and he starts with a literal bang: When he was 19, he shot and killed another man. At the time, he was a young drug dealer "with a quick temper and a semi-automatic pistol." Speaking to us remotely from a salon in New York, Senghor says ...

Ghetto Life 101 changed my life. I started working on this radio documentary 25 years ago — I gave tape recorders to two kids growing up in the Ida B. Wells Homes in Chicago, one of the most notorious public housing projects in America, and asked them to document a week in their lives. LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman were 13 and 14 years old a...

Experimental, organic, and polymathic, the TED Fellows program continues to provoke, inspire – and defy convention. The initiative was inspired by the success of 100 groundbreaking Fellows from around Africa at TED Global in 2007, which included Alexandra Graham, cofounder of Lagray Chemicals, the first vertically integrated pharmaceutical man...

The Dalai Lama is both a futurist and a visionary, says author Daniel Goleman. There was a child born to illiterate villagers in an isolated village. He had to flee his homeland and has been a man without a country for more than half a century. He has never owned a home or a car or had a salary, let alone investments of any kind. He never ha...

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Bryan Stevenson spends most of his time in jails and prisons and on death row. He's a lawyer, and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. So he's found it very energizing at TED, and wanted to start by pointing out that there is a distinct identity here. Things said here have a power that maybe they do...

If you pass a MoMA Design Store in New York City today, you’ll notice a slew of entrancing kinetic sculptures in their windows – a giant shark swimming after a lure and a cyclist powering a cardboard ferris wheel. Each of these sculptures is powered by littleBits, the Lego-like electronic toys created by TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir. LittleBits sna...