When we asked Bill Gates to curate a list of his favorite talks, his first response was, “There are too many to pick, really.” Here, he's whittled it down to 13 essentials.

At TED2010, Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world's energy future, describing the need for "miracles" to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he's backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.

America's school systems are funded by the 50 states. In this fiery talk, Bill Gates says that state budgets are riddled with accounting tricks that disguise the true cost of health care and pensions and weighted with worsening deficits -- with the financing of education at the losing end.

In 2014, the world avoided a global outbreak of Ebola, thanks to thousands of selfless health workers -- plus, frankly, some very good luck. In hindsight, we know what we should have done better. So, now's the time, Bill Gates suggests, to put all our good ideas into practice, from scenario planning to vaccine research to health worker training....

Bill Gates hopes to solve some of the world's biggest problems using a new kind of philanthropy. In a passionate and, yes, funny 18 minutes, he asks us to consider two big questions and how we might answer them. (And see the Q&A on the TED Blog.)

Until recently, many teachers only got one word of feedback a year: "satisfactory." And with no feedback, no coaching, there's just no way to improve. Bill Gates suggests that even great teachers can get better with smart feedback -- and lays out a program from his foundation to bring it to every classroom.

Bono picks 8 talks that express powerful ideas -- and shares exactly why each needs to be spread far and wide.

A passionate techie and a shrewd businessman, Bill Gates changed the world while leading Microsoft to dizzying success. Now he's doing it again with his own style of philanthropy and passion for innovation.

How can we create an education system that works for kids, instead of against them? Watch eight inspiring talks from TED's May 2013 PBS special, given in their entirety.

It's the question of our generation: Can we find a sustainable alternative to oil? Scientists, inventors and activists present stern warnings and visionary solutions for the energy of tomorrow.

The first TED was held in 1984. What kind of predictions did people make 30 years ago? (And did they turn out to be right?) Watch the world change over three decades in this nearly year-by-year playlist.

Melinda French Gates is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she puts into practice the idea that every life has equal value.

In 1993, Bill and Melinda Gates took a walk on the beach and made a big decision: to give their Microsoft wealth back to society. In conversation with Chris Anderson, the couple talks about their work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as their marriage, their children, their failures and the satisfaction of giving most of their...

Sue Desmond-Hellmann leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s mission to establish equity for every person.

It’s the giving season. And thus, we give you these great talks on the hows, whys and whats of generosity.

This year at TED2011, we issued an unprecedented invitation to two global thinkers: Curate a session of TED. Juan Enriquez (watch his TEDTalks) brings his astonishingly broad perspective on global issues -- from the macro to the micro -- to Session 9 of this year's conference. His research and writing makes an excellent case that new bioscience,...

In 1985, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, you could see Back to the Future in the theater for less than three bucks, and a 30-year-old Steve Jobs was being forced out of Apple. Doug Menuez was a 28-year-old photographer who had become obsessed with Jobs' story. So he asked a somewhat ridiculous question and got an equally ridicu...

Good design has the power to improve lives. Yesterday, Public Interest Design -- a group dedicated to design for social good -- released the Global Public Interest Design 100, a list of 100 "designers" (including some people you really might not expect) who are designing for the good of all. We love this sweeping list of 100 architects, designer...

Find repose by exciting the mind. Some of the world's leading thinkers offer the books that inspired them and their work. Skim the list for your favorite speakers, or get nerdy on a topic you've always wanted to know more about. Below find 52 books, recommended by TED speakers. Creativity Creative Confidence, by Tom Kelley and David Kelley Cr...

Glean interview skills and incredible insights from some of the greatest minds to sit down on the TED stage.

Chris Anderson invited Bill and Melinda Gates to the TED2014 stage for what turned out to be a personal and charming Q&A. This is an edited version of that conversation. Anderson began with the provocation, "On the basis that a picture's worth a thousand words, I asked them to dig from their archive to explain what they've done." The firs...

By Bill Gates I spend a lot of my time working to help improve America’s schools. I’m also a big fan of TED Talks. So when TED’s Chris Anderson asked me to give a talk as part of a special TED session on education, I jumped at the chance. The show premieres on PBS this Tuesday, May 7, at 10 p.m. Eastern/9 p.m. Central. (Here’s a preview. ...

With fresh thinking and bold ideas, TED and PBS are hosting a one-hour special with talks about the US high school dropout crisis. On May 7 at 10pm, PBS will air the very first televised TED event, TED Talks Education. The event, filmed in New York on April 4, brings together an hour of speakers and performers with a deep-rooted passion for e...

Horses, parrots and mosquitos: oh my! TED2013 will commence in just nine days, and the TED Blog is gearing up for our live, minute-by-minute, coverage. One thing we can’t wait to see: which speaker will bring an animal onstage with them? (Our money is on ornithologist Kees Moeliker.) Sometimes, speakers arrive with a live animal, other times ...

About this event: The first TEDxLive event in Bandung. Here, we will bring you the second day of TED 2011: Rediscovery of Wonder, which will feature world-class speakers and passionate dreamers such as Bill Gates, Salman Khan, Amina Az-Zubair, and more! Enjoy yourself with crowd of people who has passions about ideas and innovations, and be inspired! In this e...

TED playlists are collections of talks around a topic, built specially for you in a thoughtful sequence to illuminate ideas in context. This weekend, two new playlists are available: Animals that amaze and The end of oil? Animals that amaze At TED there's a certain species of speaker who is absolutely devoted to all kinds of weird beasts...

In this reel, TED recaps an amazing year of talks from three conferences, a bunch of smaller TED events -- and a powerful year of TEDx. Dive in, and then follow up with talks that intrigue you ... You'll see, in order of appearance: The LXD, Chris Anderson and Julian Assange, Bill Gates, Chip Conley, Naomi Klein, John Underkoffler...

In an experimental Session 6, Bill Gates hosted and guest-curated the speaker lineup. David Christian charts our course from the Big Bang to today: "To understand complexity, you have to survey the whole history of the universe. So let's do it." Amina Az-Zubair on the UN Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria: "We are making p...

  Summer: the season for cracking open a good book under the shade of a tree. Below, we’ve compiled about 70 stellar book recommendations from members of the TED community. Warning: not all of these books can be classified as beach reads. And we think that is a good thing. Picks from Elizabeth Gilbert, author  The Principles of Uncertainty ...

When Dr. Steven Whiteley landed in Monrovia, Liberia, last fall, he wasn't sure what to expect. He knew that he'd be treating Ebola patients, but he wasn't sure what he'd see when he got to the treatment center, the only one in Bong county in the north central region of the country. He hadn't even been trained in any of the medical protocols. Th...