Brave, personal stories of people who make bold moves to claim a better life.

César Hidalgo has a radical suggestion for fixing our broken political system: automate it! In this provocative talk, he outlines a bold idea to bypass politicians by empowering citizens to create personalized AI representatives that participate directly in democratic decisions. Explore a new way to make collective decisions and expand your unde...

Quench your thirst for adventure with these breathtakingly bold talks that explore the Earth’s most spectacular corners, depths and peaks.

The Audacious Project is TED's collaborative experiment to put bold ideas for social change into action. Learn more at AudaciousProject.org.

Color bravery. A headset for brainwaves. His/hers healthcare. 10 big, bold talks from female speakers.

Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata -- all the major cities across India have one great thing in common: they welcome people arriving in search of work. But what lies at the other end of such openness and acceptance? Sadly, a shortage of housing for an estimated 100 million people, many of whom end up living in informal settlements. Gautam Bhan, a h...

Believe it or not, about 20 years' worth of potentially life-saving drugs are sitting in labs right now, untested. Why? Because they can't get the funding to go to trials; the financial risk is too high. Roger Stein is a finance guy, and he thinks deeply about mitigating risk. He and some colleagues at MIT came up with a promising new financial ...

Educator and activist Geoffrey Canada chose a powerful list of favorites — talks that address the cycles of poverty and gender violence, and offer bold suggestions for change.

What do we do with all this online venom and in-person vitriol? An exploration of where this hate comes from -- and bold ways to dismantle it.

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.

These speakers — all under 21 when they gave their talks — have big ideas for our health. Meet young people who are taking on cancer, asthma, injuries, even Alzheimer’s with a bold new approach.

Brandon Boyd, lead singer of Incubus, says, "I hope to one day perform live music on the moon. Perhaps if all goes according to plan, we can make a TED Talk out of it!" We eagerly await this event. Until then, here are his favorite talks.

Google's "Jolly Good Fellow," Chade-Meng Tan, talks about how the company practices compassion in its everyday business -- and its bold side projects.

"Girls' education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet to help solve some of the world's most difficult problems," says social entrepreneur Safeena Husain. In a visionary talk, she shares her plan to enroll a staggering 1.6 million girls in school over the next five years -- combining advanced analytics with door-to-door community eng...

Corruption manifests in many ways -- from money-laundering shell companies to bribes to broken electoral systems. These speakers look boldly at what's wrong, and offer bold ideas on what we can do about it.

Architecture student Magnus Larsson details his bold plan to transform the harsh Sahara desert using bacteria and a surprising construction material: the sand itself.

The next big shift is now, and it's not what you think: Facebook is the new Windows; Google must be sacrificed. Tech investor Roger McNamee presents 6 bold ways to prepare for the next internet.

Daniel Libeskind builds on very big ideas. Here, he shares 17 words that underlie his vision for architecture -- raw, risky, emotional, radical -- and that offer inspiration for any bold creative pursuit.

At TEDMED, Sheila Nirenberg shows a bold way to create sight in people with certain kinds of blindness: by hooking into the optic nerve and sending signals from a camera direct to the brain.

Around the world right now, one billion people are trapped in poor or failing countries. How can we help them? Economist Paul Collier lays out a bold, compassionate plan for closing the gap between rich and poor.

As Dave Eggers says, "The best TED Talks make sense of complicated ideas and trends, and have an elegant simplicity to them. It’s plenty of time to get across a clear and bold idea.” Below, his notes on 4 great talks.

Child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs "childish" thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids' big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups' willingness to learn from children as much as to teach.

Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions -- motion, speech, self-awareness -- shut down one by one. An astonishing story.

In this ode to design renegades, Alice Rawsthorn highlights the work of unlikely heroes, from Blackbeard to Florence Nightingale. Drawing a line from these bold thinkers to some early modern visionaries like Buckminster Fuller, Rawsthorn shows how the greatest designers are often the most rebellious.

A unique ecosystem of plants, birds and monkeys thrives in the treetops of the rainforest. Nalini Nadkarni explores these canopy worlds -- and shares her findings with the world below, through dance, art and bold partnerships.

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?)

What happens before a murder? In looking for ways to reduce death penalty cases, David R. Dow realized that a surprising number of death row inmates had similar biographies. In this talk he proposes a bold plan, one that prevents murders in the first place.

iPad storyteller Joe Sabia introduces us to Lothar Meggendorfer, who created a bold technology for storytelling: the pop-up book. Sabia shows how new technology has always helped us tell our own stories, from the walls of caves to his own onstage iPad.

Someone always asks the math teacher, "Am I going to use calculus in real life?" And for most of us, says Arthur Benjamin, the answer is no. He offers a bold proposal on how to make math education relevant in the digital age.

How can the magic of live theater, live music, live dance compete with the always-on Internet? Ben Cameron offers a bold look forward to a world where live arts matter more than ever -- to link humans together at a primal level of shared experience.