With stunning photos and stories, National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world's indigenous cultures, which are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate.
Photographer Phil Borges shows rarely seen images of people from the mountains of Dharamsala, India, and the jungles of the Ecuadorean Amazon. In documenting these endangered cultures, he intends to help preserve them.
Around the world, indigenous food cultures disappear because of industrialized agriculture and a shifting, often Western-influenced concept of the ideal diet. Journalist and food researcher Aparna Pallavi makes an urgent case for preserving these cultures and shedding the stigma-laden attitudes that are driving them into extinction.
Singing in Spanish, Portuguese and English, LADAMA brings a vibrant, energizing and utterly danceable musical set to the TED stage. In between performances of their songs "Night Traveler" and "Porro Maracatu," they discuss how cross-cultural musical collaboration can empower communities.
Shereen El Feki shows how some Arab cultures are borrowing trademarks of Western pop culture -- music videos, comics, even Barbie -- and adding a culturally appropriate twist. The hybridized media shows how two civilizations, rather than dividing, can dovetail.
As fast as the rainforest is disappearing -- the people of the rainforest are disappearing even faster. Mark Plotkin works to preserve generations of knowledge.
Traveling to new destinations is always an experience. Let these talks encourage you to think differently about the places you visit and the people you see.
Jamie Oliver came to fame as the Naked Chef -- now he's made it his mission to transform the way we feed ourselves and our children, through his cookbooks, TV shows and the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation. The 2010 TED Prize winner shares his 5 favorite talks.
As Asian diets increasingly shift to resemble typical Western palates, the food supply chain will be challenged to keep pace with the demand. Michael Silverstein reveals the trends in motion and offers strategic ideas on how to address these obstacles.
Kelli Swazey examines how religious and spiritual practices form group identity, and play a vital role in structuring the interactions of individuals within a culture.
Dentist-turned-photographer Phil Borges documents the world's disappearing cultures, capturing portraits of exiled Tibetan monks and many of the world’s embattled tribal and indigenous cultures.
It’s all about understanding. These talks explore perspective -- looking past the stereotype and learning who people are, what they do and why they do it to build new cultural understandings.
Large global corporations don't just impact the local economies of emerging markets, they also play a part in the evolution of their modernizing cultures. Makiko Eda explores how employees balance both global and local cultural norms, showing how the influence goes both ways to create a valuable, more nuanced worldview.
In Tana Toraja, weddings and births aren't the social gatherings that knit society together. In this part of Indonesia, big, raucous funerals are at the center of social life. Anthropologist Kelli Swazey takes a look at this culture, in which the bodies of dead relatives are cared for years after they have passed away -- because relationships wi...
What happens when you're Russian, grow up in Israel and work for an international pharmaceutical company in Germany? You end up with a multinational background that may be difficult for your peers to understand or relate to on a personal level. Materials scientist Kathy Vinokurov believes that we can break down these cultural barriers — using so...
Reporter Jennifer 8. Lee talks about her hunt for the origins of familiar Chinese-American dishes -- exploring the hidden spots where these two cultures have (so tastily) combined to form a new cuisine.
Actor Thandie Newton tells the story of finding her "otherness" -- first, as a child growing up in two distinct cultures, and then as an actor playing with many different selves. A warm, wise talk, fresh from the stage at TEDGlobal 2011.
Isabel Allende writes stories of passion. Her novels and memoirs, including The House of the Spirits and Eva Luna, tell the stories of women and men who live with passionate commitment -- to love, to their world, to an ideal.
In "THE 99," Naif Al-Mutawa's new generation of comic book heroes fight more than crime -- they smash stereotypes and battle extremism. Named after the 99 attributes of Allah, his characters reinforce positive messages of Islam and cross cultures to create a new moral framework for confronting evil, even teaming up with the Justice League of Ame...
Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water –– and from sugary Turkish Rize tea to salty Tibetan butter tea, there are almost as many ways of preparing the beverage as there are cultures on the globe. Where did this beverage originate, and how did it become so popular? Shunan Teng details tea's long history. [Directed by St...
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
You speak far more languages than you realize, says Poet Ali. In a profound talk, he reveals how the idea of "language" goes far beyond a lexicon of words, communicating universal experiences like love, laughter and loneliness -- and serving as a portal to cultures, feelings and thoughts that unite us all.
Heading up HR at Netflix, Patty McCord experienced the unconventional start-up cultures of Silicon Valley up close. She explains what makes these new cultures work and offers some surprising insights into how deceptively traditional some of these eccentric new offices still are. McCord also introduces some challenging new ideas on how to motivat...
As many as 3,000 languages could disappear within the next 80 years, all but silencing entire cultures. In this quick talk, language activist Daniel Bögre Udell shows how people around the world are finding new ways to revive ancestral languages and rebuild their traditions -- and encourages us all to investigate the tongues of our ancestors. "R...
Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian activist with an unusual approach to peace-keeping: Be a tourist. The TED Fellow shows how simple interactions with people in different cultures can erode decades of hate. He starts with Palestinians visiting Israelis and moves beyond ...