Tim Brown is the CEO of the "innovation and design" firm IDEO -- taking an approach to design that digs deeper than the surface.

Alastair Parvin believes in making architecture accessible to 100 percent of the population.

TED Resident Carlos Bautista wants to close the information and technology gap for people in developing countries.

Elise Roy thinks that designers have the capacity and responsibility to address and resolve human problems on micro and macro scales and contribute to social well-being.

With astronaut eyes and ethnographer curiosity, Tricia Wang helps corporations grow by discovering the unknown about their customers.

Tim Brown says the design profession has a bigger role to play than just creating nifty, fashionable little objects. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory "design thinking" -- starting with the example of 19th-century design thinker Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

"I believe that losing my hearing was one of the greatest gifts I've ever received," says Elise Roy. As a disability rights lawyer and design thinker, she knows that being Deaf gives her a unique way of experiencing and reframing the world -- a perspective that could solve some of our largest problems. As she says: "When we design for disability...

About this event: from the Urban Resilience series A selection of videos will be screened of work by Darren Petrucci, Director, The Design School, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts RJ Muna, a photographer who's had a cappuccino in a lot of countries all around the world Janine Benyus, advocate of biomimicry, emulating nature's designs and processe...

Leyla Acaroglu uses innovative design and systems thinking to create positive change.

Designer Emily Pilloton moved to rural Bertie County, in North Carolina, to engage in a bold experiment of design-led community transformation. She's teaching a design-build class called Studio H that engages high schoolers' minds and bodies while bringing smart design and new opportunities to the poorest county in the state.

Is your school or workplace divided between the "creatives" versus the practical people? Yet surely, David Kelley suggests, creativity is not the domain of only a chosen few. Telling stories from his legendary design career and his own life, he offers ways to build the confidence to create. (From The Design Studio session at TED2012, guest-curat...

What's the secret to unlocking the creativity hidden inside your daily work, and giving every great idea a chance? Harvard professor Linda Hill, co-author of "Collective Genius," has studied some of the world's most creative companies to come up with a set of tools and tactics to keep great ideas flowing -- from everyone in the company, not just...