If you’ve got a presentation to give at work or school — or are perhaps getting ready to speak at a TEDx event? — we recommend these talks to help get you pumped up.

Public art transforms spaces and connects people, revitalizing its surroundings. Immerse yourself in these talks that morph communities into masterpieces.

More than 8 million people are crowded together to live in New York City. What makes it possible? In part, it’s the city’s great public spaces — from tiny pocket parks to long waterfront promenades — where people can stroll and play. Amanda Burden helped plan some of the city’s newest public spaces, drawing on her experience as, surprisingly, an...

How do you fix broken public systems? You spark people's competitive spirit. In a talk about getting people motivated to make change, public sector strategist Abhishek Gopalka discusses how he helped improve the health system of Rajasthan, a state in India home to more than 80 million people, using the powers of transparency and public accountab...

There's no single formula for a great talk, but there is a secret ingredient that all the best ones have in common. TED curator Chris Anderson shares this secret -- along with four ways to make it work for you. Do you have what it takes to share an idea worth spreading?

In a disturbing — but fascinating — walk through history, Frances Larson examines humanity's strange relationship with public executions … and specifically beheadings. As she shows us, they have always drawn a crowd, first in the public square and now on YouTube. What makes them horrific and compelling in equal measure?

Cities are becoming increasingly privatized: commercial real estate dominates the streets, carving up open space that once belonged to the public and selling it as a commodity to the highest bidder. Architect Elizabeth Diller explores the causes and effects of this growing threat -- and takes us on tour of her groundbreaking projects aimed at cr...

Dan Bell films urban decay.

How do public opinion polls work? And, more importantly, are they accurate? Jason Robert Jaffe reveals the complexities and biases of polls and provides tips on how to think about polls as we make everyday decisions. [Directed by Darcy Vorhees, narrated by Jason Robert Jaffe].

Master the skills of TED speakers with TED Masterclass. TED's official public speaking course will teach you how to identify, develop and share your best ideas with the world, either as an individual, a business, or an educational organization. For individuals TED Masterclass for individuals gives anyone the chance to develop their own TED-style...

We give scientists and engineers great technical training, but we're not as good at teaching ethical decision-making or building character. Take, for example, the environmental crisis that recently unfolded in Flint, Michigan -- and the professionals there who did nothing to fix it. Siddhartha Roy helped prove that Flint's water was contaminated...

A billion people around the world lack access to health care because they live too far from a clinic. 2017 TED Prize winner Raj Panjabi aims to extend health services to the last mile.

Why should a good education be exclusive to rich kids? Schools in low-income neighborhoods across the US, specifically in communities of color, lack resources that are standard at wealthier schools -- things like musical instruments, new books, healthy school lunches and soccer fields -- and this has a real impact on the potential of students. K...

Maryn McKenna recounts the often terrifying stories behind emerging drug-resistant diseases that medical science is barely keeping at bay.

A list of the talks mentioned in TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Chris Anderson's comments on each talk (in the grey italics) indicate why they were included in the book. Use the book index for more info.

Megan Washington is one of Australia's premier singer/songwriters. And, since childhood, she has had a stutter. In this bold and personal talk, she reveals how she copes with this speech impediment—from avoiding the letter combination “st” to tricking her brain by changing her words at the last minute to, yes, singing the things she has to say r...

Antony Gormley's work plays with the human form in space.

American journalist and Havana resident Gail Reed spotlights a Cuban medical school that trains doctors from low-income countries who pledge to serve communities like their own.

Visual artist Helen Marriage stages astonishing, large-scale public art events that expand the boundaries of what's possible. In this visual tour of her work, she tells the story of three cities she transformed into playgrounds of the imagination -- picture London with a giant mechanical elephant marching through it -- and shows what happens whe...

Sue Desmond-Hellmann is using precision public health -- an approach that incorporates big data, consumer monitoring, gene sequencing and other innovative tools -- to solve the world's most difficult medical problems. It's already helped cut HIV transmission from mothers to babies by nearly half in sub-Saharan Africa, and now it's being used to ...

We all want to be safe, and our safety is intertwined, says Tracie Keesee, cofounder of the Center for Policing Equity. Sharing lessons she's learned from 25 years as a police officer, Keesee reflects on the public safety challenges faced by both the police and local neighborhoods, especially in the African American community, as well as the opp...

Consider the following scenario: a highly infectious, sometimes deadly respiratory virus infects humans for the first time. It spreads rapidly worldwide, and the WHO declares a pandemic. The death toll starts to rise and everyone is asking the same question: when will the pandemic end? Alex Rosenthal details the three main strategies governments...

Myriam Sidibe is a warrior in the fight against childhood disease. Her weapon of choice? A bar of soap. For cost-effective prevention against sickness, it’s hard to beat soapy hand-washing, which cuts down risk of pneumonia, diarrhea, cholera and worse. Sidibe, a public-health expert, makes a smart case for public-private partnerships to promote...

At the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, economist Ramanan Laxminarayan looks at big-picture issues of global health.

What if you could help decide how the government spends public funds in your community? That's the idea behind participatory budgeting, a process that brings local residents and governments together to develop concrete solutions to real problems close to home. In this inspiring call to action, community leader Shari Davis shows how participatory...

Dr. Myriam Sidibe promotes hand-washing with soap, setting up partnerships with governments, companies and communities to promote this simple, cheap, powerful disease-fighting tactic.

How can we tap into the potential of all students, especially those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds? Sociologist Anindya Kundu invites us to take a deeper look at the personal, social and institutional challenges that keep students from thriving in the United States -- and shows how closing this "opportunity gap" means valuing public edu...

Karen DeSalvo, the chief health officer at Google, explains the partnership between big tech and public health in slowing the spread of COVID-19 -- and discusses a new contact tracing technology recently rolled out by Google and Apple that aims to ease the burden on health workers and provide scientists critical time to create a vaccine. (This v...

Dr. Leana Wen is Baltimore City's Health Commissioner.

For anyone who has ever been inspired by a TED Talk… this is an insider’s guide to creating talks that are unforgettable. TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson, curator of TED Now in paperback Since taking over TED in the early 2000s, Chris Anderson has shown how carefully crafted short talks can be the key to...