Businesses have the resources to make contributions to the collective good. Here, TED Talks on what can happen when corporations make saving the environment and helping people a priority, plus talks on how business principles might even be more effective for creating change than non-profit models.

One of the big goals of a TEDx event is to spark conversation – and this shouldn’t be exclusive to your live event! Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are vibrant online forums for your guests and others to discuss the topics and ideas you’ll be sharing before, during, and after your event. Plus, it’s one of the most effective ways to ...

You’ll want to think about how to utilize the space outside of your main stage area, so that your guests can also have a comfortable (and even stimulating) experience when they’re not in their seat.

Want to join the fight for equality? A starter pack of TED Talks for those looking to understand the basics of social justice.

Social media is an undeniable force in today's world. These talks highlight its impact -- from big history-defining moments to the silliness we’ve come to expect.

Talks from photographers who use their art to fight for social justice.

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.

Great, practical advice on ways to responsibly invest (time, money, and even your company's data) for the good of our global society. (Curated in partnership with Nuveen.)

Columnist David Brooks unpacks new insights into human nature from the cognitive sciences -- insights with massive implications for economics and politics as well as our own self-knowledge. In a talk full of humor, he shows how you can't hope to understand humans as separate individuals making choices based on their conscious awareness.

Here's a stat worth knowing: In the UK, 63% of men who finish short-term prison sentences are back inside within a year for another crime. Helping them stay outside involves job training, classes, therapy. And it would pay off handsomely -- but the government can't find the funds. Toby Eccles shares an imaginative idea for how to change that: th...

Alleviating poverty is more guesswork than science, and lack of data on aid's impact raises questions about how to provide it. But Clark Medal-winner Esther Duflo says it's possible to know which development efforts help and which hurt -- by testing solutions with randomized trials.

After mapping humans' intricate social networks, Nicholas Christakis and colleague James Fowler began investigating how this information could better our lives. Now, he reveals his hot-off-the-press findings: These networks can be used to detect epidemics earlier than ever, from the spread of innovative ideas to risky behaviors to viruses (like ...

Attention: everybody wants some -- social media, tech companies and more. Watch these talks to better understand the ways these entities try and get on your radar.

About this talk: Bryan Kramer believes that social media is so popular because it allows us to control our personal brand: aligning the perceptions others have of us with our perception of ourselves. Concluding with a live Twitter experiment to test the true reach that sharing can have, he makes a case for the use of social media, and - in the p...

About this talk: Wendy Woods reveals the powerful impact of collective cooperation in the social sector. Using the examples of different NGOs, each one working independently to eradicate malaria, she explains how their individualistic approach reduced their overall impact and resulted in fatal inefficiencies. When they finally aligned their over...

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.

MacArthur winner Sendhil Mullainathan uses the lens of behavioral economics to study a tricky set of social problems -- those we know how to solve, but don't. We know how to reduce child deaths due to diarrhea, how to prevent diabetes-related blindness and how to implement solar-cell technology ... yet somehow, we don't or can't. Why?

Media and advertising companies still use the same old demographics to understand audiences, but they're becoming increasingly harder to track online, says media researcher Johanna Blakley. As social media outgrows traditional media, and women users outnumber men, Blakley explains what changes are in store for the future of media.

We're all embedded in vast social networks of friends, family, co-workers and more. Nicholas Christakis tracks how a wide variety of traits -- from happiness to obesity -- can spread from person to person, showing how your location in the network might impact your life in ways you don't even know.

Do you like curly fries? Have you Liked them on Facebook? Watch this talk to find out the surprising things Facebook (and others) can guess about you from your random Likes and Shares. Computer scientist Jennifer Golbeck explains how this came about, how some applications of the technology are not so cute -- and why she thinks we should return t...

Today, a single email can launch a worldwide movement. But as sociologist Zeynep Tufekci suggests, even though online activism is easy to grow, it often doesn't last. Why? She compares modern movements -- Gezi, Ukraine, Hong Kong -- to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and uncovers a surprising benefit of organizing protest movements the w...

The term Gross Domestic Product is often talked about as if it were “handed down from god on tablets of stone.” But this concept was invented by an economist in the 1930s. We need a more effective measurement tool to match 21st century needs, says Michael Green: the Social Progress Index. With charm and wit, he shows how this tool measures socie...

Our hyper-connected lives have been rewired for the digital age. These talks explore how the Internet and social media are shaping our relationships, personal lives and sense of self.

Insights and advice to escaping the echo chambers of social media, newsfeeds, and everyday conversation so that we may get a better, less rose-tinted grasp of the world and people around us.

Across history, protest has shaped societies in tremendous ways. These talks explore how movements catalyze monumental change.

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

In Zimbabwe in the 1980s, Mary Bassett witnessed the AIDS epidemic firsthand, and she helped set up a clinic to treat and educate local people about the deadly virus. But looking back, she regrets not sounding the alarm for the real problem: the structural inequities embedded in the world's political and economic organizations, inequities that m...

Why do we turn to nonprofits, NGOs and governments to solve society's biggest problems? Michael Porter admits he's biased, as a business school professor, but he wants you to hear his case for letting business try to solve massive problems like climate change and access to water. Why? Because when business solves a problem, it makes a profit -- ...

When a family falls into crisis -- and it sometimes happens, thanks to unemployment, drugs, bad relationships and bad luck -- the social services system is supposed to step in and help them get back on track. As Hilary Cottam shows, in the UK a typical family in crisis can be eligible for services from more than 70 different agencies, but it's u...

Why do we dance? African-American social dances started as a way for enslaved Africans to keep cultural traditions alive and retain a sense of inner freedom. They remain an affirmation of identity and independence. In this electric demonstration, packed with live performances, choreographer, educator and TED Fellow Camille A. Brown explores what...