After fleeing war-torn South Sudan as a child, Mary Maker found security and hope in the school at Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp. Now a teacher of young refugees herself, she sees education as an essential tool for rebuilding lives -- and empowering a generation of girls who are too often denied entrance into the classroom. "For the child of war, ...

Zachariah Mampilly is an expert on the politics of both violent and non-violent resistance.

Makhtoum Abdalla is passionate about equal access to quality education for all children and young people.

Meklit Hadero is an Ethiopian-American singer-songwriter living the cultural in-between, both in her own luminous compositions and as a co-founder of the Nile Project.

Photojournalist James Nachtwey is considered by many to be the greatest war photographer of recent decades. He has covered conflicts and major social issues in more than 30 countries.

Monika Bulaj’s stunning, painting-like photographs blur religious and cultural divisions, exploding stereotypes. She is a TED Fellow.

Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani has initiated sweeping economic, trade, social and peace reforms.

About this event: The TEDx event, entitled “New Nation, New Ideas”, will take place for the first time in South Sudan. TEDxJuba will mark the one year anniversary of the country’s independence (9 July 2012) by showcasing a growing community of innovators and encouraging direct south-south collaboration and knowledge sharing. TEDxJuba will contribute to the growth...

On a gorgeous San Francisco night, the TEDWomen community gathered to kick off our 2016 conference, “It’s About Time,” with an evening of global food, music and connection around ideas. On the terrace of the City View at Metreon, overlooking Yerba Buena Gardens, a dozen artisan groups have gathered from around the world to show off gorgeous wa...

Ten years ago, epidemiologist Chikwe Ihekweazu helped fight an outbreak in South Sudan. This TED Fellow now runs the health consultancy EpiAFRIC, writes about public health issues in his native Nigeria, and is soon to start a four-week rotation on the ground fighting the Ebola epidemic. So as the outbreak continues, he sat down for a Q&A...

Yassmin Abdel-Magied wears many hats, including a hijab. She's a mechanical engineer, writer and activist who campaigns for tolerance and diversity.

For children growing up in refugee camps, education is a powerful tool of liberation. In this inspiring talk, Makhtoum Abdalla, displaced as a child in Sudan and now living with his family in the Otash camp in Darfur, shares his biggest dream: to ensure all children are educated and taught the skills needed to become "captains of their destiny."

At Glasswing International, Celina de Sola works to address the root causes and consequences of poverty and violence.

This weekend, thousands gathered in Washington, DC, to help lay one million handmade representations of human bones -- 1,018,260 bones, to be exact -- on the National Mall. This breathtaking installation created a haunting river of bones leading to the US Capitol, and represents the culmination of a nearly five-year social activism project imagi...

In the image above, one million handmade bones -- made by schoolchildren and artists around the world -- have been methodically laid across the National Mall in Washington, DC, from the US Capitol building all the way to the Washington Monument. The culmination of a five-year project from TED Fellow Naomi Natale (read our interview with her abou...

Along the Nile River, in what is now northern Sudan, lay the ancient civilization of Kush. Though they were once conquered by a powerful neighbor, the kings and queens of Kush would go on to successfully challenge two of the most dominant empires in history: the Egyptians and the Romans. So what happened to this African kingdom? Geoff Emberling ...

Journalist Janine di Giovanni has covered wars in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Iraq and most recently in Syria -- and, yet, she has noted that they all seem to begin in the same way. “This is how war starts—one day you’re living your ordinary life. You’re planning to go to a party, you’re taking your children to school, you’re m...

Harvard Medical School psychologist Susan David studies emotional agility: the psychology of how we can use emotion to bring forward our best selves in all aspects of how we love, live, parent and lead.

Steve Case says, "It has been amazing to watch TED's transition from party to platform, and from a small gathering for the benefit of a few to a massive global movement. Choosing my favorite TED Talks after so many years was no easy task, but here goes ... "

When Giles Duley left behind life as a music and fashion photographer and began criss-crossing the globe, photographing forgotten people -- those with mental illness, living on the streets, residing in refugee camps and surviving in the crossfire of war -- he felt a certain level of separation from his subjects. But then something happened t...

A selection of fascinating TED Talks for when you need to feed your intellectual curiosity (in 10 minutes or less).

Cross-country skier Janine Shepherd was Olympics-bound in 1986, with many thinking that she was a strong contender to earn Australia’s first-ever medal at the winter games. But everything changed on a training bike ride through the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Shepherd was hit by a truck, and broke both her back and neck. Doctors did ...

Rahwa Ghirmatzion is executive director of People United for Sustainable Housing, a membership-based community organization committed to social and climate justice.

From a speaker helping to contain the ebola outbreak to an America lawyer standing up for rights in Afghanistan to a journalist cracking open the Nigerian media, Session 11: Fighters was filled with crackling talks. A recap: Fred Swaniker kicks off the day with a bold vision for Africa’s future, which, he argues, rests squarely in the han...

In 2007, journalist Andrew Mwenda took the stage at TEDGlobal in Arusha, Tanzania, and decried the symptomatic disease affecting his home continent: aid. The surprising take certainly got the goat of some members of the audience, including U2 frontman Bono, who has devoted so much time to promoting the need for African aid and who spoke up from ...

Worldwide, violence is on the decline, but in the crowded cities of the global south — cities like Aleppo, Bamako and Caracas — violence is actually accelerating, fueled by the drug trade, mass unemployment and civil unrest. Security researcher Robert Muggah turns our attention toward these "fragile cities," super-fast-growing places where infra...

For four years, artist Naomi Natale’s social art practice, the One Million Bones project, has used education, hands-on artmaking and public art installation to raise awareness of ongoing genocide and mass atrocities. On June 8, Naomi and the One Million Bones team will be joined by thousands of volunteers to lay down the one million human “b...

Want to take pictures that will make people gasp? Photographer David Yarrow shares his advice on how to avoid the played-out and zoom in on the unexpected. Over his 30-plus years in photography, David Yarrow (TEDxEton Talk: Wild Encounters--the story of what I do differently) has waded through the crocodile-infested Nile, taken a selfie reflect...

. 2012 was the year of radical openness at TED. In that spirit, while our office is closed for winter break, TED's editorial staffers have selected their favorite talks of the year, giving you a peek into both our process and our personalities. We hope you enjoy.. TED editorial meetings are a flurry of sound. As our team gathers on Thursd...

Uganda is an eye-opening example of how displaced people can lift up a nation, say economics professor Paul Collier and refugee researcher Alexander Betts. Uganda hosts more than 500,000 refugees, making it the third-largest host country in Africa (after Ethiopia and Kenya). Its refugees come from a wide variety of unsettled neighboring countri...