Theme: Spare No Pains

Times of upheaval are always times of radical change.The global pandemic, since its inception, has altered the world. While others fear it may only make existing injustices worse, some believe it to be a once-in-a generation chance to remake society and build a better future.

We firmly believe that the global TED community has a fundamental role to liberate us from these chaotic times. This year, we emphasize on building a large collaborative network in order to connect with people. These interactions will enable to shed a light on the individuals, places and issues in ways that help see beyond silos or thought bubbles. While we are unable to do this in person, we have come up with our brand new initiative, TEDxJUnivLIVE.

TEDxJUnivLIVE will webcast the TED2020 Conference on 28th August, 2020. Registration will be available soon.
We invite you to join the session with your friends and peers. As a result of the ongoing pandemic, we are currently unable to organize TEDxJUniv and it has been postponed for the foreseeable future. We plan to get back with our main event once everything settles.
We are looking forward to your participation and support for TEDxJUnivLIVE during August. Together, we will share and communicate in efforts to rediscover ourselves, despite all the difficulties.
Thank you for staying with us. Stay home, stay safe.

Online
Dhaka
Savar, Dhaka, 1342
Bangladesh

Ariel Waldman

Antarctic explorer, NASA advisor

Ariel Waldman is an artist who's pivoted to science, Ariel Waldman creates multidisciplinary, creative collaborations that explore the world under our feet (and beyond our atmosphere). Ariel Waldman is the chair of the council for NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program, dedicated to developing long-term aerospace travel concepts. She's the principal investigator of a five-week expedition to Antarctica to film microscopic life beneath the ice and the host and producer of Offworld, a show on Adam Savage's Tested. Waldman is the global director of Science Hack Day, a grassroots endeavor to prototype science projects based in 30 countries. In 2013, she received an honor from the Obama White House for being a Champion of Change in citizen science.

Barry Schwartz

Psychology professor

Barry Schwartz studies the link between economics and psychology, offering startling insights into modern life. In his 2004 book The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz tackles one of the great mysteries of modern life: Why is it that societies of great abundance -- where individuals are offered more freedom and choice (personal, professional, material) than ever before -- are now witnessing a near-epidemic of depression? Conventional wisdom tells us that greater choice is for the greater good, but Schwartz argues the opposite: He makes a compelling case that the abundance of choice in today's western world is actually making us miserable. Schwartz believes that Infinite choice is paralyzing and exhausting for the human psyche. His relatable examples, from consumer products (jeans, TVs, salad dressings) to lifestyle choices (where to live, what job to take, who and when to marry), underscore his central point that too much choice undermines happiness.

Christina Agapakis

Biological designer

Christina Agapakis blurs the boundaries between nature and technology to practice a new kind of engineering in her art and scientific work, taking into account both human and cultural forces. In the lab, Christina Agapakis has worked on enzymes involved in the production of biofuels and mapped the evolution of microbial communities in the soil. As an artist, she's isolated halophilic bacteria from California's Salton Sea and made cheese from bacteria living on human skin. As creative director of the biotech firm Ginkgo Bioworks, Agapakis works to establish more open, equitable and renewable technologies.

JAD ABUMRAD

Radio host, producer

Jad Nicholas Abumrad is a Lebanese-American radio host, composer and producer. He is the founder of the syndicated public radio program Radiolab, which is broadcast on over 600 radio stations nationwide and is downloaded more than 120 million times a year as a podcast. He also created More Perfect, a podcast that tells the stories behind the Supreme Court's most famous decisions. And most recently, Dolly Parton's America, a nine-episode podcast exploring the life and times of the iconic country music star. Abumrad has received three Peabody Awards and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2011. As a producer, the creator and host of the popular syndicated radio program "Radiolab" (among many other shows and podcasts), Jad Abumrad tells true stories that help people find beauty in a chaotic world.

Shameran Abed

Senior Director of Microfinance and Ultra-poor graduation program at BRAC

Shameran Abed is senior direct of BRAC's ground-breaking Ultra-poor graduation program, which has graduated more than two million households out of the direst forms of poverty and social deprivation. The program has inspired the global uptake of the "graduation approach" to tackle extreme poverty. BRAC's microfinance program serves more than seven million clients in seven countries in Asia and Africa and has total assets exceeding USD 2.5 billion. Abed also chairs the board of BRAC Bank's mobile financial services subsidiary, bKash, one of the world's largest mobile money providers, and serves on the boards of BRAC Bank and the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV). Additionally, he is the chairman of the Microfinance Network and is also a member of the Partnership for Responsible Financial Inclusion (PRFI) and the World Economic Forum Financial Inclusion Steering Committee.

Xiye Bastida

Youth Climate Activist

Growing up in a town stricken by both drought and floods, it didn't take Xiye Bastida long to understand the perils of climate change -- or to decide to do something about it. Bastida was born and raised in San Pedro Tultepec, a small town southwest of Mexico City, and moved to the US after a three-year drought in her hometown was broken by devastating floods. She began her career as an environmentalist soon after. Now a climate justice activist based in New York City, she is one of the lead organizers of Fridays for Future, the youth climate strike movement founded by Greta Thunberg. She also sits on the administration committee of the People's Climate Movement, where she brings a voice to existing grassroots climate organizations.