Engineer RA Mashelkar shares three stories of ultra-low-cost design from India that use bottom-up rethinking, and some clever engineering, to bring expensive products (cars, prosthetics) into the realm of the possible for everyone.
Iqbal Quadir tells how his experiences as a kid in poor Bangladesh, and later as a banker in New York, led him to start a mobile phone operator connecting 80 million rural Bangladeshi -- and to become a champion of bottom-up development.
Bruce Feiler has a radical idea: To deal with the stress of modern family life, go agile. Inspired by agile software programming, Feiler introduces family practices which encourage flexibility, bottom-up idea flow, constant feedback and accountability. One surprising feature: Kids pick their own punishments.
The average farmer in America makes less than 15 cents of every dollar on a product that you purchase at a store. They feed our communities, but farmers often cannot afford the very foods they grow. In this actionable talk, social entrepreneur Mohammad Modarres shows how to put your purchasing power into action to save local agriculture from col...
As the world's cities undergo explosive growth, inequality is intensifying. Wealthy neighborhoods and impoverished slums grow side by side, the gap between them widening. In this eye-opening talk, architect Teddy Cruz asks us to rethink urban development from the bottom up. Sharing lessons from the slums of Tijuana, Cruz explores the creative in...
From rides to homes and beyond, we're sharing everything these days, with the help of digital tools. But as modern and high-tech as the sharing economy seems, it's been alive in Africa for centuries, according to author Robert Neuwirth. He shares fascinating examples -- like apprenticeships that work like locally generated venture capital and sy...
"Remember before the internet?" asks Joi Ito. "Remember when people used to try to predict the future?" In this engaging talk, the head of the MIT Media Lab skips the future predictions and instead shares a new approach to creating in the moment: building quickly and improving constantly, without waiting for permission or for proof that you have...
Iqbal Quadir is an advocate of business as a humanitarian tool. With GrameenPhone, he brought the first commercial telecom services to poor areas of Bangladesh. His latest project will help rural entrepreneurs build power plants.
Paul Collier’s book The Bottom Billion shows what is happening to the poorest people in the world, and offers ideas for opening up opportunities to all.
Deepa Narayan is an international advisor on poverty, gender and development with more than 25 years of experience working at the World Bank, the UN and NGOs.
Could good design save the newspaper -- at least for now? Jacek Utko thinks so -- and his lively, engaging designs for European papers prove that it works.
About this event: “Gaining perspective” implies enriching our current vision on existing concepts, ideas and issues, and looking for alternative approaches. Through a variety of talks with focus on different fields of study, our aim is to navigate diverse disciplines from innovative and interesting points of view.
TEDxSciencesPoReims will offer a balance of idea...
Event details: Reims, Champagne-Ardenne, France · January 31, 2015
Around the world right now, one billion people are trapped in poor or failing countries. How can we help them? Economist Paul Collier lays out a bold, compassionate plan for closing the gap between rich and poor.
About this event: Nine speakers with their original patterns in fields that range to typography to DJ are invited to TEDXHongik to reveal the design education that we would like to experience.
TEDxHongik is a student initiated , student driven event inviting speakers and guests from all over the world. As a one day event, TEDxHongik took off with huge success ...
Event details: seoul, South Korea · April 17, 2010
A venture capitalist and political scientist, Eric X Li argues that the universality claim of Western democratic systems is going to be "morally challenged" by China.
Looking to get ahead in your career? Start by being respectful to your coworkers, says leadership researcher Christine Porath. In this science-backed talk, she shares surprising insights about the costs of rudeness and shows how little acts of respect can boost your professional success -- and your company's bottom line.
What's link between the ocean's health and our health? Marine biologist Stephen Palumbi shows how toxins at the bottom of the ocean food chain find their way into our bodies -- and tells a shocking story of toxic contamination in the fish market, where consumers were being tricked into buying fish that's not only mislabeled but unsafe.
Behind the everyday bargains we all love -- the $10 manicure, the unlimited shrimp buffet -- is a hidden world of forced labor to keep those prices at rock bottom. Noy Thrupkaew investigates human trafficking – which flourishes in the US and Europe, as well as developing countries – and shows us the human faces behind the exploited labor that fe...
Hannah Brencher's mother always wrote her letters. So when she felt herself bottom into depression after college, she did what felt natural -- she wrote love letters and left them for strangers to find. The act has become a global initiative, The World Needs More Love Letters, which rushes handwritten letters to those in need of a boost.
How much should business leaders speak out about threats to democracy? It's a question many corporations are wrestling with these days. Business and democracy leader Daniella Ballou-Aares shows why companies have both the ability and the responsibility to engage in protecting elections and the rule of law — and why their bottom lines may depend ...
You might not expect the chief operating officer of a major global corporation to look too far beyond either the balance sheet or the bottom line. But Harish Manwani, COO of Unilever, makes a passionate argument that doing so to include value, purpose and sustainability in top-level decision-making is not just savvy, it's the only way to run a 2...
Architect William McDonough believes green design can prevent environmental disaster and drive economic growth. He champions “cradle to cradle” design, which considers a product's full life cycle -- from creation with sustainable materials to a recycled afterlife.
Victor Vescovo is leading the first-ever manned expedition to the deepest point of each of the world's five oceans. In conversation with TED science curator David Biello, Vescovo discusses the technology that's powering the explorations -- a titanium submersible designed to withstand extraordinary conditions -- and shows footage of a never-befor...
Biologist Sara Lewis has spent the past 20 years getting to the bottom of the magic and wonder of fireflies. In this charming talk, she tells us how and why the beetles produce their silent sparks, what happens when two fireflies have sex, and why one group of females is known as the firefly vampire. (It's not pretty.) Find out more astonishing ...