We all share one planet -- we breathe the same air, drink the same water and depend on the same oceans, forests and biodiversity. Economist Naoko Ishii is on a mission to protect these shared resources, known as the global commons, that are vital for our survival. In an eye-opening talk about the wellness of the planet, Ishii outlines four econo...

What will 21st-century security look like? Navy Admiral James Stavridis suggests that dialogue and openness will be the game-changers.

Naoko Ishii leads the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a public financial institution that provides around US$1 billion every year to help tackle our planet’s most pressing environmental problems.

Is it possible that overfishing, super germs, and global warming are all caused by the same thing? In 1968, a man named Garrett Hardin sat down to write an essay about overpopulation. Within it, he discovered a pattern of human behavior that explains some of history’s biggest problems. Nicholas Amendolare describes the tragedy of the commons. [D...

Jessy Kate Schingler is an astrophysicist and software engineer turned policy wonk, researching new institutions beyond borders -- on Earth and off.

How can we stop the spread of misleading, sometimes dangerous content while maintaining an internet with freedom of expression at its core? Misinformation expert Claire Wardle explores the new challenges of our polluted online environment and maps out a plan to transform the internet into a place of trust -- with the help of everyday users. "Tog...

Richard Baraniuk founded Connexions -- now called OpenStax -- a free, open-source, global clearinghouse of course materials. Students and educators tap into its vast store of texts on everything from engineering to ornithology to music, adapting the content as they see fit.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Admiral James Stavridis is the Supreme Commander of NATO. He is a proponent of what he calls open-source security. He is looking at 21st century security in a very different way than we've looked at security before. From walls to bridges Looking back to the security paradigm of the recent past, he shows ...

Rob Cross is a speaker, educator and consultant helping leaders and organizations succeed in a hyper-connected world.

The Chief Economist at General Electric, Marco Annunziata is a financial virtuoso with a passion for technology.

Karen Armstrong -- winner of the 2008 TED Prize -- is a provocative, original thinker on the role of religion in the modern world.

Marc Goodman works to prevent future crimes and acts of terrorism, even those security threats not yet invented.

In the early days of digital culture, Jaron Lanier helped craft a vision for the internet as public commons where humanity could share its knowledge -- but even then, this vision was haunted by the dark side of how it could turn out: with personal devices that control our lives, monitor our data and feed us stimuli. (Sound familiar?) In this vis...

Michael Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard, exploring the most hotly contested moral and political issues of our time.

Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral and political creatures.

Gopal D. Patel believes in the power of engaged religion and spirituality to transform our approaches to today's biggest challenges.

America may be opening the door to Internet access being sold to the highest bidder, but we still need to keep fighting. Activist Nikhil Pahwa shares seven lessons that he learned as part of a successful coalition to protect net neutrality in India. A few months ago I was sitting at a cafe in the lakeside town of Pokhara in Nepal, flanked on th...

While studying future alternatives for China’s global relations, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has come to an ominous conclusion: conflict is looming.

Vivek Maru is the founder of Namati, a movement for legal empowerment around the world powered by cadres of grassroots legal advocates.

William Li heads the Angiogenesis Foundation, a nonprofit that is re-conceptualizing global disease fighting.

The advance toward a more connected, united, compassionate world is in peril. Some voices are demanding a retreat, back to a world where insular nations battle for their own interests. But most of the big problems we face are collective in nature and global in scope. What can we do, together, about it? In a night of talks curated and host...

Tsedal Neeley is an award-winning professor in the Organization Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School.

In Hans Rosling’s hands, data sings. Global trends in health and economics come to vivid life. And the big picture of global development -- with some surprisingly good news -- snaps into sharp focus.

Countdown is a global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. Watch the talks, interviews and performances from the Countdown Global Launch at ted.com/countdown. Today, 10.10.2020, is the climate's day of destiny: the Countdown Global Launch, a call to action on climate change and the first-ever free TED conference. L...

Imagine global security driven by collaboration -- among agencies, government, the private sector and the public. That's not just the distant hope of open-source fans, it's the vision of James Stavridis, a US Navy Admiral. Stavridis shares vivid moments from recent military history to explain why security of the future should be built with bridg...

In Iraq and Syria, more than a million people have already been displaced by militants from the Islamic State, a dangerous and fast-spreading jihadist group also called IS, ISIS or ISIL. 3 ideas behind the headlines. Source: “Why ISIL is worse than al-Qaeda—and any other terrorist group that came before,” Bobby Ghosh, Quartz, 2014. Why you sho...

Part of a wider initiative uplifting the ideas and achievements of immigrant diasporas, TED presents a first-of-its-kind event featuring a lineup of inspiring speakers from the Iranian diaspora whose bright ideas could help shape our shared future. Speakers These incredible speakers, all members of the Iranian Immigrant Diaspora, will take the ...

Accepting his 2006 TED Prize, Cameron Sinclair demonstrates how passionate designers and architects can respond to world housing crises. He unveils his TED Prize wish for a network to improve global living standards through collaborative design.

From the return of nomadic living to a climate-disrupted world, author and global strategist Parag Khanna has some predictions for humanity. Get a fascinating glimpse at the future as he tackles an urgent question: Where on Earth will eight billion humans live in the uncertain times ahead? (This conversation, hosted by TED current affairs curato...

What will we find in the twilight zone: the vast, mysterious, virtually unexplored realm hundreds of meters below the ocean's surface? Heidi M. Sosik of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution wants to find out. In this wonder-filled talk, she shares her plan to investigate these uncharted waters, which may hold a million new species and 90 percent...