TED (Technology Education and Design) is a global set of conferences curated by the American private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading". Since 2007, the talks have been offered for free viewing online, under a Creative Commons license, through TED.com. More than 700 talks are currently available. As of April 2009[update], the talks have been viewed over 250 million times by more than 25 million people. [1][2]
TED was founded in 1984 as a one-off event, and the conference was held annually from 1990 in Monterey, California. TED's early emphasis, was largely technology and design, consistent with a Silicon Valley center of gravity. The events are now held in Long Beach and Palm Springs in the U.S. as well as in Europe and Asia, offering live streaming of the talks. As the popularity of the presentations has spread, they address an increasingly wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture. The speakers are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most innovative and engaging ways they can. Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, the founders of Google and many Nobel Prize winners.[3]TED's current curator is the British former computer journalist and magazine publisher Chris Anderson.
From 2005 to 2009, three $100,000 TED Prizes were awarded annually to help its winners realize a chosen wish to change the world. From 2010, in a changed selection process, a single winner is chosen to ensure that TED can maximize its efforts in achieving the winner's wish. Each winner unveils their wish at the main annual conference.
Background
Bill Clinton addresses TED, 2007Curator Chris Anderson in 2007Robert Ballard giving an impassioned presentation on the importance of exploring the oceans at TED 2008
The TED staff is headquartered in New York City and Vancouver. The conference had been held in Monterey, California, since its founding, but since 2009 has been held in Long Beach, California, due to an increased number of attendees.[4] The TED conference also has a companion conference, TEDGlobal, held in varying locations. Last year, TEDGlobal 2009, The Substance of Things Not Seen, was held in Oxford, UK, July 21–24, 2009. The most recent event was TED 2010, What the World Needs Now in Long Beach, California, February 9–13, 2010.[5]
TED's mission statement begins:
We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.[6]
Attendees of TED are called "TEDsters".
History
TED was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in 1984, and has been held annually since 1990. Wurman, credited with having coined the term information architect in 1979, left after the 2002 conference; the event is now hosted by Chris Anderson and owned by his non-profit organization, The Sapling Foundation,[7] devoted to "leveraging the power of ideas to change the world". In 2006, attendance cost $4,400 and was by invitation only.[8] The membership model was shifted in January 2007 to an annual membership fee of $6,000, which includes attendance of the conference, club mailings, networking tools and conference DVDs.
Since June 2007, TED Talks have been made available online on the TED website, YouTube, iTunes,[9][10][11] and since late 2009, there has been a free iPhoneapp.[12] The TED website recently won the Webby Award for Best Use of Video or Moving Image at the 13th Annual Webby Awards.[13] TED Talks are transcribed and translated into a number of languages as part of the TED Open-Translation Project, which aims to "[reach] out to the 4.5 billion people on the planet who don't speak English," according to TED Curator Chris Anderson. At the time of the launch, over 300 translations were done by volunteer transcribers in over 40 languages.[5]
TED Prize
The TED Prize was introduced in 2005. In previous years, three individuals were each given $100,000 and granted a "wish to change the world", which they unveil at TED. However, starting in 2010, only one prize is awarded since "at least half of [the wishes] still require our engagement," and, "adding too many more risks dilution of effort."[14]
The TED Fellows[21] fellowship program brings together young world-changers and trailblazers who have shown unusual accomplishment and exceptional courage.[22] The program targets individuals from the Asia/Pacific region, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East, though anyone from anywhere in the world, age 18 and over, can apply.
TED Senior Fellows 2010
Taghi Amirani (Iran/UK) - Documentary filmmaker, Amirani Films
Rachel Armstrong (UK) - Teaching fellow, The Bartlett School of Architecture; physician; science-fiction author
Frederick Balagadde (Uganda/US) - Research scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; co-inventor of the microchemostat, a medical diagnostic chip
April Karen Baptiste (Trinidad) - Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Colgate University
Juliana Machado-Ferreira (Brazil) - Biologist, SOS FAUNA; PhD candidate, Sao Paulo University
VK Madhavan (India) - Executive Director, Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (Chirag)
Naomi Natale (Italy/US) - Founder, One Million Bones, a large-scale social activism art installation
Bola Olabisi (Nigeria/UK) - Founder, Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network (GWIIN)
Alexander Petroff (US/Democratic Republic of the Congo) - Founder, Working Villages International
Juliana Rotich (Kenya/US) - Co-founder, Ushahidi.com; blogger, Afromusing and Global Voices
Mohammad Tauheed (Bangladesh) - Architect; founder, ArchSociety
TED Fellows 2010
Premesh Chandran (Malaysia) - Co-founder and CEO of Malaysiakini.com, an independent Malaysian news website
Perry Chen (US) - Co-founder and CEO of Kickstarter, a web platform offering people a new way to fund their creative ideas and endeavors
Anita Doron (Ukraine/Canada) - Surrealist filmmaker and documentarian
Ndubuisi Ekekwe (Nigeria/US) - Engineer, inventor, author and founder of the African Institution of Technology, an organization seeking to develop microelectronics in Africa
Saeed Taji Farouky (Palestine/UK) - Documentary filmmaker, photographer and writer focusing on human rights in the Middle East and North Africa
Jessica Green (US) - Professor at the University of Oregon’s Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology whose research focuses on microbial diversity
Benjamin Gulak (Canada/US) - Inventor of the Uno, the “green” electric street bike, and founder of BPG Motors
Robert Gupta (US) - Violinist, youngest member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Cesar Harada (Japan/France/UK) - Coordinator of the Open_Sailing project, working to develop open-source technologies to intelligently inhabit the oceans
Susie Ibarra (US/Philippines) - Composer, percussionist and co-founder of Song of the Bird King, a production company using music and film to preserve indigenous culture and ecology
Jennifer Indovina (US) - Founder of Tenrehte Technologies, a semiconductor company developing wireless smart-grid applications
Mitchell Joachim (US) - Architect and co-founder of Terreform ONE + Terrefuge, non-profit design groups that promote ecological design in cities
Raffael Lomas (Israel) - Sculptor and teacher of creative workshops for the blind
Kate Nichols (US) - Artist-in-residence at the Alivisatos Lab who synthesizes nanoparticles that exhibit structural color and incorporates them into macroscale art pieces
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Pakistan/Canada) - Documentary filmmaker and founder of The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, an educational institution and heritage center established to preserve Pakistan's history
Sarah Jane Pell (Australia) - Artist-researcher, diver and founder of Aquabatics Research Team initiative (ARTi)
Manu Prakash (India/US) - Junior Fellow at Harvard Society of Fellows, physicist and inventor pursuing research in the field of physical biology
Kellee Santiago (US) - President and co-founder of thatgamecompany, a video game company working to create video games that communicate different emotional experiences
Durreen Shahnaz (Bangladesh/Singapore/US) - Founder and Chairperson of Impact Investment Exchange Asia (IIX), a social stock exchange for Social Enterprises to raise growth capital
Gavin Sheppard (Canada) - Founder of I.C. Visions and co-founder of The Remix Project, a youth program acting as an arts and cultural incubator in Toronto, Cananda
Hugo Van Vuuren (South Africa/US) - Fellow at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and at The Laboratory at Harvard, co-founder of Lebone – a social enterprise working on off-grid technologies in Africa
Angelo Vermeulen (Belgium) - Biologist, filmmaker, and visual artist creating large-scale collaborative art installations
Daniel Zoughbie (US/UK) - Founder and CEO of the Global Micro-Clinic Project (GMCP), an organization working to prevent and manage diseases in the developing world using low-cost behavioral interventions
TED Fellows 2011
Walid Al-Saqaf (Sweden) – Yemeni programmer and founder of Yemen Portal and alkasir -- software that gives individuals access to blocked websites
David Gurman (US) – San Francisco-based installation artist whose work makes invisible events (such as seismic data from nuclear testing) visible
Nina Dudnik (US) – American geneticist and CEO of Seeding Labs, an organization providing up-and-coming researchers with lab equipment and other resources
Veronica Reed (Ecuador) – Ecuadorian architect working in sustainable design and low-income housing
Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz (Venezuela) – Venezuelan editor, writer and co-founder of The Gopher Illustrated magazine and the Plantanoverde Foundation, a platform for emerging artists
Iyeoka Okoawo (US) – Nigerian-American poet and recording artist currently based in Boston
Adital Ela (Israel) – Israeli designer and artist incorporating indigenous knowledge into sustainable design
Camilo Rodriguez-Beltran (Benin/Philippines/Argentina/Basque Country) – Mexican scientist, filmmaker and gallery founder focusing on human health, biodiversity and cross-cultural collaboration
Sanjana Hattotuwa (Sri Lanka) – Sri Lankan human rights activist and founder of Groundviews, a citizen-journalism initiative
Joseph Foster Ellis (China) – American artist, living and working in China, whose work bridges gaps between East and West
Richard Move (US) – American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker exploring the intersection of the human body and digital media
Eric Berlow (US) – American ecologist and entrepreneur researching networks and environmental sustainability
Boniface Mwangi (Kenya) – Kenyan photojournalist and founder of Picha Mtaani, a youth-led national reconciliation initiative in Kenya
Dominic Muren (US) – Open-source fabrication advocate, product designer and founder of The Humblefactory, a product-development consultancy
Guido Nunez-Mujica (Venezuela) – Venezuelan writer and scientist working on LavaAmp, a pocket-size thermal cycler for rapid PCR
DK Osseo-Asare (Ghana) – Ghanaian-American architect and co-founder of DSGN AGNC, an activist design think-tank, and Low Design Office, an architecture studio
Teru Kuwayama (Afghanistan/Pakistan/Kashmir) – American photojournalist covering humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir and Iraq
Su Kahumbu-Stephanou (Kenya) – Kenyan entrepreneur promoting the development of an organic food industry in Kenya
Erika Bagnarelo (Costa Rica) – Costa Rican writer and director (her most-recent film tells the story of atomic bomb-survivors aboard Peace Boat)
Roshini Thinakaran (US) – Founder of Women at the Forefront, a multimedia company that examines the challenges faced by women living in conflict zones
Olatunbosun Obayomi (Nigeria) – Nigerian biotechnologist inventing new means of alternative energy production from organic waste
Mubarak Abdullahi (Nigeria) – Nigerian aircraft engineer who, at 24, built a homemade helicopter out of car and motorbike parts
Milena Boniolo (Brazil) – Brazilian chemist developing methods to detect emerging contaminants in the environment
TEDx
TEDxParis, 2009: one of many events now organized under the TEDx program
TEDx is a program that enables schools, businesses, libraries or just groups of friends to enjoy a TED-like experience with TEDx Events they themselves organize, design and host.[23] As of 2010[update], TEDxevents events have been held in over 60 countries.[24]
Controversy
Writers such as Sarah Lacy of BusinessWeek and TechCrunch have criticized TED for claims of elitism. Lacy cites TED's $6,000 ticket price, poor treatment of less important attendees, and such events as a friend being "de-invited to TED after quitting an ostensibly prestigious San Francisco job" as evidence of her claims.[25] Alternatively, Lacy applauded TED for moving the event to a larger venue in Long Beach and posting videos of its talks online for free.[26]
Sarah Silverman incident
TED drew some controversy when in 2010 Sarah Silverman was invited to speak at the conference, and in response to her speech about adopting a "retarded" child (a term she chose specifically to use in response to Sarah Palin campaign against the word) TED Organizer posted to his Twitter account, "I know I shouldn’t say this about one of my own speakers, but I thought Sarah Silverman was god-awful…"[27] Anderson later deleted his tweet, but Silverman responded via her Twitter account "Kudos to [Chris Anderson] for making TED an unsafe haven for all! You're a barnacle of mediocrity on Bill Gates' asshole."[28] Anderson apologized for his tweet on his Posterous account, but also wrote "Call me stuffy, but I still think humor about terminally-ill "retarded" kids is an acquired taste... And not a taste I personally want to acquire."[29] To date, the video of Silverman's speech has not been released.[30]