Technology Review
I was listening to Ken Robinson’s talk at TED 2006 about promoting creativity when my wife, overhearing Ken’s speech, asked me what I was listening to. I told her I was listening to a TED talk. She didn’t know what it was. This interaction made me realize there may be others out there who are unaware of TED and the myriad of ideas presented on the videos available on the site. I decided to dedicate this post to describing TED.
What is TED? And what does TED talk about?
Here’s the description on the TED website:
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year’s TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.
Though the conferences started out focusing on Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED), they offer much more. For example, you’ll find a talk about robots to humorous juggling acts, to ingenious studies and graphics about poverty and economic growth (by Hans Rosling) to innovative business ideas for fighting corruption using market theory and capitalism. If you’re in any way interested in seeing and hearing the most creative minds of our times from various industries, countries and walks of life, I highly recommend watching the myriad of videos on the site. (I would advise watching the videos I’ve linked here as they are most engaging. Soon you too will fight to hear a TED Talk.)
If you have the time and money, you could also attend one of the upcoming events. The next TED event, TED 2010, will be held on February 9 to 13 at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center in California. The event is sold out, but you can sign up to view it in a simulcast in Palm Springs, California in what’s named TEDActive 2010. Its international counterpart, TEDGlobal 2010, will be held in Oxford, UK from July 12 to 16 and is currently open for registration. If I could make it to UK, I certainly would. It would be a wonderful opportunity to report on some of the best, brightest and most interesting minds of our times.
What Do You Think?
Feel free to share your thoughts below about TED and other similar sites.
Photo Credit: The TED logo is the sole property of TED.com site