TED: Technology Entertainment Design

An annual conference held in Monterey, California and recently, semi-annually in other cities around the world. TED describes itself as a “group of remarkable people that gather to exchange ideas of incalculable value”. Its lectures cover a broad set of topics including science, arts, politics, global issues, architecture, music and more. The speakers themselves are from a wide variety of communities and disciplines and have included such people as former US president Bill Clinton, Nobel laureate James D. Watson, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

The list goes on, but even more noteworthy is the TED Prize, introduced in 2005. Every year, TED awards three individuals $100,000 and grants them “a wish to change the world”. Past winners include Larry Brilliant (with a name like that…), E.O. Wilson, and Bill Clinton.

This year’s winners?

Neil Turok - Cosmologist and education activist
Dave Eggers - Author, philanthropist and literary entrepreneur
Karen Armstrong - Authority on comparative religions

It is great to see the organization so strongly focusing on education this year. Turok and Eggers have both done great work in Africa, and Eggers also has wonderful educational philanthropy throughout the United States (love or hate his books, it is hard to discredit his compassion and influence). Armstrong is a former nun turned “freelance monotheist” who has done much to educate others on the expansive spiritual similarities between Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even Buddhism.

Further tastes of TED:

Mathemagics - In a lively performance, “mathemagician” Arthur Benjamin races a team of calculators to figure out 3-digit squares in his head, performs a massive mental calculation, and guesses a few birth days. How does he do it? He’ll be happy to tell you.

Beauty and truth in physics - Wielding laypeople’s terms and a sense of humor, Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann drops some knowledge about particle physics, asking questions like, Are elegant equations more likely to be right than inelegant ones? Can the fundamental law, the so-called “theory of everything,” really explain everything?

How creativity is being strangled by the law - Larry Lessig gets TEDsters to their feet, whooping and whistling, following this elegant presentation of three stories and an argument. The Net’s most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the “ASCAP cartel” to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. Then, in an homage to cutting-edge artistry, he throws in some of the most hilarious remixes you’ve ever seen.

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