What is TED ?

TED is simply a gathering of the remarkable minds to talk about and listen to ideas that they think are worth spreading.  At a glance these are the facts about this organization -

1. TED started out in 1984 as conference bringing together people from three worlds : Technology, Entertainment, Design.
2. It was acquired (in 2001) by a Non Profit - The Sapling Foundation. Under the foundation TED has evolved beyond a conference in Long Beach to a have global presence with conferences in US (TEDConference), Europe (TEDGlobal) and India (TEDIndia). The curator of the foundation (and the conference) is Chris Anderson.
3. The scope of the conference has also become broader to include subject matter, to cover almost all aspects of science and culture.
4. The conference is very difficult to attend and is by invitation only - in fact there have been claims that it is elitist and the folks at TED have responded to this claim.

All this is public record - but, IMHO what makes TED different is - the quality of the speeches and that they are publicly available on the internet.

The speakers at TED range from business tycoons like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson to political figures like Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Gordon Brown to artists like Bono , Ze Frank and Frank Gehry (there are a lot more including Stephen Hawking, Jane Goodall, Nandan Nilekani, …- you get the idea).  What moves them ? What excites them ? What do they feel is going to change the world ? These are the topics that they are invited to speak on for 18 minutes. There is a TED Prize - 3 winners are chosen every year from the conference and they get support from the TED organization for “One wish to change the world”. I guess there is something about the experience that seems to bring out the best from the audience, and the speakers, because the presentations made here are simply awesome !

The other aspect of TED and indeed the one that made me aware of them their potential is their endeavor to record and publish all the speeches on their website. The website was started in 2006 is constantly evolving with the latest social networking (Chris Anderson is on twitter) and awesome high quality video. This was what really made me go - whoa… and grasp the power of the conference. I suspect this is also what brought TED to the mainstream and captured the imagination of people like me, who would never have even heard of such a conference otherwise.

Some videos worth watching are -

1. Hans Rosling - Best stats you have ever seen
2. Pranav Mistry - Sixth Sense Technology
3. Karen Armstrong - Charter for compassion
4. George Whiteside - Postage Stamp Lab

There is some really inspiring stuff  here - I sincerely recommend that you bookmark this website and add it to your reminder list to visit on a regular basis - get motivated and inspired !!

Article, Video, TED