TED Talks
Alex Steffen: The route to a sustainable future
Worldchanging.com founder Alex Steffen argues that reducing humanity’s ecological footprint is incredibly vital now, as the western consumer lifestyle spreads to developing countries.
TED Talks
Sugata Mitra: Kids can teach themselves
Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?
TED Talks
Olafur Eliasson: Playing with space and light
In the spectacular large-scale projects he's famous for (such as "Waterfalls" in New York harbor), Olafur Eliasson creates art from a palette of space, distance, color and light. This idea-packed talk begins with an experiment in the...
TED Talks
Daniel Libeskind: 17 words of architectural inspiration
Daniel Libeskind builds on very big ideas. Here, he shares 17 words that underlie his vision for architecture -- raw, risky, emotional, radical -- and that offer inspiration for any bold creative pursuit.
TED Talks
Bjarke Ingels: 3 warp-speed architecture tales
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels rockets through photo/video-mingled stories of his eco-flashy designs. His buildings not only look like nature -- they act like nature: blocking the wind, collecting solar energy -- and creating stunning...
TED Talks
Blaise Agüera y Arcas: Augmented-reality maps
In a demo that drew gasps at TED2010, Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos new augmented-reality mapping technology from Microsoft.
SciShow
4 Ways Ancient Infrastructure Can Prepare Us for the Future
Ancient civilizations developed clever solutions to their unique challenges and environments, and learning from those engineers can help us build a greener world today.
TED Talks
Johan Rockström: Let the environment guide our development
Human growth has strained the earth's resources, but as Johan Rockström reminds us, our advances also give us the science to recognize this and change behavior. His research has found nine "planetary boundaries" that can guide us in...
TED Talks
Candy Chang: Before I die I want to ...
In her New Orleans neighborhood, artist and TED Fellow Candy Chang turned an abandoned house into a giant chalkboard asking a fill-in-the-blank question: "Before I die I want to ___." Her neighbors' answers -- surprising, poignant, funny...
TED Talks
TED: Why we need to imagine different futures | Anab Jain
Anab Jain brings the future to life, creating experiences where people can touch, see and feel the potential of the world we're creating. Do we want a world where intelligent machines patrol our streets, for instance, or where our...
TED Talks
TED: How to revitalize a neighborhood -- without gentrification | Bree Jones
The housing market can be vexing: while some neighborhoods get ridiculously expensive and price out longtime residents, others have historic homes sitting vacant without demand. Equitable housing developer and TED Fellow Bree Jones...
TED Talks
TED: The 15-minute city | Carlos Moreno
Living in a city means accepting a certain level of dysfunction: long commutes, noisy streets, underutilized spaces. Carlos Moreno wants to change that. He makes the case for the "15-minute city," where inhabitants have access to all the...
TED Talks
James Howard Kunstler: The ghastly tragedy of the suburbs
In James Howard Kunstler's view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life and the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about.
TED Talks
Kate Orff: Reviving New York's rivers -- with oysters!
Architect Kate Orff sees the oyster as an agent of urban change. Bundled into beds and sunk into city rivers, oysters slurp up pollution and make legendarily dirty waters clean -- thus driving even more innovation in "oyster-tecture."...
TED Talks
Nate Silver: Does racism affect how you vote?
Nate Silver has data that answers big questions about race in politics. For instance, in the 2008 presidential race, did Obama's skin color actually keep him from getting votes in some parts of the country? Stats and myths collide in...
TED Talks
Bill Ford: A future beyond traffic gridlock
Bill Ford is a car guy -- his great-grandfather was Henry Ford, and he grew up inside the massive Ford Motor Co. So when he worries about cars' impact on the environment, and about our growing global gridlock problem, it's worth a...
TED Talks
Esther Duflo: Social experiments to fight poverty
Alleviating poverty is more guesswork than science, and lack of data on aid's impact raises questions about how to provide it. But Clark Medal-winner Esther Duflo says it's possible to know which development efforts help and which hurt...
TED Talks
Cameron Sinclair: The refugees of boom-and-bust
At TEDGlobal U, Cameron Sinclair shows the unreported cost of real estate megaprojects gone bust: thousands of migrant construction laborers left stranded and penniless. To his fellow architects, he says there is only one ethical response.
TED Talks
Paul Gilding: The Earth is full
Have we used up all our resources? Have we filled up all the livable space on Earth? Paul Gilding suggests we have, and the possibility of devastating consequences, in a talk that's equal parts terrifying and, oddly, hopeful.
TED Talks
Paul Romer: The world's first charter city?
Back in 2009, Paul Romer unveiled the idea for a "charter city" -- a new kind of city with rules that favor democracy and trade. This year, at TED2011, he tells the story of how such a city might just happen in Honduras ... with a little...
TED Talks
TED: This app makes it fun to pick up litter | Jeff Kirschner
The earth is a big place to keep clean. With Litterati -- an app for users to identify, collect and geotag the world's litter -- TED Resident Jeff Kirschner has created a community that's crowdsource-cleaning the planet. After tracking...
TED Talks
Dan Phillips: Creative houses from reclaimed stuff
In this funny and inspiring talk, Dan Phillips tours us through a dozen homes he's built in Texas using recycled and reclaimed materials in wildly creative ways. Brilliant, low-tech design details will refresh your own drive to make more...
TED Talks
Chris Downey: Design with the blind in mind
What would a city designed for the blind be like? Chris Downey is an architect who went suddenly blind in 2008; he contrasts life in his beloved San Francisco before and after -- and shows how the thoughtful designs that enhance his life...
TED Talks
Sheikha Al Mayassa: Globalizing the local, localizing the global
Sheikha Al Mayassa, a patron of artists, storytellers and filmmakers in Qatar, talks about how art and culture create a country's identity -- and allow every country to share its unique identity with the wider world. As she says: "We...