TED: Technology, Entertaiment, and Design

Hi all!

Welcome to my second post on this blog. Today I would like to share about TED. What is your first thought when hear about TED? Is it a movie named TED? Or is it the Teddy Bear that you may think of? Or even Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother? It is common if you think about those previous examples, but that's not what I will share today (I also mistook it when the first time I heard about TED).

Atmosphere during a TED conference

TED which I will share today is an abbreviation of TED: Technology Entertaiment and Design. It is one kind of special conference that initially focused on the development of recent Technology, Entertainment and Design. In the TED conference, each presenter will give a lecture referred as "TED Talks" which is ranging from about 3 minutes up to 20 minutes. In its beginning the lecture series covered the topics that focus on the three category listed in the TED's abbreviation, but as time goes by, the scope of the talks have been expanded to cover broader area of expertise. Don't be scared about the lecture (talks), it is not like the official university or school lecture, but rather like a simple - but usually awesome, mostly inspirational, and sometimes mind-blowing - talk that will definitely enrich your knowledge or at least increase your awareness of the certain things discussed in the talks. It has a wide range of presenter, including students (from elementary up to graduate student), researchers, university professors, artists, famous people, Nobel prize laureates, and many more other speakers from all around the world.

It has a main slogan ideas worth spreading, and also in the beginning IBM sponsored most of the conferences and made me usually saw additional slogan let's make a smarter planet. As you can see through its slogans, in the beginning it was subjected to provide a conference which accommodates and encourages people to share and exchange ideas. As I remember from one TED talk I watched, William Noel: Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes, it said that "the thing to do with data, if you want it to survive, is to let it out and have everybody have it", it is also well applied to an idea. Thus if you share it properly, not only the idea will be spread, but it may also stimulate collaboration with different people with various idea to improve the existing idea. That's what we called the power of sharing, and why this program is great. In addition, you may also read the mission of TED itself as written on its wikipedia page

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

It is undoubtedly great, isn't it?

As time goes by, this program is gaining more popularity. Recently many TED talks are held in all parts of the world. Compare to the initial program that a certain number of people gathered around in the annual conference which is held in Long Beach, nowadays many TEDx event, a TED-like event, which in the spirit of TED mission are held at the local level. This event is similar to the main event held in Long Beach, but organized independently by many different people which should be previously granted the TED license. I once attended the TEDx event held in my campus, which in my opinion was a great opportunity to meet and discuss with brilliant speakers which may inspire our lives. My other favorite TEDx event is TEDxCaltech because of its special main theme on every event (first one was about Richard Feynman, and the second one mainly discussed about brain).

Jill Tarter (TED Prize 2009)

Bill Clinton (TED Prize 2007)

"U2" Bono (TED Prize 2005)

In addition TED also annually gives TED Prizes. The winner of TED Prize will be granted a certain amount of money (as of 2013 it is USD 1,000,000) and given opportunity to talk in annual TED main conference to share about their "wish to change the world". Through their "wish talk", they describe about what they dream in order to change in this world into a better place and in the end ask the people of the world together to help them to turn their dream into reality. As of 2013 many famous figures and organizations have been awarded the prize, i.e., Jill Tarter, Bill Clinton, "U2" Bono, etc., which their wishes are related to support for scientific researches, improvement of healthcare systems, poverty alleviation, etc.

TED.com view as of April 20th 2013

In contrast with its first installment which was exclusively held in Long Beach, nowadays, thanks to the internet, we are now able to access new TED talk everyday via TED.com and it is totally free, thanks again to Creative Common licenses. This website is regularly visited by millions of people in a single day, and one nice quote from TED curator, Chris Anderson, about the website:

"...it used to be 800 people getting together once a year; now it’s about a million people a day watching TEDTalks online. ... The conference is still the engine, but the website is the amplifier that takes the ideas to the world."

TED.com provides high quality TED Talk videos which can be viewed either online streaming or offline download (*.mp4 file). A full written transcript of the entire talk is also available. In the spirit of TED to share ideas to the world which not all of its people are able to understand English, an open translation program has been launched which facilitated the non-English speaking country audiences to enjoy the talk by the existence of various language subtitles. But unfortunately, this subtitle only available online (T_T)

That's all what I wanted to share about TED. Now you can experience it by yourself by simply clicking a link below

TED.com