TED

TED, series of conferences that promote new ideas and work in a wide variety of human endeavour.

TED was founded in 1983 by architect Richard Saul Wurman and television executive Harry Marks, and the first conference was held in February 1984 in Monterey, California. Because the initial conference was not financially successful, the next conference was not held until 1990, and it was not until 1992 that the TED conferences became annual events. In 2001 the conferences were acquired by the Sapling Foundation, a philanthropic organization run by British publisher Chris Anderson. Originally, the emphasis of the conferences was on the three core areas of technology, entertainment, and design and the crossovers between those fields, but the scope of the TED conferences has broadened immensely. For example, speakers at the 2011 TED conference included American political commentator David Brooks, American film critic Roger Ebert, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and British chef Jamie Oliver.

TED holds three conferences per year: the main conference in Long Beach, California; TEDActive, a simulcast of the main conference in Palm Springs, California; and TEDGlobal in Edinburgh, Scotland. The talks themselves are quite short, with a time limit of 18 minutes. In 2005 TED began awarding the TED Prize of $100,000 (U.S.) usually to “exceptional” individuals who then speak at the conference on how they would use the money to help them with “wishes big enough to change the world.” The first awardees were American inventor Robert Fischell, Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, and Irish singer Bono. (However, the 2012 prize will be awarded to an idea, “the City 2.0,” and the money will be given to individuals “advocating on its behalf.”) Beginning in 2006, many of the talks given at TED conferences have been made freely available on TED’s Web site. TED also allows organizers all over the world to hold TEDx conferences, independent events that consist of a mixture of talks given by local presenters and videos of talks from the main conferences.