February 23, 1984; 41 years ago (1984-02-23) (first conference)[5]
February 22, 1990; 35 years ago (1990-02-22) (first annual event)[6]
Current status
Active
TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design[7]) is an American-Canadian non-profit[7] media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Spreading").[8] It was founded byRichard Saul Wurman andHarry Marks in February 1984[2] as a technology conference, in which Mickey Schulhof gave a demo of thecompact disc that was invented in October 1982.[5] Its main conference has been held annually since 1990.[6][9] It covers almost all topics—from science to business toglobal issues—in more than 100 languages.[7]
TED's early emphasis was on technology and design, consistent with itsSilicon Valley origins. It later broadened to include scientific, cultural, political, humanitarian, and academic topics.[10] It has been curated byChris Anderson, a British-American businessman, through the non-profitTED Foundation since July 2019 (originally by the non-profitSapling Foundation).[1][11][12]
The main TED conference has been held annually inVancouver, British Columbia,Canada, at theVancouver Convention Centre since 2014. The first conferences from 1984 (TED1) through 2008 (TED2008) were held at the Monterey Conference Center inMonterey, California.[13] Between 2009 and 2014, it was held inLong Beach, California, United States.[14] TED events are also held throughout North America and inEurope,Asia, andAfrica, offeringlive streaming of the talks. TED returned to Monterey in 2021 with TEDMonterey. The talks address a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture, often through storytelling.[15]
TED conferences are invitation only events with an admission of $6,000.[16]
TED2 was held at the same Monterey Conference Center in California in 1990. From 1990 onward, a growing community of "TEDsters" gathered annually with Wurman leading the conference in Monterey until 2009,[23] when it was moved toLong Beach, California due to a substantial increase in the number of those attending.[24][25] Speakers were initially drawn from the fields of expertise behind theacronym TED; but during the 1990s, presenters broadened to include scientists, philosophers, musicians, religious leaders, philanthropists, and many others.[22]
In 2000, Wurman, looking for a successor at age 65, met with new-media entrepreneur and TED enthusiastChris Anderson to discuss future happenings. Anderson's UK media companyFuture bought TED for $14 million ($12 million in cash and $2 million in stocks). In November 2001, Anderson's non-profit TheSapling Foundation (motto: "fostering the spread of great ideas")[1] acquired TED from Future for £6m.[26] In February 2002, Anderson gave a TED Talk in which he explained his vision of the conference and his future role ofcurator.[27]
In 2012, TED community director Tom Rielly helped the producers ofPrometheus gain approval for the use of the TED brand in the promotional short filmTED 2023, designed by Rielly withRidley Scott andDamon Lindelof, directed byLuke Scott, and starringGuy Pearce asPeter Weyland, who in the film speaks at a fictional TED conference atWembley Stadium in the then-future of 2023; on the film's release, Rielly noted that the association had generated millions of unique visits to the TED website.[28]
In 2014, the conference was moved toVancouver, Canada.[29]
TED is currently funded by various revenue streams, including attendance fees, corporate sponsorships, foundation support, licensing fees, and book sales. Sponsors do not participate in the event's creation and do not present on the main stage.[30][31]
In 2015, TED staff consisted of about 180 people headquartered inNew York City and Vancouver, British Columbia.[32] On July 1, 2019, the TED Conferences LLC was transferred from Sapling Foundation to TED Foundation to "align with our brand and make it easier for our donors to connect TED donations to TED Conferences, LLC."[33][34]
In 2021, TED launched the TED Audio Collective with a number of podcasts featuring previous TED Talks and other relevant topics.[35]
The TED Prize was introduced in 2005. Until 2010, $100,000 was given annually to three individuals with a "wish to change the world".[37] Each winner unveiled their wish at the main annual conference. Since 2010, a single winner has been chosen to ensure that TED can maximize its efforts in achieving the winner's wish. In 2012, the prize was not awarded to a person, but to a concept connected to the current global phenomenon of increasingurbanization. In 2013, the prize amount was increased to $1 million.[38] TED Prize winners in previous years have been:
TED Conference commissioned New York artistTom Shannon to create a prize sculpture for all TED Prize winners. It consists of an eight-inch-diameter (20 cm) aluminum sphere magnetically levitated above a walnut disc.[55] As of 2018 the prize has been recast asThe Audacious Project.[56]
In 2005, Chris Anderson hiredJune Cohen as Director of TED Media. In June 2006, after Cohen's idea of a TV show based on TED lectures was rejected by several networks, a selection of talks that had received highest audience ratings was posted on the websites of TED,YouTube andiTunes underCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0.[57][58] Only a handful of talks was initially posted to see if there was an audience for them. In January of the following year, the number of talks on the sites had grown to 44, and they had been viewed more than three million times. On the basis of that success, the organization pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into its video production operations and the development of a website to feature about 100 of the talks.[57][59]
In April 2007, the new TED.com was launched, developed by New York and San Francisco-based design companyMethod.[60] The website has won many prizes, including sevenWebby Awards, iTunes' "Best Podcast of the Year" (2006–2010); theCommunication Arts Interactive Award for Information Design (2007); the OMMA Award for Video Sharing, the Web Visionary Award for Technical Achievement, andThe One Show Interactive Bronze Award (2008); theAIGA Annual Design Competition (2009); and aPeabody Award (2012).[61][62][63][64]
In January 2009, TED videos had been viewed 50 million times. In June 2011, they reached 500 million views.[19]
In March 2012,Netflix announced a deal tostream an initial series of 16 two-hour collections of TED Talks on similar subjects. It was made available to subscribers in the United States, Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.[65] Hosted by Jami Floyd,TED Talks NYC debuted onNYC Life on March 21, 2012.[66]
In 2005, under Anderson's supervision, a more internationally oriented sister conference was added, under the name TEDGlobal. It was held, in chronological order: inOxford, UK (2005), inArusha, Tanzania (2007, titled TEDAfrica), in Oxford again (2009 and 2010), and inEdinburgh, UK (2011, 2012, and 2013). In 2014, it was held inRio de Janeiro, Brazil.[68] Additionally, there was TED India, inMysore (2009) and TEDGlobal London inLondon (2015).[69] TEDGlobal 2017 was held again in Arusha, Tanzania, and it was curated and hosted by Emeka Okafor.[70]
TED's European director (and curator of TEDGlobal) is Swiss-bornBruno Giussani.[71]
The TED 2011 conference,The Rediscovery of Wonder, was held inLong Beach, California, US, from February 28 to March 4, 2011.[72][73] The TED conference has a companion conference, TEDGlobal, held in the UK each summer. The 2009 TEDGlobal,The Substance of Things Not Seen, was held in Oxford, July 21–24, 2009. 2010's TEDGlobal (again in Oxford) was themedAnd Now The Good News; in 2011 the conference moved to a new home in Edinburgh and was held July 12–15 with the themeThe Stuff Of Life. The 2012 TEDGlobal conferenceRadical Openness was held in Edinburgh, June 25–29.[74]
TEDx was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks. TEDx are independent events similar to TED in presentation. They can be organized by anyone who obtains a free license from TED, and agrees to follow certain principles.[16] Speakers are not paid and must also relinquish the copyrights to their materials, which TED may edit and distribute under aCreative Commons license.[75]
In March 2013, eight TEDx events, which are "essentially, do-it-yourself TED conferences" raised up from five in June 2012, the previous year, in 133 countries.[76]
TEDxPortland in Portland was the largest indoor TEDx event in the world, with over 8,000 attendees, making it the largest TEDx conference in North America.[77]
TED Fellows were introduced in 2007, during the first TEDAfrica conference inArusha, Tanzania, where 100 young people were selected from across the continent. Two years later, during TEDIndia, 99 fellows were recruited, mainly from South Asia.
In 2009, the fellows program was initiated in its present form. For every TED or TEDGlobal conference, 20 fellows are selected; a total of 40 new fellows a year. Each year, 20 past fellows are chosen to participate in the two-year senior fellows program (in which they will attend four more conferences).
2019 marked the tenth anniversary of the TED Fellows program.
Acceptance as a fellow is not based on academiccredentials, but mainly on past and current actions, and plans for the future.[78] Besides attending a conference free of charge, each fellow takes part in a special program withmentoring by experts in the field of spreading ideas, and can give a short talk on the "TED Fellows" stage. Some of these talks are subsequently published on TED.com. Senior fellows have additional benefits and responsibilities.[79]
The TED Audio Collective is a collection of podcasts with over 25 shows.
One of those shows is the TED Interviewpodcast which launched on October 16, 2018, during whichChris Anderson holds conversations[80] with speakers who have previously given aTED talk,[81] providing the guest a chance to speak in greater depth about their background, projects, motivation,[82] re-evaluation of past experiences,[83][84] or plans for the future.[needs update]
TEDMED is an annual conference concerned with health and medicine. It is an independent event operating under license from the nonprofit TED conference.
In 2011,Jay Walker and a group of executives and investors purchased TEDMED from Hodosh for $16 million with future additional payments of as much as $9 million. The conference was then moved to Washington, DC.[142]
TED Radio Hour: A radio program,[143] with audio downloads and a podcastRSS feed,[144] hosted byManoush Zomorodi,[145] previouslyGuy Raz and co-produced withNPR. Each episode uses multiple TED Talks to examine a common theme.[146] Originated and executive produced by Deron Triff andJune Cohen, the first episode was broadcast in 2012.[147][148]
TED also offers other podcasts such asSincerely, X (featuring anonymous TED Talks).[149]
Sarah Lacy ofBusinessWeek andTechCrunch wrote in 2010 that TED attendees complained of elitism from a "hierarchy of parties throughout the LA area with strict lists and security" after the sessions. She gave credit for freely live-streaming and posting videos of its talks.[150]
Disagreements have also occurred between TED speakers and organizers. In her 2010 TED Talk, comedianSarah Silverman referred to adopting a "retarded" child. TED organizerChris Anderson objected via hisTwitter account, leading to a conflict between them conducted over Twitter.[151][152]
Also in 2010, statisticianNassim Taleb called TED a "monstrosity that turns scientists and thinkers into low-level entertainers, like circus performers". He claimed TED curators did not initially post his talk "warning about the financial crisis" on their site on purely cosmetic grounds.[153]
In May 2012, venture capitalistNick Hanauer spoke atTED University, challenging the belief that top income earners in America were the engines of job creation. TED attracted controversy when it chose not to post Hanauer's talk on their website. His talk analysed the top rate of tax versus unemployment and economic equality.[154] TED was accused of censoring the talk by not posting it.[155][156]
On May 7, 2012, TED curator Chris Anderson, in an email to Hanauer, commented on his decision and took issue with several of Hanauer's assertions in the talk, including the idea that businesspeople were not job creators. He also made clear his aversion to the talk's "political nature":[157]
TheNational Journal reported that Anderson considered Hanauer's talk one of the most politically controversial they had produced, and they needed to be careful about when they posted it.[155] Anderson responded on his personal blog that TED posted only one talk each day, selected from many.[158]Forbes staff writer Bruce Upbin noted that Hanauer's claim of a relationship between tax rates and unemployment was based entirely on falsified unemployment data,[159] whileNew York magazine condemned TED's move.[160]
TEDx talks have been criticised for having a lower quality control than actual TED talks, with a number of TEDx talks being ridiculed by critics for promotingpseudoscience.Wired and theHarvard Business Review suggested that this lack of quality control in TEDx talks damaged the broader TED brand.[161][162]
Following a TEDx talk by parapsychologistRupert Sheldrake, TED issued a statement saying their scientific advisors believed that "there is little evidence for some of Sheldrake's more radical claims", and recommended that it "should not be distributed without being framed with caution". The video was moved from the TEDx YouTube channel to the TED blog, accompanied by such framing language. This prompted accusations of censorship, which TED rebutted by pointing out that Sheldrake's talk was still on their website.[163][164] A 2013 talk byGraham Hancock, promoting the use of the drugDMT, was treated the same way.[165][166]
According to professorBenjamin Bratton atUniversity of California, San Diego, TED Talks' efforts at fostering progress insocio-economics, science, philosophy and technology have been ineffective.[167] Chris Anderson responded that some critics misunderstood TED's goals, failing to recognise that it aimed to instill excitement in audiences in the same ways speakers felt it. He said that TED wished only to bring awareness of significant topics to larger audiences.[168]
Episode 08, season 20 of the animated TV seriesFamily Guy features a cutaway scene ofPeter Griffin giving a TED talk about birthdays.
Australian alternative rock bandTISM parodied TED talks at their 2 March 2024 concert inLaunceston, Tasmania as "TISM Talks", which included a skit parodying TED talks running behind the band for the duration of the show.
Episode 16 of Series 2 of the TV seriesElementary "The One Percent Solution" features ex-Scotland YardInspector Gareth Lestrade presenting a "DUG Chat". According to a tweet from the @ELEMENTARYstaff Twitter account[170] "We had to call them "Dug" chats because we weren't allowed to use the name 'Ted Talk'".
^abcHefferman, Virginia (January 23, 2009)."Confessions of a TED addict".The New York Times Magazine (The Medium). Archived fromthe original on November 24, 2011. RetrievedDecember 20, 2014.
^"Charmian Gooch: Anti-corruption activist".TED. RetrievedJuly 12, 2014.Global Witness co-founder Charmian Gooch is the 2014 TED Prize winner. At her NGO she exposes how a global architecture of corruption is woven into the extraction and exploitation of natural resources.
^"TED Radio Hour".RNZ.The TED Radio Hour is a National Public Radio series based on talks from annual gatherings where some of the world's deepest thinkers and innovators are invited to give the 18-minute "talk of their lives."
