TEDWomen is the ultimate platform dedicated to accelerating groundbreaking ideas that build a better, more equitable future for all. It’s a captivating journey of self-discovery and professional enrichment and an opportunity to form life-altering relationships with some of the brightest minds on the planet.

But first, the true challenge: getting the time and expense approved. Fear not! We’re here to equip you with the right pitch that will leave your boss with a strong understanding of how important it is to say “yes” to TEDWomen.

Attendees take a selfie by the stage at TEDWomen 2021. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)

Underscore the personal development benefits 

Personal development is an area most companies value greatly, and TEDWomen holds the key to unleashing your untapped potential. Engage in workshops and thought-provoking conversations with influential speakers, activists and fellow attendees; hear mind-blowing TED Talks; see captivating performances; and participate in unique, curated activities. The conference program offers a deeper understanding of radical shifts in technology, business, culture and more, helping empower you to shape your organization’s thought leadership and equity initiatives.

TEDWomen is a transformative conference experience that opens up a world of possibilities for your professional growth. Imagine being in the same room with an exceptional lineup of senior leaders, including c-suite executives, presidents, founders, EVPs, SVPs and partners. This is not your typical networking event; it’s an extraordinary gathering where distinguished leaders come to learn, share and give back. Prepare to be inspired to take the right steps forward, not just to exchange business cards.

Outline the ROI

The connections you make will not only enrich your personal and professional life, but can also help open up exciting business opportunities for your company. Need proof of the conference’s impact? Look no further than zoologist Lucy King, who presented a creative solution on how bees can foster peace between elephants and humans in Africa. Her compelling talk at TEDWomen 2019 led to critical funding, raising over one million dollars for the Elephant Coexistence Program. Imagine the possibilities when you share your own story with a community closely watched by influential donors and innovation supporters.

TEDWomen is not only a conference; it’s a joyful and inclusive space where diverse voices and perspectives shine. It’s the birthplace of careers like Maysoon Zayid‘s, whose talk at TEDWomen 2013 on living with cerebral palsy propelled her career and brought much-needed representation and diversity to the entertainment industry. You’ll get the chance to discover emerging talent and groundbreaking ideas that could benefit your company and transform your own professional path.

Here’s a bonus tip to maximize your return on investment: secure an Early Supporter membership at the lowest rate possible (expires June 15, 2023) or invite a group of five colleagues and enjoy a Group Rate. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to make the most of your TEDWomen experience personally, professionally and financially.

Audience members of TEDWomen 2016. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)

Now, let’s put it all together using this template, outlined below.

Step 1: Start with this intro

“By attending TEDWomen, I’ll have the incredible opportunity to immerse myself in industries and sectors closely related to ours. This exposure will fuel my innovation and enable me to bring fresh ideas and perspectives back to our team. It’s the perfect chance to discover new pathways and become an even more dynamic and inventive employee.”

Step 2: Emphasize the community you’ll be a part of

“When we align our brand with TED, we tap into a global network of the most influential minds on the planet. By participating in TEDWomen, we connect with renowned thinkers, change-makers and visionaries, paving the way for potential collaborations and groundbreaking business opportunities. It’s an exciting chance to enhance our brand’s visibility and make valuable connections that can propel our success.”

Bonus: Delve into the conference program and identify speakers who align with your company’s goals and objectives; by highlighting their relevance in your pitch, you’ll demonstrate the direct value attending TEDWomen will bring to your company.

Step 3: Finish with the lasting impact

“Attending a TEDWomen conference is not just an event; it’s a true growth opportunity with far-reaching impacts. By investing in my professional and personal development, I’ll become a better leader and contributor to our organization. The invaluable insights, knowledge and inspiration gained from TEDWomen will empower me to bring innovative strategies and fresh perspectives to the table, driving our collective success forward.

“By attending TEDWomen 2023, I will unlock a world of possibilities, enabling me to contribute at a higher level and fueling our company’s growth in ways we never thought possible.”

You can apply now for TEDWomen 2023, no invite needed. The conference will be held October 11-13 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Make this the year you attend an event that invests in yourself and your company. Get the approval you need and get started on your TEDWomen journey. 

Download TEDWomen Conference Overview.

Attendees at TEDWomen 2021. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The shorts of TED2023 define the era we find ourselves in — immersed in artificial intelligence, playing with possibility and defiantly full of infinite depth and discovery. Watch below for AI-infused resets and perspective shifts embodying the spirit of TED2023.

The short: “Baraye”
In brief: Coldplay performs Iranian protest song “Baraye” (originally by Shervin Hajipour) — and invites exiled Iranian actor Golshifteh Farahani on stage to sing with them during their Buenos Aires concert in 2022.
Shown during: Session 1: In which we start things off with a bang

The short: “Jacquemus ‘Champagne?'”
The creator: Directed by Pantera
In brief: A runaway, ricocheting champagne cork causes tremendous trouble in record time for a quiet Christmas party.
Shown during: Session 1: In which we start things off with a bang

Arthur C. Clarke about the future of AI.
—21 September 1964

[source, BBC Archive: https://t.co/u9RpXTrztK]pic.twitter.com/rccfoQlv42

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 26, 2023

The short: “Arthur C. Clarke predicts AI at the 1964 New York World Fair”
The creator: BBC Archive
In brief: BBC newscaster Arthur C. Clarke predicts the future of artificial intelligence with startling accuracy — during a report from the 1964 World’s Fair.
Shown during: Session 2: In which we explore the astounding new era of AI

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A post shared by Remi (@remi_molettee)

The short: “Symbiosis”
The creators: AI: @remi_molettee; Film: slimshowroom; Performers: Ebinum Brothers; Music: Max Richter
In brief: Two root-like bodies dance and tumble over, under and through each other in a vast desert.
Shown during: Session 2: In which we explore the astounding new era of AI

The short: “All for You”
The creator: Directed by Arthur Studholme
In brief: A series of meet-cutes devolve from dream to nightmare for one man who seems to have enough room in his romantic imagination for everyone and everything he encounters.
Shown during: Session 4: In which we ponder ideas that are way, way out there

The short: “Hairy Pouter”
The creators: Directed by Chris Carboni; Sound by Ambrose Yu; Music by Charles Di Raimondo
In brief: A 98-year-old woman’s review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, absurdly interpreted in this film entirely designed by AI.
Shown during: Session 4: In which we ponder ideas that are way, way out there

The short: “You Know What I Need”
The creators: Video by MELT IMMERSIVE; Directed by Kuba Matyka & Kamila Staszczyszyn
In brief: Mind-melting, multi-dimensional AI art meets the melodies of Troye Sivan and PNAU in this visually immersive and psychedelic music video.
Shown during: Session 6: In which we discover how our brains might soon get upgraded

The short: “Ode To My Shiny Metal Toaster”
The creator: Guided by Alexander Reben
In brief: A poem dedicated to a shiny metal toaster … generated, titled, illustrated and spoken by artificial intelligence.
Shown during: Session 6: In which we discover how our brains might soon get upgraded

The short: “One More Try”
The creator: Directed by Najeeb Tarazi
In brief: How many tries does it take to get to the center of a sweet skateboarding trick? One, two, three? A lot more than that, sometimes.
Shown during: Session 6: In which we discover how our brains might soon get upgraded

The short: “Apple – The Greatest”
The creator: Directed by Kim Gehrig
In brief: An ode to the beauty of human diversity — and how tech assists our journey through life.
Shown during: Session 7: In which we breathe deep and embrace humanity’s full potential

The short: “KCRW: ‘Listen'”
The creator: Directed by Anderson Wright
In brief: A reminder to just stop … and listen … to the world around you.
Shown during: Session 7: In which we breathe deep and embrace humanity’s full potential

The short: “I’m Only Sleeping”
The creator: Directed (and painted) by Em Cooper
In brief: Take a semi-lucid, painterly dip between dreaming and waking with this trippy visual complement to this sleepy Beatles single.
Shown during: Session 8: In which we delightedly and unapologetically nerd out

The short: “Magically Turning into Random Objects”
The creator: Kevin Parry
In brief: A man transforms into a variety of everyday objects through the power and optical illusory magic of impressive video editing.
Shown during: Session 8: In which we delightedly and unapologetically nerd out

The short: “I asked AI to write an Eminem rap about cats”
The creator: Grandayy
In brief: Ever wondered what it would sound like if Eminem rapped about cats? AI has your answer.
Shown during: Session 9: In which we prepare for the inevitable chaos ahead

The short: “Bonobo – ATK”
The creators: Directed by McGloughlin Brothers
In brief: Fast trains + high shutter speeds = everyday zoetropes as the world passes you by.
Shown during: Session 9: In which we prepare for the inevitable chaos ahead

The short: “Blue Jeans and Bloody Tears”
The creators: Concept and creative direction by Nim Shapira; Song by Amir Shoenfeld, Avshalom Ariel, Ben Scheflan, Eran Hadas, ORACLE Israel & UK and Nim Shapira; Music video by Karni and Saul
In brief: The first Eurovision song generated by artificial intelligence. (Warning: The chorus will get stuck in your head.)
Shown during: Session 10: In which we experience new levels of AI creativity … and ask some hard questions

@donalleniii

How does this WORK??? #gen1 @runwayml

♬ Indiana Jones (Main Theme) – The Movie Soundtrack Experts

The short: “AI Adventurer Archaeologist”
The creator: Don Allen Stevenson III
In brief: AI reimagines a homemade homage to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom into an inspired and dynamic animated scene.
Shown during: Session 10: In which we experience new levels of AI creativity … and ask some hard questionss

The short: “Turbulence”
The creator: Roman De Giuli
In brief: Glittering, metallic transcendence in ultra high-definition slow motion.
Shown during: Session 11: In which we celebrate the unbridled power of the imagination

The short: “Tropical Zincphony”
The creators: Directed by Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker
In brief: A parade of mangoes roll down a plethora of Panamanian zinc roofs. Where do they stop? Nobody knows.
Shown during: Session 11: In which we celebrate the unbridled power of the imagination

For one special week each year, a cavernous wing of the Vancouver Convention Center is transformed into the TED Theater: a custom-made, hand-built, 1,200-seat theater that plays host to mind-boggling, world-changing ideas meant to spark conversation, connection and wonder. Below, just a sampling of the incredible photography from this year’s event, TED2023. Also, check out our live coverage of the conference and watch TED Talks from TED2023.

TED2023 Photo Team: Leandro Badalotti, Ella DeGea Truelove, Tracy Gitnick, Ryan Lash, Erin Lubin, Jason Redmond, Gilberto Tadday, Jasmina Tomic, Elizabeth Zeeuw

The red circle before Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

TED attendees in the theater before Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

TED’s Whitney Pennington Rodgers (left), Chris Anderson and Helen Walters host Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Photo: Ryan Lash)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Photo: Ryan Lash)

The red circle before Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

TED attendees in the theater during Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Photo: Ryan Lash)

Doris Mitsch speaks at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

Ali Hajimiri and Helen Walters at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

Garry Cooper speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

George T. Whitesides speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

The TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Attendees in the theater at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater during Session 9 at TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Attendees in the theater at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

TED’s Chris Anderson speaks with Bilawal Sidhu, Eileen Isagon Skyers, Refik Anadol and K Allado-McDowell at Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater during Session 11 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Ersin Han Ersin speaks at Session 11 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Attendees in the theater at Session 11 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

Attendees in the theater at Session 11 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

Alua Arthur speaks at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

TED CEO and Executive Director Jay Herrati and head of TED Chris Anderson during Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility onApril 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The TED Theater at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Attendees in the theater during Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Alua Arther exits the TED stage during Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Attendees in the theater during Session 11 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

The TED Theater at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

TikTok CEO Shou Chew and head of TED Chris Anderson speak at Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Head of TED Chris Anderson hosts Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The uses of AI are seemingly limitless, a fact perhaps most easily apparent in the world of art. While some artists fear their skills could be replaced by computer-generated creations, others have embraced machine learning collaborations, spawning mind-boggling works of the imagination. In Session 10 of TED2023, five speakers explore the creative possibilities opened up by AI and discuss the pros and cons of a world where everyone — even computers — can create.

The event: Talks from Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson

When and where: Thursday, April 20, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Shou Chew, Eileen Isagon Skyers, Bilawal Sidhu, Refik Anadol, K Allado-McDowell

Hot on the heels of his congressional testimony, TikTok CEO Shou Chew sits down with head of TED Chris Anderson to discuss the roots of TikTok: what it does, how it works and what it’s doing to protect its users. Chew reaffirms his platform’s dedication to offering creativity, inspiration and fun to millions, while addressing the privacy concerns that have led many in the United States to call for a ban. Far from being a potential data gold mine for the Chinese government, Chew says, all new information on US users harvested by the app’s revolutionary interest-predicting algorithms is housed in servers within the US — although he admits it will take the rest of 2023 to delete old data stored in servers elsewhere. Meanwhile, TikTok continues to prioritize safety, particularly for its youngest users, by limiting access to sensitive material, gently offering suggestions to reduce screen time and moderating content (a Herculean task performed by AI algorithms in tandem with 10,000 human moderators).

Media art curator Eileen Isagon Skyers speaks at Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

From bizarre lifeforms to imaginary influencers, we’ve seen AI create all sorts of images, says media art curator Eileen Isagon Skyers — but how do we engage with art made by machines? She points to artists, metaphors and narratives that are pushing the boundaries of AI, including Mario Klingemann’s “Memories of Passersby I”: a machine that uses neural networks to generate a seemingly infinite stream of portraits trained on images from the 17th to 19th centuries. Isagon Skyers shows how AI can be a gateway beyond the human imagination (and physical reality), like artist Sophia Crespo‘s AI-generated “Neural Zoo” which depicts chimeras that don’t exist. She points to Sara Ludy’s multi-media digital art that explores immateriality, Ivona Tau’s AI-generated images that could be mistaken for photographs and Claire Silver’s collaborative paintings she creates with machines. In order to grapple with an increasingly technological future, we need to see what’s being made at the intersection of human and machine creativity, says Isagon Skyers.

Creative technologist Bilawal Sidhu speaks at Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Creative technologist Bilawal Sidhu is on a lifelong quest to blur the lines between reality and imagination. As a kid, this meant making videos manipulated with computer graphics and visual effects. Now, with advances in AI, this quest is getting supercharged, he says. He offers a tour of the techniques he’s been playing with, including Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF), which create volumetric 3D scenes based on 2D images, and ControlNet, which lets users guide an AI image generation process and essentially re-skin reality. The end result? Young creators no longer need to master expensive tools and esoteric knowledge, he says. Creation will be democratized, and all that’s required is a vision and a knack for co-creating with AI models.

Media artist Refik Anadol speaks at Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Vividly colorful images of artificial coral reefs ripple on a massive screen behind media artist and director Refik Anadol as he describes his project “Coral Dreams”: AI-generated imagery of corals, created by an algorithm trained on more than 100 million images. Anadol uses machine learning algorithms by harnessing large, publicly available data sets and transforming them into visualizations that tap into humanity’s collective memories — essentially preserving the disappearing parts of nature while also creating artificial realities. With data as his paintbrush, Anadol evokes the feeling of being digitally immersed in nature: projects like “Floral Dreams” use AI trained on 75 million floral images, while “scent of our dreams” uses an algorithm trained on more than half a million scents. As the lines between physical and virtual, nature and technology blur, generative AI helps us create new multi-sensory realities and reflect on the world we live in. Deeply inspired by the leaders of the Yawanawá tribe in Brazil, Anadol asks, “Could we use AI to preserve and learn about ancient knowledge about nature?”

AI collaborator K Allado-McDowell speaks at Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

“Are we at risk of losing what makes us most human? How can we preserve and even enhance the best in ourselves with AI?” asks writer, musician and AI collaborator K Allado-McDowell. They believe the answer lies in creation, collaboration and care. Having written three books with the aid of AI, Allado-McDowell says nurturing creative relations with these programs can help open the mind, bringing to life ideas that could never have been born of a single creator. Collaboration is important for shaping a well-rounded and diverse future of AI, as the voices that are fed into machine learning help shape its output, too. Finally, Allado-McDowell believes AI should most prominently be used to discover new ways to help people heal, through both art and science, emphasizing care as a north star.

Head of TED Chris Anderson (left) speaks with Bilawal Sidhu, Eileen Isagon Skyers, Refik Anadol and K Allado-McDowell at Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

In a fascinating discussion on the state of art in the age of AI, artists Eileen Isagon Skyers, Bilawal Sidhu, Refik Anadol and K Allado-McDowell share how they’re using tools like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and DALL-E to fuel their creativity. With questions from head of TED Chris Anderson, the four creators dig into a range of topics: the repercussions of a market flooded with people who can now make art within seconds, the potential need for new copyright rules, and the role of creative constraints when working with AI tools. They end by sharing what excites them most about this novel, exploratory phase of artistic creation. The field is wide open, says K Allado-McDowell: it’s up to anyone to become a genre-defining mastermind of the form.

Head of TED Chris Anderson and TikTok CEO Shou Chew speak at Session 10 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

TED’s head of curation Helen Walters speaks at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

There’s so much to think about as we barrel into the future of breakneck speed. How do we prepare and react to perilous vertigo caused by constant upheaval and change? Through a combination of close listening, careful thought and being inspired by people committed to creating peace and progress. In Session 9 of TED2023, seven speakers and performers took up this mantle, exploring topics ranging from the future of girls’ education and reproductive justice to rethinking parenting and the end of life.

The event: Talks from Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED’s head of curation Helen Walters

When and where: Thursday, April 20, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Angeline Murimirwa, Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor, Mark Edwards, Jessie Reyez, Sean Goode, Becky Kennedy, Alua Arthur

Education activist Angeline Murimirwa speaks at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

We’ve all heard the story of how girls’ education is as close as we may get to a silver bullet for making the world a better place. But there’s more that needs to be done beyond putting a diploma in a girl’s hand, says education activist and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Angeline Murimirwa. Asking so much of young girls places an unimaginably heavy weight on them to beat the odds on their own and make the world a better place without radically reshaping the systems and environment that oppress them. That’s where Murimirwa’s organization CAMFED comes in, helping to lift the burden and ease the pressure by providing a strong social and financial network of 250,000 women mentors and supporters who have made the same difficult journey. A sisterhood, if you will, that not only works but also pays it forward to those who walk alongside them. Murimirwa is living proof, she shares, as one of the first in Zimbabwe helped by the organization years ago — and look where she is now, as its CEO.

TED business curator Corey Hajim (left) and Intercorp founder Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor speak at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

If Peru is to become a fully developed country, Peruvian businesses must lead the way, says Intercorp founder Carlos Rodríguez-Pastor, one of Peru’s financial icons. By partnering with companies across the nation, he’s implementing numerous programs to nurture the country’s growing middle class. In conversation with TED business curator Corey Hajim, Rodríguez-Pastor breaks down Peru’s problems into three barriers: education, health care and infrastructure. Working on the ground rather than in the boardroom, he’s found innovative solutions to these problems, partnering with companies to build better schools that are also profitable (which, he says, equates to sustainable), bolstering health care through Peru’s existing pharmacy system and leveraging Peruvian tax law to funnel improvement funds directly to local infrastructure projects.

Reproductive health advocate Mark Edwards speaks at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

According to reproductive health advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Mark Edwards, almost half of all pregnancies in the US are unplanned, and — astonishingly — six out of ten typical birth control pill users will become accidentally pregnant over a span of ten years. These jaw-dropping statistics underscore the sobering fact that many pregnancies occur not because women aren’t using birth control but because they aren’t using the most effective type for their particular circumstances.  In fact, there are 18 FDA-approved forms of birth control, all of which vary in effectiveness for different women and, more importantly, aren’t all available to the women who need it most. Edwards believes contraception is a basic health care right. With his organization Upstream USA, he’s improving birth control education and access for women who lack adequate health care in a post-Roe world where contraception has become critical for family planning.

Speaking during a break between powerful performances of her songs “STILL C U” and “Figures,” singer-songwriter Jessie Reyez tells us she’s “made a profound discovery: we’re born, we grow, we die, and life is suffering.” Indeed, her own struggles with suffering led her to write her music, with roots tapping both sadness and hope. She says we all need to create our own solace from the ruins at our feet — or more succinctly: “Life is what we make it.” Mirroring the message of her spoken words, Reyez’s songs illuminate their painful roots, showcasing her raw powers of creation in sparsely accompanied vocal vignettes that are direct, immediate and often incendiary.

TED community member Sean Goode speaks at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

“Will you forgive me, no matter what I do, no matter what I say?” asked TED community member Sean Goode. He believes saying yes to this question provides the opportunity for greater connection, giving space to discuss different experiences and disagreements without harm. By providing grace, says Goode, we’re able to look past difficult histories and envision a more hopeful future together.

Parenting whisperer Becky Kennedy speaks at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Every parent loses their temper, but what comes next? As with any relationship, clinical psychologist and parenting whisperer Becky Kennedy believes the best choice is repair: go back to the moment of disconnection, take responsibility for your actions and state what you’ll do differently next time. Where a parent’s lack of repair can force the child to form unproductive coping mechanisms seeped in self-blame, a 15-second intervention can foster healthy emotional regulation and teach effective communication. Kennedy offers straightforward guidance on how to repair, with tips on self-forgiveness, accountability and seizing the opportunity for growth in all relationships — no matter how big the obstacle may seem.

Death doula Alua Arthur speaks at Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Just as it’s healthy and helpful to think about our lives, so too is it healthy and helpful to think about how they’ll end, says death doula Alua Arthur. As someone who provides non-medical, holistic support for dying people as well as their friends and family, Arthur spends a lot of time thinking about the end of life. The central question she asks people through her work is this: “What must you do to be at peace with yourself so that you may live presently and die gracefully?” By encouraging people to view their present life from the vantage point of a graceful death, Arthur helps them retrofit their lives, seeing clearly who they want to be and what kind of legacy they want to leave behind. Humans are meaning-making machines, she says. Rather than waiting until our deathbeds to figure out our grand life purpose, why not make meaning and magic out of the daily mundane? “The greatest gift of mortality is the sheer wonder that we get to live at all,” she says.

The TED Theater during Session 9 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers hosts Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

It wouldn’t be a TED conference without a session devoted to nerding out. Session 8 of TED2023 featured speakers covering the future of digital property rights and blockchain, new thinking on health and medicine, a deep look at the problems facing the oceans and how a few simple lines can evoke both life’s challenges and its wonder.

The event: Talks from Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED current events curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers

When and where: Thursday, April 20, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Yat Siu, Anna Greka, Jeff Chen, Amy Baxter, Nina Tandon, Tony Long, Liana Finck

Future-focused technologist Yat Siu speaks at Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

What does it mean to own something online? Most of us spend hours each day online, but we own very little there. You don’t own your Instagram account or the data your TikTok usage creates — data that generates profit and feeds TikTok’s superior algorithm. Future-focused technologist Yat Siu believes the “open metaverse,” a decentralized version of the internet also known as web3, is laying the foundation for a freer, fairer, more prosperous internet by ensuring robust digital property rights. Around the world, the freest, wealthiest countries enjoy strong property rights — so should we be concerned that more and more of our lives are being mediated by a version of the internet that doesn’t guarantee those same rights to its users?

Cellular (dys)function researcher Anna Greka speaks at Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Molecular scientist Anna Greka studies the world’s rarest diseases using advanced technology to analyze billions of cells via millions of images. With hypothesis-driven research, or “molecular sleuthing,” as she calls it, Greka and her team have been able to determine the cause of a previously mysterious string of kidney failures — and even developed a promising treatment. Their work could lead to treatments for more than 50 different diseases plaguing humanity, from ALS to Alzheimer’s, underlining Greka’s belief that studying the most niche medical cases could really help us all.

Health tech entrepreneur Jeff Chen speaks at Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

What if there was an easy way to prove the effectiveness of natural products? With AI-driven, crowdsourced clinical trials, health tech entrepreneur and TED community member Jeff Chen believes these supplements can have their chance to prove efficacy with a diverse dataset that includes populations historically excluded from trials — and that’s exactly what he and his team at Radical Science are doing. By sending products directly to a diverse grouping of consumers for testing and collecting that data, they offer an avenue to bypassing the slow-moving process of FDA approval — while giving some of nature’s oldest medicines the chance to be put to the test.

Pain management pioneer Amy Baxter speaks at Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

What is pain, really? If you whack your thumb with a hammer, you might think, “The pain is in my thumb.” But the reality is that nerves are sending an alarm to your spine, and then pain happens in your brain … somewhere. It’s kind of vague, says pediatric emergency physician and pain management pioneer Amy Baxter. What we do know is that pain’s not in one place, but rather is a symphony of connections. This includes connections to areas of the brain that trigger things like fear, memory, meaning and control. (“The same punch on the arm hurts more from a bully than a buddy,” she says.) Baxter has used this insight to find alternative treatments to pain, in an effort to reduce use of addictive opioids like oxycontin. She explains how methods ranging from vibration and cold to distraction, counting and relaxation can help block pain — without the potentially fatal side effects of opioid use. We have power over our pain, she says: it just takes some practice.

Bioengineer Nina Tandon speaks at Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

As humans injure earlier and live longer than ever before, we need our implants to last as long as we do, says bioengineer and TED community member Nina Tandon. In both her 2011 and 2012 TED Talks, she championed the use of stem cells as an ingredient to grow spare parts for repairs on the human body. At TED2023, she gives an update on how far her organization has come in developing bone and cartilage replacements. (For the curious, it takes three weeks to engineer bone, and four for cartilage — plus they can do any of the 207 bones or 360 joints in the body.) As of 2021, they became the first biotech company greenlit by the FDA to use this approach. She asks: “Would we rather have spare parts made from metal, plastic and ceramic, or connect to our own internal fountain of cellular youth?”

Ocean conservation expert Tony Long speaks at Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

Today, a fifth of all seafood is thought to be caught illegally, a crime worth up to 23.5 billion dollars per year. Pirate fishing threatens the health of our ocean and the well-being of millions of people — and it’s not the only crime at sea that goes undetected. Oil spills go unpunished, oil and gas exploration unmonitored. Why are Earth’s oceans such a Wild West? The problem is they’re vast, says Tony Long, president and CEO of Global Fishing Watch and 2023 Audacious Project grantee. You can’t manage the entire ocean from the decks of ships — but you can from space. Using machine learning and GPS data, Global Fishing Watch has built the first-ever livestream map to track the movements of industrial fishing fleets and made it freely available to the world — part of a plan to illuminate all human activity in the ocean and transform ocean management.

Intuitive illustrator Liana Finck speaks at Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

In an illustrated journey through an often-baffling world, cartoonist Liana Finck‘s drawings hold our hands through life’s most confusing predicaments (large and small): pondering what to make for dinner, how to leave a party without being rude. She also takes on more complex things that take many drawings, like creating her own version of God; think more human, less confident. After a breakup, Finck realized drawing from her own life not only helped her understand herself better — but also helped her connect to other people. With the power of pen and paper, she shows us we can navigate life’s complexities together with levity, humor and line.

The TED Theater during Session 8 of TED2023: Possibility on April 20, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

ChatGPT stunned the world. What comes next?

Speaking live at Session 2 of TED2023 on Tuesday, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman took a peek under the hood of GPT-4 — the company’s most advanced large language model — and discussed why he thinks this is a historic moment to shape the future of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Brockman projected his laptop onto the big screens in the TED Theater and demoed a series of mind-blowing, unreleased plug-ins for ChatGPT. Working live off the internet, he showed how ChatGPT could help you create a recipe for dinner, generate an image of the finished dish, draft a tweet about that dish and build the corresponding grocery list in Instacart — all without you ever having to leave the chatbot. He went on to demonstrate ChatGPT’s new ability to fact-check its own work (with citations you can click on) and interpret a data-intensive spreadsheet even when given relatively vague instructions.

OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The idea, Brockman says, is that the machine learns to “align” with your intent. Just like you might teach a child a task without giving precise instructions, so too will the AI gradually learn to apply its knowledge to novel situations through a feedback loop with users. He hopes this will take the shape of a deep, trustworthy collaboration between humans and AI on the path to completing harder and harder tasks. Humans will be the managers and overseers of this work, Brockman says — the machine just executes the details.

Acknowledging that many people are nervous about the potential of AGI, Brockman nonetheless maintained his view that the technology will create a better world for everyone. The key to achieving this, he says, will be widespread participation and input from people on what the guardrails for the AI should be.

Head of TED Chris Anderson (left) and OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman speak at Session 2 at TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

After the talk, head of TED Chris Anderson joined Brockman onstage to dig deeper into the timeline of ChatGPT’s development and the risks, raised by many in the tech industry and beyond, of putting such a powerful tool out into the world. Was it a responsible decision, or a reckless one? Brockman’s stance is that the best approach is to release the machine before it’s super powerful, see it in action and “let reality hit you in the face.” From there, he says, it’s our collective responsibility to provide feedback to the AI on the way to incremental improvement.

One way or another, Brockman says, AGI is poised to transform almost every aspect of how we use computers. It’s time that we all get literate in this technology.

OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Head of TED Chris Anderson and Audacious Project Executive Director Anna Verghese host Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

In the soul-seeking Session 7 of TED2023 a group of extraordinary individuals considered counternarratives to the doom-and-gloom that pervades much of modern media and sought to recalibrate our thinking on what it means to be human.

The event: Talks from Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and Audacious Project Executive Director Anna Verghese

When and where: Wednesday, April 19, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Natalie Cargill, Sixto Cancel, Richard V. Reeves, Coleman Hughes, Anne Morriss, Kevin Stone, Sarah Jones, Sheena Meade

Singer-songwriter Maria Arnal performs at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Performance: Singer-songwriter Maria Arnal lit up the TED stage, weaving together folk and techno-pop to create a dazzling soundscape.

The talks in brief:

Philanthropic mastermind Natalie Cargill speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

What would you do with 3.5 trillion dollars? Philanthropic mastermind Natalie Cargill has used this thought experiment, grounded in thousands of hours of expert research, to investigate what it would take to actually solve some of our most pressing problems. With this amount of money, she says, we could tackle extreme poverty, pandemic prevention, climate change, nuclear war, runaway AI and more – with just one year’s worth of funding. Where would this money come from, you may ask? If everyone in the global top one percent of earners (i.e., people making $60,000 a year or more after tax) gave away just ten percent of their income for a year, we’d be there. Cargill’s point is that we’re not doomed to suffer through unnecessary and avoidable issues. “Huge problems can be solved, and philanthropy can be good,” she says.

Foster care transformation advocate Sixto Cancel speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

As adults, foster youth are two times more likely than war veterans to experience and suffer from PTSD, says child welfare advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Sixto Cancel. He shares his story of entering foster care at 11 months old, being placed with a foster family at nine years old and then, at 15, collecting enough evidence to prove he was unsafe in that home and re-entering the system. Eventually, Cancel was reunited with relatives who happened to live only 58 miles away from where he grew up, and while he was grateful, he couldn’t help but think about how different his life could have been had he been raised by people who loved him all along. With this in mind, Cancel founded Think of Us: a nonprofit dedicated to engaging with youth, parents and relatives to redesign foster care into a system where children are raised by kin in supportive and safe environments. He shares three urgent messages: (1) Children should be raised by their families and the majority of foster care should be replaced with kinship care. (2) We need to center those who have been impacted by the system when redesigning it. (3) We all have a role to play in this cause. “Together … we can literally ensure that millions of children are living in a home where they can say, ‘I am loved,'” says Cancel.

Social mobility scholar Richard V. Reeves speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

While researching gender inequality in education, social mobility scholar Richard V. Reeves made a surprising discovery: when it comes to a school without barriers, girls have the academic advantage. It’s not a question of intelligence; it’s simply that the part of the brain associated with organization and impulse control develops later in boys than girls — meaning doing chemistry homework can be a lot more difficult for male students. Reeves suggests a more equitable school system would start boys a year after girls and makes the case for hiring more male teachers — particularly in English, where more young men struggle — to give boys role models in the classroom. “The future cannot be female. Nor of course, can the future be male. The future has to be for every single one of us … We have to rise together,” says Reeves.

Podcast host Coleman Hughes speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

The percentage of Black and white Americans who felt good about race relations nosedived from 2013 to 2021. Given this concerning trend, writer and podcast host Coleman Hughes thinks we need a new racial paradigm. Our current fixation on racial identity — where “we let racial essences define who we are” — does more harm than good, he says. He advocates for rehabilitating a now-controversial ideology: colorblindness. Far from being conservative or white supremacist, as some critics allege, Hughes says colorblindness has its roots in the US antislavery movement and is the “best principle with which to govern a multiracial, multiethnic democracy.” But wouldn’t a colorblind approach render us unable to fight racism, gutting key policies like affirmative action? Hughes thinks replacing race-based policies with class-based ones would both reduce inequality and ease racial tensions. Class is almost always a better proxy for disadvantage than race, he says, and class-based policies are less divisive because they “do not penalize anyone for immutable biological traits.”

Leadership visionary Anne Morriss speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Leadership visionary and cohost of the TED Audio Collective podcast Fixable Anne Morriss offers five steps to solve any workplace problem, starting with curiosity. First, she says, ask questions that get to the root of the issue, being open to the idea that it could be you. Next, formulate a “good enough plan,” and then talk to those with different perspectives to build trust and improve your plan. Finally, honor the past as you set a vision for the future, recognizing what people don’t want to lose. In the last step, take action with urgency, effectively putting into place everything you’ve learned in the previous steps. “The most effective leaders we know solve problems at an accelerated pace, while also taking responsibility for the success and the wellbeing of their customers and employees and shareholders,” says Morris. “They move fast and fix things.”

Orthopedic surgeon Kevin Stone speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

From synthetic embryos to lab-grown skin, we live in a brave new world of stem cell advances. So why can it still take years to recover from a knee injury? When you tear your ACL, the stem cells in your body produce daughter cells called progenitor cells that orchestrate the body’s healing response. But this response only activates after the initial injury and can prove insufficient over time. By strengthening this response, orthopedic surgeon and TED community member Kevin Stone hopes to make ACL injury recovery a matter of weeks, not months or years. 

Polymorphic filmmaker Sarah Jones speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

With chameleonic ease, polymorphic filmmaker Sarah Jones slips into and out an array of characters in a talk exploring cancel culture, which she defines as when people (both powerful and marginalized) are “silenced, excluded, disempowered and disinvited from the larger conversation.” Jones shares her own painful experience being canceled ahead of the release of her 2022 film Sell/Buy/Date, digging into the nuances of this much-discussed, often nebulous phenomenon. In her view, cancellation doesn’t improve the larger culture of inequality but instead creates more hurt and angry people. She thinks the solution to actually holding others to account is to start by being self-accountable — noticing any tendencies in ourselves that could be hurtful and trying to unlearn them — and then doing the hard work of trying to help others see the biases they may be blind to.

Second chance advocate Sheena Meade speaks at Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

“For many Americans, a criminal record — even for a petty offense — can hold them back forever,” says Desmond Meade, introducing his wife, Sheena Meade, CEO of the Clean Slate Initiative and a 2023 Audacious Project grantee. Like many, her future was heavily affected by a minor conviction (bouncing a check to pay for her family’s groceries), and this was enough to bar her from housing and education opportunities for years later. Around 100 million Americans — or one in three — have an arrest or conviction record. More than 30 million of them are eligible for clearance, but fewer than 10 percent pursue it because it’s expensive and many don’t even know it’s an option. Meade makes the case for clean slate laws that automate the sealing of arrest and conviction records after people have completed their sentence and remain crime-free for a set period of time. In the last three years, she and her team have helped pass laws in six states, helping millions move on with their lives. With the Audacious Project, they’re working towards passing these laws in 50 states, so an additional 14 million people get a true second chance.

TED community members applaud the speakers of Session 7 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

TED’s head of curation Helen Walters speaks at Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

In a mind-bending Session 6 of TED2023, neurotech, mental health and breakthroughs in brain-computer interfaces took the mainstage, with seven incredible speakers sharing ideas on how our brains may soon get an upgrade.

The event: Talks from Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED’s head of curation Helen Walters

When and where: Wednesday, April 19, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Luis von Ahn, Andy Dunn, Francesca Hogi, Gus Worland, Maya Shankar, Nita Farahany, Conor Russomanno

The talks in brief:

Educational equity technologist Luis von Ahn speaks at Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

We often think of education as an equalizing force, but unequal access to education actually worsens inequality. Motivated by his experience in his native Guatemala, educational equity technologist Luis von Ahn embarked on an ambitious mission: to boost access to education globally. The brainchild of that effort, Duolingo, now has hundreds of millions of users. But in designing Duolingo, von Ahn faced a big problem: How could an app designed to actually teach you something compete with platforms like TikTok and Instagram, some of the most addictive things humans have ever created? If Duolingo was the “broccoli” of smartphone apps, von Ahn decided he would have to “make broccoli taste like dessert.” The result: an app that harnesses the psychological techniques of social media and mobile games for a good cause.

Mental health truth-teller Andy Dunn speaks at Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Mental health truth-teller Andy Dunn began suffering from manic episodes due to bipolar I disorder in his early 20s, around the same time he was creating his immensely successful online retail company Bonobos. Such mental health issues have been shown to appear at higher rates among entrepreneurs, often applauded for their “crazy” ideas while their darker “shadows” are ignored. Dunn shares his journey to mental wellness and offers a vision of a future where entrepreneurs are “able to dream crazy dreams” while also being held accountable, in and out of the boardroom. He calls for more accessible, affordable healthcare for all and asks everyone to consider the truly conditional nature of love and leadership. “Entrepreneurs are not gods, even when we think we are,” says Dunn.

Love coach and podcast host Francesca Hogi speaks at Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

“You were born knowing how to love,” says love coach, podcast host and TED community member Francesca Hogi. She spent 10 years speaking to thousands of individuals about their romantic hopes and dreams, uncovering the pervasiveness of false marketing that claims “while you can’t buy love, you can buy your worthiness to be loved.” Hogi says this propaganda makes us believe love is external and scarce, instead of internal and infinite. To find true love, she says to begin with cultivating love for yourself within, and “transcend the shallow fantasy of love you’ve been sold for so long.”

Mental fitness advocate Gus Worland speaks at Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Lots of people talk about the need to be physically fit, but mentally fit? Not as much. Radio host Gus Worland is trying to change that by helping people develop the skills and “emotional muscle” needed to recognize when they’re struggling, learn how to talk about it and be vulnerable enough to ask for help. With his nonprofit Gotcha4Life, Worland is spreading this work in the hopes of ending suicide and breaking the stigma around mental health issues. He shares the story of his best friend and mentor, who took his own life years ago and issues a call to everyone to “look after their own villages” and check in on the most important people in their lives – today. Where to start? It can be as simple as sending this text message to the people that mean the most to you, Worland says: “I love you. I miss you. See you soon xoxo.”

Cognitive scientist Maya Shankar speaks at Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

Who are you, and how do you transform in the face of change? Cognitive scientist Maya Shankar shares three questions you can ask to find out who you are when the world feels like it’s shifting under your feet. First: “How does this change change what you’re capable of?” Next, “How might this change change what you value?” And third,: How might this change change how you define yourself?” Shankar shares stories — and the science behind change — of people who stepped out of their comfort zones and rigid mindsets and found themselves changed for the better. Maybe through their experiences, and Shankar’s own story as well, a new, lesser-traveled yet more rewarding and expansive path rich with possibility awaits.

Neurotechnology ethicist Nita Farahany speaks at Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

While we can track the minutiae of our bodies (heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and even whether we’re snoring too loud) via a host of wearables and other devices, there is very little technology that allows us to track our brain activity. All of that is about to change. Neurotechnology ethicist Nita Farahany demonstrates how we’re witnessing the dawn of technology that will allow us to record our most private data: the electromagnetic pulses that map our thoughts and desires. This information will then unlock (and, indeed, is already unlocking) the potential to self-program ourselves via brain stimuli that could help us treat everything from depression to epilepsy. There’s a catch, however. Who is collecting our brain data, and how will they use it? Farahany argues that without a recognized and protected “human right for cognitive liberty,” we could just as easily benefit from healing as we could also fall prey to microtargeting, surveillance and manipulation.

Neurotechnologist and inventor Conor Russomanno speaks at Session 6 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Years ago, when he was a student at Parsons, neurotechnologist and inventor Conor Russomanno dreamed of peering into the workings of his own brain and created a low-cost, single-channel EEG machine to do just that. From this initial breakthrough, Russomanno has developed technology that utilizes not only the brain but also neglected muscles of the human body to create mind-blowing human-computer interfaces. With the help of collaborator Christian Bayerlein, who is wheelchair-bound due to a motor disorder, Russomanno demonstrates a system that allows Bayerlein to fly a drone over the astonished audience, using vestigial muscle control coupled with an optical headset equipped with neurosensors. Russomanno’s work emphasizes that his ultimate dream — a two-way brain-computer interface — depends as much on our entire nervous system (cognition, or “the mind”) as it does on the brain itself.

Attendees make their way into the TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Head of TED Chris Anderson speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

How do we strike a balance between sounding the alarm about the devastation wrought by climate change and telling the story of an actual pathway forward? Session 5 of TED2023 sought to stem the despair and cultivate hope and action on the most pressing issue of our time.

The event: Talks from Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson

When and where: Wednesday, April 19, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Hannah Ritchie, Garry Cooper, Nicole Rycroft, Shane Campbell-Staton, George T. Whitesides, Steve Long, Wanjira Mathai

The talks in brief:

Environmental data scientist Hannah Ritchie speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

According to a recent international survey, more than half of young people think humanity is doomed. But environmental data scientist Hannah Ritiche says that far from being the “last generation,” as some climate activists call themselves, today’s youth have the opportunity to be the first generation in human history to achieve true sustainability. For Ritchie, this would mean both protecting our environment and providing a good life for everyone alive today. In the past, improving human lives came with an environmental price tag, but Ritchie says that no longer has to be true. With technological advances, such as the rapid acceleration of solar power, we now have the capacity to improve life globally while also stewarding Earth for future generations. To do so, we must push for zero emissions and frame sustainability as an opportunity, not a sacrifice.

Circular economy builder Garry Cooper speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

Cities are a great place to initiate new economic models. Circular economy builder Garry Cooper cites Chicago, for instance, as a place already working to transform its traditional linear economy into a circular one. This means creating a system of sharing resources and repurposing items that are no longer needed, from basic materials to furniture and beyond. To transition any city toward a circular economy, Cooper lays out three main steps: first, establish a digital infrastructure (like universal access to internet) so that all can be involved; second, build a tried-and-true way to operationalize reusing and recycling materials (think Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, but expanded); and third, incentivize every person and business to participate through smart public policy. Circular economies can create a better future though reinventing economic opportunity, strengthening community ties, uplifting citizens and protecting the climate, says Cooper. “We’re all neighbors, not competitors, not strangers. We need each other and whatever city or town we reside in.”

Biodiversity champion Nicole Rycroft speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Every year, billions of trees are cut down for the production of paper packaging or fabrics like rayon and viscose. If we’re going to beat climate change, we need to make these supply chains more sustainable, says 2023 Audacious Project grantee and biodiversity champion Nicole Rycroft. Her organization, Canopy, partners with key industry leaders to overhaul their supply chains in favor of next-generation wood pulp alternatives, such as used cotton fabric, microbial cellulose or agricultural residues like leftover wheat straw. With these substitutes, Canopy has already shifted more than 50 percent of global viscose production out of the world’s ancient and endangered forests, setting a transformative precedent for the future of pulp production — and creating a sustainable playbook for other industries in need of reform. “For every sector, there is a more sustainable path forward,” says Rycroft.

Megafire fighter George T. Whitesides speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Wildfires like those in Santa Rosa in 2017 and Australia in 2020 are a large and growing global challenge — and fire experts say things are likely to get worse before they get better. Billions of dollars are being spent to fight this blazing issue, explains George T. Whitesides, who left a successful aerospace career to take on megafires, or those that burn more than 100,000 acres. Working with experts across disciplines, from firefighters and tribal communities to scientists and policymakers, Whitesides cofounded Megafire Action, an organization dedicated to building fire-adapted communities. He shares three emerging solutions to this alarming problem: (1) build resilient communities that design with fire safety in mind, (2) take measures to control fire spread, like reducing the amount of overgrowth in landscapes, and (3) innovate fire-management technologies that can rapidly detect and put out fires.

Evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell-Staton speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

We tend to think of evolution as a slow, gradual process playing out over thousands or millions of years. But evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell-Staton shows how evolution is now rapidly reshaping life in response to the world humanity has built. Small lizards in Puerto Rico have evolved longer limbs and larger toe pads to use buildings as perches, for example, while the genome of wolves living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone appears to be changing in response to decades of radiation exposure. “We live in a time when we are literally etching our decisions into the DNA of the species that live in, on and around us,” Campbell-Staton says. Now the question is: When we consider the story that we’re writing, what do we want our chapter in this grand book of life to say?

Crop sustainability scientist Steve Long speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Photosynthesis is one of the most important processes on the planet: it helps produce the air we need to survive. For more than a decade, crop sustainability scientist Steve Long has used genetic simulations and experimental farms to make this process more efficient. But why haven’t millions of years of evolution already optimized photosynthesis? Because our crops did not evolve to thrive in our now carbon-rich atmosphere, nor can they adjust to light fluctuations in densely cultivated fields, Long says. His team has genetically optimized crops like soybean to account for these human-driven changes, sometimes increasing yields by more than 20 percent. By boosting photosynthesis, Long hopes we can start a 21st-century green revolution: improving food access for the 10 percent of humanity experiencing food insufficiency — while also reducing carbon emissions. 

Environmental restoration champion Wanjira Mathai speaks at Session 5 of TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

2023 Audacious Project grantee Wanjiri Mathai recalls that her mother, Nobel laureate and Green Belt Movement founder Wangari Maathai, used to tell her: “Nature is the source of everything good.” Today, the lush landscapes Wangari Maathai knew in Kenya have been denuded and degraded; overall, 60 percent of the soil in Africa is unproductive. But, relying on local leadership and local wisdom, a continent-wide coalition of stakeholders and entrepreneurs is working to revitalize Africa’s land. This coalition, AFR100, has an ambitious goal: the restoration of 100 million hectares on the continent by 2030. By re-greening Africa, Mathai said, AFR100 can help secure livelihoods, mitigate climate change and secure communities against the worst effects of our changing climate.

The TED Theater during Session 5 of  TED2023: Possibility on April 19, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Comedian Pardis Parker and TED’s head of curation Helen Walters speak at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

In a session that was by turns soul-stirring, uproariously funny, deadly serious and brilliantly colorful, seven speakers transported the TED audience to a solar engineering project in outer space, a 24-hour concert and performance, a movement to prove that birds aren’t real and more.

The event: Talks from Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by comedian Pardis Parker and TED’s head of curation Helen Walters

When and where: Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Yara Shahidi, Ali Hajimiri, Nadya Tolokonnikova, Tavares Strachan, Machine Dazzle, Doris Mitsch, Peter McIndoe

The talks in brief:

Actor and producer Yara Shahidi speaks at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

You may know actor and producer Yara Shahidi from the hit shows black-ish and grown-ish. Sure, she may be in a unique position, but like anybody growing up, she juggles multiple interests, passions and jobs. From her vantage point, she sees that the best way to create a truly fulfilling life is to lead with curiosity — and she invites us all to join her in recommitting to wherever our minds and hearts take us. Don’t second-guess what “distracts” you, she says: that’s your curiosity coming through, an act of creation in itself. Denying your imagination only limits the infinite possibilities just over the horizon.

Space solar-power experimenter Ali Hajimiri speaks at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

From laptops to phones and AirPods, wireless technology permeates modern life. What if the energy powering these technologies was also wireless? Space solar-power experimenter Ali Hajimiri sees this future, once the stuff of science fiction, on the near horizon. By exploiting the interference property of waves, we can already direct energy from a generator to a wireless light bulb. Now imagine scaling up this capability: the generator becomes a solar panel orbiting Earth, the light bulb a remote village or a war-torn city with power outages. Recently, Hajimiri’s team made a key step toward this vision, launching a rocket that will unfold in space into an array of flexible solar panels designed to transmit energy to Earth. 

TED community member Terry Moore speaks at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

In a quick, fascinating talk, TED community member Terry Moore discusses the mathematics behind what’s known as Penrose tiling, a type of design characterized by aperiodicity, where simple patterns expand infinitely in any direction without ever repeating. He shows how, when you take a closer look, this type of design shows up in human cultures across millennia (long before Roger Penrose “invented” it in 1974). The takeaway? This pattern is like life — complicated, impossible to predict, unfolding differently based on every decision — yet, underlying everything, there’s a hidden unity that holds things together. “When we see these amazing designs, we can know they’re not decorations,” Moore says. “They’re a statement, they’re a message. Look, listen. You can hear their voices.”

Conceptual artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova speaks at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

In 2012, conceptual artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova and her resistance group, Pussy Riot, were sentenced to two years in prison for speaking out against Vladimir Putin’s regime. Since her release, she’s founded the independent investigative news agency Mediazona and organized support for a number of international art and women’s movements. While she now lives in exile, Tolokonnikova stands as a leading voice in the fight for freedom in Russia, named a top enemy of Putin simply because, in her words, “courage is contagious.” Now she calls for everyone to embrace the courage within themselves and delivered a powerful message to Putin himself: “You have already lost. You know it. … The world is with Ukraine.”

Conceptual artist Tavares Strachan speaks at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Conceptual artist Tavares Strachan has always been hungry for uncovering and sharing novel experiences. On his journey to the Arctic, he learned about the lesser-known travels of African American explorer Matthew Henson, who was part of the first human crew to reach the North Pole, sparking a pivot in his artwork towards a quest to tell lost stories. Strachan created the Encyclopedia of Invisibility, a 3,000-page leather-bound book with more than 17,000 entries on things often left out of history courses, from Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the mother of rock and roll, to the Minos, an all-female military regiment from the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin), and many more. He also shares the story of Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first Black astronaut, for whom Strachan worked with SpaceX to produce a satellite and blast a golden bust called ENOCH with the astronaut’s likeness into space — launching his legacy to the stars.. “If you really pay attention, you start to see these lost stories all around you,” says Strachan. “When you find them, you realize that they can speak with a very loud mouth.”

Unapologetic maximalist Machine Dazzle speaks at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

“My approach is maximal,” says Machine Dazzle, a self-described radical, queer, emotionally driven, instinct-based concept artist and thinker. He takes us on a stunning tour of his boundary-pushing work — including costumes such as a bouffant made out of metallic pipe cleaners, a dress made of hot dogs and barbwire and a headdress made out of dynamite and toilet paper (to name just a few) — and demonstrates the power of tapping into the full complexity of yourself. He’s joined onstage by his friend Matty Crosland, who undergoes a costume-fueled transformation as Machine Dazzle speaks.

Design-minded artist Doris Mitsch speaks at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Have you ever been curious about what the world gets up to as it passes you by? Not the world you know, but the one outside human perception and awareness. Design-minded artist Doris Mitsch invites us into the wonder and awe of nature’s everyday feats — the ones that surpass humanity’s five senses — through her dazzling photography. Starlings in flight and formation, trout tracking their way by waves of light, bats that shriek louder than we can hear. Hidden, invisible intelligence that redraws the maps of our own understanding of the world when we stumble upon the truths of our fellow earthlings. In that spirit, Mitsch encourages us to embrace their otherness and revel in the experience. In the words of the poet and naturalist Jarod K. Anderson: “Bats can hear shapes. Plants can eat light. Bees can dance maps. We can hold all these ideas at once and feel both heavy and weightless with the absurd beauty of it all.”

Bird truther Peter McIndoe speaks at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

In 2018, bird truther Peter McIndoe founded a movement behind a fake conspiracy theory claiming that birds aren’t real but are instead robots created by the government in the middle of the 20th century to spy on all of us. As he fed the lie — hiring actors to play retired CIA agents speaking out, holding rallies populated by thousands of “bird truthers” — McIndoe learned about the power behind a conspiracy theory and why people will go so far for a story others find completely, ridiculously false. He explores the loneliness and polarization that he believes leads people to find community wherever they can (even in movements defined by outrageous claims) and offers steps we can take as a society to increase our collective empathy, build constructive community and combat the growth of harmful conspiracies. “Let’s direct our attention to the crisis of belonging, and then maybe we’ll understand the crisis of belief,” he says.

Pussy Riot cofounder Nadya Tolokonnikova receives a standing ovation at Session 4 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington-Rodgers hosts Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

From climate change to aging to geopolitics, Session 3 of TED2023 surveyed big issues with worldwide implications.

The event: Talks from Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington-Rodgers

When and where: Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Jennifer D. Sciubba, Piyachart Phiromswad, Chip Conley, Ashif Shaikh, Barbara F. Walter, Keyu Jin, Ian Bremmer

The talks in brief:

Political demographer Jennifer D. Sciubba speaks at Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Despite decades of (justified) warnings against the dangers of overpopulation, the world is facing a once-unthinkable possibility: declining population growth, fueled by aging, lower fertility rates and depopulation. But the solution to an aging, shrinking world (and diminished economy) isn’t to have more babies. Instead, says political demographer Jennifer D. Sciubba, we must learn to invest in the health and the welfare of the living, build a resilient global workforce and create sustainable systems that can survive dramatic demographic shifts.

Aging rethinker Piyachart Phiromswad speaks at Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Continuing with the theme of understanding and improving our relationship to aging, economist Piyachart Phiromswad explores the technology that can help seniors overcome the physical, mental and societal barriers to employment. Tools like full-body exoskeletons can support people as they lift heavy objects, while robotic arms can steady shaky hands, helping seniors with advanced training and knowledge continue their work with precision. Other technology can set reminders to aid a failing memory or allow seniors to work from home, avoiding strenuous travel. These tools would help the senior population remain active, reduce the financial burden on pension and aid programs, increase economic production and help to eradicate the false assumption that older people can no longer be productive members of society.

Chip Conley speaks at Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

“What if we rethought midlife such that it’s not a crisis but a chrysalis?” asks entrepreneur and TED community member Chip Conley. Providing a fresh perspective on a time of life that’s often misunderstood, Conley suggests a new way to the way we think about our 40s, 50s and 60s, tracing the invention of the term “midlife crisis” back to the relatively recent date 1965 and offering an alternative narrative that paints midlife as a transitional stage between adulthood and new stage of life, the way a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.

Courage sparker Ashif Shaikh speaks at Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

Hundreds of millions of migrant workers leave everything they know behind to seek out means of survival — and climate change will only exacerbate this movement. Migrant advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Ashif Shaikh shares how he and his team at Jan Sahas’ Migrants Resilience Collaborative are building a social safety net by making benefits accessible to vulnerable groups and simultaneously establishing a feedback loop between communities and governments to improve existing systems and policies. He shares a video that shows the real-world impact that this two-pronged approach has had in India and other parts of South and Southeast Asia. “Without a safety net, one job loss, one health emergency, can undermine years of effort and keep [migrants] trapped in the cycles of poverty,” Shaikh says.

Civil wars expert Barbara F. Walter speaks at Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

We understand the playbook anti-democratic forces use to foment and ignite civil war. Why don’t governments have a similar playbook for preserving stable institutions, civic cooperation and diverse representation? Civil wars expert Barbara F. Walter looks at the United States, which is facing not only degradation to its democratic process through challenges to its elections but also attacks from the hostile demographic groups fading from power, and shares how to respond to these early warning signs of impending trouble.

Economist Keyu Jin speaks at Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

We associate innovation with big breakthroughs, but no one innovates new applications and processes for existing tech better than China, says economist Keyu Jin. American companies brought us the iPhone and the first mass-market electric vehicles (EVs), but China’s EV infrastructure has since vastly outpaced the US, and Chinese smartphone models now dominate in Africa and are gaining popularity across the globe. Jin explains China’s special sauce — political centralization, economic decentralization — and makes an impassioned case for viewing the US and China systems as complementary, not opposed.

Political scientist Ian Bremmer speaks at Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Ask political scientist Ian Bremmer who runs the world and he’ll tell you that today we live in a leaderless world. Bremmer chalks up current geopolitical tensions and conflicts to three things: Russia’s lack of integration into Western institutions and its residual anger as it declines; China’s integration into US-led institutions with the presumption that it’d make the country more American (spoiler: it did not); and finally, millions across the world in wealthy democracies feeling left behind by globalization. So what comes next for the world order? That can be broken into three categories: a global security order (the US and its allies), a global economic order (the US, China, the EU, India) and a new, up-and-coming digital order, run by technology companies (think of social media platforms already powering wars, spreading misinformation, promoting conspiracy theories). Bremmer sounds the alarm on the influence of these technology companies and the power they hold through the almighty algorithm, ending on a simple question aimed at those who run those companies: Are you fine with the fact that what you’ve created destroys democracies, or are you going to do something about it?

Attendees in the TED Theater watch Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jason Redmond / TED)

Head of TED Chris Anderson speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Whether you’re thrilled or terrified by it, there’s no question that the time of artificial intelligence has come. Session 2 of TED2023 looked at some of the reasons to get excited about this transformational moment — and gave space to those who have expressed concern about the future it may usher in.

The event: Talks from Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson

When and where: Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Greg Brockman, Yejin Choi, Gary Marcus, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Alexandr Wang, Sal Khan

The talks in brief:

OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

In a talk from the cutting edge of technology, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman explores the underlying design principles of GPT-4 — the company’s most advanced large language model — and demos some mind-blowing new plug-ins for ChatGPT. Hooking up his laptop to the big screens in the TED Theater, he shows how ChatGPT could help you create a recipe for dinner, generate an image of the finished dish, draft a tweet about that dish and build the corresponding grocery list in Instacart — all without you ever leaving the chatbot. He also shares its new ability to fact-check its own work (with citations a human could triple-check) and interpret a data-intensive spreadsheet even when given relatively vague instructions. After the talk, head of TED Chris Anderson joins Brockman onstage to dig into the timeline of ChatGPT’s development and get Brockman’s take on the risks, raised by many in the tech industry and beyond, around releasing such a powerful tool into the world.

Yejin Choi speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

“Giving true common sense to AI is still a moonshot, and you don’t reach the moon by making the tallest building in the world one inch taller at a time,” says computer scientist Yejin Choi. The epic scale of many AI systems brings three big issues with it, she says: (1) AI models are expensive to train, (2) their power is concentrated to only a few tech companies and (3) the environmental impact is massive. She shares wisdom on how to give AI common sense by instilling the data it’s trained on with human norms and values (not raw web data) and explains why smaller tech can make for a more humanistic, democratic and sustainable AI future.

AI prognosticator Gary Marcus speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Misinformation poses a threat to democracies worldwide. How will the rise of AI systems like ChatGPT impact this trend? As a leading voice in artificial intelligence, Gary Marcus advocates for an international AI regulatory body and says we should find a way to integrate ChatGPT’s brute statistical power with more trustworthy, logic-based systems.

Decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky has a simple message: superintelligent AI could probably kill us all. Is an obedient, even benevolent, AI of superhuman intelligence possible? Yes, Yudkowsky says, but inscrutable large language models like ChatGPT are leading us down the wrong path. By the time the world realizes, he thinks it may be too late.

Alexandr Wang speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

War and AI. Two words that, when put together, might make you (and possibly the entire world) uncomfortable. But it’s a reality we must face, says AI technologist Alexandr Wang as a new technological arms race with deep implications for national security and democracy is on our doorstep. Big international players like China are ahead of the game; meanwhile, the Ukraine War is demonstrating the changing nature of war in real-time, with digital tools proving invaluable to the defense of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. There are a lot of implications to account for, but artificial intelligence can only be as powerful as the data it uses to fuel its algorithms. Wang calls for fellow technologists to rise to the challenge against authoritarian regimes by supporting national security. “We must fight for the world we want to live in. It’s never mattered more.”

Sal Khan speaks at Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

The current general discourse has suggested that artificial intelligence, especially chatbots like ChatGPT, will lead to the death of education and learning. Not so fast, says education innovator Sal Khan; there is still so much opportunity to better education with these new advanced technologies. He reveals and demos Khan Academy’s education-first chatbot, known as Khanmigo. The chatbot can serve as a tutor for the student and a teaching aide for the educator, helping with lesson plans and more. Like this, artificial intelligence is not a gate, but a key that unlocks a new era of educational potential and acceleration.

“Excited or concerned, describe your predominant feeling on AI?” Audience members vote with their hands during Session 2 of TED2023: Possibility on April 18, 2023, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Hosts Whitney Pennington Rodgers, Chris Anderson, and Helen Walters open Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

It’s time for TED! In an eclectic and interdisciplinary opening session, artists, scientists, activists, entrepreneurs and more explored the breadth of transformative possibilities that lie ahead of us, from understanding animal communication to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence to the theory of the “adjacent possible.”

The event: Talks from Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson, Helen Walters and Whitney Pennington Rodgers

When and where: Monday, April 17, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Angus Hervey, Stuart Kauffman, Jennifer Doudna, Golshifteh Farahani, Tom Graham, Karen Bakker, Wangechi Mutu, Benjamin Zander

AI opera Song of the Ambassadors perform at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Opening performance: AI opera Song of the Ambassadors kick off the session and beckon us into a new era of opera, co-created by humans and artificial intelligence, presenting a hymn to nature and existence.

The talks in brief:

Journalist Angus Hervey speaks at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Why are we so good at reporting bad news and so bad at reporting good news? That’s a question journalist Angus Hervey spends a lot of time thinking about as the editor of Future Crunch, a newsletter that cuts through the usual doom and destruction we see on news channels and reports on stories of progress. Delivering a mock newscast from the TED stage, Hervey takes us on a whirlwind tour of the “good news” stories you might have missed from the past year — from the acceleration of the world’s clean energy transition to advancements in public health, human rights, astronomy and more — and clarifies why, if we want to change the story of humanity this century, we have to start changing the stories we tell ourselves.

“Adjacent possible” originator Stuart Kauffman speaks at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

Theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman thinks we can explain the historical pattern of long periods of nothing happening followed by explosive growth (from the Cambrian explosion to hockey-stick growth of global GDP to the present computing revolution) through math — what he calls the theory of the “adjacent possible.” Tracing the arc of human history through the tools and technologies we’ve invented, Kauffman explains that humanity has so far used its creativity to bring about the Anthropocene and the destruction of the biosphere, and provides examples in soil regeneration for how we can reverse the damage and feed the world in the process.

Nobel Laureate and biochemist Jennifer Doudna speaks at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

A brave new world is upon us, and in its dawn emerges a collaboration between two breakthrough technologies — metagenomics and the Nobel Prize-winning technology CRISPR — to birth a new field of science: precision microbiome editing. Jennifer Doudna, co-inventor of CRISPR and a 2023 Audacious Project grantee with the Innovative Genomics Institute, details the deep potential of this new science and its focus on not just one organism but entire populations of organisms called microbiomes that exist in every living thing, influencing things like the development of asthma, obesity, diabetes and Alzheimer’s in the human body and methane production in cows. The opportunities to improve the future health of humanity and the planet are here now, and precision microbiome editing is the way forward, Doudna says.

Live from Rome, actor, musician and activist Golshifteh Farahani speaks at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

“I am the raised fist of young girls with their hair flowing in the wind,” says actor, musician and activist Golshifteh Farahani. In a moving tribute to individuals who have lost their lives during protests in response to the death of Mahsa Amini in her home country of Iran, Farahani draws connections between those fighting for freedom in Iran and the other places in the world where ignorance and fear separates instead of unites humanity.

Head of TED Chris Anderson and AI developer Tom Graham — face-swapped live with Chris — speak at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)Tom Graham, AI developer

In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, AI developer Tom Graham explores how AI-generated content that looks and sounds exactly like the real world (known as “deepfakes”) will come to permeate our lives over the next decade. He offers a proof of concept directly from the stage: a startlingly realistic deepfake of Tom Cruise outside TED2023 in Vancouver, and then a real-time demo of Anderson’s face overlaid first on Graham’s head and then on TED community member Sunny Bates, seated in the first row of the TED Theater. Together they discuss the creative and educational potential of this technology — along with its risk for exploitation — and explain the new legal rights we’ll need to ensure we maintain control over our photorealistic AI avatars.

Conservation technology researcher Karen Bakker speaks at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Conservation technology researcher Karen Bakker uncovers how the animal kingdom communicates in ways as complex as our own human speech – from microscopic coral larvae listening for the sounds of their home reef to the varying dialects in the dictionary of elephants’ trumpeting. Much of nature’s acoustics are ultra- or infra-sonic, lying outside our natural ability to hear (consider a bat’s shrill speech or a hydrothermal vent’s deep hum), but technological breakthroughs are changing that, allowing us to tune into a world previously unheard. Scientists are even able to translate some variations of animal speech, while generative AI is able to imitate some of these sounds, allowing us to communicate with nature like never before – and bringing along some difficult challenges, too. “In nature, sound is everywhere and silence is an illusion,” Bakker says.

Visual artist Wangechi Mutu speaks at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)

“We’ve left messages for each other using art. Messages that travel across vast expanses of time and culture, reminding us of where we came from,” says visual artist Wangechi Mutu. From ancient carvings deep in the Sahara to her own chimeric art, Mutu traces evolving representations of divine femininity and the presence of women in African art. She shares her otherworldy sculptures that merge nature, history and lore, pointing to how art gives voice to those rendered invisible — and reminds us of the freedom found in creation.

Conductor Benjamin Zander speaks at Session 1 of TED2023: Possibility on April 17, 2023 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

In a rousing talk and piano performance to close out the opening session, legendary conductor Benjamin Zander (watch his 2008 TED Talk) explains his view on the difference between “positive thinking” and “possibility,” saying, “Positive thinking is a fraud, and possibility is a language of creation.” And he waxes lyrical about Beethoven, asking us to listen a little deeper to the very familiar “Moonlight Sonata” and inviting the audience to a sing-along (in German) of the original words to “Ode to Joy.”

The entrance to the TED Theater at TED2023: Possibility in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

TED Tech will take place at the Southbank Centre in London, September 18-19, 2023.

Technology’s impact on society and creative expression is transforming the way we think about the world around us. This scale of change has brought uncertainty and fear, but we want the world to build optimism around the potential of AI, web3 and immersive tech.

That’s why we’re gathering to ponder the questions that matter the most: What will a future driven by such extraordinary technological advancements actually look like? How might society, art and culture change as a result of these discoveries? And how can we make sure the world we create is open and welcoming to all?

TED’s first all-tech conference

The first TED Tech conference will take place September 18-19, 2023 at the Royal Festival Hall at Southbank Centre in London. We’ll dive into cutting-edge tech at the intersection of art and culture, bringing together the most brilliant minds – artists, creators, technologists and entrepreneurs – focused on building a future worth celebrating. Register now »

Why it’s different

Now is the time to shape AI and web3, so we can reimagine the ways they’ll be integrated into our daily lives. But this isn’t just another tech conference. Together with our partners at Culture3, we’ve designed a new immersive experience that features talks, workshops, digital art, activations, cultural exhibits and deep human connection so we can experience and debate how tech and extended reality are changing everything. TED Tech will include:

• 1500+ attendees
• 10+ TED Speakers
• Workshops
• Culture3-curated idea forums
• Demos and announcements

In addition to the inspiring talks, workshops and art, TED Tech will also offer plenty of opportunities for deep human connection with other attendees. You’ll have the chance to meet with experts, challenge your thinking and explore new possibilities with leaders, entrepreneurs and investors.

The speakers

Attendees will hear from 10+ TED Speakers and Culture3-curated experts who will dive into the latest advancements revolutionizing the tech industry and radically transforming the world of digital art. Our program will feature demos, performances and industry-shaping announcements from the worlds of art and tech culture.

TED Tech will cover a broad range of topics, including:

• How AI, blockchain and extended reality are empowering creativity and changing how and what we create
• What a future driven by extraordinary tech will actually look like
• How society and culture might change as a result
• Ways we can create a world that’s open and welcoming to all

The attendees

TED is renowned for an audience that is just as impressive as the speakers. This creates a dynamic and inclusive community of humans full of optimism, imagination and a burning desire to build a better future.

At TED Tech, we’ll gather 1500+ brilliant minds, including:

• Tech leaders: CEOs, tech start-up founders, AI entrepreneurs and investors
• Creators: Artists, designers, musicians and developers
• Engineers: Cloud architects, blockchain experts and machine linguists

London’s tech scene

The home of TED’s first tech event will be the Royal Festival Hall at Southbank Centre — the heart of London’s cultural life, the largest arts hub in the UK and one of the UK’s top visitor attractions. This unique venue is also at the heart of London’s dynamic tech ecosystem of new startups, tech giants and world-class universities fueling innovation.

How to attend

TED Tech will takes place in London on September 18-19, 2023. Featuring leaders from AI, web3, art and immersive tech, TED Tech is perfect for engineers, artists and developers looking for inspiration and knowledge about the latest tech trends. Don’t miss your chance to join a powerful community of creators working to build a better future for all of us. Early adopter passes start at £2200. Register now »

Head of TED Chris Anderson and Audacious Project Executive Director Anna Verghese speak at the TED conference in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Today, The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED, announced that more than one billion dollars has been committed to its newest cohort of projects. This is a significant funding milestone in the initiative’s five-year history and comes at a critical time on key issues such as climate change, migrant rights and criminal justice reform.

The 2023 Audacious Project grantees are:

• CAMFED: Helping girls in Sub-Saharan Africa thrive in school — and beyond
• Canopy: Scaling the use of next-generation pulp in key supply chains to conserve endangered forests
• Clean Slate Initiative: Clearing arrest and conviction records to unlock opportunity
• Global Fishing Watch: Leveraging the power of data to safeguard the ocean by making the invisible visible
• Innovative Genomics Institute: Engineering microbiomes with CRISPR to improve our climate and health
• Jan Sahas’ Migrants Resilience Collaborative: Unlocking life-enhancing benefits and services for India’s domestic migrant workers
• ReNew2030: Accelerating renewable energy for a climate-secure future
• Restore Local, A project of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), led by the World Resources Institute: Accelerating locally-led land restoration of Africa’s vital landscapes and forests
• Think of Us: Transforming foster care in the US through the power of lived experience
• Upstream USA: Increasing equitable access to high-quality contraceptive care across the US

“With our 2023 Audacious Project cohort, some of the most complex and challenging problems we’re facing right now – transitioning to renewable energy, increasing access to reproductive health care, transforming our foster care system and more – are being met by some incredible idea-makers,” said Anna Verghese, Executive Director of The Audacious Project. “Each one offers an approach to shift the status quo and the systems they operate in, and will hope to breathe possibility and transformation into these critical issues.”

Each year, The Audacious Project scours the globe for big, bold ideas and collaborates with social entrepreneurs and philanthropists to drive impact on a grand scale. It is an effort that goes beyond funding, pushing for transformative change, systems overhaul and collaboration across multiple sectors. This new cohort will present their big ideas onstage at TED2023, joining an existing portfolio of 39 Audacious projects. Since 2018, more than four billion philanthropic dollars has been catalyzed to support these projects’ visions.

“We started The Audacious Project five years ago as an experiment to see what could happen when we invite changemakers around the world to dream as big as they dare, and then shape their boldest ideas into viable plans,” said Chris Anderson, Head of TED. “It’s absolutely thrilling to see this much money raised for these projects. I’m in awe of the teams behind them — and of the donors who are funding them. Our experiment is gaining traction, and we believe it can achieve even more in the coming years.”

Read more about The Audacious Project and its five years of impact.

ABOUT THE AUDACIOUS PROJECT

Launched in April 2018, The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding initiative that’s catalyzing social impact on a grand scale. Housed at TED, the nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, and with support from leading social impact advisor The Bridgespan Group, The Audacious Project convenes funders and social entrepreneurs with the goal of supporting bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. The funding collective is made up of respected organizations and individuals in philanthropy, including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ELMA Philanthropies, Emerson Collective, MacKenzie Scott, Skoll Foundation, Valhalla Foundation and more.

Each year The Audacious Project supports a new cohort. The 2023 grantees are CAMFED, Canopy, Clean Slate Initiative, Global Fishing Watch, Innovative Genomics Institute, Jan Sahas’ Migrants Resilience Collaborative, ReNew2030, Restore Local, Think of Us and Upstream USA.

TED Live brings the excitement of our flagship conference, TED2023: Possibility, to you — wherever you choose to watch. 

Access a can’t-miss lineup of diverse thinkers, creators, scholars and changemakers unlocking new possibilities and creating a brighter future. Explore radical shifts in technology, art and culture through this global convening of builders and doers — right from your home.

With TED Live, you can watch the entire conference minute-by-minute as it happens (including talks and surprise moments that may not be posted online), or watch the on-demand archive when it’s convenient for you, year-round.

Register now »

There’s a path forward from every problem at work — sometimes we just need some help finding the best direction to take. That’s where the TED Audio Collective’s newest podcast, Fixable, comes in — to guide career advice seekers towards getting unstuck.

Leading the way are hosts Frances Frei, a Harvard Business School professor, and Anne Morriss, CEO and best-selling author. This dynamic leadership power couple (yes, they happen to be married to each other) are taking real people’s career complications — no matter their industry or position — and setting them up for success. From addressing communication roadblocks to unproductive company cultures to uncertainty in how to scale up a business and more, Frei and Morriss share fast, actionable solutions to relatable issues in 30 minutes or less each week.

This isn’t your average “listen and learn” podcast experience. This show is built around participation.

True to its title, Fixable actively connects listeners with expert problem-solvers to steer them towards a thriving professional future. Do you have a work problem you’d like to solve? Call our hotline at 234-Fixable (that’s 234-349-2253) and leave a voicemail explaining your work woes for a chance to be featured on a future episode. 

The first episode drops April 3. Subscribe to Fixable on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. 

Fixable is made possible with the support of SAP. Learn more about how TED partners with best-in-class brands here.

For millennia, humans have debated the connection between the mind, body and spirit. But today, the phrase sounds trite — a hallmark of the #selfcare industry. Over three episodes of this special series on TED Radio Hour, TED speakers will investigate fresh perspectives on how we think, move and feel.

In the first hour: the mind. The brain is the most complex organ in the human body. It gives us control over our bodies and shapes our thoughts, memories and emotions. But how? And can we coach ourselves to think better? The series kicks off with an investigation into the different ways we think and understand the world, what new brain-computer interfaces could do for sharing our thoughts and a story about taming that voice in our head that makes us miserable. Plus, a poem about preparing your mind to be more open to creative ideas. Mind-blowing stuff? Hell yes. Guests explore the internal and external influences on our minds, including animal behaviorist and autism activist Temple Grandin, podcast host and meditation advocate Dan Harris, neurointerventionist Tom Oxley and poet Sarah Kay.

The second hour focuses on the body. We know it’s important to listen to our bodies and trust how we feel, but it’s not always easy. In part 2 of our series, TED speakers explore ideas about movement, pleasure and rest. Guests include choreographer Ryan Heffington, news anchor Lee Thomas, aerialist Adie Delaney and therapist KC Davis.

In the third and final episode we hear from speakers who’ve found unique ways to rekindle the human spirit and, as the saying goes, stay “true” to themselves. Guests include author, researcher and podcaster Tania Lunar, renowned artist JR and serial entrepreneur Artur Sychov. Their challenges include invasions of privacy, incarceration, exile and simply facing human mortality. Their tactics? Sidestepping linear time with innovation, embracing uncertainty by incorporating surprise into our daily lives and using beauty to overwhelm the ugly side of humanity. Their stories will spark your zest for life, too.

You can get all three episodes of our “Mind, Body, Spirit” series, as well as more episodes of TED Radio Hour, on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

TED has unveiled an exceptional speaker lineup for this year’s flagship conference, themed “Possibility.”

TED2023 is all about possibilities. It’s a space to explore, together, a strange and beautiful space called the adjacent possible. We’ll be guided there by dreamers, inventors and creatives. Innovators, entrepreneurs and builders. Explorers and change-makers. Visionary thinkers and doers from every field of human endeavor.

Here’s just a handful we can’t wait to watch live:

• Yara Shahidi, actor, producer (Black-ish, Grown-ish)
• Greg Brockman, AI pioneer (Cofounder, OpenAI — creators of ChatGPT)
• Nadya Tolokonnikova, conceptual artist, activist (Founder, Pussy Riot)
• Melissa Villaseñor, actor, comedian (first Latina cast member of Saturday Night Live)
• Luis von Ahn, educational equity technologist (CEO, Duolingo)
• And so many more!

Browse the full lineup here >>

What’s more? You’re invited to be a part of the TED2023 experience. Attend TED2023 in person and you’ll be dazzled by a stage program that’s designed to surprise and delight — along with interactive workshops, opportunities to connect, creative spaces and more.