TED (conference)

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TED (Technology Entertainment Design) is an annual conference previously held in Monterey, California but as of 2009 will be held in Long Beach, California. It defines its mission as "ideas worth spreading", and indeed the best talks given at TED are made available to the public for free on its website. Its lectures cover a broad set of topics including science, arts, design, politics, global issues, architecture, music and more. The speakers themselves are from a wide variety of communities and disciplines[1][2] and have included such people as former US president Bill Clinton,[3] Nobel laureates James D. Watson [4] and Murray Gell-Mann [5], television producer and political activist Norman Lear, Internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales,[6] and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.[7] The TED Conference also has a companion conference, TED Global, held in varying locations.

The TED staff is headquartered in New York City and Vancouver, Canada.

Some 200 TED talks are provided for viewing online. It has been reported that over 30 million viewings have occurred.[8]

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[edit] History

TED was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in 1984, and was held annually from 1990. Wurman left after the 2002 conference; the event is now hosted by Chris Anderson and owned by his non-profit The Sapling Foundation,[9] devoted to "leveraging the power of ideas to change the world". In 2006, attendance cost $4,400 and was by invitation only.[10] The membership model was shifted in January of 2007 to an annual membership fee of $6,000 which includes attendance of the conference, club mailings, networking tools and conference DVDs.

[edit] TED Prize

In 2005, the TED Prize was introduced. Each year, three individuals are each given $100,000 and granted a "wish to change the world", which they unveil at TED.

The inaugural winners were Bono,[11] Edward Burtynsky[12] on behalf of Worldchanging, and Robert Fischell.[13] Bono's wish resulted in more than one million people signing up to join the ONE Campaign to eradicate poverty.

2006 winners included Larry Brilliant,[14] Jehane Noujaim, and Cameron Sinclair.

In March 2007, the prize was awarded to Bill Clinton,[15] Edward O. Wilson,[16] and James Nachtwey.[17] Also, in 2007, TED uploaded a series of talks on their website, also available on YouTube under the username TEDtalksDirector and on iTunes as both an audio and a video podcast.

The winners for 2008 are Neil Turok, Dave Eggers, and Karen Armstrong.[18]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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