# TED (conference)

TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Spreading"). It was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in February 1984 as a technology conference, in which Mickey Schulhof gave a demo of the compact disc that was invented in October 1982. Its main conference has been held annually since 1990. It covers almost all topics—from science to business to global issues—in more than 100 languages.
TED's early emphasis was on technology and design, consistent with its Silicon Valley origins. It later broadened to include scientific, cultural, political, humanitarian, and academic topics. It has been curated by Chris Anderson, a British-American businessman, through the non-profit TED Foundation since July 2019 (originally by the non-profit Sapling Foundation).
The main TED conference has been held annually in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at the Vancouver Convention Centre since 2014. The first conferences from 1984 (TED1) through 2008 (TED2008) were held at the Monterey Conference Center in Monterey, California. Between 2009 and 2014, it was held in Long Beach, California, United States. TED events are also held throughout North America and in Europe, Asia, and Africa, offering live streaming of the talks. TED returned to Monterey in 2021 with TEDMonterey. The talks address a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture, often through storytelling.
TED conferences are invitation only events with an admission of $6,000.
Since June 2006, TED Talks had been offered for online streaminng. By June 2011, TED Talks' combined viewing figures surpassed 500 million.

## History
### 1984–1999: Founding and early years

TED was conceived in 1984 by Richard Saul Wurman, FAIA '76, and co-founded by Emmy-winning broadcast and graphic designer Harry Marks and CBS President Emeritus Frank Stanton. The conference featured demos of the compact disc, co-developed by Philips and Sony, and one of the first demonstrations of the Apple Macintosh computer. Presentations were given by the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and others such as Nicholas Negroponte and Stewart Brand. The event was financially unsuccessful; six years elapsed before a second conference was organized.
TED2 was held at the same Monterey Conference Center in California in 1990. From 1990 onward, a growing community of "TEDsters" gathered annually with Wurman leading the conference in Monterey until 2009, when it was moved to Long Beach, California due to a substantial increase in the number of those attending. Speakers were initially drawn from the fields of expertise behind the acronym TED; but during the 1990s, presenters broadened to include scientists, philosophers, musicians, religious leaders, philanthropists, and many others.

### 2000–present: recent growth

In 2000, Wurman, looking for a successor at age 65, met with new-media entrepreneur and TED enthusiast Chris Anderson to discuss future happenings. Anderson's UK media company Future bought TED for $14 million ($12 million in cash and $2 million in stocks). In November 2001, Anderson's non-profit The Sapling Foundation (motto: "fostering the spread of great ideas") acquired TED from Future for £6m. In February 2002, Anderson gave a TED Talk in which he explained his vision of the conference and his future role of curator.
In 2012, TED community director Tom Rielly helped the producers of Prometheus gain approval for the use of the TED brand in the promotional short film TED 2023, designed by Rielly with Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof, directed by Luke Scott, and starring Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland, who in the film speaks at a fictional TED conference at Wembley Stadium in the then-future of 2023; on the film's release, Rielly noted that the association had generated millions of unique visits to the TED website.
In 2014, the conference was moved to Vancouver, Canada.
TED is currently funded by various revenue streams, including attendance fees, corporate sponsorships, foundation support, licensing fees, and book sales. Corporate sponsors are diverse, including companies such as Google, GE, AOL, Goldman Sachs, and The Coca-Cola Company. Sponsors do not participate in the event's creation, nor are they allowed to present on the main stage.
In 2015, TED staff consisted of about 180 people headquartered in New York City and Vancouver, British Columbia. On July 1, 2019, the TED Conferences LLC was transferred from Sapling Foundation to TED Foundation to "align with our brand and make it easier for our donors to connect TED donations to TED Conferences, LLC."
In 2021, TED launched the TED Audio Collective with a number of podcasts featuring previous TED Talks and other relevant topics.
TED 2022 was held in Vancouver. There was criticism after Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, flew 9,200 miles (14,800 km) to speak about climate change and the need for reduced carbon emissions.

## TED Prize

The TED Prize was introduced in 2005. Until 2010, $100,000 was given annually to three individuals with a "wish to change the world". Each winner unveiled their wish at the main annual conference. Since 2010, a single winner has been chosen to ensure that TED can maximize its efforts in achieving the winner's wish. In 2012, the prize was not awarded to a person, but to a concept connected to the current global phenomenon of increasing urbanization. In 2013, the prize amount was increased to $1 million. TED Prize winners in previous years have been:
| 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
| Bono | Larry Brilliant | Bill Clinton | Neil Turok | Sylvia Earle | Jamie Oliver | JR | City 2.0 | Sugata Mitra | Charmian Gooch | David Isay | Sarah Parcak | Raj Panjabi |
| Edward Burtynsky | Jehane Noujaim | Edward O. Wilson | Dave Eggers | Jill Tarter | Jamie Oliver | JR | City 2.0 | Sugata Mitra | Charmian Gooch | David Isay | Sarah Parcak | Raj Panjabi |
| Robert Fischell | Cameron Sinclair | James Nachtwey | Karen Armstrong | José Antonio Abreu | Jamie Oliver | JR | City 2.0 | Sugata Mitra | Charmian Gooch | David Isay | Sarah Parcak | Raj Panjabi |
TED Conference commissioned New York artist Tom Shannon to create a prize sculpture for all TED Prize winners. It consists of an eight-inch-diameter (20 cm) aluminum sphere magnetically levitated above a walnut disc. As of 2018 the prize has been recast as The Audacious Project.

## TED.com

In 2005, Chris Anderson hired June Cohen as Director of TED Media. In June 2006, after Cohen's idea of a TV show based on TED lectures was rejected by several networks, a selection of talks that had received highest audience ratings was posted on the websites of TED, YouTube and iTunes under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0. Only a handful of talks was initially posted to see if there was an audience for them. In January of the following year, the number of talks on the sites had grown to 44, and they had been viewed more than three million times. On the basis of that success, the organization pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into its video production operations and the development of a website to feature about 100 of the talks.
In April 2007, the new TED.com was launched, developed by New York and San Francisco-based design company Method. The website has won many prizes, including seven Webby Awards, iTunes' "Best Podcast of the Year" (2006–2010); the Communication Arts Interactive Award for Information Design (2007); the OMMA Award for Video Sharing, the Web Visionary Award for Technical Achievement, and The One Show Interactive Bronze Award (2008); the AIGA Annual Design Competition (2009); and a Peabody Award (2012).
In January 2009, TED videos had been viewed 50 million times. In June 2011, they reached 500 million views.
In March 2012, Netflix announced a deal to stream an initial series of 16 two-hour collections of TED Talks on similar subjects. It was made available to subscribers in the United States, Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. Hosted by Jami Floyd, TED Talks NYC debuted on NYC Life on March 21, 2012.

## Related projects and events
### TED conferences

| Date | Conference | Theme | Location | Notable speakers |
| April 15–19, 2024 | TED 2024 | The Brave and The Brilliant | Vancouver, British Columbia | |
| April 17–21, 2023 | TED 2023 | Possibility | Vancouver, British Columbia | |
| April 10–14, 2022 | TED 2022 | A New Era | Vancouver, British Columbia | Elon Musk, Garry Kasparov, Al Gore, Alexis Nikole Nelson, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allyson Felix |
| October 12–15, 2021 | TED Countdown Summit | | Edinburgh, Scotland | |
| October 10, 2020 | TED Countdown 2020 | | Online | |
| May 18, 2020 − July 10, 2020 | TED 2020 | Uncharted | Online @ TED.com | |
| July 21–25, 2019 | TEDSummit 2019 | A Community Beyond Borders | Edinburgh, Scotland | Nicola Sturgeon, Carole Cadwalladr |
| April 15–19, 2019 | TED 2019 | Bigger than us | Vancouver, British Columbia | America Ferrera |
| November 28–30, 2018 | TEDWomen 2018 | Showing up | Palm Springs, California | Stacey Abrams, Pat Mitchell, Cecille Richards |
| November 14–16, 2018 | TEDMED 2018 | Chaos+Clarity | Palm Springs, California | |
| April 10–14, 2018 | TED 2018 | The Age of Amazement | Vancouver, British Columbia | |
| November 1–3, 2017 | TEDWomen 2017 | Bridges | New Orleans, Louisiana | |
| August 27–30, 2017 | TEDGlobal 2017 | Builders. Truth-tellers. Catalysts. | Arusha, Tanzania | |
| April 24–28, 2017 | TED 2017 | The Future You | Vancouver, British Columbia | Robert Sapolsky |
| November 14, 2016 | TEDYouth 2016 | Made in the Future | Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York | |
| October 26–28, 2016 | TEDWomen 2016 | It's about time. | San Francisco, California | |
| June 26–30, 2016 | TEDSummit 2016 | Aim higher. Together. | Banff, Alberta | |
| February 15–19, 2016 | TED 2016 | Dream | Vancouver, British Columbia | |
| November 14, 2015 | TEDYouth 2015 | Made in the Future | Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York | |
| November 1–6, 2015 | TED Talks Live | Six nights of talks on Broadway | Town Hall Theatre, New York, New York | |
| May 27–29, 2015 | TEDWomen 2015 | Momentum | Monterey, California | |
| March 16–20, 2015 | TED 2015 | Truth and Dare | Vancouver, British Columbia | Bill Gates |
| March 16–20, 2015 | TEDActive 2015 | Truth and Dare | Whistler, British Columbia | |
| November 15, 2014 | TEDYouth 2014 | Worlds Imagined | Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York | |
| October 6–10, 2014 | TEDGlobal 2014 | South! | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | |
| March 17–21, 2014 | TED 2014 | The Next Chapter | Vancouver, British Columbia | |
| March 17–21, 2014 | TEDActive 2014 | The Next Chapter | Whistler, British Columbia | |
| February 25 – March 1, 2013 | TED 2013 | The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered. | Long Beach, California | |
| February 25 – March 1, 2013 | TEDActive 2013 | The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered. | Palm Springs, California | |
| February 27 – March 2, 2012 | TED 2012 | Full Spectrum | Long Beach, California | |
| February 27 – March 2, 2012 | TEDActive 2012 | Full Spectrum | Palm Springs, California | |

### TEDGlobal

In 2005, under Anderson's supervision, a more internationally oriented sister conference was added, under the name TEDGlobal. It was held, in chronological order: in Oxford, UK (2005), in Arusha, Tanzania (2007, titled TEDAfrica), in Oxford again (2009 and 2010), and in Edinburgh, UK (2011, 2012, and 2013). In 2014, it was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Additionally, there was TED India, in Mysore (2009) and TEDGlobal London in London (2015). TEDGlobal 2017 was held again in Arusha, Tanzania, and it was curated and hosted by Emeka Okafor.
TED's European director (and curator of TEDGlobal) is Swiss-born Bruno Giussani.
The TED 2011 conference, The Rediscovery of Wonder, was held in Long Beach, California, US, from February 28 to March 4, 2011. The TED conference has a companion conference, TEDGlobal, held in the UK each summer. The 2009 TEDGlobal, The Substance of Things Not Seen, was held in Oxford, July 21–24, 2009. 2010's TEDGlobal (again in Oxford) was themed And Now The Good News; in 2011 the conference moved to a new home in Edinburgh and was held July 12–15 with the theme The Stuff Of Life. The 2012 TEDGlobal conference Radical Openness was held in Edinburgh, June 25–29.

### TEDx

TEDx was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks. TEDx are independent events similar to TED in presentation. They can be organized by anyone who obtains a free license from TED, and agrees to follow certain principles. Speakers are not paid and must also relinquish the copyrights to their materials, which TED may edit and distribute under a Creative Commons license.
In March 2013, eight TEDx events, which are "essentially, do-it-yourself TED conferences" raised up from five in June 2012, the previous year, in 133 countries.
TEDxPortland in Portland was the largest indoor TEDx event in the world, with over 8,000 attendees, making it the largest TEDx conference in North America.

### TED Fellows

TED Fellows were introduced in 2007, during the first TEDAfrica conference in Arusha, Tanzania, where 100 young people were selected from across the continent. Two years later, during TEDIndia, 99 fellows were recruited, mainly from South Asia.
In 2009, the fellows program was initiated in its present form. For every TED or TEDGlobal conference, 20 fellows are selected; a total of 40 new fellows a year. Each year, 20 past fellows are chosen to participate in the two-year senior fellows program (in which they will attend four more conferences).
2019 marked the tenth anniversary of the TED Fellows program.
Acceptance as a fellow is not based on academic credentials, but mainly on past and current actions, and plans for the future. Besides attending a conference free of charge, each fellow takes part in a special program with mentoring by experts in the field of spreading ideas, and can give a short talk on the "TED Fellows" stage. Some of these talks are subsequently published on TED.com. Senior fellows have additional benefits and responsibilities.

### TED Audio Collective

The TED Audio Collective is a collection of podcasts with over 25 shows.
One of those shows is the TED Interview podcast which launched on October 16, 2018, during which Chris Anderson holds conversations with speakers who have previously given a TED talk, providing the guest a chance to speak in greater depth about their background, projects, motivation, re-evaluation of past experiences, or plans for the future.
Season 1 :
| No. in season | Title | Airdate |
| Intro | Chris Anderson | September 25, 2018 |
| 1 | Elizabeth Gilbert shows up for ... everything | October 2018 |
| 2 | David Deutsch on the infinite reach of knowledge | October 2018 |
| 3 | Sam Harris on using reason to build our morality | October 2018 |
| 4 | Dalia Mogahed on Islam in the world today | November 2018 |
| 5 | Steven Pinker on the case for optimism | November 2018 |
| 6 | Robin Steinberg's quest to reform cash bail | November 2018 |
| 7 | Mellody Hobson challenges us to be color brave | November 2018 |
| 8 | Ray Kurzweil on what the future holds next | December 2018 |
| 9 | Daniel Kahneman wants you to doubt yourself. Here's why | December 2018 |
| 10 | Sir Ken Robinson still wants an education revolution | December 2018 |
| Bonus | Chris Anderson on the Ezra Klein Show | December 20, 2018 |
Season 2 :
| No. in season | Title | Airdate |
| Extra | Roger McNamee takes on big tech | May 3, 2019 |
| 1 | Bill Gates looks to the future | May 2019 |
| 2 | Amanda Palmer on radical truth telling | May 2019 |
| 3 | David Brooks on political healing | May 2019 |
| 4 | Kai-Fu Lee on the future of AI | June 2019 |
| 5 | Susan Cain takes us into the mind of the introvert | June 2019 |
| 6 | Andrew McAfee on the future of our economy | June 2019 |
| 7 | Sylvia Earle makes the case for our oceans | June 2019 |
| 8 | Monica Lewinsky argues for a bully-free world | July 2019 |
| 9 | Tim Ferriss on life-hacks and psychedelics | July 2019 |
| 10 | Yuval Noah Harari reveals the real dangers ahead | July 2019 |
| 11 | Johann Hari challenges the way we think about depression | July 2019 |
Season 3 :
| No. in season | Title | Airdate |
| Bonus | Parag Khanna: On global connectivity | September 25, 2019 |
| 1 | Dan Gilbert on the surprising science of happiness | October 2019 |
| 2 | Anil Seth explores the mystery of consciousness | October 2019 |
| 3 | Elif Shafak on the urgent power of storytelling | October 2019 |
| 4 | Michael Tubbs on politics as a force for good | October 2019 |
| 5 | Kate Raworth argues that rethinking economics can save our planet | November 2019 |
| 6 | Donald Hoffman has a radical new theory on how we experience reality | November 2019 |
| 7 | Frances Frei's three pillars of leadership | November 2019 |
| 8 | Christiana Figueres on how we can solve the climate crisis | December 2019 |
| Bonus | Tom Rivett-Carnac is optimistic about the fate of our planet | December 23, 2019 |
Season 4 :
| No. in season | Title | Airdate |
| Bonus | Adam Kucharski on what should—and shouldn't—worry us about the coronavirus | Recorded on March 11, 2020; broadcast on March 12, 2020 |
| 1 | Bill Gates on how we must respond to the COVID-19 pandemic | Recorded on March 24, 2020; broadcast on March 30, 2020 |
| 2 | Seth Berkley on the quest for the coronavirus vaccine | Recorded on March 26, 2020; broadcast on March 31, 2020 |
| 3 | Jonathan Sacks on how we can navigate the coronavirus pandemic with courage and hope | Recorded on March 30, 2020; broadcast on March 31, 2020 |
| 4 | Gary Liu on what the world can learn from China's response to COVID-19 | Recorded on March 25, 2020; broadcast on April 1, 2020 |
| 5 | Sonia Shah: How to make pandemics optional, not inevitable | Recorded on March 31, 2020; broadcast on April 2, 2020 |
| 6 | Matt Walker: How to sleep during a pandemic | Recorded on April 1, 2020; broadcast on April 2, 2020 |
| 7 | Elizabeth Gilbert says it's OK to feel overwhelmed. Here's what to do next | Recorded on April 2, 2020; broadcast on April 3, 2020 |
| 8 | Susan David: Emotional resilience in times of crisis | Recorded on March 23, 2020; broadcast on April 4, 2020 |
| 9 | Priya B. Parker: How to create meaningful connections while apart | Recorded on March 27, 2020; broadcast on April 5, 2020 |
| 10 | Danielle Allen: The tech we need to end the pandemic and restart the economy | Recorded on April 6, 2020; broadcast on April 7, 2020 |
| 11 | Ray Dalio: What coronavirus means for the global economy | Recorded on April 9, 2020; broadcast on April 10, 2020 |
| 12 | Fareed Zakaria: The world after the coronavirus pandemic | Recorded on April 9, 2020; broadcast on April 10, 2020 |
| 13 | Elizabeth Dunn: Design your life for happiness | Recorded on February 5, 2020; broadcast on April 17, 2020 |
| 14 | Dambisa Moyo: What we get wrong about global growth | Recorded on March 5, 2020; broadcast on April 24, 2020 |
| 15 | Kristalina Georgieva: What we learn from the crisis can make our economy stronger | Recorded on May 18, 2020; broadcast on May 28, 2020 |
| 16 | Phillip Atiba Goff, Rashad Robinson, Bernice King, Anthony D. Romero: The path to ending systemic racism in the US | Recorded on June 3, 2020; broadcast on June 6, 2020 |
| 17 | Audrey Tang: How Taiwan used digital tools to solve the pandemic | Recorded on June 1, 2020; broadcast on June 11, 2020 |
| 18 | Dan Schulman: Why a company's future depends on putting its employees first | Recorded on May 19, 2020; broadcast on June 18, 2020 |
| 19 | Ashraf Ghani: A path to peace in Afghanistan | Recorded on June 16, 2020; broadcast on June 25, 2020 |
| 20 | Al Gore: On the new urgency of the climate crisis | Recorded on June 23, 2020; broadcast on July 2, 2020 |
| 21 | Darren Walker: The role of the wealthy in achieving equality | Recorded on July 1, 2020; broadcast on July 9, 2020 |
| 22 | Malala Yousafzai: On why educating girls changes everything | Recorded on July 8, 2020; broadcast on July 16, 2020 |

### TEDMED

TEDMED is an annual conference concerned with health and medicine. It is an independent event operating under license from the nonprofit TED conference.
In 2011, Jay Walker and a group of executives and investors purchased TEDMED from Hodosh for $16 million with future additional payments of as much as $9 million. The conference was then moved to Washington, DC.

### Other programs

* TED Radio Hour: A radio program, with audio downloads and a podcast RSS feed, hosted by Manoush Zomorodi, previously Guy Raz and co-produced with NPR. Each episode uses multiple TED Talks to examine a common theme. Originated and executive produced by Deron Triff and June Cohen, the first episode was broadcast in 2012.
* TED also offers other podcasts such as Sincerely, X (featuring anonymous TED Talks).

## Criticism
### Pricing

Sarah Lacy of BusinessWeek and TechCrunch wrote in 2010 that TED attendees complained of elitism from a "hierarchy of parties throughout the LA area with strict lists and security" after the sessions. She gave credit for freely live-streaming and posting videos of its talks.

### TED Talk content

Disagreements have also occurred between TED speakers and organizers. In her 2010 TED Talk, comedian Sarah Silverman referred to adopting a "retarded" child. TED organizer Chris Anderson objected via his Twitter account, leading to a conflict between them conducted over Twitter.
Also in 2010, statistician Nassim Taleb called TED a "monstrosity that turns scientists and thinkers into low-level entertainers, like circus performers". He claimed TED curators did not initially post his talk "warning about the financial crisis" on their site on purely cosmetic grounds.
In May 2012, venture capitalist Nick Hanauer spoke at TED University, challenging the belief that top income earners in America were the engines of job creation. TED attracted controversy when it chose not to post Hanauer's talk on their website. His talk analysed the top rate of tax versus unemployment and economic equality. TED was accused of censoring the talk by not posting it.
On May 7, 2012, TED curator Chris Anderson, in an email to Hanauer, commented on his decision and took issue with several of Hanauer's assertions in the talk, including the idea that businesspeople were not job creators. He also made clear his aversion to the talk's "political nature":
TEDx talks have been criticised for having a lower quality control than actual TED talks, with a number of TEDx talks being ridiculed by critics for promoting pseudoscience. Wired and the Harvard Business Review suggested that this lack of quality control in TEDx talks damaged the broader TED brand.
Following a TEDx talk by parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake, TED issued a statement saying their scientific advisors believed that "there is little evidence for some of Sheldrake's more radical claims", and recommended that it "should not be distributed without being framed with caution". The video was moved from the TEDx YouTube channel to the TED blog, accompanied by such framing language. This prompted accusations of censorship, which TED rebutted by pointing out that Sheldrake's talk was still on their website. A 2013 talk by Graham Hancock, promoting the use of the drug DMT, was treated the same way.
According to professor Benjamin Bratton at University of California, San Diego, TED Talks' efforts at fostering progress in socio-economics, science, philosophy and technology have been ineffective. Chris Anderson responded that some critics misunderstood TED's goals, failing to recognise that it aimed to instill excitement in audiences in the same ways speakers felt it. He said that TED wished only to bring awareness of significant topics to larger audiences.

## In popular culture

The Alien franchise features a fictional portrayal of a 2023 TED Conference, in the form of a short film called "The Peter Weyland Files: TED Conference, 2023". It was a part of the viral marketing campaign for the franchise's film Prometheus (2012).
Episode 08, season 20 of the animated TV series Family Guy features a cutaway scene of Peter Griffin giving a TED talk about birthdays.
Australian alternative rock band TISM parodied TED talks at their 2 March 2024 concert in Launceston, Tasmania as "TISM Talks", which included a skit parodying TED talks running behind the band for the duration of the show.
Episode 16 of Series 2 of the TV series Elementary "The One Percent Solution" features ex-Scotland Yard Inspector Gareth Lestrade presenting a "DUG Chat". According to a tweet from the @ELEMENTARYstaff Twitter account "We had to call them "Dug" chats because we weren't allowed to use the name 'Ted Talk'".