[Editor's Note: This piece by Allison Ford was originally featured in Divine Caroline]
If you work in the fields of design, technology, publishing, art, entertainment, public health, science, non-profit, or government, you’ve probably heard of TED. But even if you’ve never heard of it, you’ve likely heard of some of its endeavors.
Started in 1984, TED has grown into a series of global conferences that bring people together to talk about ideas―big, transformative ideas. TED solicits presenters and speakers from all walks of life to discuss world-changing innovations, and to try to solve intractable global problems. Every year, more than one thousand people attend the main conference in Long Beach, California, to hear industry leaders and information pioneers talk about their plans to effect change through the dissemination of these groundbreaking ideas.
Each year, TED gives out $100,000 in prizes to people with big ideas to help them bring their ideas to fruition and make their dreams come true. These winners make a wish, and with the help of other TEDsters and professionals, they attempt to do nothing less than change the world.
2010 Winner: Jamie Oliver
Through his cookbooks and television shows, Oliver’s goal has always been to change the way humans eat, and especially to change children’s relationship with food. The only person honored with a prize in 2010, his ultimate wish is for people everywhere to embrace cooking and fresh food prepared at home, in order to avoid unhealthy processed food and fight obesity. Through TED, volunteers can donate time, money, or professional services to help start and run community kitchens and gardens, create compelling marketing and teaching materials for distribution, and find a traveling “food theatre” to teach children cooking skills.
2009 Winner: Sylvia Earle
One of three winners in 2009, Earle’s passion is to create and manage “hope spots” in the ocean—protected areas for threatened marine species. By fostering a network of these national park–like spots around the globe, Earle’s wish aims to protect and restore our oceans’ ecosystems and the creatures that inhabit them. After winning the TED prize, her foundation made it a priority to seek assistance from corporations and governmental leaders who are willing to sponsor and support these hope spots, because keeping the oceans healthy is an important step toward keeping the planet healthy.
2008 Winner: Dave Eggers
The author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers’ passion is increasing literacy by bringing communities into closer involvement with their local public schools. His TED prize helped start a website, onceuponaschool.org, which helps connect teachers and schools with donors and sponsors to help fund projects and activities.
2007 Winner: Bill Clinton
Since leaving the White House, the Clinton Global Initiative has worked to solve problems related to globalization. His TED prize was dedicated specifically to creating a viable rural health system in Rwanda. The government of Rwanda assisted in drawing up plans for health clinics in all areas of the country, and today, thanks to the TED prize, there are new hospitals, operating rooms, medical technology, four hundred new health workers, and mental health services in areas that previously had no health facilities at all.
2006 Winner: Cameron Sinclair
Since housing is a vital concern for much of the developing world, Sinclair and his nonprofit group, Architecture for Humanity, try to find architectural solutions to humanitarian crises. They design residences for refugees, mobile health clinics for Africa, and housing for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The TED prize has enabled Sinclair to fund a design challenge where architects and interior designers compete to create the most functional, low-cost and sustainable buildings for people in need around the world.
2005 Winner: Bono
Among the first TED prizewinners, Bono’s wishes were to increase American activism on behalf of Africa and to increase Internet access to the African continent, specifically in the nation of Ethiopia. ONE, his nonprofit, has been fighting poverty, AIDS, and starvation, and has successfully petitioned the U.S. government to increase funding for AIDS research and prevention.
TED is all about powerful, transformative ideas and how to turn them into reality. The topics discussed at conferences provide a blueprint for the creative thinkers of today to tackle tough problems in a globally connected and interdependent world. They’re bold, audacious, and worth spreading far and wide.
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