One was that of Greta Thunberg titled “The disarming case to act right now on climate change”, simply because climate change is real and every effort matters. And the second, although was aired in 2015, is alarming due to some of the predictions that were made. I’m referring to the “The next outbreak? We’re not ready” by Bill Gates. Covid19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of every nation who were just not adequately prepared to handle a pandemic at this scale.
My first experience of TED Talks was in late 2000s, after few years when these became famous. Back in 2006, a documentary that caught everyone’s attention was Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It made quite an impact on me at the time. I was naturally drawn to check out a speech by him on TEDTalks. Ever since, I’ve become a regular viewer of the wonderful, thought provoking, motivating and inspirational content this offer. One of my most used apps on my mobile devices has to the TED.
But before we get to my top 10, here is a brief introduction to TED Talks.
- In case you did not know this, TED in TED Talks is an abbreviation that stands for Technology, Education and Design representing a powerful convergence of these three fields.
- Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks founded the first TED back in 1984 and met with success only six years later in 1990.
- From there on, it became a successful annual event held in Monterey, California attracting influential audiences who were united by curiosity and open mindedness.
- Media entrepreneur Chris Anderson met Wurman in 2000 and stuck a deal post which, in 2001, a non-profit called Sapling Foundation by Anderson aquired TED. Anderson became the curator thereon.
- Three major additions changed TED forever – TEDGlobal, TED Prize and TED Talks. Of this, TED Talks features audio and video podcast series featuring the best content online.
- The first 6 TED Talks were released online on 27 June 2006. Within few months, these had millions of views and then, well, rest is history.
Although we now have a vast repository of TED Talks, featuring in several categories, there are some that have made a distinctive impact on me. In case you have not see these, I would recommend that you take some time and watch as you might surely learn something new today. These have been discussed so many times and shared many more. Read more....
