TED 2022 — Instructions for Life: “Pay Attention, Be Astonished, Tell About It, and…Show Your Work!”
In April 2022, I was grateful to attend the extraordinary TED conference for the 9th year “in a row” (Covid-adjusted). The experience was both joyfully familiar (a “post-pandemic” reunion of the TED community in Vancouver!) and disorienting (are we really ready to gather again?). Ultimately, TED 2022 put our chaotic world in context and left me deeply inspired and optimistic about the future.
Enjoy the TED 2022 highlights and lessons learned below!
WHAT IS TED?
TED’s mission is “Ideas Worth Spreading” and spread they do! The scope of TED’s platform is extraordinary: TED talks are viewed 3 billion times per year across the globe, 3,000 TEDx events (x = independently organized TED conference) per year are staged across 180 countries, TEDEd’s 1,400 video lessons have been viewed 4.2 billion times and 150 new animated classes are created each year, spawning new educational platforms such as TED@Work and TED Courses plus TED specialty conferences continue to proliferate (TEDinArabic in Doha in March 2023).
Despite the global reach and sophisticated technology platform, at the heart of TED’s mission is the simplest and one of the oldest art forms in the world: public speaking. The Economist says, “TED has done more to advance the art of lecturing in a decade than Oxford University has done in a thousand years.”
While its initials stand for “Technology, Entertainment, Design”, the talks span a broad range of topics across the arts, sciences, humanities, psychology, medicine, business, philosophy and geopolitics. TED talks are meant to educate, inspire, challenge, entertain and whet/quench the curiosity appetite in 5–18 minute bite-sized chunks.
At their best, TED talks make complex topics seem accessible and share insights through compelling storytelling.
As the brilliant Tim Urban explained, stories are not only one of the most effective ways to teach but are fundamental to our evolution as a society. “At some point between 150-person ancient tribes and New York City, human evolution jumped off of the ‘survival of the fittest biology’ snail and onto the ‘survival of the fittest stories’ rocket.”
TED is the launch pad for that rocket!
WHAT IS THE TED CONFERENCE?
Each year, 1,500+ engaged, curious and well-connected people gather on the shores of Vancouver Harbor in the shadow of the stunning snow-capped Pacific Range mountains to hear from hundreds of speakers, exchange ideas and seek to convert those ideas into impact.
The beautiful setting is a fitting match for the gorgeous theater and production quality of TED talks; painstakingly rehearsed oratory, giant high-def screens with retina-quality display resolution, perfectly-tuned acoustics and a tightly choreographed dance of images and film. It is impressively well-orchestrated, world-class elocution and audience engagement. TED understands how to use light, sound, staging and presentation to immerse its audience in talks so effectively you may forget you are learning about particle physics or laser oncology.
Emerging from the intense speaker sessions, TED attendees spill out of the theater into social breaks, interactive exhibits, gourmet food truck lunches and evening parties to debrief, debate and discuss the content and cross-pollinate with the speakers and 1,500 of their closest friends.
The atmosphere at TED is West Coast relaxed and collegial, yet under the surface is an intense marketplace of ideas. Conversations contain very little small talk; they go deep and impactful quickly.
But these are not “networking” chats. At TED, passion and curiosity are the coin of the realm. No one asks, “What do you do for work?”, they ask “What is exciting you right now?”. From there, a chemical reaction starts where attendees and speakers start connecting dots across ideas and post-conference collaborations result in an array of new start-ups, not-for-profits, foundations, initiatives, books, podcasts, legislation and awareness campaigns.
No group of people this focused on progress and science could gather without courting some controversy. At TED 2022, hundreds of protestors gathered outside the Vancouver Convention Centre, attempting to block the entrance, give loud speeches and verbally harassing TED attendees as they entered the conference. The protestors channeled their anger over vaccines and censorship at speakers like Bill Gates, Elon Musk and others who are focused on a public health agenda.
This isn’t new — TED has always been a target of cynicism, criticism and even deep derision. Historically, TED has been accused of elitism, oversimplification and lack of critical analysis. TED 2022 was no different, with many asking whether there is still even a place for an inherently optimistic, science-obsessed and unifying gathering in a world so polarized and dominated by dystopian narratives.
TED answered that challenge by delivering an intense intellectual firehose of talks and featuring extraordinary people making real quantifiable impact on human lives. The TED conference is not simply packaged idealism; it is a hothouse of inventions, discoveries and entrepreneurial action.
Attending TED is like riding a dizzying intellectual roller coaster. The opening session kicks off with 1,500 people experiencing augmented reality through iPads left on their seats, followed immediately by a harrowing talk by a Ukrainian refugee. A talk by the mayor of Bristol, UK advocating for a global decarbonization plan for cities is followed by a speaker explaining how to buy elephant carbon offsets using bitcoin. A wonky session on capitalism debates gentrification vs displacement and dives deep into regulatory capture, inequality of opportunity and universal basic income. In the space of two hours, TED-sters learn about how dragonflies behave in virtual reality, how to build brain circuits in the lab, and how much salary blue whales deserve for the 37 gigatons of CO2 they remove from the atmosphere each year. To throw us off balance, the TED stage ricochets between a whimsically funny talk on the passion of food foraging to Ron Howard’s daughter explaining how to preserve privacy when we are all celebrities to a futuristic presentation on how to build your own metaverse.
This kind of oratorical whiplash is designed to scramble our brains by forcing the TED audience to absorb diverse and contrasting points of view.
If you are a new reader, see my posts on prior TED conferences here:
WHY DO YOU GO TO THE TED CONFERENCE?
The short answer: to get inspired. Inspired to learn on a grand scale and to take action on a small scale. At TED 2022, I gained inspiration to start a passion project (writing a book on “Reinventing College” — more to come!)
The long answer: to spend one week a year interacting with hundreds of passionate, engaged, deeply curious people who reflexively and obsessively turn ideas into action. It is my annual “brain spa”, “courage bath”, “aspiration vaccine”, “idea lab” and “nerd fantasy camp.” TED contains almost zero direct connection to my day job, but for 5 glorious days I get to visit the future, put my work in a broader context and connect the dots across multiple disciplines of science, art, medicine, philosophy, geopolitics, global development, design and much more.
But here is the real secret: I go to TED to experience a community whose culture, beliefs and values seem upside-down from the rest of my life.
What do I mean?
At TED, passion trumps stability, courage wins over tribalism and conformity, persistence is valued over expediency, globalism beats provincialism, mild Asperger’s is better than extroverted and highly socialized, mistakes of commission beat mistakes of omission, fear of missing opportunities replaces fear of being wrong, embracing risk trounces managing risk. In short, the “bizarro world” version of my daily life. Imagine a week where you only hear “I am excited about…”, “I dream of…”, “I am creating…”, “I am discovering…” instead of: “I’m worried about…”, “I’m scared of…”, “The problem is…”. Refreshing!
WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT TED 2022?
The alchemy of TED is that it is the moment of each year where it all “clicks”. Stray thoughts spinning around my head, disjointed conversations, discontinuously read books/articles, half-hearted attempts at blog writing throughout the year all seem to converge in TED’s idea factory into insight. I am deeply grateful for this chemical reaction that occurs when 1,500 deeply passionate and curious people get under the same roof.
In last year’s blog, I shared that I learned about:
- The “5 people rule”
- How to pick a career
- The “3 levels of engaged”
At TED 2022, I got 3 new mental lightening bolts:
1) Retain your capacity for wonder and astonishment
It is easy in our polarized and cynical world to assume you can no longer be wowed by natural beauty, new experiences or an innovation that unlocks a deep human desire you thought had grown cold. Leaving yourself open to a sense of wonder is not easy; it often requires immersion, a community of engaged/switched-on people who have self-selected into something challenging and a “beginner’s mind”, but it can be truly rewarding.
My week in Vancouver helped me connect the dots between the intellectual wonder of TED 2022 and the physical wonder of a 50 mile hiking trek through Chilean Patagonia I completed just a couple months earlier.
Nothing illustrated the power of wonder better than the incredible talks on space exploration at TED 2022. At a time when things on this planet seem more pessimistic about the future than ever, there is extraordinary progress going on in the innovation and discovery of the dark skies above us. The TED audience heard about the most powerful telescope ever built, the magic of studying dark matter (only at TED would you hear“I’m completely enamored with the idea of Axiom Bose Einstein condensates!”) and the mind blowing SpaceX Starship rocket. The speakers’ passion for the future of space science and commerce was contagious and will lead to astounding progress in the years and decades to come!
As the two quotes below illustrate, this open-mindedness can lead to extraordinary success.
“You want to have as much ‘prepared mind’ as you possibly can. And learn as much as you can about as many things, as much as you can. You want to enter as close as you can to a zen-like blank slate of perfect humility at the beginning of the meeting saying ‘teach me’ … We try really hard to be educated by the best entrepreneurs.” — Marc Andreessen, Internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist
“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” — Shunru Suzuki, Buddhist monk who popularized Zen in the US
2) We Learn By Doing
If there is one thing TED celebrates above all else, it’s people who start. Ironically, at a conference that’s all about talking, the value comes from those who act. They launch a company, they synthesize a protein, they ship a product, they collaborate with diverse teams, they organize rallies. Most importantly, they set off down a path and discover fellow travelers, dead ends, new paths and valuable context for their ideas.
TED celebrates this world view by putting people on stage who are wired for exploration and absorb knowledge as fuel for their journey, not as an end to itself.
Edith Elliott and Shahed Alam saw what appeared to be a nearly impossible problem: millions of people in poor or rural areas who can’t get to a doctor quickly. Rather than be either intimidated to paralysis or knowing ahead of time exactly how to solve it, they decided to follow an instinct and tried out a simple, but overlooked solution. They founded Noora Health, which works with doctors and nurses in India and Bangladesh to train the family members of hospital patients to support their sick loved ones with essential skills, like wound care or recognizing warning signs such as jaundice in an infant or slurred speech for cardiac patients. So far, Noora has reached hundreds of hospitals, about 5,000 nurses, and two million family caregivers, and they’ve seen how their approach works across all kinds of care.
This approach proves to be far more valuable than simply marinating on or even trying to validate an idea. It seems that one of the reasons is that “just doing it” is an incredibly powerful signaling device. Starting an organization, writing a book, recording a podcast all draw other people into your orbit in a way that simply asking “what do you think?” will never do. The very process of interviewing people, recruiting people, sustaining the effort over multiple episodes/chapters creates opportunity for collaboration and mutual help that are so much richer than passive scrolling or random networking.
It also accelerates your cycles of learning. Navigating though the “idea maze” turns out to be highly predictive of entrepreneurial success because it forces you to iterate, go down blind alleys, struggle your way out of them, strike a balance between optionality and conviction and ultimately reach a solution that survives repeated assaults on viability.
17-year old Shreya Joshi grew frustrated at the level of polarization she saw not only in our political discourse, but even within our schools, workplaces and even places of worship. Rather than complain about it on social media, she took action and founded Project Teal, a teen-led initiative dedicated to helping young people engage with the political process and bring people with opposing perspectives into the same room.
The ability for millions of people like Shreya to start building products, services and content immediately is enabled by “permissionless innovation” — the advantage of distributed vs centralized systems in driving accelerated invention.
3) Create Opportunity by “Showing Your Work”
The comedian Steve Martin says his best advice for breaking in to a competitive field is: “Be so good they can’t ignore you”.
20 or 30 years ago, this would have meant depending on the elusive and slow “word of mouth” to spread news of your talent or notoriety. You would have had to navigate across multiple degrees of separation to reach someone who could evaluate your skills and attempt to get their attention and persuade them that you were worthy of joining their organization or getting a coveted spot in a zero-sum competitive “tournament”.
Thankfully, we have moved from evaluating future relationships through indirect analog referrals/references to anonymous web-based reputation/review systems to real-time digital collaboration tools.
It is now easier to implement Steve’s advice because the global digital networks are disrupting the traditional “signaling devices” of college diplomas, resumes and transcripts. The world is moving from trusting credentials and reasoning by analogy to being able to inspect the work product before you join as a new employee, new member, newly funded entrepreneur, etc.
This “show your work” economy (enabled by collaborative networked tools such as GitHub) is increasingly viewed as a real track record on conscientiousness (if you’ve done X for years, that counts) that could chip away at the lock higher education has on the “sheepskin” credential.
Related to “showing your work” is “defending your work”. Schools like Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Oxford have adopted variations of this approach which requires students to learn how to have their creations critiqued, sometimes brutally, either by their peers or a dedicated tutor. Learning how to withstand and defend those critiques as well as contribute feedback in a depersonalized dialectic exercise is an invaluable life skill that yields more confident students than a “memorize/test” feedback loop. Just ask RISD graduates like the AirBnB founders.
“Critique is the space in which new work is shown, experiments are examined, and questions are asked. It is a time for honest observation, dispassionate listening, and plain talk. It is an incubator for ideas, a bubbling cauldron of opinion, and the place in which we make connections that we hadn’t made before, moving toward understanding what it is we’ve made.” — Eva Sutton, Professor at Rhode Island School of Design, The Art of Critical Making.
THE PASSION OF THE TEDster
The themes of TED 2022 included: The urgency of addressing climate change is paramount, the Metaverse demands inclusivity, managing geopolitical turmoil necessitates personal growth, the frontier of space exploration is within reach, the wonders of mRNA and customized healthcare will extend lifespans and eradicate illnesses, and fostering the potential of individuals in low-income areas (rather than displacing or gentrifying them) will stimulate economic development..
At TED 2022, these themes were converted into ideas and action by TED speakers who are bursting with passion, courage, determination and collaboration. They take the first step, no matter how small, to create change, pursue hard problems or invest their own time, ideas, reputation or money (“I can’t not work on this…I hope others will join me, but I am doing it either way!”)
In a world where all the world’s knowledge is in everyone’s pocket, these “idea entrepreneurs” will inherit the earth!
The poster child for this persona at TED 2022 was Isabelle Boemeke. Isabelle is a TIME magazine “Next Generation Leader” and Brazilian “nuclear energy influencer” who at the advanced age of 32 is using Tik Tok (“Isodope”) to educate and advocate for nuclear energy as a solution to climate change and energy inequality.
Whether she realizes it or not, Isabelle is brilliantly countering one of the most powerful forces in our society today: availability cascades. This potentially dangerous phenomenon combines: a) our cognitive bias or mental shortcut of only focusing our concern on topics that are “front page news” (vs topics that may or many not be the most important) with b) the rapid spread of an opinion through society simply because the opinion seems increasingly plausible as each person adopts it.
Widespread opposition to nuclear energy based on outdated perceptions is a classic example of an availability cascade: it turns out it is by far the safest and cleanest form of energy yet everyone from environmentalists to climate-deniers is against it and it has been effectively outlawed in most of the western world. Isabelle is determined to change that!
THE BEST TALKS OF TED 2022
TED 2022: 1,579 attendees watched 108 speakers across 11 sessions — these extraordinary attendees hailed from 6 continents, aged from 17 to 70 and spanned the socioeconomic gamut from deep poverty to two of the richest people on the planet.
My top 10 (ok, 17) favorite talks of TED 2022 are:
Zoya Lytvyn — Ukraine’s Fight to Keep Educating its Children. Coming just two months after the start of the Ukraine war, TED 2022 gave a deeply empathetic window into the extraordinary courage and determination of the Ukrainian people. After classrooms were shut down during the pandemic, the Ukrainian government enlisted the help of education pioneer Zoya Lytvyn and her team to create the country’s first national online education platform. The Ukrainian Online School provided an opportunity for secondary school students to continue their studies remotely, thanks to the tireless work of Lytvyn and her non-profit. In the face of Russia’s invasion, Zoya’s school has become a beacon of hope for over 400,000 students whose lives have been uprooted by violence and destruction. But why prioritize education during a time of war? For Lytvyn, providing even just a few hours of instruction each day is an investment in Ukraine’s future as a prosperous and free country. “As long as our children keep learning and our teachers keep teaching, even while enduring bombardment and starvation in shelters or refugee camps, we remain undefeated,” Lytvyn says.
Garry Kasparov — Stand With Ukraine in the Fight Against Evil. “What kind of society are we building if we only talk about the future while ignoring genocide in our present?” asked Garry Kasparov, chess grandmaster and human rights advocate speaking out about the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. At TED 2022, Garry issued a stirring call to arms, highlighting Vladimir Putin’s decades-long assault on democracy. From the 2008 invasion of Georgia to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s regime has posed a clear and present danger to freedom and human rights. Kasparov himself has become a leading voice in the fight against Putin, and he called on the world to take decisive action in support of Ukraine in the wake of a series of brutal atrocities, According to Kasparov, the people of Ukraine are fighting right now to remind us not to take liberty for granted, and they deserve every resource they need to emerge victorious.
Elon Musk — Twitter, Tesla and How His Brain Works. TED 20222 devoted no less than two hours of airtime to Elon Musk, who was fresh off news of his bid to acquire Twitter. In addition to playing a lengthy interview at the Tesla gigafactory, Elon Musk joined a fireside chat with Chris Anderson on his cognitive processes, his biggest regrets and, as always, his vision for the future. Highlights included his analysis of artificial intelligence’s central contribution to self-driving cars, the mind-boggling amount of battery storage (300 terawatt hours) needed for the energy transition and a fascinating discourse on the value of having Asperger Syndrome on innovation (lack of social cues to subtly discourage creativity, obsession with activities that require intense concentration and a pure pursuit of scientific truth — physics as the “truth” of the universe and information theory as a logic framework).
Allyson Felix — An Olympic Champion’s Mindset for Overcoming Fear. An inspiring illustration of the power of a consumer brand to change societal norms: Allyson Felix, most decorated track Olympian in US history, told the powerful story behind her shift from Nike to Athleta and her fight against punitive maternity policies in sports, casting a special meaning behind Saysh, her recently launched brand and its advocacy efforts.
Melissa J. Moore — The Breakthrough Science of mRNA Medicine. The Chief Scientific Officer at Moderna and biochemist took the TED audience on a fascinating tour of our bodies’ protein factories and the miracle of mRNA medicine. It’s easy to take the extraordinarily fast and effective development and rollout of Covid vaccines for granted, but with mRNA therapies, medical professionals and researchers have the ability to fix metabolic “mistakes” by substituting deficient proteins in our bodies. In the near future, such treatments will be able to recalibrate our immune systems to combat pathogens and target cancerous cells.
Bill Gates — We Can Make COVID-19 The Last Pandemic. A post-script to his warning at TED 2015 about our lack of preparedness for a global pandemic (which went ignored), Bill Gates was back at TED 2022 walking through how we can lessen the severity of the next one through better planning and coordination. Bill walked the TED audience through the critical first 100 days where trained response teams, specialists, logistics to make vaccines fast, new generations of tools for diagnostics, medicine, and regular drills along with international coordination can make all the difference. Bill’s pitch was that this rapid response team could cost billions of dollars a year but will save trillions in economic destruction and lives lost.
Scott Fitsimones — Could a DAO Build the Next Great City? Urban innovator Scott Fitsimones envisions the potential of blockchain technology to connect the digital and tangible realms, allowing everyone to experience the advantages of ownership through digital self-governing entities called DAOs. These online, blockchain-based, and community-governed cooperatives are linked to assets in the real world. In the previous year, Fitsimones’ CityDAO acquired 40 acres of land in Wyoming, marking the first instance of a DAO owning physical property. Looking ahead, Fitsimones anticipates that DAOs could possess sports franchises or even entire tech platforms, leveraging blockchain, cryptocurrency, and the metaverse to redistribute power from a select few to a broader population.
Dan Harris — The Benefits of Not Being a Jerk to Yourself. For over twenty years, Dan Harris served as an anchor for ABC News until an unexpected on-air panic attack steered his life towards a new path: he became a devoted meditator and, to some, a spiritual guide. However, a candid survey of his family, friends, and coworkers revealed harsh criticism — he remained somewhat of a jerk. In an insightful and humorous talk, Harris (the author of the book 10% Happier and host of the Ten Percent Happier podcast) recounts his multi-year journey to enhance his relationships with everyone (including himself). He delves into the science of loving-kindness meditation, explaining how it can strengthen one’s resilience, silence the inner critic, and make an individual more agreeable to be around. As Dan says, “there’s a geopolitical case for you to get your shit together.”
Eleni Myrivili — A 3 Part Plan to Take on Extreme Heat Waves. As “Chief Heat Officer” of Athens, Eleni’s passion for combating the most lethal, but poorest understood extreme weather symptoms jumped off the stage! Eleni, like all great TED speakers, shared a systems thinker approach to combatting heat, taking into account that humans adapt to it, which masks its impact on safety, agriculture, health, and children’s education. She doesn’t just highlight awareness and preparedness, she focuses on how we can redesign and reimagine cities beyond just more air conditioning, energy efficiency, and carbon emission reduction. Myrivili applauds cities like Athens, Medellin, Seoul, Paris, and Melbourne, which have already begun adopting more resilient urban infrastructure to counter worsening climate conditions.
Tom Oxley — A Brain Implant That Turns Your Thoughts into Text. Imagine being able to operate digital devices solely through the power of your mind. This astounding potential is embodied by the Stentrode — an implantable brain-computer interface that gathers and wirelessly sends data straight from the brain, eliminating the need for invasive surgery. Neurotech entrepreneur Tom Oxley delves into the details of this cutting-edge technology, which is now being tested in human trials. He also discusses its potential to restore autonomy for people with disabilities and revolutionize the way we communicate in the future.
Platon — Stories of Photographing Monumental People. In his storied career, Platon has photographed more than 30 cover images for TIME, worked as staff photographer at The New Yorker, published four books, (with subjects ranging from the power of world leaders to the dignity of those who serve in the US military) and made his first film, My Body Is Not A Weapon, featuring survivors of wartime sexual violence and the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege. Platon reminds us that empathy allows us to not only find common ground in an era of intense divisiveness, but bringing it to art can enable the camera lens to uncover genuine moments of humanity in influential and controversial side of figures like Michelle Obama, Muhammad Ali, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Stephen Hawking. Platon believes that by opening our eyes, ears, and hearts, we can deeply connect with others and unveil the remarkable potential within each individual we encounter.
Shankar Vedantam — You Don’t Actually Know What Your Future Self Wants. A companion to Dan Gilbert’s delightful TED 2014 talk on the “end of history illusion”, Shankar (author of The Hidden Brain) reminds us that our ability to predict what will make us happy in the future is quite poor. Whether it’s the community we live in, the person we marry or the career we choose, we suffer from the “illusion of continuity,” the belief that our future lives will continue to resemble the present without major changes. Shankar asserts that our constantly evolving psychological makeup and brain plasticity contribute to changes in our preferences and necessities. What can we do about this? Stay curious for your future self, says Shankar. Specifically, embrace uncomfortable experiences, practice humility and summon the courage to trust that even if you don’t have the skills right now to chase new adventures, you will be able to acquire them along the way.
Holly Herndon — What If You Could Sing In Your Favorite Musician’s Voice? An extraordinary demonstration of the intersection of computer science and music. Holly trained an AI on her voice and then enabled other singers to be able to simulate her voice. In typical “and” fashion, Holly is not only a talented vocalist and musician, but has a doctorate in composition from Stanford working with the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. As amazing as the technology is, there is controversy on what it means for the creative arts. Still, TED shows us that inexorable march of technology can’t be stopped and gives us a preview of what will be mainstream in the coming years.
Jeanette Winterson — Is Humanity Smart Enough to Survive Itself? Accomplished writer Jeanette Winterson tackles AI, asks us, “Are we smart enough to survive as a species? Utopia or dystopia is up to us.” Her answer is AI as a way to become a hybrid species. Jeanette defines AI as “alternative intelligence”: an obscuring of the boundaries between computers and humans, where each is better off. Jeanette argues that this vision of “hybrid humans” whose brains are linked to the internet (and each other) — provides an opportunity for humanity to break away from “us vs. them” zero sum thinking.
JR — Why Art is a Tool For Hope. Jean-René (JR) a French photographer and street artist spoke about a collaborative art project he led at a maximum security prison in the US, shattering norms, personalizing and humanizing the many faces and injustices of the US penal system. He then shared his most recent work and solidarity NFT project– putting a face to the war in Ukraine through a 45-meter photograph of Valeriia, a five year old refugee.
Jennifer Heldmann — SpaceX’s Supersized Starship Rocket and the Future of Galactic Exploration. In a thrilling description of the future, Jennifer (a planetary scientist at NASA), walks the TED audience through the extraordinary potential of reusable starships. SpaceX’s Starship delivers unparalleled payload and power capacity and it’s reusability has the potential to transform space missions from niche, tailor-made ventures into mass-produced, large-scale operations. Jennifer emphasizes the practical applications of Starship, such as exploring oceanic worlds within our galaxy for evidence of life (including how we could use it on Mars) and deploying vast telescopes across the cosmos to gather vital data for addressing profound scientific inquiries.
John C. Mather — How the James Webb Space Telescope Will Unfold the Universe. Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist John C. Mather blows our minds by explaining what NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope ever launched into space can do. The JWST is positioned at a unique location roughly a million miles from Earth and boasts a 21-foot hexagonal, gold-coated mirror safeguarded by a tennis court-sized, five-layer metalized plastic sunshield. John tells us that it will enable scientists to observe the cosmos with unparalleled clarity, with a sensitivity capable of detecting a bumblebee at a distance equivalent to Earth-to-moon! During its 20 year mission, it will investigate locations within our solar system, such as Europa and Titan, which may potentially support life, as well as Earth-like exoplanets farther away in the universe. As John puts it, “Astronomers travel with the speed of light and with the speed of imagination.”
THE TED FELLOWS
The TED Fellows is my absolute favorite part of the TED experience! A group of 520 inspired young people changing the world by More than the fellows themselves, the organization believes that “fellowship” is even better than “community”. This is TED’s “farm team” — the incubator of future main stage speakers and impactful attendees.
My favorite Fellows talks at TED 2022 were:
Bree Jones — How to Revitalize a Neighborhood, Without Gentrification. An engaging talk on changing the paradigm for how to revitalize neighborhoods experiencing hyper-vacancy and abandonment. Bree left a lucrative career in hedge funds to start Parity Homes, a social impact organization focused on equitable real estate development. Bree is tackling a market failure in property and urban planning — neighborhoods that fall into poverty and crime traps often face only two options: decay or gentrification. Both result in displacement of the residents who have built a life there. Bree is determined to offer a third option to preserve the social fabric and richness of urban districts: create upfront demand from existing residents for new affordable housing — using social capital to spur institutional capital. Parity does this by pooling resources amongst residents to purchase/renovate existing homes at discounts and creating credit-qualified residents that banks can back. As Bree says, “We use collective economics to reduce any one individual’s risk, while deepening the human bonds that make community.”
Bree is a classic TED Fellow: she sees a challenge through the lens of empathy, data and science, develops a deep commitment and passion for solving it and uses her talent launches an initiative that makes an impact. Go Bree!
Enzo Romero — The Affordable, 3-D Printed Bionics of the Future. In a companion talk to Hugh Herr’s amazing 2014 and 2018 TED talks, Peruvian engineer Enzo Romero shares the miracle of smart prosthetics and the mission to end disability in our lifetime!
Kiana Hayeri — A Photographic Journey Through the Taliban’s Takeover of Afghansitan. Depicting the realities of life in Afghanistan following two decades of US occupation and the astonishing, swift resurgence of the Taliban, TED Fellow and documentary photographer Kiana Hayeri offers poignant snapshots of a conflict-ridden nation. Her camera’s eye reveals not only the ravages and shattered aspirations in this war-weary land but also the enduring presence of hope and fortitude.
“Blinky” Bill Sellanga — Giving African Youth a Voice. The great Kenyan DJ and musician gave a searing performance and talk.
TITLE PORN
If you are worried that we won’t create new jobs to replace the ones technology will destroy, look no further than the TED attendees for hope. Below are some of the more creative job titles I saw on badges and business cards at TED 2022.
“ONLY AT TED” MOMENTS
Discussing carbon soil sampling over British Columbian craft beer “flights”
Lunch with a corporate lawyer/mountain climber and an evangelical Christian turned progressive discussing “compassion fatigue”
TED is the kind of place where you can attend a dinner of 20 people and be the only one around the table who has not written a book!
A 24 year old, Grammy nominated rapper (Cordae) quotes a Yiddish phrase in his talk.
Walking to the TED evening party with the founder of an African travel company who lives in Brooklyn about her experience with Ayahuasca in Peru
Chatting about creativity with the Chief Brand Officer of Cirque de Soleil
College senior son of tech billionaires going to be a monk in India after graduation because he already worked at Google and founded 2 companies
UNTIL NEXT YEAR…
