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Every year, the TED Talks outline amazing achievements in technology, science, education, design, and the arts. If you want to know about this year’s awesome TED talks and TED conferences, here’s a quick primer with everything you need to know.
1. TED 2014 Dates Are in March and October 2014
"No, His Name Is Not Ted." – A great NYTimes profile on Chris Anderson, Curator of the #TED conference http://t.co/VUQM2cpAmU
— #Fork (@fork_do) March 10, 2014
There are multiple TED events this year. The next TED events are in March. TED2014 and TEDActive2014 will both run from March 17–21. TED2014 takes place in Vancouver, while TEDActive takes place in Whistler, BC.
In October, TEDGlobal will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This conference will run from October 5–10.
2. TED 2014 Has Great Speakers
Above is an old TED Talk about the possibility of bringing back the Wooly Mammoth.
Speakers at this year’s TED conference in March will include celebs and luminaries such as astronaut Chris Hadfield, futurist Ray Kurzweil, Sting, and Bill & Melinda Gates.
Speakers at TEDGlobal in October will be announced later this year. Speakers will be listed here.
3. TED Talks Last 18 Minutes (or Thereabouts)
You can watch an example of a TED Talk above. This talk, by Mark Kendall, demos a new type of vaccine delivery system.
If you are unfamiliar with the basic TED Talks format, here’s how it works. Each speaker gets 18 minutes to share their presentation, which usually includes some multimedia components.
TED is a non-profit that is committed to “ideas worth spreading.” TED has been running talks since 1984, but TED really took off in 2006 when the talks were made available online for the first time. In case you were wondering, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.
4. TED Talks Can Be Hard to Watch Live
"I skip the canvas. If I paint your portrait, I'm painting it on you — physically on you." http://t.co/JCOykXJGJ3 pic.twitter.com/d8wXaAEbF9
— TED Talks (@TEDTalks) February 23, 2014
While TED talks generally pop up on YouTube and other streaming video sites shortly after they conclude, watching TED Talks live can be a pricy proposition. Tickets to TED events generally cost thousands of dollars. TED does offer membership to TED Live, which allows users to watch livestreams of all TED talks, as well as past talks. However, TED Live membership costs $600 for one conference, or $1000 for two conferences.
TED fans can also order custom DVDs of up to six past TED Talks on the TED DVD site. These DVDs cost just under $10, and can be augmented with subtitles in 32 different languages.
5. TED Offers Prizes in 2014 and 2015
The TED Prize is a $1 million prize awarded to one project each year. The project must be able to bring about global change in some way.
The 2014 TED Prize winner has already been announced. This year’s winner is anti-corruption activist Charmian Gooch, who will unveil her plans for the prize money at TED this March. You can watch Gooch in the video above.
Nominations for the 2015 TED Prize are open until March 31. You can learn more here.
