TED, the nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, opens its annual conference today in Vancouver. Themed “Dream,” TED2016 will host 1,400 attendees from 58 countries for a five-day program of 70+ speakers and performers.
The TED2016 program features speakers sharing ideas in quick, powerful talks – 18 minutes or less, TED’s signature format – as well as short presentations from this year’s 21 TED Fellows. As part of this year’s theme, speakers will explore some of the greatest ideas we’re capable of dreaming up today, as well as a few nightmares worthy of our attention.
“In the spirit of our theme, this year’s TED program includes speakers with truly extraordinary visions of the future,” said TED CuratorChris Anderson. “We’ll hear ideas – some hopeful, some frightening – that will jolt us awake. It’s shaping up to be our most intense TED yet.”
TED2016 speakers and performers include:
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann
- Co-founder of AirBNB Joe Gebbia
- Climate advocate Al Gore
- Uber founder Travis Kalanick
- Singer, musician and composer John Legend
- Writer and producer Shonda Rhimes
- Head of Alphabet’s “X” Astro Teller
The full speaker list can be found here: https://conferences.ted.com/TED2016/program/speakers.php
The TED2016 experience will extend well beyond the TED theater. On opening night, for the first time ever, U.S. and Canadian movie theater-goers will be able to purchase tickets to watch an exclusive live broadcast of the event’s exciting first session in participating theaters. European audiences can catch a recorded version of the session in movie theaters February 16 and those in Australia on March 2. The rest of the week’s Talks will be streamed live to TEDx event attendees and subscribing members of TED Live, as well as to Vancouver-area secondary schools, universities, libraries, community centers and NGOs who applied to get free access (application here).
Opening TED up to audiences around the world is foundational to TED’s mission of spreading ideas. What was once simply a closed-door conference devoted to Technology, Entertainment and Design has become a global platform for spreading ideas across a wide variety of disciplines.
Live blog coverage of the conference will be updated throughout each day at blog.ted.com. TED will also cover the conference on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TEDTalks, Instagram at https://instagram.com/ted, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TED, and, for the first time this year, on Snapchat at @tedtalkshq. The official hashtag of the event is #TED2016.
The detailed TED2016 program and more information can be found online here: http://conferences.ted.com/TED2016/.
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