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TED2017: The future you
4/20/17, 12:07 PM
TED2017 program
Monday, April 24, 10:15AM - 12:00PM PDT
TED Fellows Talks, Session 1
Amazing talks and performances from the new class of TED Fellows and returning Senior Fellows. Hosted by Fellows director Tom Rielly.
Monday, April 24, 1:15PM - 3:00PM PDT
TED Fellows Talks, Session 2
Part 2 of the TED Fellows session, featuring cutting-edge work from TED Fellows and Senior Fellows. Unmissable.
Monday, April 24, 5:00PM - 7:00PM PDT
Session 1: One Move Ahead
Hosted by Chris Anderson
Not attending TED2017? Watch Session 1 – Opening Event – broadcast to cinemas! Find showtimes
Huang Yi
Choreographer, dancer, inventor
As a child, Huang Yi longed for a robot companion. As an adult, he created a robot to dance with: KUKA.
Taiwanese dancer, choreographer, inventor, and videographer Huang Yi’s pioneering work is steeped in his fascination with the partnership
between humans and robots. He interweaves continuous movement with mechanical and multimedia elements to create a form of dance
which corresponds with the flow of data, effectively making the performer a dancing instrument. Named by Dance Magazine as one of the
“25 to Watch,” Huang is one of Asia’s most prolific choreographers.
Harmoniously weaving together the art of dance and the science of mechanical engineering, HUANG YI & KUKA is a poetic work that
intertwines modern dance and visual arts with the realm of robotics, revealing humanity through a series of vignettes between live dancers
and KUKA, a robot conceptualized and programmed by Huang. “Dancing face to face with a robot is like looking at my own face in a
mirror...I think I have found the key to spin human emotions into robots,” Huang asserts.
HUANG YI & KUKA is an original production of Huang Yi Studio +, developed at 3LD Art & Technology Center, in association with
Sozo Artists. Commissioned by Quanta Arts Foundation.
facebook.com/HuangYiStudio
Anab Jain
Futurist, designer
Superflux co-founder and TED Fellow Anab Jain parses uncertainties around our shared futures to create provocative experiences, tools
and tactics that we can adopt today.
In 2009, Anab Jain co-founded the design firm Superflux with Jon Ardern, inspired by influences as far-flung as avant-garde architecture
and Andrei Tarkovsky. The challenges Jain explores are some of the biggest -- climate change, biotech, intelligent machines -- and her
resulting work “navigates the entangled wilderness of our technology, politics, culture and environment to imagine new ways of seeing,
being and acting.”
In her work, Jain creates worlds, stories and tools that provoke and inspire us to engage with the precarity of our rapidly changing world.
Superflux is building tools, methods and commons that can enable us to mitigate the shock of food insecurity and climate change. Recently
they produced a series of civilian drones, and created a vision of a near-future city where these intelligent machines begin to display
increasing autonomy with civic society. Among Superflux’s previous projects is a headset allowing blind subjects injected with a lightsensitive
virus to develop a kind of “super-sight” sensitive to spectrums that ordinary vision cannot detect.
superflux.in @anabjain
Garry Kasparov
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Garry Kasparov
Grandmaster, analyst
Garry Kasparov is esteemed by many as the greatest chess player of all time. Now he’s engaged in a game with far higher stakes: the
preservation of democracy.
When 22-year-old Garry Kasparov became the world’s youngest chess Grand Champion, few could predict his turbulent career in chess or
as a dissident. His chessboard wizardry was already the stuff of legend when, in 1997, he made headlines when he lost a rematch to IBM’s
Deep Blue supercomputer, ushering AI into the public sphere.
Kasparov’s book Winter Is Coming details the rise of Putin’s Russia as well as Kasparov’s persecution and self-exile, and it serves chilling
warnings of reactionary forces gathering in the West. He is the chair of the Human Rights Foundation, succeeding his predecessor Vaclav
Havel.
kasparov.com @Kasparov63
Laura Galante
Cyberspace analyst
Laura Galante analyzes how states use cyberspace: a domain where militaries, intelligence services, criminal groups and individuals pursue
their interests with far fewer restraints than in the physical world.
At FireEye, Galante's teams have profiled advanced cyber threats, investigated network breaches and portrayed the political, military and
financial implications of cyber operations. Part of the original Mandiant Intelligence team, Galante has led strategic analysis, developed
intelligence capabilities and offerings, and directed publications including APT28: A Window into Russia’s State Cyber Espionage; Red
Line Drawn: China Recalculates its Use of Cyber Espionage; and Hacking the Street? FIN4 Likely Playing the Market among others.
In November 2016 she spoke at the UN Security Council’s Arria Formula meeting on cybersecurity and international peace and security.
She frequently appears on and provides commentary to: CNN, Bloomberg, NPR, BBC, Fox News, the New York Times, The Financial
Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the Associated Press and other global and industry media. Prior to her work at FireEye and
Mandiant, Galante led a contractor team analyzing cyber capability development and military doctrine at the US Department of Defense.
She supported the 2010 US-Russia bilateral information security talks.
fireeye.com @LauraLGalante
OK Go
Band
A wildly creative band of music- and video-makers, OK Go is building a media empire on the back of endless, boundless ingenuity.
With a career that includes award-winning videos, New York Times op-eds, a major label split and the establishment of a DIY trans-media
mini-empire (Paracadute), collaborations with pioneering dance companies and tech giants, animators and Muppets, and an experiment that
aims to encode Hungry Ghosts on actual strands of DNA, OK Go continue to fearlessly dream and build new worlds in a time when
creative boundaries have all but dissolved.
The band has been honored with a Grammy, three MTV Video Music Awards (one of them from Japan!), a CLIO, three UK Music Video
Awards, two Webby Awards (including one for their collaboration with The Muppets and Sesame Street) and a spot in a Guggenheim
installation. Their latest video is “The One Moment,” directed by the band's singer, Damian Kulash Jr.
okgo.net @okgo
Tim Ferriss
Human guinea pig, author
Tim Ferriss is author of "The 4-Hour Workweek," a self-improvement program of four steps: defining aspirations, managing time, creating
automatic income and escaping the trappings of the 9-to-5.
Tim Ferris brings an analytical yet accessible approach to the challenges of self-improvement and career advancement through what he
calls "lifestyle design." His 2007 book, The 4-Hour Workweek, and his lectures on productivity are stuffed with moving, encouraging
anecdotes -- often from his own life -- that show how simple decisions, made despite fears or hesitation, can make for a drastically more
meaningful day-to-day experience at work, or in life.
Word-of-blog chatter in Silicon Valley may have propelled his book to bestselling success, but Ferriss himself takes a fervid stance against
the distractions of technology toys that promote unnecessary multitasking. Following the success of his book, Ferriss has become a fulltime
angel investor.
Titus Kaphar
Artist
Titus Kaphar's artworks interact with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums.
As Titus Kaphar says of his work: “I’ve always been fascinated by history: art history, American history, world history, individual history -
- how history is written, recorded, distorted, exploited, reimagined, and understood. In my work I explore the materiality of reconstructive
history. I paint and I sculpt, often borrowing from the historical canon, and then alter the work in some way. I cut, crumple, shroud, shred,
stitch, tar, twist, bind, erase, break, tear, and turn the paintings and sculptures I create, reconfiguring them into works that nod to hidden
narratives and begin to reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history."
His latest works are an investigation into the highest and lowest forms of recording history. From monuments to mug shots, this body of
work exhibited at Jack Shainman gallery December-January 2017 seeks to collapse the line of American history to inhabit a fixed point in
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work exhibited at Jack Shainman gallery December-January 2017 seeks to collapse the line of American history to inhabit a fixed point in
the present. Historical portraiture, mug shots, and YouTube stills challenge viewers to consider how we document the past, and what we
have erased. Rather than explore guilt or innocence, Kaphar engages the narratives of individuals and how we as a society manage and
define them over time. As a whole, this exhibition explores the power of rewritten histories to question the presumption of innocence and
the mythology of the heroic.
kapharstudio.com
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
Religious leader
In a world violently polarized by extremists, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is proposing and advocating solutions to mounting religious
intolerance.
Rabbi Lord Sacks is one of Judaism’s spiritual leaders, and he exercises a primary influence on the thought and philosophy of Jews and
people of all faiths worldwide. Since stepping down as Chief Rabbi of the UK and Commonwealth in 2013, Rabbi Lord Sacks has become
an increasingly well-known speaker, respected moral voice and writer; his 2015 book is Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious
Violence.
Granted a seat in the British House of Lords in 2009, Rabbi Lord Sacks is a key Jewish voice for universalism and an embrace of tolerance
between religions and cultures. He rejects the “politics of anger” brought about by the way “we have acted as if markets can function
without morals, international corporations without social responsibility and economic systems without regard to their effect on the people
left stranded by the shifting tide." He also sees, as a key idea for faith in our times, that unity in heaven creates diversity on earth.
rabbisacks.org @rabbisacks
Tuesday, April 25, 8:30AM - 10:15AM PDT
Session 2: Our Robotic Overlords
Hosted by Chris Anderson and Helen Walters.
Marc Raibert
Roboticist
Marc Raibert is the founder and CEO of robot maker Boston Dynamics.
Working with his team at Boston Dynamics, Marc Raibert builds some of the world’s most advanced robots, such as BigDog, Atlas, Spot
and Handle. These robots are inspired by the remarkable ability of animals to move with agility, dexterity, perception and intelligence. A
key ingredient of these robots is their dynamic behavior, which contributes to their lifelike qualities and their effectiveness in the real
world.
Raibert founded Boston Dynamics as a spinoff from MIT, where he ran the Leg Laboratory, which helped establish the scientific basis for
highly dynamic robots. He was a professor of EE&CS at MIT and before that associate professor of CS & Robotics at Carnegie Mellon
University. Raibert is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
bostondynamics.com
Noriko Arai
AI expert
Could an AI pass the entrance exam for the University of Tokyo? Noriko Arai oversees a project that wants to find out.
Noriko Arai is the program director of an AI challenge, Todai Robot Project, which asks the question: Can AI get into the University of
Tokyo? The project aims to visualize both the possibilities and the limitation of current AI by setting a concrete goal: a software system
that can pass university entrance exams. In 2015 and 2016, Todai Robot achieved top 20 percent in the exams, and passed more than 60
percent of the universities in Japan.
The inventor of Reading Skill Test, in 2017 Arai conducted a large-scale survey on reading skills of high and junior high school students
with Japan's Ministry of Education. The results revealed that more than half of junior high school students fail to comprehend sentences
sampled from their textbooks. Arai founded the Research Institute of Science for Education to elucidate why so many students fail to read
and how she can support them.
nii.ac.jp/en/faculty/society/arai_noriko researchmap.jp/arai_noriko/english
Stuart Russell
AI expert
Stuart Russell wrote the standard text on AI; now he thinks deeply on AI's future -- and the future of us humans too.
Stuart Russell is a professor (and formerly chair) of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at University of California at Berkeley.
His book Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (with Peter Norvig) is the standard text in AI; it has been translated into 13 languages
and is used in more than 1,300 universities in 118 countries. His research covers a wide range of topics in artificial intelligence including
machine learning, probabilistic reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, real-time decision making, multitarget tracking, computer
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machine learning, probabilistic reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, real-time decision making, multitarget tracking, computer
vision, computational physiology, global seismic monitoring and philosophical foundations.
He also works for the United Nations, developing a new global seismic monitoring system for the nuclear-test-ban treaty. His current
concerns include the threat of autonomous weapons and the long-term future of artificial intelligence and its relation to humanity.
eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell
Joseph Redmon
Computer scientist
Joseph Redmon works on the YOLO algorithm, which combines the simple face detection of your phone camera with a cloud-based AI --
in real time.
Computer scientist Joseph Redmon is working on the YOLO (You Only Look Once) algorithm, which has a simple goal: to deliver image
recognition and object detection at a speed that would seem science-fictional only a few years ago. The algorithm looks like the simple face
detection of a camera app but with the level complexity of systems like Google's Deep Mind Cloud Vision, using Convolutional Deep
Neural Networks to crunch object detection in realtime. It's the kind of technology that will be embedded on all smartphones in the next
few years.
Redmon is also internet-famous for his resume.
pjreddie.com @pjreddie
Tom Gruber
AI developer
As co-creator of Siri, Tom Gruber helped redefine the role of machine intelligence in our lives and transformed the way we interact with
our devices.
By connecting humans and machines with AI, designer, inventor and polymath Tom Gruber is opening up new ways to improve our lives
and augment human intelligence.
Gruber led the team that revolutionized human-machine interaction with Siri, the intelligent personal assistant that can understand your
spoken language and help you get things done. Launched in 2010, Siri is now used billions of times a week in more than 30 countries
around the world.
tomgruber.org
Radhika Nagpal
Robotics engineer
Taking cues from bottom-up biological networks like those of social insects, Radhika Nagpal helped design an unprecedented “swarm” of
ant-like robots.
With a swarm of 1,024 robots inspired by the design of ant colonies, Radhika Nagpal and her colleagues at Harvard’s SSR research group
have redefined expectations for self-organizing robotic systems. Guided by algorithms, Nagpal’s shockingly simple robots guide
themselves into a variety of shapes -- an ability that, brought to scale, might lead to applications like disaster rescue, space exploration and
beyond.
In addition to her work with biologically inspired robots, Nagpal helped create ROOT, a simple robot to teach coding to would-be
programmers through a simple user interface suitable for students of all ages.
radhikanagpal.org eecs.harvard.edu/ssr
Tuesday, April 25, 11:00AM - 12:45PM PDT
Session 3: The Human Response
Hosted by Chris Anderson and Kelly Stoetzel.
Rutger Bregman
Historian
Rutger Bregman is the author of the new "Utopia for Realists."
Rutger Bregman is one of Europe’s most prominent young thinkers. The 28-year-old historian and author has published four books on
history, philosophy and economics. His History of Progress was awarded the Belgian Liberales prize for best nonfiction book of 2013. The
Dutch edition of Utopia for Realists became a national bestseller and will be translated in 16 languages this year. Bregman has twice been
nominated for the prestigious European Press Prize for his journalism work at The Correspondent. His work has been featured in The
Washington Post and The Guardian and on the BBC.
rutgerbregman.com @rcbregman
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Martin Ford
Futurist
Martin Ford imagines what the accelerating progress in robotics and artificial intelligence may mean for the economy, job market and
society of the future.
Martin Ford was one of the first analysts to write compellingly about the future of work and economies in the face of the growing
automation of everything. He sketches a future that's radically reshaped not just by robots but by the loss of the income-distributing power
of human jobs. How will our economic systems need to adapt?
He's the author of two books: Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future (winner of the 2015 Financial
Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award ) and The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy
of the Future, and he's the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm. He has written about future technology and its
implications for the New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review and The Financial
Times.
mfordfuture.com @MFordFuture
Jack Conte
Musician, entrepreneur
With his membership platform Patreon, YouTube star Jack Conte may have solved a perennial problem of content creators -- getting paid
for digital media.
As a solo artist and member of folk-rock duo Pomplamoose, Jack Conte garnered millions of views for his offbeat “video songs,” including
his breakout hit “Yeah Yeah Yeah” and “Pedals,” a robotic tour-de-force with a set that duplicates the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.
Despite his success, Conte noted the disconnect between page views and revenue, and realized that if you’re a widely viewed artist and you
aren’t making money, “that’s not your fault -- it’s technology’s fault.” His solution is Patreon: a membership platform built on recurring
payments from patrons to support creatives with ongoing projects.
patreon.com/jackconte @jackconte
Sara DeWitt
Children’s media expert
Like Mister Rogers before her, Sara DeWitt strives to make every child feel special by charting the forefront of new digital mediums where
kids spend their time.
Sara DeWitt’s vision seems simple: make each digital interaction an opportunity to learn and delight in new discoveries. How does that
vision come to light as kids access technology at younger ages than ever before?
Over the past 18 years, DeWitt has worked at the forefront of new platforms in an effort to be everywhere kids are -- now she's at PBS
Kids Digital, building award-winning sites, games and apps. As more media outlets try to capture the interest of our youngest audiences,
her research on how digital spaces affect skills and social emotional development in kids is more relevant than ever.
pbskids.org @saradewitt
Ray Dalio
Hedge fund chair
Ray Dalio is the founder, chair and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, a global leader in institutional portfolio
management and the largest hedge fund in the world.
Dalio started Bridgewater out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City in 1975 and has grown it into the fifth most important
private company in the U.S. (according to Fortune magazine). Because of the firm’s many industry-changing innovations over its 40-year
history, he has been called the “Steve Jobs of investing” by aiCIO magazine and named one of TIME magazine’s "100 Most Influential
People."
Dalio attributes Bridgewater’s success to its unique culture. He describes it as “a believability-weighted idea meritocracy” in which the
people strive for “meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical truth and radical transparency.” He has explained this
approach in his book Principles, which has been downloaded more than three million times and has produced considerable curiosity and
controversy.
bridgewater.com principles.com
Anthony D. Romero
Attorney, public-interest activist
Anthony D. Romero is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The ACLU is dedicated to defending liberty and individual freedom in the US -- which is an interesting mandate to have right now.
Anthony Romero has headed the organization since 2001, focusing on building capacity in order to defend the laws that protect Americans'
freedoms.
Under Romero's watch, the ACLU launched its national "Keep America Safe and Free" campaign to protect basic freedoms during a time
of crisis; launched its unique legal challenge to the patents held by a private company on the human genes associated with breast and
ovarian cancer; launched litigation and lobbying efforts to win the freedom to marry for same-sex couples; and filed the first lawsuit
against President Trump’s Muslim Ban.
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aclu.org
T. Morgan Dixon
Health activist
T. Morgan Dixon is the co-founder and CEO of GirlTrek, inspiring nearly 100,000 neighborhood walkers.
T. Morgan Dixon co-leads GirlTrek, the largest public health nonprofit for African-American women and girls in the United States.
GirlTrek encourages women to use walking as a practical first step to inspire healthy living, families and communities and knits local
advocacy together to lead a civil rights-inspired health movement that seeks to eliminate barriers to physical activity, improve access to
safe places to walk, protect and reclaim green spaces and improve the walkability and built environments of 50 high-need communities
across the United States.
Prior to GirlTrek, Dixon was on the front lines of education reform. She served as Director of Leadership Development for one of the
largest charter school networks in the country, Achievement First, and directed the start-up of six public schools in New York City for St.
Hope and the Urban Assembly, two organizations funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As the leader of GirlTrek, Morgan
received fellowships from Echoing Green (2013), Ashoka (2014) and The Aspen Institute (2015).
girltrek.org @GirlTrek
Vanessa Garrison
Health activist
As COO of GirlTrek, Vanessa Garrison encourages African American women and girls to get out and take a walk.
Vanessa Garrison is the co-founder and COO of GirlTrek, the largest public health nonprofit for African-American women and girls in the
United States. With nearly 100,000 neighborhood walkers, GirlTrek encourages women to use walking as a practical first step to inspire
healthy living, families and communities.
Working with partners, GirlTrek has developed a world-class training for African-American women to serve as health professionals in the
areas of fitness, mental health, nutrition, and environmental stewardship. Prior to GirlTrek, Garrison worked as a Program Coordinator for
Our Place DC, a nonprofit organization that provides services to currently and formerly incarcerated women. In her work with GirlTrek,
she's received fellowships from Echoing Green and The Aspen Institute and been named “Health Hero” by Essence Magazine.
girltrek.org @GirlTrek
Tuesday, April 25, 2:15PM - 4:00PM PDT
TED en Español: Conexión y Sentido
Hosted by Gerry Garbulsky, TED en Español showcases powerful ideas in Spanish. Join us in the Community Theater. (English translation will be available.)
Gabriela González
Astrophysicist
Gabriela González is part of the collaboration of more than 1,000 scientists who measured for the first time the gravitational waves that
Einstein predicted over 100 years ago.
Over 100 years after Albert Einstein predicted gravitational waves -- ripples in space-time caused by violent cosmic collision, like the
merging of two black holes -- the LIGO Scientific Collaboration confirmed their existence using large, hyper-sensitive detectors in
different parts of the world. As LIGO's former spokesperson and the person responsible for the collaboration of 90 international scientific
institutions that the project entailed, Argentine astrophysicist Gabriela González announced the extraordinary discovery to the world in
2016.
A relentless curiosity about the universe led González to astrophysics as a teenager. Over the course of her 25-year career, she has
advanced the field of gravitational wave detection, working on both improving the sensitivity of interferometers and data analysis. She is
the recipient of the E. Bouchet and the Jesse W. Beams awards from the American Physical Society, the B. Rossi prize from the American
Astronomical Society, and the 2016 Scientific Discovery Award from the US National Academy of Sciences. She was the first woman to
receive a full professorship in the physics department at Louisiana State University.
phys.lsu.edu/faculty/gonzalez/
Jorge Drexler
Musician, poet
Jorge Drexler is a musician and the first Uruguayan to win an Oscar. His music plays with genre and influence, combining subtle
harmonies and regional styles with electronic effects.
Jorge Drexler doesn't lay claim to one identity over another. Born to a German-Jewish exile, Drexler grew up between Uruguay and Israel,
traveled widely across Latin America, and eventually settled in Spain. Within his music, you can hear touches of milonga and bossa nova
and even Bach, as his lyrics wrangle with notions of nationality and belonging, language, identity and love.
Like both of his parents, Drexler started his career as a physician, but at the age of 30, he decided to pursue music full-time. The release of
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Like both of his parents, Drexler started his career as a physician, but at the age of 30, he decided to pursue music full-time. The release of
his fifth album, Frontera, caught the attention of Brazilian director Walter Salles, who tapped him to write the closing song for the 2004
film Motorcycle Diaries. Titled "Al Otro Lado del Río" (The Other Side of the River), the song won Drexler an Academy Award for Best
Original Song and propelled him into the international spotlight.
Over the course of his 25-year career, Jorge Drexler has produced 12 albums, received 15 Latin Grammy nomination (with two wins in
2014 Record of the Year and Best Singer-Songwriter Album), four US Grammy nominations, 5 ASCAP Latin Awards, and one Academy
Award. He has also collaborated with musicians from Shakira to Mercedes Sosa to Neneh Cherry and Jovanotti.
jorgedrexler.com @drexlerjorge
Jorge Ramos
Journalist, news anchor
Jorge Ramos is a journalist and a news anchor. His work covers the issues that affect the 55 million Latinos in the United States and
immigrants all over the world.
Jorge Ramos immigrated to the United States from Mexico City, on a student visa at the age of 24. What started as a street beat for a local
Spanish-language broadcast in Los Angeles in the 1980s has evolved into a career of remarkable distinction and credibility. Today, Ramos
co-anchors Univision's flagship Spanish-language broadcast, “Noticiero Univisión," writes a nationally syndicated column, hosts the
Sunday Morning show "Al Punto" and now, the English language program, "America with Jorge Ramos." He is the winner of eight Emmys
and the author of eleven books, including Take a Stand: Lessons from Rebels, 2016; A Country for All: An Immigrant Manifesto; and Dying
to Cross: The Worst Immigrant Tragedy in American History.
In the absence of political representation in the United States, Jorge Ramos gives a face and voice to the millions of Latinos and
immigrants living in the United States. He uses his platform to promote open borders and immigrants' rights and demands accountability
from the world leaders he interviews. Nearly 1.9 million viewers tune into his program each night, and in 2015, Time named him one of
"The World's 100 Most Influential People."
jorgeramos.com @jorgeramosnews
Isabel Behncke Izquierdo
Primatologist
Isabel Behncke Izquierdo studies the social behavior of primates and the birth of human cultures.
TED Fellow Isabel Behncke Izquierdo writes: I was born and raised in Chile, and was educated in animal behaviour and evolutionary
anthropology in Cambridge and Oxford. For my PhD work, I study the social behaviour (and play behaviour in particular) of wild bonobos
in DR Congo.
Bonobos are, together with chimpanzees, our living closest relatives; however we know very little about them -- mostly through captive
work. In Wamba, a most remote jungle location, I have observed unique aspects of bonobo lives (from imaginary play and laughter to
inter-group encounters to accidents and death) that challenge and illuminate our understanding of human evolution. I aim to link the play of
adult bonobos to insights on human laughter, joy, creativity and our capacity for wonder and exploration.
Tomás Saraceno
Artist
Tomás Saraceno is an artist who invites us to consider the impossible, like spiders that play music or cities in the sky.
Tomás Saraceno’s soaring artworks inspire human dreams and point to a world free of our earth-bound afflictions, whether by suspending
its viewers in webs high above gallery floors or by casting solar-powered baloons adrift in the stratosphere -- or turning spiders into musicmakers.
Part art project and science experiment, his latest work Aerocene bypasses the museum in favor of an unprecedented airborne journey.
Using only the heat of the sun and wind for its locomotion, Aerocene not only shattered solar-powered flight records but also invites others
to hack its open-source, interactive design and model its flight behavior.
tomassaraceno.com @tomassaraceno
Ingrid Betancourt
Writer, peace advocate
Ingrid Betancourt was a presidential candidate in Colombia in 2002 when she was kidnapped by guerilla rebels. After six years in captivity
and a high-profile rescue, she now writes about what she learned about fear, forgiveness and the divine.
In 2002, the Colombian rural guerilla movement known as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) kidnapped Ingrid
Betancourt in the middle of her presidential campaign. For the next six years, Betancourt was held hostage in jungle prison camps where
she was ravaged by malaria, fleas, hunger, and human cruelty until her high-profile rescue by the Colombian government in 2008.
But Betancourt's captivity did not diminish her sensitivity to the world. Since her release, the would-be president has become a memoirist
and fiction writer. Her first book, Even Silence Has Its End, which lyrically recounts her six years in the impenetrable jungle, was
published in 2010. In 2016, she published a second work -- this time of fiction -- called The Blue Line, about the disappearances in
Argentina during the Dirty War from 1976 to 1983.
Betancourt has received multiple international awards for her commitment to democratic values, freedom and tolerance, including the
French National Order of the Légion d’Honneur, the Spanish Prince of Asturias Prize of Concord, and the Italian Prize Grinzane Cavour.
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She remains a vocal proponent of peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the FARC.
Tuesday, April 25, 5:00PM - 7:00PM PDT
Session 4: Health, Life, Love
Hosted by Chris Anderson, Anna Verghese and Bruno Giussani.
Not attending TED2017? Watch Session 4 – TED Prize – broadcast to cinemas! Find showtimes
Serena Williams
Athlete
With her legendary spirit and unstoppable serve, tennis legend Serena Williams has become one of the world’s most enduring athletic
superstars.
Serena Williams sits at the top of the tennis world; she's won 23 career Grand Slams, which is the most Grand Slam singles titles in history,
with her most recent win at the 2017 Australian Open. In some analysts' eyes, she's quite simply the greatest athlete of all time.
But Williams has extended her influence far beyond the tennis court. Through her activism, high-profile endorsements, TV and film
appearances and writing (including a guide to life written with her sister, Venus), Williams inspires millions of fans worldwide.
serenawilliams.com @serenawilliams on Instagram
Gayle King
Journalist
Gayle King is a co-host of "CBS This Morning” and Editor-at-Large of the award-winning O, the Oprah Magazine.
An award-winning journalist who has worked across television, radio and print, Gayle King is a co-host of CBS This Morning and Editorat-Large
of O, the Oprah Magazine.
King previously hosted The Gayle King Show, a live, weekday television interview program on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. The
program, which featured a discussion of a broad variety of topics that include politics, cultural developments, was also broadcast on XM
Satellite Radio, where it premiered in 2006.
Before moving into print and radio, King worked for 18 years (1982–2000) as a television news anchor for CBS affiliate WFSB-TV in
Hartford, Conn., during which period, she also hosted her own syndicated daytime program. Prior to joining WFSB, King worked at
several other television stations, including WDAF-TV in Kansas City, Mo. (1978-1981), WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Md. (1976), and WTOP-
TV in Washington, D.C. (1975).
King has received numerous awards for her extensive work as a journalist. In addition to three Emmys, she was honored in 2008 with the
American Women in Radio & Television Gracie Award for Outstanding Radio Talk Show and in 2010 with both the Individual
Achievement Award for Host-Entertainment/Information and the New York Women in Communications' Matrix Award.
cbsnews.com/cbs-this-morning @GayleKing
Atul Gawande
Surgeon, journalist
Surgeon by day and public health journalist by night, Atul Gawande explores how doctors can dramatically improve their practice using
something as simple as a checklist.
Atul Gawande is author of several best-selling books, including Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, Better: A
Surgeon's Notes on Performance, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End and The Checklist Manifesto.
He is also a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker and a professor at Harvard Medical
School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He has won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, a MacArthur Fellowship
and two National Magazine Awards. In his work in public health, he is Executive Director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health
systems innovation and chair of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally.
Photo: Aubrey Calo
atulgawande.com ariadnelabs.org
Anna Rosling Rônnlund
Co-founder of Gapminder
Anna Rosling Rônnlund's personal mission: to make it easy for anyone to understand the world visually.
Always with the end consumer at heart, Anna Rosling Rônnlund spends her days making sure everything at Gapminder -- a site she
cofounded with Hans and Ola Rosling -- is easy to use and easy to understand. On Gapminder, users can explore data and statistics about
the world -- and, just maybe, upend their worldview.
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Passionate about the visual side of data, she invented the project Dollar Street, where she uses photos as data to examine stereotypes about
countries, incomes and families around the world -- like, for instancee the wide range of things that people use as toothbrushes.
gapminder.org
The Surprise Guest
World figure
A world figure whose identity we can't yet reveal.
Jon Boogz
Movement artist
Jon Boogz is a movement artist, choreographer, and director who seeks to push the evolution of what dance can be.
As a dancer and creator, Jon Boogz seeks to share with audiences of all backgrounds an appreciation of the melding of art forms while
inspiring and bringing awareness to social issues. Boogz recently wrote, choreographed, directed and danced in Color of Reality, a short
film in collaboration with visual artist Alexa Meade and fellow dancer Lil Buck.
First motivated to dance by the work of Michael Jackson, Boogz has choreographed for icons including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Naomi
Campbell, Gloria Estefan; for Pharrell’s Adidas Originals campaign to creative direct, choreograph, and perform in Movement Art Is:
Standing Rock at ComplexCon; and as creative consultant for ads launching campaigns for Apple and Lexus. Boogz’s collaborators
include TriBeCa Film Festival, DAIS, Lil Buck, and Flying Lotus; his choreography is used in FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance and
Cirque du Soleil’s MJ ONE; and he was featured at the Geffen Playhouse’s “Backstage at the Geffen” with his dance company Control
Freakz, Lil Buck, and spoken-word artist Robin Sanders to honor Morgan Freeman and Jeff Skoll.
jonboogz.com @jonboogz
Lil Buck
Dancer, choreographer, educator
A viral video star known for his gravity-defying, elegant street dance moves, Lil Buck is a fertile collaborator across disciplines and media.
International phenomenon Lil Buck began jookin’ -- a street dance that originated in Memphis -- at age 13 alongside mentors Marico Flake
and Daniel Price. After receiving early hip-hop training from Teran Garry and ballet training on scholarship at the New Ballet Ensemble,
he performed and choreographed until relocating to Los Angeles in 2009.
Named one of Dance Magazine’s "25 to Watch," his collaboration with Spike Jonze and Yo-Yo Ma performing The Swan went viral in
2011. Since then, he has collaborated with a broad spectrum of artists including JR, Damian Woetzel, the New York City Ballet, Madonna,
Benjamin Millepied and Spike Lee. Buck is an avid arts education advocate, a recipient of the WSJ Innovator Award and recently launched
a capsule collection with Versace.
youtube.com/user/LILBUCKDALEGEND https://twitter.com/lilbuckdalegend
Raj Panjabi
Physician
A billion people around the world lack access to health care because they live too far from a clinic. Through Last Mile Health, 2017 TED
Prize winner Raj Panjabi aims to extend health services to all -- by training members of the community.
Raj Panjabi was nine years old when civil war broke out in his native country of Liberia. His family fled, eventually resettling in High
Point, North Carolina. Raj dreamed of going to medical school and, as a student in 2005, he returned to Liberia. He was shocked to find a
health care system in total devastation. Only 50 doctors remained to treat a population of four million.
With a small team of Liberian civil war survivors, American health workers and $6,000 he'd received as a wedding gift, Panjabi cofounded
Last Mile Health in 2007. Initially focused on care for HIV patients, Last Mile Health has grown into a robust organization that
partners with the government of Liberia to recruit, train, equip and employ community health care workers who provide a wide range of
services to their neighbors in Liberia's most remote regions. In 2016, Last Mile Health workers treated 50,000 patients, including nearly
22,000 cases of malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea in children. While the organization focuses on integrated primary care, its network can be
leveraged in a crisis. In the fight against Ebola, Last Mile Health supported government response by training 1,300 health workers in
southeastern Liberia.
Panjabi is a physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital and an advisor
to the Clinton Global Initiative. He was ranked as one of "The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders" by Fortune in 2015 and named to TIME's list
of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2016. As the winner of the 2017 TED Prize, he has a bold wish to take his work even
further.
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Wednesday, April 26, 8:30AM - 10:15AM PDT
Session 5: Mind, Meaning
Hosted by Helen Walters.
Michael Patrick Lynch
Philosopher
Michael Patrick Lynch examines truth, democracy, public discourse and the ethics of technology in the age of big data.