How can everyday people help foster and protect democracy? Detailing her work fighting for people power as an activist in Madagascar, Ketakandriana Rafitoson discusses how citizen assemblies — meetings where ordinary citizens get...

At the end of World War II, the nations of Europe were a shambles. Today we'll learn about how the various countries and blocs approached the problem of rebuilding their infrastructure and helping their residents recover. You'll learn...

Philosopher Hannah Arendt was a German Jew who dedicated herself to understanding how the Nazi regime came to power, and more specifically, how it inspired so many atrocities. She believed the true conditions behind the unprecedented...

Corruption is often defined as misuse of a position of power for personal gain. And while corruption in politics is nothing new, it isn't limited to the political sphere; it can happen in schools, sports, businesses, or religious...

What does it mean to be an active citizen? It's about more than just voting and paying taxes, says social entrepreneur Gabriel Marmentini. He explains why we can't rely on the state alone to solve all our problems — and presents the four...

Democracy is about having choices — and authoritarianism is about not having them, says lawyer and writer Ian Bassin. Detailing the seven steps of the authoritarian playbook, he invites us all to put aside our differences and rethink our...

Why are we so deadlocked on climate, and what would it take to overcome the seemingly insurmountable barriers to progress? Policy entrepreneur TED Halstead proposes a transformative solution based on the conservative principles of free...

In 2020, Mali produced over 71 tons of gold— an amount worth billions of dollars. But Mali saw only $850 million dollars from that gold. And this situation isn't unique: a number of other gold-rich countries in Africa aren't seeing the...

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing...

Design gives form to the future, says architect Bjarke Ingels. In this worldwide tour of his team's projects, journey to a waste-to-energy power plant (that doubles as an alpine ski slope) and the LEGO Home of the Brick in Denmark -- and...

How do we build a society without fossil fuels? using her native Costa Rica as an example of positive action on environmental protection and renewables, climate advocate Monica Araya outlines a bold vision for a world committed to clean...

Today, Craig is going to talk about the most important part of the Constitution - the Fourteenth Amendment. In particular, we're going to discuss the "equal protection" clause and how it relates to our civil rights. So we've spent the...

At the US-Mexico border, policies of prolonged detention and family separation have made seeking asylum in the United States difficult and dangerous. In this raw and heartfelt talk, immigration attorney Erika Pinheiro offers a glimpse...

In this powerful talk from TEDGlobal, Rebecca MacKinnon describes the expanding struggle for freedom and control in cyberspace, and asks: How do we design the next phase of the Internet with accountability and freedom at its core, rather...

Greece has been the poster child for European economic crisis, but former Prime Minister George Papandreou wonders if it's just a preview of what's to come. “Our democracies," he says, "are trapped by systems that are too big to fail, or...

Water is essential to life. Yet in the eyes of the law, it remains largely unprotected -- leaving many communities without access to safe drinking water, says legal scholar Kelsey Leonard. In this powerful talk, she shows why granting...

We're building an artificial intelligence-powered dystopia, one click at a time, says techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci. In an eye-opening talk, she details how the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get...

Can government be run like the Internet, permissionless and open? Coder and activist Jennifer Pahlka believes it can -- and that apps, built quickly and cheaply, are a powerful new way to connect citizens to their governments -- and...

Hacking is about more than mischief-making or political subversion. As Catherine Bracy describes in this spirited talk, it can be just as much a force for good as it is for evil. She spins through some inspiring civically-minded projects...

Today, Craig is going to wrap up our discussion of discrimination by looking more closely at those “discrete and insular minorities” referenced in the 14th Amendment. We’ll talk about instances of discrimination of Asian, European, and...

Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for "practical wisdom" as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help...

We've heard a lot of rhetoric lately suggesting that countries like the uS are losing valuable manufacturing jobs to lower-cost markets like China, Mexico and Vietnam -- and that protectionism is the best way forward. But those jobs...

If we want sustainable, long-term security to be the norm in the world, it's time to radically rethink how we can achieve it, says TED Fellow and conflict researcher Benedetta Berti. In an eye-opening talk, Berti explains how building a...

Cybercrime expert Mikko Hypponen talks us through three types of online attack on our privacy and data -- and only two are considered crimes. "Do we blindly trust any future government? Because any right we give away, we give away for...