TED Talks
Ellen Dunham-Jones: Retrofitting suburbia
Can we rebuild our broken suburbs? Ellen Dunham-Jones shares a vision of dying malls rehabilitated, dead "big box" stores re-inhabited, and endless parking lots transformed into thriving wetlands.
TED Talks
Jaime Lerner: A song of the city
Jaime Lerner reinvented urban space in his native Curitiba, Brazil. Along the way, he changed the way city planners worldwide see what's possible in the metropolitan landscape.
TED Talks
Mike Rowe: Learning from dirty jobs
Mike Rowe, the host of "Dirty Jobs," tells some compelling (and horrifying) real-life job stories. Listen for his insights and observations about the nature of hard work, and how it's been unjustifiably degraded in society today.
Crash Course
The Biggest Problems We're Facing Today & The Future of Engineering: Crash Course Engineering #46
In our final episode of Crash Course Engineering we are going to take all the tools and ideas we’ve discussed throughout this series and try to imagine where we’re headed. We’re going to explore some of the biggest problems that today’s...
TED Talks
Lisa Gansky: The future of business is the "mesh"
Lisa Gansky, author of "The Mesh," talks about a future of business that's about sharing all kinds of stuff, either via smart and tech-enabled rental or, more boldly, peer-to-peer. Examples across industries -- from music to cars -- show...
TED Talks
TED: A precise, three-word address for every place on earth | Chris Sheldrick
With what3words, Chris Sheldrick and his team have divided the entire planet into three-meter squares and assigned each a unique, three-word identifier, like famous.splice.writers or blocks.evenly.breed, giving a precise address to the...
TED Talks
Jonathan Trent: Energy from floating algae pods
Call it "fuel without fossils": Jonathan Trent is working on a plan to grow new biofuel by farming micro-algae in floating offshore pods that eat wastewater from cities. Hear his team's bold vision for Project OMEGA (Offshore Membrane...
TED Talks
TED: Adventures of an interplanetary architect | Xavier De Kestelier
How will we live elsewhere in the galaxy? On earth, natural resources for creating structures are abundant, but sending these materials up with us to the Moon or Mars is clunky and cost-prohibitive. enter architect Xavier De Kestelier,...
TED Talks
Noah Wilson-Rich: Every city needs healthy honey bees
Bees have been rapidly and mysteriously disappearing from rural areas, with grave implications for agriculture. But bees seem to flourish in urban environments -- and cities need their help, too. Noah Wilson-Rich suggests that urban...
TED Talks
TED: The future we're building -- and boring | elon Musk
elon Musk discusses his new project digging tunnels under LA, the latest from Tesla and SpaceX and his motivation for building a future on Mars in conversation with TeD's Head Curator, Chris Anderson.
TED Talks
Ben Wellington: How we found the worst place to park in New York City -- using big data
City agencies have access to a wealth of data and statistics reflecting every part of urban life. But as data analyst Ben Wellington suggests in this entertaining talk, sometimes they just don't know what to do with it. He shows how a...
TED Talks
TED: Doesn't everyone deserve a chance at a good life? | Jim Yong Kim
Aspirations are rising as never before across the world, thanks in large part to smartphones and the internet -- will they be met with opportunity or frustration? As President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim wants to end extreme...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Who owns the "wilderness"? | Elyse Cox
In 1903, US President Theodore Roosevelt took a camping trip in California's Yosemite Valley with conservationist John Muir. Roosevelt famously loved the outdoors, but Muir had invited him for more than just camping: Yosemite was in...
TED Talks
Smruti Jukur Johari: What if the poor were part of city planning?
Almost a billion people worldwide live in informal communities and slums, often without basic infrastructure like clean water, toilets or adequate roads. Urban planner Smruti Jukur Johari breaks down myths about these communities and...
Crash Course
What Holds a Country Together or Tears it Apart? Crash Course Geography
Today we’re going to talk about the forces that affect a country’s stability. We’ll take a closer look at Costa Rica, Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil and examine how the cohesiveness of these Latin American countries varies dramatically even...
TED Talks
TED: How we could better predict and stop floods | Virginia Smith
From village to metropolis, global flooding is on the rise, and traditional approaches to managing the swells won't cut it, says water resource engineer Virginia Smith. Giving an overview of the dynamic shift needed to stymie the flow of...
TED Talks
TED: How fear of nuclear power is hurting the environment | Michael Shellenberger
We're not in a clean energy revolution; we're in a clean energy crisis, says climate policy expert Michael Shellenberger. His surprising solution: nuclear. In this passionate talk, he explains why it's time to overcome longstanding fears...
TED Talks
Alice Bows-Larkin: Climate change is happening. Here's how we adapt
Imagine the hottest day you've ever experienced. Now imagine it's six, 10 or 12 degrees hotter. According to climate researcher Alice Bows-Larkin, that's the type of future in store for us if we don't significantly cut our greenhouse gas...
TED Talks
TED: 4 ways we can avoid a catastrophic drought | David Sedlak
As the world's climate patterns continue to shift unpredictably, places where drinking water was once abundant may soon find reservoirs dry and groundwater aquifers depleted. In this talk, civil and environmental engineer David Sedlak...
TED Talks
Aziza Chaouni: How I brought a river, and my city, back to life
The Fez River winds through the medina of Fez, Morocco—a mazelike medieval city that's a World Heritage site. Once considered the "soul" of this celebrated city, the river succumbed to sewage and pollution, and in the 1950s was covered...
TED Talks
Fahad Al-Attiya: A country with no water
Imagine a country with abundant power -- oil and gas, sunshine, wind (and money) -- but missing one key essential for life: water. Infrastructure engineer Fahad Al-Attiya talks about the unexpected ways that the small Middle Eastern...
TED Talks
TED: Can we call it a "world map" if it's missing a billion people? | Rebecca Firth
Want to help map the world? Community builder Rebecca Firth explains how the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is using open-source software powered by volunteers to put one billion people on the map in the next five years. (This...
TED Talks
TED: How we can design timeless cities for our collective future | Vishaan Chakrabarti
There's a creeping sameness in many of our newest urban buildings and streetscapes, says architect Vishaan Chakrabarti. And this physical homogeneity -- the result of regulations, mass production, safety issues and cost considerations,...
TED Talks
Nandan Nilekani: Ideas for India's future
Nandan Nilekani, the visionary co-founder of outsourcing pioneer Infosys, explains four brands of ideas that will determine whether India can continue its recent breakneck progress.