The cornucopia that is TED!

One of the many wonders of the internet, my favourite one is TED.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment & Design. It showcases short 15 to 20 minute talks by some of the best minds in the world. These talks, or presentations, to be exact, are shown by streaming video free to anybody who accesses their web site –

www.ted.com

In my life, I can never hope to attend a lecture by Stephen Hawking and hear him speak of the birth of the universe, but thanks to TED, now I can.

Or I can hear Louise Leakey tell the fascinating story of ancestral humans.

And sitting in my bedroom at the computer,  I can visit the deep ocean and see its mysteries with David Gallo,

or explore Titan and Enceladus, the moons of Saturn along with Carolyn Porco.

Its not just the mysteries and wonders of nature, but also the triumph of the human spirit.

Peter Diamandis talks passionately of how the X Prize is helping liberate the common man from the tyranny of earth’s gravity.

You can watch Robert Full carefully draw out nature’s secrets such as how geckos use nanotechnology to create the stickiest living tissue of all, the paws of their feet.

Or even watch Robert Lang use math in origami to fold the most intricate objects and also to help deploy space telescopes and artery stents.

This list, though I end here, is not even complete in scope as artists, thinkers, teachers, innovators – thinking, passionate, caring people from all walks of life, walk up and deliver 20 minutes of fascination at the TED rostrum. At last count they had 383 short videos, over 120 hours of terrific viewing.

For Indians who can only dream of streaming video, each talk has a link to a zipped up MP4 file for downloading. Typically, they are about 50 MB, so there is absolutely nothing to prevent you from owning your own collection of favourite TED talks.

These talks don’t just educate, they network people and lead to synergistic collaborations.

A wish had just been made on winning the TED Prize for 2009 by Jill Tarter,  the Director of SETI – the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, a matter of immense importance to mankind (she was the role model for Jodie Foster’s character in the 1993 film Contact), when within minutes of hearing her stirring tale of man’s endeavour to search for the unknown, she was flooded by offers to help.

As the Wall Streeet Journal wrote about this…

”A computer scientist donated his patented search algorithms for better data analysis. Marketing experts offered to create Spanish-language Web sites to spread her message throughout Central and South America. A senior developer from Google Inc. volunteered to persuade his company to incorporate searchable star maps into Google Earth.”

By enthusing the world thus, TED and TEDPrize lead the way for all of us…

Personally, whenever I feel down, an hour’s watching of TED videos restores my faith in the concept of humanity and that life is worth striving for and it does make sense to do what you want, even if its just a small thing as a blog…

Note: This post reflects the personal opinion of the author and there is no relation of any kind with TED.com except as a registered user. Their logo is displayed under ‘fair use’ argument of copyright.