Rives tells a typographical fairy tale that's short and bittersweet ;)

Poet Rives does 8 minutes of lyrical origami, folding history into a series of coincidences surrounding that most surreal of hours, 4 o'clock in the morning.

Prompted by the Encyclopaedia Britannica ending its print publication, performance poet Rives resurrects a game from his childhood. Speaking at the TEDxSummit in Doha, Rives takes us on a charming tour through random (and less random) bits of human knowledge: from Chimborazo, the farthest point from the center of the Earth, to Ham the Astrochimp...

Rives recaps the most memorable moments of TED2006 in the free-spirited rhyming verse of a fantastical mockingbird lullaby.

Beware: Rives has a contagious obsession with 4 a.m. At TED2007, the poet shared what was then a minor fixation with a time that kept popping up everywhere. After the talk, emails starting pouring in with an avalanche of hilarious references—from the cover of "Crochet Today!" magazine to the opening scene of "The Metamorphosis." A lyrical peek i...

How many poets could cram eBay, Friendster and Monster.com into 3-minute poem worthy of a standing ovation? Enjoy Rives' unique talent.

In a part of the United States with more than 17,000 years of human history, cultural preservation advocate Tracie Revis is working to turn the Ocmulgee Mounds into Georgia's first national park and preserve. This park would be co-managed by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, bringing the tribal voice back to an area they were forcibly removed from 20...

To thrive in today's competitive economy, you need to constantly reimagine your business. So what's the secret to sustained success? Strategist Martin Reeves makes a pitch for embracing play to spark innovative business ideas -- and invites you to try out a series of imagination games that he uses to get leaders to stretch their thinking and dre...

While studying inequality and social mobility, Richard Reeves made a surprising discovery: in some countries, like the US and UK, boys are drastically lagging behind girls across many academic measures. He explains why these struggles in school are indicative of the larger crises facing boys and men -- and outlines how society could thoughtfully...

If you want to build a business that lasts, there may be no better place to look for inspiration than your own immune system. Join strategist Martin Reeves as he shares startling statistics about shrinking corporate life spans and explains how executives can apply six principles from living organisms to build resilient businesses that flourish i...

Musical artist and songwriter Rufus Wainwright performs two enchanting original songs: a gorgeous love song written for his husband and performed on acoustic guitar and a haunting performance on piano.

Is it possible to look ahead without stumbling over what's in front of you? All too often companies spend precious time laying out long term strategic plans, only to discover that their maps are out of date in a month. Business strategy expert Martin Reeves offers a solution. He advocates transitioning from relying on a single "classical" approa...

The racial wealth gap in the United States is shocking: white families have a median wealth nearly 10 times greater than that of Black families. How did we get here, and how can we stop the gap from growing? Wealth equity strategist Kedra Newsom Reeves provides a short history on the origins and perpetuation of racial wealth inequality in the US...

Babble.com publishers Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman, in a lively tag-team, expose 4 facts that parents never, ever admit -- and why they should. Funny and honest, for parents and nonparents alike.

After Robert Lang's talk on origami at TED2008, Bruno Bowden stepped onstage with a challenge -- he would fold one of Lang's astonishingly complicated origami figures, blindfolded, in under 2 minutes. He's accompanied by the cellist Rufus Cappadocia.

The largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon, exists between two rivers — but not in the way you might think. At ground level, the Amazon River and its tributaries weave their path. But above the canopy, bigger waterways are on the move. These flying rivers are almost invisible, but are essential to life on Earth. Iseult Gillespie explores ho...

The modern hard drive is an object that can likely hold more information than your local library. But how does it store so much information in such a small space? Kanawat Senanan details the generations of engineers, material scientists, and quantum physicists who influenced the creation of this incredibly powerful and precise tool. [Directed by...

When Nancy Lublin started texting teenagers to help with her social advocacy organization, what she found was shocking -- they started texting back about their own problems, from bullying to depression to abuse. So she's setting up a text-only crisis line, and the results might be even more important than she expected.

JR launched the participatory art project INSIDE OUT to highlight our shared humanity. Travel with a group of people who packed up their lives and got on the INSIDE OUT bus, crossing the United States to capture portraits of undocumented people and those that support them.

On a reef in the Pacific Ocean, 17,000 camouflage groupers dart about in the cloudy water. It is, in fact, an underwater orgy— turned feeding frenzy. An orgy might seem like a rather flamboyant way to breed, but sex in the sea is a surprisingly inventive affair. So what other sneaky escapades are happening under the sea? Luka Seamus Wright offer...

One person's trash is -- a century later -- another's historical artifact. In this talk, author Lara Maiklem introduces "mudlarking" -- the practice of scavenging river banks for hidden treasure -- and tells of the physical history lurking under the miles of mud along the Thames.

In this prophetic talk from 2003, roboticist Rodney Brooks talks about how robots are going to work their way into our lives -- starting with toys and moving into household chores ... and beyond.

Patenting a new drug helps finance its immense cost to develop -- but that same patent can put advanced treatments out of reach for sick people in developing nations, at deadly cost. Ellen 't Hoen talks about an elegant, working solution to the problem: the Medicines Patent Pool.

Does it seem like Washington has no new ideas? Instead of looking to build the future, it sometimes feels like the US political establishment happily retreats into fear and willful ignorance. Journalist David Rothkopf lays out a few of the major issues that US leadership is failing to address -- from cybercrime to world-shaking new tech to the r...

As a wildfire rages through the grasslands, three lions and three wildebeest flee for their lives. To escape the inferno, they must cross over to the left bank of a crocodile-infested river. Can you help them figure out how to get across on the one raft available without losing any lives? Lisa Winer shows how. [Directed by Artrake Studio, narrat...

Art history is far from set in stone. Engineer Maurizio Seracini spent 30 years searching for Leonardo da Vinci's lost fresco "The Battle of Anghiari," and in the process discovered that many paintings have layers of history hidden underneath. Should they be part of the viewing experience too?

TED Fellow and renewable energy expert Norah Magero envisions an Africa that pioneers its own technological future, shifting the narrative from dependence and consumption to self-reliance and innovation. She shares how she developed VacciBox — a solar-powered refrigeration system made in Kenya to keep vaccines cold in off-grid areas — and highli...

Landscape architect Kate Orff sees the oyster as an agent of urban change. Bundled into beds and sunk into city rivers, oysters slurp up pollution and make legendarily dirty waters clean -- thus driving even more innovation in "oyster-tecture." Orff shares her vision for an urban landscape that links nature and humanity for mutual benefit.

In the wake of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, mixed into the wreckage were lost and damaged photos of families and loved ones. Photo retoucher Becci Manson, together with local volunteers and a global group of colleagues she recruited online, helped clean and fix them, restoring those memories to their owners.

Growing up as a gay teen in Northern Ireland, Lyra McKee had her share of disagreements with the Church and, as a journalist in her 20s, found herself estranged from religious institutions. It wasn't until 2017 and an unexpected conversation about LGBTQ rights in an Orlando mosque that she found herself reckoning with the influence of religion o...