Speaking at TED in 1990, the not-yet-legendary architect Frank-Gehry takes a whistlestop tour of his work to date, from his own Venice Beach house to the under-construction American Center in Paris. In this 50-minute slideshow (before TED's 18-minute limit), Gehry explains the site-specific nature of his buildings -- context he felt was lost in the discussions of his then-controversial work.
In an eye-opening talk -- presented before the publication of Freakonomics -- Steven-Levitt presents one of the book's more fascinating analyses. Sifting data collected through first-person interviews with a Chicago drug gang, he shows that drug dealing is not at all a quick route to riches.
Negative images of Africa dominate the news: famine and disease, conflict and corruption. But Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister of Nigeria, says there's a less-told story unfolding in many African nations: one of reform, economic growth and business opportunity. Cracking down on corruption -- and the perception of corruption -- will be the key to its success.
She tells how Nigerian officials taking money illicitly have been jailed, and prospective business partners are getting at least a partial picture now.
Speaking at the first TED Conference in 1984, Nicholas-Negroponte waxes on the converging fields of technology, entertainment and design. Years before anyone was using the word "convergence," Negroponte was thinking about the "electronic books of the future" and computers as the future of education.
In excerpts from his 2-hour talk (this was before TED's 18-minute time limit), he foreshadowed CD-ROMs, web interfaces, service kiosks, the touchscreen interface of the iPhone, and his own One Laptop per Child project.
In our hyperlinked world, we can know anything, anytime. And this mass enlightenment, says Buddhist scholar Bob-Thurman, is our first step toward becoming Buddha. When we can know everything, we can see how everything is interconnected -- and we can begin to feel compassion for everything.
