TED Talks

What would you do if you are surrounded by the smartest, most committed, highly experienced people on earth who are willing to talk? Simple. You Listen.

TED Talks is actually about that. It is a conference where the world’s greatest thinkers and doers are converged in one intimate hall to do an inspired talk. The speech is only about 18 minutes long (or I say, short) per speaker. Great thinkers from different industries talking about wide-range of topics make up this once a year event. To give you an idea, these are the people who have been a part of TED Talks before: Stephen Hawking, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Isabel Allende, Rick Warren, Eve Ensler, Jimmy Wales and Google guys Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

They hold a conference once every year that is strictly by invitation. Attending such conference could cost a few thousand dollars a pop. Thank God for the Internet, all of us mortals can have access to these precious talks. Here comes TED.com

I chanced upon this website a few months ago and got hooked to it instantly. I first saw the talk of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, on how he started it and up until now, basically running it all by himself plus a battalion of volunteers that are not paid and very much committed. I then saw Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God” talk and it was damn funny (don’t be fooled by the title of her talk, it’s not what it’s about). I then moved to more serious stuff and listened to Stephen Hawking as he ask some big questions about the universe. There are still many topics that I’ve yet to listen to but who says I’m stopping anytime soon.

Get some insight. In a very busy day where we interact with mostly superficial stuff, it’s refreshing to take in some ideas that are worth spreading. Visit TED.com