Top Five: Favorite TED Clips

In honor of TED’s 25th anniversary conference happening this very month (and the fact that two of our employees get to go and the rest of us are very jealous!), we’ve decided to share our Top Five Favorite TED clips. If you aren’t familiar with TED it is an annual gathering where the world's leading thinkers and doers give fascinating talks in less than 18 minutes. They are the kind of talks that can squeeze out tears of hope, help you better understand the world, and move you to do good. Watch and be inspired!

1. Majora Carter “Greening the Ghetto”
A moving talk about environmental racism and how she plans to reinvigorate the economy and the environment in the South Bronx which also serves as her home.

2. Sir Ken Robinson “Do Schools Kill Creativity”
Creativity expert, Ken Robinson, says that, in a massive disservice to our youth, the public education system is extinguishing individual creativity. One of his particularly good lines (of many) goes as such: “Our education system has mined our minds in the way we strip mine the earth for a particular commodity, and for the future, it won’t service. We have to rethink the fundamental principles in which we are educating our children.”

3. Jill Bolte Taylor “My Stroke of Insight”
A brain scientist recounts what happened when she experienced her own massive stroke and encourages us all to spend more time in our right brain.

4. Dave Eggers “TED Prize Wish: Once Upon A School”
Dear Everyone: Find a student, help them with their schoolwork, and bask in the positive effects this movement will have on the education of our nation’s youth.

5. Nicholas Negroponte “TED in the Field: Bringing One Laptop per Child to Colombia”
The founder of One Laptop per Child is changing lives and helping nations by bringing laptops to kids in developing countries. He explains, “Think of this as inoculating children against ignorance and think of the laptop as a vaccine.”