Key Moments
11 People Had an Idea — Now They’re on the TED Stage | LIVE from TED2026!
TEDx TalksKey Moments
The wisdom of crowds isn't destroyed by polarization; in fact, divided groups can be collectively wiser. However, this collective intelligence crumbles when disagreement devolves into political violence.
Key Insights
Practicing objectivity by 'parking' emotions rather than negating opinions allows for learning without judgment, leading to potential connection with difficult individuals.
Non-verbal individuals can communicate effectively using simple yes/no questions with eye gaze cues, a method that can prevent unnecessary pain and save lives in healthcare settings.
Indian fashion has profoundly shaped global history and trade, from ancient Egyptian textiles in 2000 BC to the British Industrial Revolution and modern sustainable practices.
Decades of neglect in renewable energy maintenance in Africa have led to system degradation, highlighting the need to embed repair knowledge within existing local trades.
Political polarization, when combined with political violence, breaks down democracy; however, disagreement itself, even polarized disagreement, can lead to collective wisdom.
Conservation chemistry, a new field, applies precision medicine tools to endangered species, offering hope in preventing extinction by treating diseases like cancer and fungal infections.
Sporting and cultural norms, even those deeply entrenched, are meant to be challenged and rewritten, as demonstrated by movements that increase physical activity rates for women.
TED's youth and education initiatives have reached over 2 million students globally, providing presentation literacy skills and public speaking experience, and engaging over 50,000 educators.
Bridging divides through 'moving closer'
Joshua Johnson, a broadcast journalist, proposes shifting from neutrality to objectivity when moderating difficult conversations. Neutrality, he argues, creates distance and hinders true understanding, as seen when interviewing a descendant of Confederate soldiers where his attempts at neutrality felt phony and ultimately failed to connect. Objectivity, however, involves 'parking' one's emotions and opinions to learn without judgment, like a doctor studying a sample under a microscope. This approach allows for deeper exploration of why individuals hold certain beliefs. He shares an anecdote of interviewing a former police officer where, by noticing a waver in the voice, he shifted from neutrality to objectivity, leading the officer to reflect on his trauma and admit, 'I put people in prison cells who are better people than me.' This shift from being right to being real is crucial for connection. Johnson offers three tips: get the story (how beliefs were formed, not just what they are), keep questions short (under 10 seconds), and use a mental microscope to learn without necessarily liking. The takeaway is that embracing objectivity allows for genuine connection even with those we find difficult.
Amplifying non-verbal voices
Jessica Irwin, who is non-verbal due to cerebral palsy, highlights the challenges faced by individuals who cannot speak. She explains that her communication device only allows her to express about 25% of her thoughts, with the rest remaining trapped. Her condition affects mouth muscles, making even simple sounds difficult, and her typing speed is only seven words per minute. This limitation poses significant risks, especially in healthcare. Irwin recounts a horrifying experience where a nurse prepared to roll her onto an injured hip, and her inability to quickly say 'stop' resulted in extreme pain. She advocates for hospitals to implement communication training, emphasizing the simple yet critical principle: assume intelligence. Simple yes/no questions, with up for yes and down for no, can facilitate a basic conversation, even enabling complex scenarios like discerning pain levels or preferences. She also advises against speaking loudly or slowly, and to observe facial expressions, eye movements, and communication devices. Irwin stresses that being non-verbal does not equate to a lack of opinions or knowledge, urging people to communicate with respect and to recognize the agency and humanity of non-verbal individuals.
India's enduring impact on global fashion
Sukriti, a researcher and author, reveals the profound and often overlooked influence of Indian fashion on world history, spanning 4,000 years. She illustrates this by tracing the journey of Indian cotton, first traded with ancient Egypt around 2000 BC for its superior quality and vibrant dyes. By 77 AD, the Roman Empire was experiencing significant drain on its treasury due to the high demand for Indian cotton, earning it the nickname 'woven wind.' The talk highlights 'Poll,' a complex silk tie-dye weave so intricate that it took a team 12 hours a day for nearly a year to produce, reserved for royalty in Southeast Asia. Madras checks, now a staple in Caribbean carnival wear, originated from Chennai, India, offering a breezy alternative to thicker European fabrics. Even the American bandana traces its name and origin to the Indian 'bandhana' or tie-dye technique. Sukriti also discusses 'Dungarees' from Maharashtra and 'Seersucker' fabric, explaining their functional innovations and global adoption. The widespread adoption of Indian textiles like 'Chintz' by the British East India Company in the 17th century even prompted Britain to industrialize its own textile production. She concludes by linking this historical innovation to modern Indian artisans who are creating sustainable, organic, and androgynous fashion, positioning India to continue shaping global textile history and providing significant employment, especially for women. The enduring legacy shows how India has not just dressed history, but also shaped economies and innovations.
Reimagining manufacturing with local, AI-enhanced factories
Fiori Zafeiropoulou Fronimopoulou envisions a future where factories are integrated into cities as vibrant, public spaces, moving away from the 20th-century model of hidden, distant operations. She calls this the 'social fashion factory,' an example of which has been developed in Athens. This concept merges R&D, small-batch production using AI and robotics, and community engagement. The factory becomes a place for public visits, maker nights, and educational programs, fostering transparency and connection between consumers and the production process. Zafeiropoulou emphasizes that AI should augment human capabilities, allowing machines to handle repetitive tasks while humans focus on interpretation, collaboration, and creativity. This model allows for the local production of complex goods like sneakers, which are often outsourced. Crucially, the social fashion factory prioritizes inclusive employment, working with women rebuilding their lives after violence, trafficking, and displacement. These individuals are not just laborers but co-creators, storytellers, and income generators, as exemplified by the 'viv li live free' collection created by a survivor of trafficking. The core idea is that the opposite of exploitation is agency, empowering individuals and communities. This future of manufacturing is not about giant, distant buildings but a constellation of local hubs that prioritize people, their stories, and their sovereignty, transforming factories from hidden sites of extraction to beloved community assets.
Bottom-up innovation in government
Lie Hong Yi describes an experimental approach within the Singaporean government that tackles bureaucratic frustrations by empowering small, skilled teams to solve problems from the ground up. Traditional top-down government structures, optimized for command and control, often lead to 'intellectual traffic jams' where ideas get stuck due to overloaded decision-makers with limited context. This new model sets aside a month each year for non-critical work, allowing teams to conduct field trips, understand problems firsthand, and prototype solutions. Promising projects are then developed over the rest of the year. This approach has yielded practical results, such as a simple app for firefighters to log equipment inventory, saving thousands of man-hours, and a tool for social workers that automatically generates case notes. It has also reduced emergency room wait times by an average of 20%. These projects are launched in about six months with small teams, a stark contrast to the years and tens of millions of dollars typical for government projects. Recognizing the public's desire to contribute, this model has been opened to citizens, generating hundreds of ideas for community improvement, from machine learning for beach cleanups to AI-powered wildlife tracking. The core principle is shifting government from a gatekeeper to an enabler, increasing its 'intellectual surface area' by leveraging the creativity and initiative of its people.
Unearthing 18,000+ forgotten female composers
Gabriella Di Loro, a soprano, shares her journey of uncovering thousands of forgotten women composers in music history. Initially able to name only five, she discovered an encyclopedia listing 6,000 women composers from the 1500s. This led to the creation of a foundation that has now identified over 18,000 women composers. Di Loro points out the striking disparity in music consumption, with nearly 90% of music across genres being written by men, a silence that AI learning platforms are now perpetuating. She argues that musicians, not machines, should create music and that generating music from artists' work without consent or remuneration is wrong. To combat this historical and ongoing silence, she advocates for recording this music, making it searchable and accessible through classrooms, radio, and streaming platforms. Di Loro proposes that tech companies profiting from AI music should invest in diversifying musical catalogs. The survival of voices, she concludes, is a choice, and by actively recording and sharing the music of these overlooked composers, we can influence what the future remembers and ensure a more complete musical heritage.
Repairing Africa's energy transition: the 'repair transition'
Vincent Igoro highlights a critical, yet often overlooked, challenge in Africa's energy transition: the lack of maintenance for renewable energy systems. Despite the proliferation of solar mini-grids and distributed renewable systems in villages, many systems degrade or break down within a few years because no one is adequately trained or responsible for their upkeep. He cites a study in Nigeria where nearly 40% of solar projects, valued at over $6 million USD, had degraded or stopped working just two years after installation due to a lack of maintenance. Igoro argues that success is not solely about hardware but about the operational ecosystem. The solution lies in making renewable energy systems 'reparable' within existing 'repair economies' across Africa. By standardizing and embedding the knowledge to repair these systems within the existing trades of electricians and technicians, renewable energy can become a sustainable service rather than just a dropped product. This 'repair transition' ensures that when a system fails, it is detected and fixed by someone nearby with the necessary skills, ultimately empowering communities and making renewable energy a reliable infrastructure. The most vital component, he emphasizes, is not the technology but the people with the tools and knowledge to maintain it.
Embracing disagreement: polarization and the wisdom of crowds
Navin Sawhney, a behavioral scientist, challenges the notion that polarization is solely detrimental to democracy. He presents research, inspired by Sir Francis Galton's 'wisdom of the crowd' experiment, suggesting that diverse perspectives, even extreme ones, can lead to collective intelligence. In an experiment with a jar of jelly beans, Sawhney created a 'perfectly polarized crowd' where half believed there were too few beans and the other half too many. Counterintuitively, the average guess of this divided group was closer to the truth than any non-polarized crowd. This demonstrates that while polarization can create division, it also enhances diversity, which is essential for the wisdom of crowds to function as different errors cancel out. Sawhney acknowledges that the stakes in political discourse (e.g., abortion, healthcare) are far higher than jelly bean counts, and that polarization can lead to animosity. However, he argues that polarization alone does not break a democracy; political violence does. This violence arises when opponents are viewed as enemies, not just adversaries. Crucially, political violence can also occur in seemingly non-polarized societies where disagreement is suppressed. Sawhney concludes that embracing disagreement, even polarized disagreement, is preferable to repression and is vital for fostering collective wisdom and a functioning democracy.
Conservation chemistry: a molecular approach to species survival
Tim Cernac, a chemist, introduces the emerging field of 'conservation chemistry,' which applies modern medicine's speed and precision to combatting species extinction. He highlights the paradox of living in a golden era of medicine while simultaneously facing a biodiversity crisis, citing sea turtles dying from cancer and hundreds of frog species driven to extinction by a fungal infection called chytrid. Cernac's lab uses advanced tools like protein folding AI and AI agents to rapidly identify and develop novel treatments for endangered species. For instance, they identified a molecule called peromy that successfully treated a life-threatening parasite in Pebbles, a Gila monster, bringing her back from the brink. This approach leverages the principles of precision medicine, which are adaptable regardless of the patient's form—two legs, four legs, feathers, or shells. Conservation chemistry aims to treat diseases directly affecting endangered species, acting as first responders to extinction threats. By applying these molecular tools, Cernac hopes to rescue beloved species and advocate for a future where advances in medicine not only benefit humans but also contribute to ecosystem health and prevent mass extinctions.
Challenging norms through movement and resilience
Nelly Attarad, a Lebanese mountaineer and former psychotherapist, shares how challenging norms, both externally and internally, is key to profound personal and societal change. Starting her career in Saudi Arabia 15 years ago, she faced significant cultural restrictions, especially for women in sports. Despite this, she initiated dance classes, transforming from an underground community in a warehouse to Saudi Arabia's first dance studio, 'Move.' This movement partnered with ministries and brands, dramatically increasing physical activity rates among women. Attarad connected her experience in building this movement to her athletic pursuits, becoming the first Lebanese to climb the five highest peaks in the world, including Mount Everest and K2. She emphasizes that limitations are not fixed and that personal narratives about capability and grief must also be challenged. After a personal tragedy, she channeled her grief into a virtual initiative, 'Sunday Sports,' and continued to break records, including a world record for two-finger pull-ups in her mid-30s. Attarad's journey illustrates that standards and norms are meant to be rewritten, requiring individuals to step outside their comfort zones and inspiring others to join in finding out how far they can truly go.
Mentioned in This Episode
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Tips for Effective Communication and Community Building
Practical takeaways from this episode
Do This
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Common Questions
Joshua Johnson suggests moving closer to understand their story, focusing on how they came to believe their views rather than just their beliefs. Adopt an objective stance by parking your emotions and learning without judgment, and keep your questions short (10 seconds tops).
Topics
Mentioned in this video
Platform where the TED session is live-streamed and where a six-episode documentary series about the global idea search is available.
Company that sailed home millions of pieces of chintz from India annually by 1680.
Brand that partnered with Move to promote physical activity in Saudi Arabia.
Production partners for 'The Idea Search' YouTube series.
Streaming platform where Gabriella Dilro created a playlist of female-composed music.
Saudi Arabia's first dance studio, founded by Nelly Attar, which grew from an underground community to a national movement, increasing physical activity rates dramatically.
Brand that partnered with Move to promote physical activity in Saudi Arabia and for which Nelly Attar taught a virtual dance class as part of the 'You Can't Stop Sports' campaign.
Global program that partners with TED to host idea search events, and is set to host its 50,000th event.
National Public Radio, a public radio network where Joshua Johnson hosted a national talk show called '1A'.
Ancient empire that imported a significant amount of Indian cotton, leading to drainage of its treasuries.
A TED initiative supporting over 500 innovators from more than 100 countries across their careers, led by Lily James Olds.
A newly developed government ministry in Saudi Arabia that partnered with Move to enable widespread physical activity for women.
The TEDx team in Argentina that partnered with TED and has integrated TED into over 2,000 schools in the country.
Partnering with TED for the 'TED Democracy Philadelphia' event.
A social fashion factory in Athens, built over 12 years, aiming to reinvent manufacturing as a public space and source of meaningful jobs.
Organization where Vincent Igoro is the Head of Africa region, working to help communities navigate the shift to clean energy.
The public sector where Lie Hong Yi started an experimental team to solve problems with a bottom-up approach.
A broadcast journalist and speaker who shared insights on moving from neutrality to objectivity in difficult conversations.
A creative non-verbal individual from TEDx Sydney, working to make non-verbal voices heard, especially in hospitals.
Roman commander who referred to India as the 'drain of the world's gold' due to cotton imports.
Leads the TED Fellows program and introduced the 2026 cohort, speaking about the concept of 'respair'.
TED's Chief Program and Strategy Officer, who announced upcoming TED events like TED AI Vienna and TED2027 in San Diego.
Host of 'The Idea Search' YouTube series and a beloved member of the TED community, known for his unique performances involving music and philosophical commentary.
Championed handmade fabrics like khadi and put a spinning wheel at the heart of the old Indian flag, proving himself a 'legit fashionista'.
A poet and composer from medieval southern France, who wrote a song that is almost 900 years old and is the only surviving melody by a woman from that tradition.
A chemist from TEDx Chicago pioneering conservation chemistry to prevent extinction of endangered species using modern medicine and AI.
Speaker from Athens, running a third-generation fashion factory and reinventing manufacturing through inclusive employment and sustainable practices.
British scientist who, in 1906, conducted a study on popular judgments at a country fair to try and disprove the wisdom of crowds, but instead demonstrated it.
Speaker from Singapore who worked in the government to implement a 'bottom-up' approach to public sector problem-solving.
TED speaker from Nigeria, Head of Africa Region at Resource Justice Network, who discussed the need to embed renewable energy maintenance within existing African repair economies.
A mountaineering legend from Lebanon, who achieved many firsts in climbing and founded Saudi Arabia's first dance studio, Move, challenging cultural norms and personal limitations.
City where a former police officer Joshua Johnson interviewed, who became an advocate for law enforcement reform, had his experiences.
Region in India, part of the Indus Valley Civilization, known for cultivating cotton and imbueing it with vivid dyes and intricate patterns.
South Indian town, now Chennai, known for 'Madras checks' fabric.
Present-day name for the south Indian town of Madras.
Indian home state where the rough cotton weave for 'dungarees' was first produced.
Country where Nelly Attar started her career as a psychotherapist and later founded 'Move', the first dance studio, contributing to a national movement in physical activity.
One of the world's highest peaks, which Nelly Attar summited in 2019.
The new location for TED2027, with dates moved to March 1st-4th.
One of the world's most dangerous mountains, which Nelly Attar summited in 2021, becoming the first Arab to do so.
Vincent Igoro's home country, where a study tracked solar projects and found a high rate of degradation due to lack of maintenance.
A community in Namibia where a solar mini-grid powers homes and schools, but experienced declining solar output due to overheating batteries.
A state in Nigeria where mini-grids worked because they addressed maintenance by empowering local communities.
A Title One school district outside of San Diego that has been filling stadiums with student ideas for over a decade using TED programs.
Iconic opera house in Buenos Aires, Argentina, whose prop storage warehouse was used for the TEDx event where Navajas spoke.
South Indian art form involving natural vegetable dyes, literally 'art of the pen or paintbrush', also known as English chintz.
Handmade fabric championed by Gandhi as part of his movement. Khadi became a symbol of Indian nationalism and self-reliance.
A new field imagined by Tim Cernac, focusing on making medicine rapidly to prevent the extinction of endangered species, using a molecular view and precision medicine tools.
A word from the 1500s meaning 'the return of hope from a period of despair,' which Lily James Olds' mentor attempted to revive.
The idea that collective judgments can be surprisingly accurate, even when individual judgments are flawed, especially when diversity is present.
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