The TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference opens today in Edinburgh. TED, regarded as the cult nerd conference trumpeted by the stars of Silicon Valley, is increasingly an important annual gathering that has been held in Monterey, California since 1984, and more recently twice a year in other cities around the world, under the name TED Global.
TED was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marques in 1984. After Wurman's departure in 2002, the event is now hosted by Chris Andersona British entrepreneur, and is owned by his not-for-profit organisation The Sapling Foundation, dedicated to "the power of ideas to change the world".
Membership to the website is free, but for those who want to support the TED conference, an annual membership fee of $6,000 is required, including participation in the conference in Monterey or TED@Aspen, Colorado, a networking page with other conference members, bimonthly media packages including books, CDs and an annual TED conference DVD series.
Beyond its two annual mother conferences, where ideas and talents are staged as in a Hollywood show, TED broadcasts all its content for free on its website. TED.comThis has become huge (800 million videos seen). Result: 1,200 videos of 18 minutes (or less) in all disciplines, subtitled in 88 languages by a battery of 8,000 volunteers around the world. The thousands of online conversations push the TED team to go further.
Since 2009, the organization has also been sharing its brand and trade secrets under a free licence for the organization of local "TED" events. In 3 years more than 4400 events have been held in more than 132 countries, including TEDGlobal which opens today in Edinburgh. On the programme: climate, cybercrime, collaborative consumption, neuroscience, architecture, physics, rock ... 70 hand-picked speakers, often unknown to the general public, will compete for the stage during a week built like a marathon.
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As every year, the conference was sold out: 850 participants from more than 71 different countries paid $6,000 for a festive, serious and inspiring week. Bruno Giussani, TED's European Director, is in charge of the edition and answers questions from Le Monde.fr. To read the full interview : http://tedglobal.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/06/22/lhumanite-a-toujours-progresse-en-faisant-circuler-les-idees/#xtor=AL-32280270
The TEDx channel on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDxTalks
(Source : Le Monde.fr / Flore Vasseur - June 22, 2012)
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