TED (conference)
TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". It was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in February 1984 as a technology conference, in which Mickey Schulhof gave a demo of the compact disc that was invented in October 1982. Its main conference has been held annually since 1990. It covers almost all topics—from science to business to global issues—in more than 100 languages.
| Type of business | LLC |
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Type of site | Conference |
| Available in | English, multilingual subtitles, transcript |
| Founded | February 23, 1984 |
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| Owner | Sapling Foundation (1984–2019) TED Foundation (2019–present) |
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| Revenue | US$66.2 million (2015) |
| URL | ted |
| Registration | Optional |
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| Current status | Active |
TED's early emphasis was on technology and design, consistent with its Silicon Valley origins. It later broadened to include scientific, cultural, political, humanitarian, and academic topics. It has been curated by Chris Anderson, a British-American businessman, through the non-profit TED Foundation since July 2019 (originally by the non-profit Sapling Foundation).
The main TED conference is held annually in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The first conferences from 1984 (TED1) through 2008 (TED2008) were held at the Monterey Conference Center in Monterey, California. Between 2009 and 2014, it was held in Long Beach, California, United States. TED events are also held throughout North America and in Europe, Asia, and Africa, offering live streaming of the talks. TED returned to Monterey in 2021 with TEDMonterey. The talks address a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture, often through storytelling.
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| Jimmy Wales: The birth of Wikipedia, TED 2005 | |
| Chris Anderson: A vision for TED, TED 2002 |
Since June 2006, TED Talks had been offered for free viewing online, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license, through TED.com. As of December 2020, over 3,500 talks are freely available on the official website. In June 2011, TED Talks' combined viewing figures surpassed 500 million, and by November 2012, they had been watched over one billion times worldwide. While the talks are available free online, sharing TED content in commercial contexts (such as corporate learning and talent development) requires a license.