The WORST episodes of TED Talks
Every episode of TED Talks ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of TED Talks!
TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. TEDTalks began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker "ideas worth spreading," talks were released online. They rapidly attracted a global audience in the millions. Indeed, the reaction was so enthusiastic that the entire TED website has been reengineered around TEDTalks, with the goal of giving everyone on-demand access to the world's most inspiring voices. [TED-Ed and TEDx are separate TVDB series and should NOT be listed here. Episode ordering and dates are sourced from YouTube.]
#1 - Mikhail Zygar: What the Russian Revolution would have looked like on social media
Season 2018 - Episode 220 - Aired 7/18/2018
History is written by the victors, as the saying goes — but what would it look like if it was written by everyone? Journalist and TED Fellow Mikhail Zygar is on a mission to show us with Project1917, a "social network for dead people" that posts the real diaries and letters of more than 3,000 people who lived during the Russian Revolution. By showing the daily thoughts of the likes of Lenin, Trotsky and many less celebrated figures, the project sheds new light on history as it once was — and as it could have been. Learn more about this digital retelling of the past as well as Zygar's latest project about the transformative year of 1968.
#2 - Dan Gibson: How to build synthetic DNA and send it across the internet
Season 2018 - Episode 210 - Aired 7/11/2018
Biologist Dan Gibson edits and programs DNA, just like coders program a computer. But his "code" creates life, giving scientists the power to convert digital information into biological material like proteins and vaccines. Now he's on to a new project: "biological transportation," which holds the promise of beaming new medicines across the globe over the internet. Learn more about how this technology could change the way we respond to disease outbreaks and enable us to download personalized prescriptions in our homes.
#3 - Dina Katabi: A new way to monitor vital signs (that can see through walls)
Season 2018 - Episode 211 - Aired 7/12/2018
At MIT, Dina Katabi and her team are working on a bold new way to monitor patients' vital signs in a hospital (or even at home), without wearables or bulky, beeping devices. Bonus: it can see through walls. In a mind-blowing talk and demo, Katabi previews a system that captures the reflections of signals like Wi-Fi as they bounce off people, creating a reliable record of vitals for healthcare workers and patients. And in a brief Q&A with TED curator Helen Walters, Katabi discusses safeguards being put in place to prevent people from using this tech to monitor somebody without their consent.
#4 - Paula Stone Williams and Jonathan Williams: The story of a parent's transition and a son's redemption
Season 2019 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/7/2019
Paula Stone Williams knew from a young age that she was transgender. But as she became a parent and prominent evangelical pastor, she feared that coming out would mean losing everything. In this moving, deeply personal talk, Paula and her son Jonathan Williams share what Paula's transition meant for their family -- and reflect on their path to redemption. As Jonathan says: "I cannot ask my father to be anything other than her true self."
#5 - Elizabeth White: An honest look at the personal finance crisis
Season 2018 - Episode 212 - Aired 7/12/2018
Millions of baby boomers are moving into their senior years with empty pockets and declining choices to earn a living. And right behind them is a younger generation facing the same challenges. In this deeply personal talk, author Elizabeth White opens up an honest conversation about financial trouble and offers practical advice for how to live a richly textured life on a limited income.
#6 - Lili Haydn: "The Last Serenade"
Season 2018 - Episode 213 - Aired 7/13/2018
In a stirring, emotional performance, violinist Lili Haydn plays a selection from her musical "The Last Serenade."
#7 - Renzo Piano: The genius behind some of the world's most famous buildings
Season 2018 - Episode 214 - Aired 7/13/2018
Legendary architect Renzo Piano — the mind behind such indelible buildings as The Shard in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the new Whitney Museum of Art in New York City — takes us on a stunning tour through his life's work. With the aid of gorgeous imagery, Piano makes an eloquent case for architecture as the answer to our dreams, aspirations and desire for beauty. "Universal beauty is one of the few things that can change the world," he says. "This beauty will save the world. One person at a time, but it will do it."
#8 - Will Marshall: The mission to create a searchable database of Earth's surface
Season 2018 - Episode 215 - Aired 7/16/2018
What if you could search the surface of the Earth the same way you search the internet? Will Marshall and his team at Planet use the world's largest fleet of satellites to image the entire Earth every day. Now they're moving on to a new project: using AI to index all the objects on the planet over time — which could make ships, trees, houses and everything else on Earth searchable, the same way you search Google. He shares a vision for how this database can become a living record of the immense physical changes happening across the globe. "You can't fix what you can't see," Marshall says. "We want to give people the tools to see change and take action."
#9 - Rebeca Hwang: The power of diversity within yourself
Season 2018 - Episode 216 - Aired 7/17/2018
Rebeca Hwang has spent a lifetime juggling identities — Korean heritage, Argentinian upbringing, education in the United States — and for a long time she had difficulty finding a place in the world to call home. Yet along with these challenges came a pivotal realization: that a diverse background is a distinct advantage in today's globalized world. In this personal talk, Hwang reveals the endless benefits of embracing our complex identities — and shares her hopes for creating a world where identities aren't used to alienate but to bring people together instead.
#10 - Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu: What your smart devices know (and share) about you
Season 2018 - Episode 217 - Aired 7/18/2018
Once your smart devices can talk to you, who else are they talking to? Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu wanted to find out — so they outfitted Hill's apartment with 18 different internet-connected devices and built a special router to track how often they contacted their servers and see what they were reporting back. The results were surprising — and more than a little bit creepy. Learn more about what the data from your smart devices reveals about your sleep schedule, TV binges and even your tooth-brushing habits — and how tech companies could use it to target and profile you. (This talk contains mature language.)
#11 - Mary Maker: Why I fight for the education of refugee girls (like me)
Season 2018 - Episode 218 - Aired 8/15/2018
After fleeing war-torn South Sudan as a child, Mary Maker found security and hope in the school at Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp. Now a teacher of young refugees herself, she sees education as an essential tool for rebuilding lives — and empowering a generation of girls who are too often denied entrance into the classroom. "For the child of war, an education can turn their tears of loss into a passion for peace," Maker says.
#12 - Halima Aden: How I went from child refugee to international model
Season 2018 - Episode 219 - Aired 8/30/2018
Halima Aden made history when she became the first hijab-wearing model on the cover of Vogue magazine. Now she returns to Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp — where she was born and lived until the age of seven — to share an inspiring message about what she's learned on the path from child refugee to international model.
#13 - Lýdia Machová: The secrets of learning a new language
Season 2019 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/4/2019
Want to learn a new language but feel daunted or unsure where to begin? You don't need some special talent or a "language gene," says Lýdia Machová. In an upbeat, inspiring talk, she reveals the secrets of polyglots (people who speak multiple languages) and shares four principles to help unlock your own hidden language talent -- and have fun while doing it.
#14 - Martin Danoesastro: What are you willing to give up to change the way we work?
Season 2019 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/8/2019
What does it take to build the fast, flexible, creative teams needed to challenge entrenched work culture? For transformation expert Martin Danoesastro, it all starts with one question: "What are you willing to give up?" He shares lessons learned from companies on both sides of the innovation wave on how to structure your organization so that people at all levels are empowered to make decisions fast and respond to change.
#15 - Chiki Sarkar: How India's smartphone revolution is creating a new generation of readers and writers
Season 2019 - Episode 6 - Aired 1/8/2019
India has the second largest population of any country in the world -- yet it has only 50 decent bookstores, says publisher Chiki Sarkar. So she asked herself: How do we get more people reading books? Find out how Sarkar is tapping into India's smartphone revolution to create a new generation of readers and writers in this fun talk about a fresh kind of storytelling.
#16 - Renzo Vitale: What should electric cars sound like?
Season 2019 - Episode 7 - Aired 1/9/2019
Electric cars are extremely quiet, offering some welcome silence in our cities. But they also bring new dangers, since they can easily sneak up on unsuspecting pedestrians. What kind of sounds should they make to keep people safe? Get a preview of what the future may sound like as acoustic engineer and musician Renzo Vitale shows how he's composing a voice for electric cars.
#17 - Karissa Sanbonmatsu: The biology of gender, from DNA to the brain
Season 2019 - Episode 8 - Aired 1/10/2019
How exactly does gender work? It's not just about our chromosomes, says biologist Karissa Sanbonmatsu. In a visionary talk, she shares new discoveries from epigenetics, the emerging study of how DNA activity can permanently change based on social factors like trauma or diet. Learn how life experiences shape the way genes are expressed -- and what that means for our understanding of gender.
#18 - Shohini Ghose: A beginner's guide to quantum computing
Season 2019 - Episode 9 - Aired 1/11/2019
A quantum computer isn't just a more powerful version of the computers we use today; it's something else entirely, based on emerging scientific understanding -- and more than a bit of uncertainty. Enter the quantum wonderland with TED Fellow Shohini Ghose and learn how this technology holds the potential to transform medicine, create unbreakable encryption and even teleport information.
#19 - Stephen Webb: Where are all the aliens?
Season 2018 - Episode 221 - Aired 7/19/2018
The universe is incredibly old, astoundingly vast and populated by trillions of planets — so where are all the aliens? Astronomer Stephen Webb has an explanation: we're alone in the universe. In a mind-expanding talk, he spells out the remarkable barriers a planet would need to clear in order to host an extraterrestrial civilization — and makes a case for the beauty of our potential cosmic loneliness. "The silence of the universe is shouting, 'We're the creatures who got lucky,'" Webb says.
#20 - Boy Girl Banjo: "Dead Romance"
Season 2018 - Episode 222 - Aired 7/20/2018
Acoustic duo Anielle Reid and Matthew Brookshire (playing together as Boy Girl Banjo) take the TED stage to perform their original song "Dead Romance," weaving together the sounds of Americana folk music and modern pop.
#21 - Tamekia MizLadi Smith: How to train employees to have difficult conversations
Season 2018 - Episode 223 - Aired 7/20/2018
It's time to invest in face-to-face training that empowers employees to have difficult conversations, says Tamekia MizLadi Smith. In a witty, provocative talk, Smith shares a workplace training program called "I'm G.R.A.C.E.D." that will inspire bosses and employees alike to communicate with compassion and respect. Bottom line: always let people know why their work matters.
#22 - Lucy Marcil: Why doctors are offering free tax prep in their waiting rooms
Season 2018 - Episode 224 - Aired 7/23/2018
More than 90 percent of children in the US see a doctor at least once a year, which means countless hours spent in waiting rooms for parents. What if those hours could be used for something productive — like saving money? Through her organization StreetCred, pediatrician and TED Fellow Lucy Marcil is offering free tax prep to parents right in the waiting room, reimagining what a doctor's visit can look like and helping to lift families out of poverty. Learn more about how free tax prep and guidance could be the best poverty prescription we have in the US.
#23 - Pratik Shah: How AI is making it easier to diagnose disease
Season 2018 - Episode 225 - Aired 7/24/2018
Today's AI algorithms require tens of thousands of expensive medical images to detect a patient's disease. What if we could drastically reduce the amount of data needed to train an AI, making diagnoses low-cost and more effective? TED Fellow Pratik Shah is working on a clever system to do just that. Using an unorthodox AI approach, Shah has developed a technology that requires as few as 50 images to develop a working algorithm — and can even use photos taken on doctors' cell phones to provide a diagnosis. Learn more about how this new way to analyze medical information could lead to earlier detection of life-threatening illnesses and bring AI-assisted diagnosis to more health care settings worldwide.
#24 - Travis Rieder: The agony of opioid withdrawal -- and what doctors should tell patients about it
Season 2018 - Episode 198 - Aired 6/28/2018
The United States accounts for five percent of the world's population but consumes almost 70 percent of the total global opioid supply, creating an epidemic that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths each year. How did we get here, and what can we do about it? In this personal talk, Travis Rieder recounts the painful, often-hidden struggle of opioid withdrawal and reveals how doctors who are quick to prescribe (and overprescribe) opioids aren't equipped with the tools to eventually get people off the meds.
#25 - Essam Daod: How we can bring mental health support to refugees
Season 2018 - Episode 190 - Aired 6/20/2018
The global refugee crisis is a mental health catastrophe, leaving millions in need of psychological support to overcome the traumas of dislocation and conflict. To undo the damage, child psychiatrist and TED Fellow Essam Daod has been working in camps, rescue boats and the shorelines of Greece and the Mediterranean Sea to help refugees (a quarter of which are children) reframe their experiences through short, powerful psychological interventions. "We can all do something to prevent this mental health catastrophe," Daod says. "We need to acknowledge that first aid is not just needed for the body, but it has also to include the mind, the soul."