The Organization

TED.png TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading that started as a four-day conference in California 26 years ago. At TED, the world’s leading thinkers and doers are asked to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Benoit Mandelbrot, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Two major TED events are held each year: The TED Conference takes place every spring in Long Beach, California (along with a parallel conference, TEDActive, in Palm Springs), and TEDGlobal is held each summer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

TED’s media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily; the new TED Conversations, enabling broad conversations among TED fans; and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide.

TED has established the annual TED Prize, in which exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action. TEDx offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world. The TED Fellows program helps world-changing innovators from around the globe become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

TEDx.png In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks videos and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x means it is an independently organized TED event.

The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. All knowledge is connected and TEDx has become the place where you can discover leading edge thinking in numerous fields, and how this relates to your own life and work. For many attendees, the result is delicious, unexpected connections, extraordinary insights and powerful inspiration.

TEDxUW.png TEDxUW is the University of Waterloo’s official TEDx experience, and the latest in a series of 3,000+ events being held around the world as part of the global TED movement to create open platforms for riveting ideas to be shared, for free, with the world.

Our mission is to bring together intelligent, connected, extremely talented and energetic researchers, alumni, students and other members of the University of Waterloo community in order to build an engaged community of change-makers, and showcase their ideas and achievements to a world audience of nearly 300 million people.

In the process, we hope to highlight the collective contributions of our university to global society at-large, while positioning the University of Waterloo as a world-class community where great minds and big ideas meet.

TEDxUW aims to put the extended University of Waterloo community onto a new type of global activity map that is being watched, shared and talked about by more than 300 million of the world’s top thinkers, thought leaders, businessmen, problem-solvers, entrepreneurs, writers, activists and change-makers.

Our event is organized by a cross-disciplinary team of students, staff, faculty, alumni, co-op employers, local entrepreneurs and senior university executives.

For more information on TEDxUW, or to join our team as a volunteer, get in touch at info@tedxuw.com or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter