When Being Named TED is Cool

A new and cool online group now grants your wishes. Imagine a friend, a peer or a colleague quietly filling out an online form telling this group all about your work and how the members of this group might help -- and this nomination is kept from you.

Now visualize getting a call out of the blue that you are being awarded $100,000 and "One Wish to Change the World." You get several months to prepare a presentation of your wish that you will give at an award ceremony held during a conference -- a conference of 1,000 people that is now about as popular as Oscar Night. For many, we can only imagine this as a dream or fairy tale, but in reality this cool group known as TED has been operating almost off the radar since 1984.

Who or what is TED?
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out as an annual spring conference in Long Beach, Calif. 25 years ago to bring these three worlds together. Today, it's scope is much more extensive and along with the unique make up of the more than 150,000-member TED Community, the TED Prize was created.

The annual conference is at the soul of TED and it's increased influence has it selling out a year in advance. Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot alongside many more shorter pieces of content, including music, performance and comedy. There are no breakout groups. Everyone shares the same experience.

The TED Prize
Every year, inventors, entrepreneurs, designers, artists, visionaries, mavericks, protectors and persuaders are nominated by you and me because we believe that they can inspire others and change the world if they have the resources of the TED community behind them.

What is remarkable and wonderful is that those involved in the awarding the TED Prize will work closely with TED sponsors, attendees and the online community to obtain pledges of support for the TED Prize winners. These pledges can take the form of business services, hardware and software, publicity, infrastructure, advice, connections - everything to ensure the success of the wish.

All of the prize-winners do something that has extraordinary potential, something whose positive influence could spread, something that can contribute to the future of life on Earth. Recent TED Prize winners include U2's Bono, former President Bill Clinton, author/philanthropist Dave Eggers and, most recently, Dr. Sylvia Earle of the National Geographic Society.

You and TED
TED is about spreading and sharing ideas -- realizing that we live in a world that is delicately but strongly intertwined. You can participate by joining the TED Community, support one of the wishes, or even just share one of the many talks that are available online.

What is wonderfully inspiring about TED is how it started as a conference filled with techies and nerds, and has evolved into such a diverse group of people who use their uniquely combined energy to help change the world.

Photo: Dr. Sylvia Earle receives her TED Prize in 2008. Photo courtesy of www.ted.com.