Posts Tagged ‘TED Prize’

Nominations are now open for the 2014 TED Prize

Thursday, April 11th, 2013

Each year, the TED Prize is awarded to an extraordinary individual with a creative and bold vision to spark global change. Think JR’s global participatory art project, Inside Out, or Sugata Mitra’s School in the Cloud.

By leveraging the TED community’s resources to support the winner and investing $1 million in their idea, the TED Prize inspires leaders to dream bigger about what’s possible.

Nominations for the 2014 TED Prize are now open. We’re looking for nominees who know how to capture imaginations and make a measurable impact. We know you share our passion for world-changing ideas. That’s why we’re counting on you to nominate a visionary you respect that is capable of leading a high-impact collaborative action.

From now through June 1, you are invited to nominate yourself or someone else – perhaps a co-worker, a friend, a mentor or even an innovator you admire from afar – for the 2014 TED Prize.

Nominate yourself and make your wish »

Nominate someone else (we will ask them for their wish) »

Because winning the TED Prize is a life-changing experience, we want to make sure that you fully understand the process. Applications will be reviewed by the TED Prize jury, who will consider the power of each finalist’s wish for the world and the potential impact of their execution plan. The TED Prize jury will select the winner in December of 2013 and work with them on their plan. The TED Prize winner will reveal their wish and accept their award at the TED Conference in Vancouver, BC in February 2014.

For more information about the nomination process and tips on what makes a good wish, head to theTED Prize website. Or look the very informative infographic below.

Tags: Nominations, TED Prize
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Taking the SOLE Challenge? How to make a good post great

Monday, March 25th, 2013

At TED2013, education innovator Sugata Mitra invited parents and educators everywhere to create Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) to help kids tap into their innate sense of wonder, embark on intellectual adventures, and work together.

Have you conducted a SOLE in your school, home, or community? TED and The Huffington Post invite you to participate in the SOLE Challenge contest and share your discoveries. Up to three winning blog post submissions selected by Sugata Mitra and the TED Prize team will be featured in a future edition of TEDWeekends on The Huffington Post. The Grand Prize winners will receive a pair of tickets to attend TEDYouth 2013 including economy class airfare and hotel accommodations.

Are you ready to take the challenge? Here’s some tips for how to make a good SOLE Challenge blog post great:

· Introduce yourself. Provide context about your community and/or school culture.

· Share what inspired you to take the SOLE Challenge.

· Share the questions you investigated in your SOLE and explain the children’s discovery process.

· Celebrate your triumphs and identify challenges. How did you overcome obstacles? Did you have any pleasant surprises or epiphanies?

· Explore this question: Did you adapt the format of the experiment to fit the needs of your community? Why or why not? How did it go?

· Reflect on feedback you received from kids participating in the SOLE and share it.

· Compare the SOLE approach with other educational methods you’ve tried. What made this experience different?

· Make your mark on the world! Address how you envision your SOLE adventure impacting the future of learning.

· Include photos, videos, and/or audio examples of student work and interactions to illustrate your SOLE experience.

Good luck!

For more information about the SOLE Challenge, join the TED Prize team for a Twitter chat on Thursday, March 28^th from 4:30-5:30PM EST. Use the #TEDSOLE hashtag to send questions and learn more about the contest from the TED team and a veteran SOLE educator.

Tags: Huffington Post, SOLE Challenge, Sugata Mitra, TED Prize
Posted in Sugata Mitra Wish Blog, TEDPrize Updates | Comments Off

Announcing: TED Prize and Sundance Institute launch Filmmaker Award

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

United by a commitment to storytelling and the power of big ideas, TED Prize and Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Project (DFP) are launching an annual TED Prize Filmmaker Award to raise awareness about the TED Prize winner’s wish and work.

Appointed jointly by TED and Sundance Institute, the selected filmmaker will follow the TED Prize winner during the course of their project’s first 18 months. The chosen filmmaker will receive $125,000 to craft a short documentary reflecting the prizewinner’s challenges and triumphs as their project unfolds.

Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund said, “We see this collaboration as a tremendous opportunity for independent documentarians worldwide to offer a creative and original vision for telling the story of the TED Prize winner. We look forward to the proposals.”

As a part of this year’s historic TED Prize, educational researcher Sugata Mitra will be both the premiere prizewinner to be filmed by the TED Prize Filmmaker Award winner, and the first-ever TED Prize grantee to receive $1,000,000 seed funding for their initiative.

“The TED Prize is awarded to remarkable individuals who have achieved great success, and will use the prize to build on their bodies of work,” said Lara Stein, Director of the TED Prize. “The Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award not only provides a vehicle for documenting these important efforts, but will engage a wider global audience to participate in the recipient’s wish.”

The TED Prize Filmmaker Award RFP and online application is open from March 1-April 15, 2013. The TED Prize Filmmaker Award winner will travel to TEDGlobal for the Award announcement.

To learn more about the Sundance Institute’s Request for Proposals and application process, click here.

Tags: film, Sugata Mitra, Sundance, TED Prize
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#SugataMitra is trending: Twitter reacts to the 2013 TED Prize reveal

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

Following a rousing introduction from Sir Ken Robinson, education innovator Sugata Mitra accepted the first-ever $1 million TED Prize at TED2013. As soon as the TED Prize winner’s identity was revealed, the Twittersphere buzzed about Sugata’s vision for the future of learning.

People around the world answered Sugata’s invitation to help reinvent the way kids learn, by spreading the word about self-organized learning and committing to contribute resources for his School in the Cloud. Based on the conversation online, the TED community is ready and willing to reimagine education.

Sugata’s name is now trending on Twitter. The prospect of igniting the fire of curiosity in kids through collaboration and encouragement is so inspiring; even some critics are rooting for this project’s success.

Here are some highlights

Are you inspired by Sugata’s wish? Join the conversation on Twitter by tweeting at @TEDPrize and using the #TEDSOLE hashtag.

Tags: Learning, School in the Cloud, Sugata Mitra, TED Prize, Twitter
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Congratulations Sugata Mitra, winner of the first-ever $1M TED Prize!

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

After a series of experiments revealed that groups of children can learn almost anything by themselves, researcher Sugata Mitra began his pursuit to inspire children all over the world to get curious and work together. In 1999, Sugata and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering a slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera). Soon, they saw kids from the slum playing with the computer, learning English and searching through a wide variety of websites on science and other topics, and then teaching each other.

Sugata and his colleagues carried out experiments for over 13 years on the nature of self-organized learning, its extent, how it works and the role of adults in encouraging it. His innovative and bold efforts towards advancing learning for children earned him the first-ever $1 million dollar TED Prize award.

The TED Prize is awarded annually to an exceptional individual who receives $1,000,000 and the TED community’s resources and expertise to spark global change. At TED2013, Sugata asked the global TED community to make his dream a reality by helping him reinvent the way kids learn. He said:

“My wish is to help design the future of learning by supporting children all over the world to tap into their innate sense of wonder and work together. Help me build the School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India, where children can embark on intellectual adventures by engaging and connecting with information and mentoring online. I also invite you, wherever you are, to create your own miniature child-driven learning environments and share your discoveries.”

In addition to revealing his plan to build a virtual school that offers a groundbreaking child-driven learning experience, Sugata invited thinkers and doers around the world to help bring his dream into fruition by creating Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) in homes, schools, and community programs worldwide. To learn more about Sugata’s wish, click here.

Are you inspired by Sugata’s wish? Participate!

Here’s what you can do:

-Download the SOLE: How to Bring Self-Organized Learning Environments to Your Community Toolkit.

-Read Sugata’s TED Book, Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning available on Kindle, Nook, and Apple’s iBookstore

-Join the School in the Cloud mentor network of educators. Email: sugata@ted.com

-Join our TED conversation: Tell us. What is the most important thing you’ve learned on your own?

-Tweet at us at @TEDPrize and spread the word about Self-Organized Learning Environments using this hashtag: #TEDSOLE

-Make a financial contribution to Sugata’s TED Prize wish. Email: sugata@ted.com

Tags: education, Learning, School in the Clouds, Sugata Mitra, TED Prize
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Latest City 2.0 award winner hopes to turn Mexico City into one big dance floor

Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

By Kate Torgovnick via TED

Mexico City is home to nearly 9 million people. The 8th largest city economy in the world, Mexico City is bursting with energy, vibrancy and color. But at the same time, it is a

TED Senior Fellow Gabriella Gómez-Mont has a fascinating idea: could dancing be part of the solution?

Mexico City is known for dance — from couples well-versed in salsa and cumbia to the city’s dance halls where young people sweat under laser lights. Gómez-Mont wondered if this spirit could be harnessed to promote health. She asks, “What if we could turn a whole megalopolis into one gargantuan dance floor, and promote an active lifestyle while having fun and taping into the playful, social and happily competitive side of the city?”

In collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of experts — including Pablo Landa, Clora Romo, Constanza Gómez-Mont & Taxidermie — Gómez-Mont is launching a citywide dance competition. The vision? For the whole city to become a dance floor.

Gómez-Mont’s idea is to bridge virtual and physical space. While neighborhoods and communities will be encouraged to host in-person dancing events, their events can be submitted for awards with the help of a new website, as well as through Gómez-Mont’s independent culture lab Tóxico and Laboratorio para la Ciudad, a creative urban think-tank that she co-founded. People will vote on winners over social media, where they can also connect with other communities up on their feet and shaking it.

“I am intrigued by the idea that cities should not only house the human body, but also provoke the human imagination,” says Gómez-Mont. “This for me is the essence of City 2.0.”

In 2012, the TED Prize was bestowed upon an idea rather than an individual — The City 2.0, an online platform for the sharing of ideas to make cities function better. The $100,000 prize was broken into 10 grants of $10,000 each, to be given to a variety of projects spanning areas like transportation, education, housing, health and public space. Gabriella Gómez-Mont has been given the final grant.

To read all about the winners, head to the City 2.0 website.

Photo: Stefan Ruiz

Tags: Cities, dance, diabetes, health, TED Prize
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Stop street harassment with your cell phone? The latest City 2.0 award winner shows how

Saturday, December 1st, 2012

By Kate Torgovnick via TED

Too many people know the situation — you’re walking down the street, enjoying a cup of coffee and minding your own business, when a string of words curls through the air and smacks you in the face. Sometimes it’s lewd language that feels so upsetting; sometimes the words could be perceived as a compliment in another context, but the fact that they were uttered by a stranger feels like an affront.

Street harassment never sat well with Emily May. But in 2005, she was encouraged by a woman who took a photo of a man who was masturbating in a subway car and leering at her. The image quickly went viral, leading to the man’s arrest. Seeing how the tables could be turned on a harasser, May co-foundedHollaback!, a blog dedicated to photos and stories of street harassment.

“We wanted to take the focus off of the woman and onto the harasser,” explains May. “When you’re being harassed the lens is on you. We want to turn it back around and put it onto them.”

In 2010, Hollaback! released an iPhone and Android app that allows users to mark the locations where they were harassed on a Google map, as well as to share the story. The app not only allows girls, women, and members of the LGBTQ community to flip power dynamics, it also collects data on street harassment in a way never done before. The success of the app forced New York City to take note, and it has since been linked up with the city’s 311 information line. Hollaback! hopes to form similar partnerships in cities around the world.

Hollaback!, and May as its executive director, have been named the latest winner of The City 2.0 award. Want to hear more about the organization? Coincidentally, May will be speaking at TEDxWomen today, December 1, curated by The Paley Center for Media. May will be speaking during session four, “The Mirror.” Watch the livestream of the session at 2pm EST >>

In 2012, the TED Prize was bestowed upon an idea rather than an individual — The City 2.0, an online platform for the sharing of ideas to make cities function better. The $100,000 prize was broken into 10 grants of $10,000 each, to be given to a variety of projects spanning areas like transportation, education, housing, health, public space and food. So far, eight of the grants have been given out.

To suggest a project for one of the final two City 2.0 awards, nominate it through The City 2.0 website.

Tags: Emily May, Hollaback, Street Harassment, TED Prize, The City 2.0
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Once Upon a School: Watch Dave Eggers’ TED Prize wish

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to engage with their local school. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own volunteer-driven, wildly creative writing labs. But you don’t need to go that far, he reminds us — it’s as simple as asking a teacher “How can I help?” Share your own volunteering stories at his new website, Once Upon a School. To brainstorm on this wish and get involved, join the conversation >> (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 24:29.)