About TEDx

x = independently organized event

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 video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani,Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place in Long Beach, California, with simulcast in Palm Springs; TEDGlobal is held each year in Oxford, UK. TED’s media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, 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, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world, and the TEDFellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Follow TED on Twitter at twitter.com/TEDTalks, or on Facebook at facebook.com/TED.

TED2011, "The Rediscovery of Wonder," will be held February 28-March 4, 2011, in Long Beach, California, with the TEDActive simulcast in Palm Springs, California.

Background of TED

TED began in 1984 as a conference devoted to the converging fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design (hence its name). Over the years, the scope has broadened and the ambition level constantly raised. TED now seeks to bring together the world's leading thinkers and doers, no matter what field of endeavor they are working in. All knowledge is connected and TED 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; powerful inspiration.

Past speakers and performers have included have included Nobel laureate Al Gore, architect Frank Gehry, primatologist Jane Goodall, musician Paul Simon, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Genomics pioneer Craig Venter, Tiananmen Square organizer Li Lu, biologist E.O. Wilson, playwright Eve Ensler (a Middlebury College alum), photojournalist James Nachtwey, Nobel laureates Paul Berg, Murray Gell-Mann and Jim Watson (of Watson & Crick), Lost producer JJ Abrams, jazz musician Herbie Hancock, Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell, eco-architect William McDonough, architect & sculptor Maya Lin, evangelist Billy Graham, cellist YoYo Ma, Segway inventor Dean Kamen, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, former president Bill Clinton, and leadership coach Tony Robbins.

TED also seeks out emerging artists, scientists and thinkers, introducing them to the TED community well before they hit the mainstream. After all, TED is about much more than famous names. It is about passion, laughter, beauty, ingenuity and ideas capable of changing the world.

TED presenters may run the world’s most admired companies or design its best-loved products; they invent world-changing devices, and create ground-breaking media. They’re trusted voices and convention-breaking mavericks, icons and geniuses. AND... TED’s audience is as extraordinary as its speaker line-up: Internet pioneers (including the founders of Google, Amazon, eBay), movie producers, architects, creative directors, CEOs, perhaps a dozen billionaires, authors, investors, celebrities, philanthropists and leading opinion formers of every kind. Indeed TED2009 sold out its 1,400 spaces a full year ahead of the conference.

What began as a for-profit endeavor, in 1984, was sold in 2001 to Chris Anderson's private foundation, devoted to leveraging the power of ideas to help make a better world. Since then TED has begun distributing its content online, free to the world, and has introduced the TED Prize, in which three individuals each year are granted "one wish to change the world" which they reveal at the conference. (see http://TEDprize.org).