This April, I had the incredible opportunity to attend TED2024, TED’s annual conference that brings thought leaders and innovators from around the world together to share new ideas on a variety of relevant topics. For anyone who is not familiar with TED, the organization’s mission is to discover and champion the ideas that will shape tomorrow. TED believes powerful ideas, powerfully presented, can move us to feel something, to think differently, to take action and create a brighter future. Attending TED2024 not only expanded my horizon but also provided actionable insights that can directly enhance how we approach learning and development in the workplace.
A brief event summary
The theme for TED2024 was “The Brave and the Brilliant,” and this resonated through every aspect of the event. Each day, speakers were grouped into cohorts based on their session topic that included Mind-Expanders, System Changers, Bridge-Builders, Connectors and more. During the event’s opening session, TED unveiled its new tagline: “Ideas change everything.” The tagline became a thread that ran through every talk and breakout, as speakers pushed boundaries, encouraged critical thinking and called attendees to action. The range of topics included AI, robotics, sustainability, democracy and peace activism. Not to mention, quantum computing, which remains partly a mystery—to my relief not only to me, but also a large part of the audience.
The conference included both virtual and in-person attendees. The in-person experience was completely immersive, and in a world where so many things have moved to hybrid or remote, it was so invigorating to gather in a group to tackle topics like artificial intelligence, climate change, better ways of giving, conflict resolution, and so much more.