TED Opens TED2012: Full Spectrum

LONG BEACH, Calif., Feb. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- TED, the nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, kicks off its annual U.S. conference today in Long Beach, California.  This year's program brings over 100 storytellers, educators, photographers, scientific pioneers, visionaries and provocateurs from all parts of the globe to the TED stage. Themed "Full Spectrum," TED2012 will take place starting today through March 2.

"This year we've assembled our most diverse group of speakers yet, and challenged them to share their ideas in remarkable new ways," said Chris Anderson, TED's curator. "We anticipate blizzards of images, new uses of music, extravagant use of under-used senses, intricate choreography between speaker and screen, new ways of involving the audience, breakthroughs in animation, and intense, campfire-style storytelling – all designed to make a lasting impression on the viewers in the room and at home."

Speakers at the TED2012 conference include:

• Michael Tilson Thomas, who'll summarize the history of music in 18 minutes
• Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee on the women's peace movement
• Regina Dugan on the latest innovations out of the U.S. military's research arm, DARPA
• T. Boone Pickens, the oil businessman discusses new ways to find and supply energy in the U.S.
•  "Man on Wire" Philippe Petit, the dizzying tight-rope artist
• The educators in Session 11: The Classroom, chosen from a worldwide talent search. They include a materials engineer, a language-arts teacher, a sexuality educator ... and Bill Nye the Science Guy!
• Steve Pinker, the experimental psychologist and linguist who'll lead a Socratic discussion on the decline of violence
• Chip Kidd, the man who designed the covers of all your favorite books, from "Jurassic Park" to Augusten Burroughs' "Dry"
• Surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande on the power of checklists
• James Hansen, on bringing climate change to public attention
• Susan Cain on introverts
• Jon Ronson, who'll speak about psychopaths

The TED2012 conference will gather more than 1,350 attendees from over 40 countries  at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center to watch more than 50 main-stage talks and performances from some of the world's leading thinkers across a wide range of disciplines, as well as another 50 or so short talks, demos and informal TED U talks.  Live blog coverage of the conference will be updated throughout each day at blog.ted.com.

The conference will be streamed live to several thousand people around the globe, including to events affiliated with independently organized TEDx events and to subscribing members of TED Live. At the same time, a group of 500 people will gather at the sold-out TEDActive conference in Palm Springs, California, to exchange ideas, inspire one another, participate in an engaging onsite program, and experience a live simulcast of TED2012.

On February 29, TED will reveal the wish for the 2012 TED Prize winner, The City 2.0, live from the main stage at 5:00pm PST. The entire TED Prize session will be streamed free over the web; sign up at tedprize.org for more details. The TED Prize annually awards $100,000 and "One Wish to Change the World" to a new winner. Designed to leverage the TED community's exceptional array of talent and resources, the TED Prize leads to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact. In the same session, last year's winner, French street artist JR, will update viewers on the wish he made to use photography as a means to express individuals and entire communities.

At the conference, TED's award-winning video team will be editing talks direct from stage to share with the world, through its award-winning TEDTalks podcast series, which sees up to 1 million page views a day around the world. Look for TEDTalks from this conference starting next week and throughout the coming year.

A number of innovative brands and companies have partnered with TED to share ideas and foster an atmosphere of collaboration and conversation. This year's partners include Allstate Insurance, American Express, AT&T, Audi, Autodesk, Bing, Coffee Common, Collective Next, Delta, Dewar's, the Dow Chemical Company, Fidelity Investments, Genentech, Google, Gucci, HP, Icebreaker, IDEO, Intercontinental Hotel Group, Jack Spade, Jawbone, Johnnie Walker, the Kauffman Foundation, the Knight Foundation, Kohl's, Lincoln, LivingHomes, lynda.com, PR Newswire, PulsePoint Media,  Sharp, Shell, Shutterstock, State Farm Insurance, Steelcase, Syfy Channel, Target, TOMS Shoes, The V Foundation Wine Celebration, Unilever, Vosges Haut-Chocolat, Walmart, Walt Disney Imagineering and Workspring.

The complete TED2012 speakers program can be found online here.

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 former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place each spring in Long Beach, California, along with the TEDActive simulcast in Palm Springs; the annual TEDGlobal conference is held each summer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

TED's media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide, and TEDBooks, short e-books by speakers that elaborate on a single idea originally presented on TED's stage. 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 TED Fellows 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 http://twitter.com/TEDTalks, or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TED

Contact: Margaret Sullivan, [email protected], +1 (646) 833-0205

SOURCE TED