TEDGlobal 2014, "South!" Celebrates the Global South in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

USA - English

• Brazil - Português
• Latin America - español

Annual global conference to host 1,000 delegates for five-day program featuring 65+ talks and performances

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 6, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- TED, the nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, opens its annual global conference today in Rio de Janeiro. Themed "South!" TEDGlobal 2014 recognizes that the global South is not just emerging—it's a reality. The region is a hub of creativity and innovation, and it will play an enormous role in the world of tomorrow. The conference will host 1,000 attendees from more than 69 countries for a five-day program of 65+ speakers and performers. This year's move to Rio marks the first time an official TED event has taken place in South America.

The TEDGlobal 2014 program features speakers sharing ideas in 18 minutes or less, TED's signature format, as well as short presentations from this year's TED Fellows. Speakers will come from all over the world to explore social and political issues, economics, education, environmental issues, science, arts and culture, and more.

"Some of today's most interesting thinking is coming out of the global South, which sees the world from an often radically different lens from ours. That dichotomy of North and South will play an important role in the conference, with dozens of speakers from Brazil and other Latin American countries featured," said Bruno Giussani, Curator of TEDGlobal. "Since 2005, we have used TEDGlobal as a platform for diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and there is no better place to do that today than in Brazil."

TEDGlobal 2014 speakers and performers include:

• Chilean urban spaces architect Alejandro Aravena
• Singer-songwriter Ana Tijoux
• Simon Bolivar biographer Marie Arana
• Artist Grimanesa Amoros
• Chef Teresa Corcao
• Drug policy reformer Ethan Nadelmann
• Journalist Glenn Greenwald
• Favela painters Haas&Hahn
• Colombian anti-Guerrilla creative Jose Miguel Sokoloff
• Last tribes photographer Jimmy Nelson
• Geoscientist Andres Ruzo
• International litigator Kimberley Motley
• Activists Pia Mancini and Alessandra Orofino
• Monk and author Matthieu Ricard
• Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis
• Africa advocate Sipho Moyo
• Amazonian chief Tashka Yawanawa

The full speaker list can be found here: http://conferences.ted.com/TEDGlobal2014/program/guide.php

The conference will take place at the Copacabana Palace Hotel in a temporary, pop-up theater designed specifically for TED Talks. The conference will occur in English with a simultaneous translation in Portuguese and Spanish.

The TEDGlobal 2014 experience will extend beyond the theater with talks streamed live via TEDGlobal Para Todos, an initiative that makes a free live web stream of the conference available to public schools, universities, libraries, community and cultural centers, nonprofit foundations and NGOs in Rio de Janeiro. The initiative allows organizations to host a free, live group screening of the conference for students, faculty, guests, employees, partners, and for their community.

TED hosts two annual conferences – TED in Vancouver, Canada, and TEDGlobal in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – and posts the talks on TED.com for free. It also offers licenses to host independently organized local TEDx events, invites online volunteers to translate TED Talk videos, and much more. So far there have been over 10,000 TEDx events in locations as diverse as Antarctica, the slums of Nairobi and the Sydney Opera House. TED Talk videos have been watched nearly 2.5 billion times, and thousands of volunteers have translated TED Talk videos into more than one hundred languages.

A number of exciting brands and companies have partnered with TEDGlobal 2014 to share ideas and foster an atmosphere of innovation. This year's partners include: Abbott, One Health, Apex-Brasil, Arup, The Boston Consulting Group, Brasscom, Citi, Delta Air Lines, Embratel, FEED, Ford Foundation, Grupo Globo, Heineken, IBM, IEC, Procter & Gamble, Porto Novo, Renault-Nissan, Skoll Foundation, State Street Corporation, and Walmart.  

Live blog coverage of the conference will be updated throughout each day at blog.ted.com. The detailed TEDGlobal 2014 program and more information can be found online here: http://conferences.ted.com/TEDGlobal2014/program/guide.php.

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California almost 30 years ago, TED has grown to support those ideas with multiple initiatives. The two annual TED Conferences invite the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes or less. Many of these talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sal Khan and Daniel Kahneman.

The annual TED Conference takes place each spring along with the TEDActive simulcast event. TED's media initiatives include TED.com, where new TED Talks are posted daily; the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as translations from volunteers worldwide; the educational initiative TED-Ed, and TEDBooks, short e-books on powerful ideas. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world get help translating their wishes into action; TEDx, which supports individuals or groups in hosting local, self-organized TED-style events around the world, and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Follow TED on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TEDNews, or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TED.

Contact: Khalid El Khatib, [email protected], +1 (646) 493-1254

SOURCE TED