The Huffington Post and TED Present a New Reason to Look Forward to Fridays with the Launch of TED Weekends

NEW YORK, Nov. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Today The Huffington Post and TED launch TED Weekends [www.huffingtonpost.com/TEDWeekends], a section on the Huffington Post featuring original content and illustrations about "ideas worth spreading."  Each Friday, TED Weekends will present a compelling idea, anchored in a TEDTalk, and then will delve deeper into the idea with contributions from TED speakers, bloggers, experts, and illustrators throughout the course of a weekend.

"I experienced firsthand the power of TEDTalks to share ideas and build community when I gave my own two years ago about the need to renew our estranged relationship with sleep," said Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group. "And I'm delighted that TED Weekends will be bringing TEDTalks to the HuffPost platform, expanding the conversation and allowing our community to weigh in on some of the most creative, innovative, and compelling ideas of our time."

"Often when a speaker delivers a great TEDTalk, there's a core idea there that is just demanding to be further explored," said Chris Anderson, TED Curator. "The Huffington Post, with its remarkable network of global contributors, has offered us an exciting way to take that promising idea and open it up to perspectives, research and expertise from around the world."

TED Weekends grew out of the idea that thought-provoking insights about our world should not be consumed in a single bite, but over time – allowing ideas to morph and develop in real-time with input from a range of contributors.

Each weekend, a TED speaker will offer his or her thoughts, igniting an online conversation that will unfold in many unpredictable new directions. Additionally, several TEDTalks will co-premiere on TED Weekends.

TED Weekends will explore a variety of intriguing topics ranging from "Understanding Deception" to "Why People Believe Crazy Things" to "Behind the Eureka Moment," and will feature written and visual contributions from around the world. Graphic artists will also contribute illustrations to TED Weekends and present the essence of an idea as they see it. 

Today's first TED Weekends idea is introduced by Dr. Brian Goldman, who suggests that talking openly about medical mistakes may be the first step toward healing a broken healthcare system. The conversation will include doctors Dean Ornish, David Katz, and Patricia Fitzgerald – and many more – as well as members of the Huffington Post community weighing in with their expertise or personal experience.

TED Weekends is a co-production of the Huffington Post and TED, sponsored by Chevy Volt, and can be found at www.huffingtonpost.com/TEDWeekends.

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 TEDConference 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  

Follow the Huffington Post on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HuffingtonPost or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HuffingtonPost

Contact Erin Allweiss (917) 512-2118/ [email protected]

SOURCE TED