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February 03, 2009, 12:25 PM ET
TED Conferences Announces Fellowship Program
The annual TED Conference — the name stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design,” and the event is cross-disciplinary — draws big-name speakers and is one of the most expensive tickets on the technology circuit, costing about $6,000 for standard admission. But this week the nonprofit organization announced a fellowship program to identify and bring in new innovators to their events. The group chose 50 winners for the first year’s program, hailing from around the world and representing a variety of academic perspectives.
Tom Rielly, community director for TED, said in an interview that anyone could apply for the fellowships, provided that they are between 21 and 40 years old and have a “world-changing” idea. But he added that for now the group was “targeting the developing world” in picking winners.
The goal of the program, said Mr. Rielly, is to give exposure to the fellows’ research. So in addition to coming to TED events, the winners will be given training in public speaking and in getting support for their work. “We can help them dramatically amplify their message, whatever it is,” said Mr. Rielly.
TED has gained visibility in recent years by giving away recordings of most of its talks — they are among the most popular technology lecture videos online — though usually the group waits until months after the talks were delivered to release the videos. Mr. Rielly said that the group’s 300 publicly-released lectures have collectively drawn more than 100 million views online over the years. —Jeffrey R. Young
Categories: Video
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