One AO 2021

Susan R. Weiss, PhD

Dr. Weiss established and co-directs the Penn Center for Research on Coronaviruses and Other Emerging Pathogens in Coronaviruses at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where she is currently Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Microbiology. Read more.

Mathai Mammen, MD, PhD

Dr. Mammen is the global head of R&D for Janssen, the Pharmaceutical Division of J&J. His mission is to positively impact the lives of patients, their families and communities by working with some of the best scientists and physicians in the world to create transformational therapeutics. Read more.

Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA

Dr. Klasko is an advocate for a transformation of health care and higher education. He has been a pioneer in using technology to build health assurance and equity—especially as we emerge from the Covid-19 crisis. His new books are Un-Healthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance, with Hemant Taneja, and Patient No Longer: Why Healthcare Must Deliver the Care Experience that Consumers Want and Expect. His 2018 book is Bless This Mess: A Picture Story of Healthcare in America.Read more.

Rishi Desai, MD, MPH

Dr. Desai is a pediatric infectious disease physician with a public health background who serves as the Chief Medical Officer at Osmosis and previously led Khan Academy Medicine. Osmosis generates engaging health education videos on a personalized learning engine for 900,000+ medical students and clinicians around the world. Read more.

Chad Gordon, DO, FACS

Dr. Gordon is the pioneer behind the emerging field known as neuroplastic and reconstructive surgery and an internationally recognized expert in cranioplasty reconstruction and custom skull implants. Read more.

Video

The art of innovation | Guy Kawasaki | TEDxBerkeley

Guy Kawasaki is a special advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google. He is also the author of APE, What the Plus!, Enchantment, and nine other books. Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

In his talk, Kawaski shares his ten principles of innovation, including "1. Make Meaning," "5. Don't Worry, Be Crappy," and "8. Churn, Baby, Churn."

Creative thinking—how to get out of the box and generate ideas | Giovanni Corazza | TEDxRoma

Corazza is a full-time professor at the Alma Mater Studiorum at the University of Bologna, a member of the Executive Council, and the founder of the Marconi Institute of Creativity. He teaches science and the applications of creative thinking.

Corazza discusses the practice of innovation through a series of questions, such as: Why should we go out of the box? Which box are we talking about? and When is it a good idea to think out of the box?

Dont fail fast, fail mindfully | Leticia Gasca | Ted Salon: Brightline Initiative

Leticia Gasca is co-founder of the movement Fuckup Nights and Executive Director for the Failure Institute, the first think tank in the world devoted to studying business failure and the reasons behind it.

We celebrate bold entrepreneurs whose ingenuity led them to success, but what happens to those who fail? Far too often, they bury their stories out of shame or humiliation—and miss out on a valuable opportunity for growth, says author and entrepreneur Leticia Gasca. In this thoughtful talk, Gasca calls for business owners to open up about their failures and makes the case for replacing the idea of "failing fast" with a new mantra: fail mindfully.

TED Playlist: 8 ways to fuel innovation

Where good ideas come from | Steven Johnson

People often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. His fascinating tour takes us from the "liquid networks" of London's coffee houses to Charles Darwin's long, slow hunch to today's high-velocity web.

The surprising habits of original thinkers | Adam Grant

How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies "originals": thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals -- including embracing failure. "The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they're the ones who try the most," Grant says. "You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones."

The secret to great opportunities? The person you haven't met | Tanya Menon

We often find ourselves stuck in narrow social circles with similar people. What habits confine us, and how can we break them? Organizational psychologist Tanya Menon considers how we can be more intentional about expanding our social universes -- and how it can lead to new ideas and opportunities.

Creative problem solving in the face of extreme limits | Navi Radjou

Navi Radjou has spent years studying "jugaad," also known as frugal innovation. Pioneered by entrepreneurs in emerging markets who figured out how to get spectacular value from limited resources, the practice has now caught on globally. Peppering his talk with a wealth of examples of human ingenuity at work, Radjou also shares three principles for how we can all do more with less.

How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas | Manoush Zamaradi

Do you sometimes have your most creative ideas while folding laundry, washing dishes or doing nothing in particular? It's because when your body goes on autopilot, your brain gets busy forming new neural connections that connect ideas and solve problems. Learn to love being bored as Manoush Zomorodi explains the connection between spacing out and creativity.

Why you should make useless things | Simone Giertz

In this joyful, heartfelt talk featuring demos of her wonderfully wacky creations, Simone Giertz shares her craft: making useless robots. Her inventions -- designed to chop vegetables, cut hair, apply lipstick and more -- rarely (if ever) succeed, and that's the point. "The true beauty of making useless things [is] this acknowledgment that you don't always know what the best answer is," Giertz says. "It turns off that voice in your head that tells you that you know exactly how the world works. Maybe a toothbrush helmet isn't the answer, but at least you're asking the question."

Need a new idea? Start at the edge of what is known | Vittorio Loreto

"Where do great ideas come from?" Starting with this question in mind, Vittorio Loreto takes us on a journey to explore a possible mathematical scheme that explains the birth of the new. Learn more about the "adjacent possible" -- the crossroads of what's actual and what's possible -- and how studying the math that drives it could explain how we create new ideas.

Play this word game to come up with original ideas | Shimpei Takahashi

Shimpei Takahashi always dreamed of designing toys. But when he started work as a toy developer, he found that the pressure to produce squashed his creativity. In this short, funny talk, Takahashi describes how he got his ideas flowing again, and shares a simple word game anyone can play to generate new ideas. (In Japanese with English subtitles.)