Each one of us can do something to change the world. But we all need to find our passion, a motivation inside of us to take us through the journey of making small but continuous changes. After watching these TED talks, you will feel inspired and ready to start thinking about how you can change the world.
1. Muhammad Yunus: A History of Microfinance
Takeaway: All human beings are entrepreneurs and work together to change our lives.
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi civil society leader who has created a bank that does the opposite of conventional banks: Going to poor women, living in villages, dismissing guarantors, and being the only lawyer-free bank in the world. And it works.
This video is extremely insightful, giving ideas of how things can be done differently with social business. If you don’t have time to watch it all, just jump to 2:37 and watch up to 10:30 for great inspiration.
2. Sam Berns: My Philosophy for a Happy Life
Takeaway: Don’t let anything stop you from chasing your dreams.
Sam Berns is a highly inspirational 17-year-old guy whose disease (Progeria) hasn’t deterred him from chasing his dreams. He has a philosophy based on three simple and straight-forward beliefs. Watching this video will change the way you look at the world and will inspire you to follow his philosophy of life.
If you don’t have time to watch the the whole thing, don’t miss it from minute 8 until the end.
3. Artika Renee Tyner: Education for Social Change
Takeaway: What is in your hands to change the world?
Dr. Artika Renee Tyner is a passionate educator and advocate for justice. In her talk, she invites you to reimagine education focusing on leadership development and social justice advocacy. She shares her experience of transforming the classroom into a learning laboratory where students experiment by applying their technical training to address the social justice challenges of our time.
4. Leana Wen: What your doctor won’t disclose
Takeaway: Being totally transparent is scary, but that vulnerability can be an extraordinary benefit to the practice of medicine.
Doctor Leana Wen has found throughout her career uncountable situations where patients have been affected by their doctor’s conflict of interest. She decided to change the paradigms of medicine by making it more personal and transparent. In her talk, she tells her own inspirational story and how it has influenced her professional beliefs, helping her to change the way patients interact with their doctors and removing the fear and mistrust they had before.
5. Manu Prakash: A 50-cent microscope that folds like origami
Takeaway: Revolutionise healthcare in developing countries and turn almost anything into a fun, hands-on science experiment.
Manu Prakash and his team have created a 50 cent microscope made of paper and extremely easy to fold and use. He wants to spread it out to all developing countries and talks about the connexion between hands-on science education and global health.
6. Jorge Soto: The future of early cancer detection?
Takeaway: The way we see cancer will radically change. We will be able to detect any type of cancer in its early stages.
Jorge Soto and a team of scientists have created a platform to try to tackle one of humanity’s toughest challenges. They believe that early cancer detention should be entirely possible.
“This is a single, non-invasive, accurate, and affordable test that has the potential to dramatically change how cancer’s procedures and their diagnostics have been done”. “You only need one milliliter of blood and a relatively simple array of tools.”
7. Anne Milgram: Why smart statistics are the key to fighting crime
Takeaway: Data-driven decisions can make the public safer by improving the criminal justice system.
Anne Milgram passionately explains how she came up with an idea for a tool that would improve the criminal justice system in the US. She couldn’t find out some simple information: who was being arrested, who was being charged, and who was being put in jail. Her tool not only used data to work these things out, but also helps to forecast who will commit crime again.
8. John Paul Flintoff: How to change the world
Takeaway: Making small changes in your own life will change the world.
John Paul Flintoff explains how making small but meaningful changes in our own lives will have an impact on other people’s lives and turn into a human butterfly effect. His talk will encourage you to stop thinking about the end result of the things you do and start thinking about the process. This way, you liberate yourself from the pressure and enjoy every step. And small steps give you courage to move on to the next small step.
He also gives some inspirational examples of people he has interviewed and his own small steps towards changing the world to show how it doesn’t need to be something difficult.
9. JR: Use art to turn the world inside out
Takeaway: Art is not supposed to change the world, but it can change perceptions.
Do not miss this inspirational visual talk by street artist JR who has travelled the world spreading his passion for art and photography. He presents different projects in developing countries where he gets the communities involved and makes people’s stories travel with him.
10. Lee Mun Wah: The secret to changing the world
Takeaway: We are going to have to walk through our fears to see another world.
Lee Mun Wah transmits calmness and security though his speech while driving you though his understanding of cross-cultural communication and awareness. The Chinese American filmmaker, educator, and therapist explains how the secret to changing the world is that “each and every one of us has to take the time to walk each other home.”
11. Willemijn Verloop: Changing the world through social entrepreneurship
Takeaway: You can contribute to changing the world if you dare to be a bit more unreasonable.
After watching this inspirational talk, you will understand how you can contribute to making a social change. You don’t need to start your own social enterprise, but you can commit to different causes as a customer, as an investor, or by helping to find new solutions. Stop being reasonable and start seeing opportunities instead of intangible problems.
Featured photo credit: World In Your Hands via stokpic.com
