How to travel the world with almost no money

Many people daydream about traveling the world, but all of them have the same excuse - lack of money. Tomislav, after traveling the world for years with almost no money, shows how it is possible for everyone to do the same, if they really want to.

Tomislav Perko, 29, is a travel writer from Croatia. After a career of a stockbroker, broke because of the financial crisis, he hits the road and turns it into his home. He uses alternative ways of traveling – hitchhiking, couchsurfing, working/volunteering, and manages to wander around the world with just a little bit of money in his pocket, meeting the most amazing people on the way.

Five years later, he publishes a book 1000 Days of Spring and goes around giving lectures about what it means to live on the road. Find out more on his website: https://tomislavperko.com/en/.

You can read the English subtitles for the talk by activating them on the CC icon on the player.

Extensive listening: OK GO, How to find a wonderful idea

Where does OK Go come up with ideas like dancing in zero gravity, performing in ultra slow motion or constructing a warehouse-sized Rube Goldberg machine for their music videos? In between live performances of This Too Shall Pass and The One Moment, lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash takes us inside the band's creative process, showing us how to look for wonder and surprise.

Singer and video director Damian Kulash, Jr. and bassist Tim Nordwind met at summer camp in 1987, and a decade later they formed OK Go. With Dan Konopka as drummer and Andy Ross as guitarist and resident computer programmer, they've built a unique career at the intersection of music, visual art, technology, and science. They're among an emerging class of artists whose 21st-century brand of experimental creativity dissolves the traditional boundaries between disciplines.

'When our band started, music and art were actually different things,' says Kulash. 'Musicians made plastic discs and artists made objects for galleries. Now we all make ones and zeros, so the categorical distinctions don’t make much sense anymore.'

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening: Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash

"Ideas can and do change the world," says historian Rutger Bregman, sharing his case for a provocative one: guaranteed basic income.

Learn more about the idea's 500-year history and a forgotten modern experiment where it actually worked — and imagine how much energy and talent we would unleash if we got rid of poverty once and for all.

Rutger Bregman is one of Europe’s most prominent young thinkers. The 28-year-old historian and author has published four books on history, philosophy and economics. His History of Progress was awarded the Belgian Liberales prize for best nonfiction book of 2013. The Dutch edition of Utopia for Realists became a national bestseller and will be translated in 16 languages this year. Bregman has twice been nominated for the prestigious European Press Prize for his journalism work at The Correspondent. His work has been featured in The Washington Post and The Guardian and on the BBC.

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening: What you can do to prevent Alzheimer's

Alzheimer's doesn't have to be your brain's destiny, says neuroscientist and author of Still Alice, Lisa Genova. She shares the latest science investigating the disease — and some promising research on what each of us can do to build an Alzheimer's-resistant brain.

Lisa Genova wields her ability to tell a story and her knowledge of the human brain to talk about medical conditions like Alzheimer’s in warmly human terms.

Her writing, often focusing on those who are misunderstood, explores the lives of people living with neurological diseases and disorders. A bestselling author, her work has been transformed into an Oscar-winning film, Still Alice, but the real triumph is Genova’s ability to help us empathize with a person’s journey we otherwise couldn’t even begin to understand.

Her newest book, Inside the O’Briens, is about Huntington’s disease.

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening: The future we're building — and boring

Elon Musk discusses his new project digging tunnels under LA, the latest from Tesla and SpaceX and his motivation for building a future on Mars in conversation with TED's Head Curator, Chris Anderson.

Elon Musk is the CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors and the CEO/CTO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).

At SpaceX, Musk oversees the development of rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth orbit and ultimately to other planets. In 2008, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft won the NASA contract to provide cargo transport to space. In 2012, SpaceX became the first commercial company to dock with the International Space Station and return cargo to Earth with the Dragon.

At Tesla, Musk has overseen product development and design from the beginning, including the all-electric Tesla Roadster, Model S and Model X, and the rollout of Supercharger stations to keep the cars juiced up. (Some of the charging stations use solar energy systems from SolarCity, of which Musk is the non-executive chair.) Transitioning to a sustainable energy economy, in which electric vehicles play a pivotal role, has been one of his central interests for almost two decades. He co-founded PayPal and served as the company's chair and CEO.

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening: The ten-item wardrobe

Jennifer L. Scott discovered the ten-item wardrobe concept while living in Paris with Madame Chic and her family.

In this talk she shares her endearing story, tips on how you can make a ten-item wardrobe work for you, and why living with fewer clothes can not only improve your style, but change your life.

Jennifer L. Scott is the internationally bestselling author of Lessons from Madame Chic and At Home with Madame Chic (Simon & Schuster) and creator of the blog The Daily Connoisseur.

You can read the subtitles for the talk by activating the CC option on the player.

Extensive listening: A video game to cope with grief

When Amy Green's young son was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor, she made up a bedtime story for his siblings to teach them about cancer. What resulted was a video game, "That Dragon, Cancer," which takes players on a journey they can't win.

In this beautiful talk about coping with loss, Green brings joy and play to tragedy. "We made a game that's hard to play," she says, "because the hardest moments of our lives change us more than any goal we could ever accomplish."

Amy Green writes and designs video games for Numinous Games, whose first title, That Dragon, Cancer, was an intimate autobiography of the life and death of her son Joel Green. Along with her husband and a team of six other developers, she used a video game to artistically portray the surreal emotional landscape of raising a child with a terminal illness.

You can read the full transcript here.

Extensive listening: 3 ways to plan for the (very) long term

We increasingly make decisions based on short-term goals and gains — an approach that makes the future more uncertain and less safe. How can we learn to think about and plan for a better future in the long term ... like, grandchildren-scale long term?

Ari Wallach shares three tactics for thinking beyond the immediate.

Ari Wallach challenges the perception that "the future" is solely a technology-fueled project occurring at some far off point in time. By exploring the underpinnings of civilizational potential over the ages he shows the future is actually manifesting right now, and that it is very much human.

You can read the full transcript here.

Extensive listening: Know your worth, and then ask for it

Your boss probably isn't paying you what you're worth — instead, they're paying you what they think you're worth. Take the time to learn how to shape their thinking.

Pricing consultant Casey Brown shares helpful stories and learnings that can help you better communicate your value and get paid for your excellence.

Casey Brown is a pricing geek and professional speaker. She leads an organization that helps companies improve profits through better pricing. She speaks at conferences, trade associations and networking groups around the world. She is on a mission to correct the injustice of underpricing.

You can read the full transcript here.

Extensive listening: Why we shouldn't trust markets with our civic life

In the past three decades, says Michael Sandel, the US has drifted from a market economy to a market society; it's fair to say that an American's experience of shared civic life depends on how much money they have.
 (Three key examples: access to education, access to justice, political influence.)

 In a talk and audience discussion, Sandel asks us to think honestly on this question: In our current democracy, is too much for sale?

Michael Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard, exploring some of the most hotly contested moral and political issues of our time.

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening: Adventures of an asteroid hunter

Carrie Nugent is an asteroid hunter, part of a group of scientists working to discover and catalog our oldest and most numerous cosmic neighbors. 

Why keep an eye out for asteroids? In this short, fact-filled talk, Nugent explains how their awesome impacts have shaped our planet, and how finding them at the right time could mean nothing less than saving life on Earth.

Carrie Nugent is part of a team that uses NASA's NEOWISE telescope to search the skies for and catalog asteroids.

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening: Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness

We all go through challenges — some you can see, most you can't, says Michele L. Sullivan.

In a talk about perspective, Sullivan shares stories full of wit and wisdom and reminds us that we're all part of each other's support systems. "The only shoes you can walk in are your own," she says. "With compassion, courage and understanding, we can walk together, side by side."

Michele L. Sullivan is known for her sustainable and collaborative approach to philanthropic investing.

Sullivan strongly believes monumental and sustainable change in our largest global challenges can only happen through partnerships and collaboration between public, private and non-profit entities. This strategy resulted in the Caterpillar Foundation's transformation into one of the most influential corporate foundations and, ultimately, the launch of the Foundation's collaborative impact platform, Together.Stronger.

You can read a full transcript for the talk here.

Extensive listening: What I learned from 2,000 obituaries

Lux Narayan starts his day with scrambled eggs and the question: "Who died today?" Why?

By analyzing 2,000 New York Times obituaries over a 20-month period, Narayan gleaned, in just a few words, what achievement looks like over a lifetime. Here he shares what those immortalized in print can teach us about a life well lived.

Lakshmanan aka Lux Narayan mans Unmetric, a social media intelligence company that helps digital marketers, social media analysts, and content creators control social signals to track and analyze competitive content and campaigns, and to create better content and campaigns of their own.

Outside of work, he is a perpetual learner of various things, from origami and molecular gastronomy to stand-up and improv comedy. He enjoys reading obituaries and other non-fiction and watching documentaries with bad ratings. Narayan makes time every year for trekking in the Himalayas or scuba diving in tropical waters, and once he learns to fly, he hopes to spend more time off land than on it.

You can read a full transcript for the talk here.

Extensive listening: 4 ways to make a city more walkable

Freedom from cars, freedom from sprawl, freedom to walk your city! City planner Jeff Speck shares his general theory of walkability — four planning principles to transform sprawling cities of six-lane highways and 600-foot blocks into safe, walkable oases full of bike lanes and tree-lined streets.

Jeff Speck is a city planner and architectural designer who, through writing, lectures, and built work, advocates internationally for more walkable cities.

As Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 through 2007, he oversaw the Mayors' Institute on City Design and created the Governors' Institute on Community Design, a federal program that helps state governors fight suburban sprawl. Prior to joining the Endowment, Speck spent ten years as Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co., a leading practitioner of the New Urbanism, where he led or managed more than forty of the firm's projects.

Speck is the co-author of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream as well as The Smart Growth Manual. His latest book, Walkable City, which Christian Science Monitor calls 'timely and important, a delightful, insightful, irreverent work', has been the best-selling city-planning title of this decade.

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening: The ethical dilemma of designer babies

Creating genetically modified people is no longer a science fiction fantasy; it's a likely future scenario.

Biologist Paul Knoepfler estimates that within fifteen years, scientists could use the gene editing technology CRISPR to make certain "upgrades" to human embryos — from altering physical appearances to eliminating the risk of auto-immune diseases.

In this thought-provoking talk, Knoepfler readies us for the coming designer baby revolution and its very personal, and unforeseeable, consequences.

Dr. Paul Knoepfler is working to figure out how we use safely stem cells to treat many diseases and how they sometimes turn to the dark side to cause cancer. Over the years he has made key discoveries about how stem cells and cancer are programmed. Now he is especially interested in how to hack these cells to control their behavior, including using powerful CRISPR genetic modification technology.

Knoepfler has also been a leading voice in the discussion about how CRISPR could be used to make designer babies and the risks of going down that path. He is a professor of cell biology and anatomy at UC Davis School of Medicine in California, where he both does research and teaches. In addition, he is a prolific writer including his popular science blog, The Niche, and two books: Stem Cells: An Insider's Guide and GMO Sapiens: The Life-Changing Science of Designer Babies. He is excited about contributing to efforts to build an innovative, global community of interconnected people with a shared passion for biomedical science and battling fake science. Knoepfler’s outspoken, approachable nature in tackling some of the most transformative questions in science has made him a go-to scientist for journalists and ordinary people across the globe.

You can read the full transcript here.

Extensive listening –Why bees are disappearing

Honeybees have thrived for 50 million years, each colony 40 to 50,000 individuals coordinated in amazing harmony. So why, seven years ago, did colonies start dying en masse?

Bees pollinate a third of our food supply, they don’t just make honey!, but colonies have been disappearing at alarming rates in many parts of the world due to the accumulated effects of parasitic mites, viral and bacterial diseases, and exposure to pesticides and herbicides.

Marla Spivak, University of Minnesota professor of entomology and 2010 MacArthur Fellow, tries as much as possible to think like bees in her work to protect them. They’re “highly social and complex” creatures, she says, which fuels her interest and her research.

Spivak has developed a strain of bees, the Minnesota Hygienic line, that can detect when pupae are infected and kick them out of the nest, saving the rest of the hive. Now, Spivak is studying how bees collect propolis, or tree resins, in their hives to keep out dirt and microbes. She is also analyzing how flowers’ decline due to herbicides, pesticides and crop monoculture affect bees’ numbers and diversity. Spivak has been stung by thousands of bees in the course of her work.

You can read a full transcript of the talk here.

Extensive listening Help discover ancient ruins — before it's too late

Sarah Parcak uses satellites orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth to uncover hidden ancient treasures buried beneath our feet. There's a lot to discover; in the Egyptian Delta alone, Parcak estimates we've excavated less than a thousandth of one percent of what's out there.

Now, with the 2016 TED Prize and an infectious enthusiasm for archaeology, she's developed an online platform called GlobalXplorer that enables anyone with an internet connection to discover unknown sites and protect what remains of our shared human inheritance.

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening – How to get better at the things you care about

Working hard but not improving? You're not alone. Eduardo Briceño reveals a simple way to think about getting better at the things you do, whether that's work, parenting or creative hobbies. And he shares some useful techniques so you can keep learning and always feel like you're moving forward.

Eduardo Briceño leads Mindset Works, which helps people develop as motivated and effective learners through training and resources to foster growth mindset beliefs and behaviors. He co-founded Mindset Works in 2007 with the foremost growth mindset researcher, Carol Dweck Ph.D., and education expert Lisa Blackwell Ph.D. Prior to his current role, Briceño was a Principal at the Sprout Group, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, where he was part of the technology investment team.

Briceño grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, before moving to the US when he was in high school. He now lives with his wife in San Jose, California. He holds Bachelor's degrees in economics and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MBA and an MAin Education from Stanford University. Most important, he continues to enjoy lifelong learning every day.

You can read a full transcript here.

Extensive listening: Where is cybercrime really coming from?

Cybercrime netted $450 billion in profits last year, with 2 billion records lost or stolen worldwide.

Security expert Caleb Barlow calls out the insufficiency of our current strategies to protect our data. His solution? We need to respond to cybercrime with the same collective effort as we apply to a health care crisis, sharing timely information on who is infected and how the disease is spreading. If we're not sharing, he says, then we're part of the problem.

As a vice president at IBM Security, Caleb Barlow has insight into to one of the largest security intelligence operations in the world. His team stands watch protecting the information security of thousands of customers in more than a hundred countries. On a busy day they can process upwards of 35 billion potential security events across their global operations centers.

You can read the full transcript here.

Extensive listening: How to have better political conversations

Robb Willer studies the forces that unite and divide us. As a social psychologist, he researches how moral values — typically a source of division — can also be used to bring people together.

Willer shares compelling insights on how we might bridge the ideological divide and offers some intuitive advice on ways to be more persuasive when talking politics.

Robb Willer is a professor of sociology, psychology and organizational behavior at Stanford University. He studies the role of morality in politics. His research shows how moral values, typically a source of ideological division, can also be used to bring people together. His political research has investigated various topics, including economic inequality, racial prejudice, masculine overcompensation and Americans' views of climate change.

You can read a full transcript for the talk here.