About TED
TED is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to discovering, debating and spreading ideas that spark conversation, deepen understanding and drive meaningful change. Our organization is devoted to curiosity, reason, wonder and the pursuit of knowledge — without an agenda. We welcome people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world and connection with others, and we invite everyone to engage with ideas and activate them in your community.
TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, but today it spans a multitude of worldwide communities and initiatives exploring everything from science and business to education, arts and global issues. In addition to the TED Talks curated from our annual conferences and published on TED.com, we produce original podcasts, short video series, animated educational lessons (TED-Ed) and TV programs that are translated into more than 100 languages and distributed via partnerships around the world. Each year, thousands of independently run TEDx events. Through the Audacious Project, TED has helped catalyze $6.6 billion in funding for projects that support bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges — working to make the world more beautiful, sustainable and just. In 2020, TED launched Countdown, an initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis and mobilize a movement for a net-zero future, and in 2023 TED launched TED Democracy to spark a new kind of conversation focused on realistic pathways towards a more vibrant and equitable future. View a full list of TED’s many programs and initiatives.
About TEDx
In the spirit of discovering and spreading ideas, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)
About Lake Shore Drive
Where is your favorite place in Chicago, a place you call home? For us, it’s LakeShoreDrive. From the Museum of Science and Industry to the Art Institute along a lakefront of glittering skyscrapers, harbors, and parks, LSD inspires the community to connect the arts and sciences and embrace the complexity of diverse lives and communities.
The LSD is a scenic route that originated in the early 20th-century American city’s confluence of art and industry. From a carriageway for the rich to architect Daniel Burnham’s plan for a “Paris on the Prairie,” over the decades, it was built farther north and south, linking the city’s commerce and culture. Adjacent to Lake Michigan, the world’s 5th largest lake, the LSD is a crowning accomplishment and a barometer of our changing climate, from the 2011 snowstorm to the recent years’ high water and winds.
Lake Shore Drive is also known as DuSable Drive in 2021. For details, see Wikipedia here.
About TEDxLakeShoreDrive?
The road
Where is your favorite place in Chicago, a place you call home? For us, it’s LakeShoreDrive. From the Museum of Science and Industry to the Art Institute along a lakefront of glittering skyscrapers, harbors, and parks, LSD inspires the community to connect the arts and sciences and embrace the complexity of diverse lives and communities.
The LSD is a scenic route that originated in the early 20th-century American city’s confluence of art and industry. From a carriageway for the rich to architect Daniel Burnham’s plan for a “Paris on the Prairie,” over the decades, it was built farther north and south, linking the city’s commerce and culture. Adjacent to Lake Michigan, the world’s 5th largest lake, the LSD is a crowning accomplishment and a barometer of our changing climate, from the 2011 snowstorm to the recent years’ high water and winds.
As of 2021, the City of Chicago Council has approved a hybrid name change of Lake Shore Drive to Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive, in honor of the first Black man of Haitian descent who was Chicago’s first non-indigenous settler. For details, see Wikipedia here.
While the land we have been calling LakeShoreDrive has been home to us, we at TEDxLakeShoreDrive acknowledge, honor, and revere the pre-colonial indigenous Tribal Nations that cared for this land, amongst which are The Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. We are humbled to be guests on this land.
