Skype at TED2014

TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra brings together a panel of educational innovators—and, via Skype, their students and teachers. They'll discuss how technology is helping to rapidly democratize education, and will share their predictions for the future.

In her quest to circumvent the business-as-usual obstacles of the music industry, Recording artist Amanda Palmer discovered a vital weapon: her fans. Join her and a gamut of creative professionals as they share ideas about how crowdsourcing and crowdfunding can help artists unleash new forms of creativity through re-negotiating the connections they share with their fans.

Filmmaker and activist Jehane Noujaim heads up a collection of revolutionaries from the front lines of Egypt and beyond. They’ll explore the role of social media and the increasingly fluid dissemination of ideas and insights in sparking and sustaining change in the world—and discuss how these new dynamics will affect the next chapter of activism.

We're rarely ever truly disconnected from anyone or anything anymore—so what is it like to live and work in some of the most remote locations imaginable? Join astronaut Chris Hadfield, explorer Ben Saunders, and a group of truly remote workers as they make sense of living in extraordinary locations and how it changes their perceptions of our place in the world.

With each generation, our athletes get stronger, faster, and more reckless. What’s driving this trajectory, and where will it end? Sports Illustrated reporter David Epstein asks these questions to a mix of pro and Olympic-caliber athletes over Skype—and uncovers where the answers might lead.

Does technology have limits? Perhaps not, when magic comes into play. Watch tech innovator and stage illusionist Marco Tempest perform a centuries-old trick via Skype, then reveal insights that link illusion and the nature of technology.

Go behind the scenes with Brooklyn musician Frank Bell as he uses Skype to participate in a panel at TED2014 on crowdfunding, joining musician Amanda Palmer, writer Neil Gaiman and Kickstarter’s co-founder Yancey Strickler.