TED Prize

Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver is transforming the way we feed our children, and ourselves.

As he grew up in the kitchen of his father’s pub-restaurant in Clavering, Essex, and trained in England and France, Oliver displayed both incredible culinary talent and a passion for creating fresh, honest and delicious food.

That talent brightened the lens during a TV show profiling a restaurant he was working at, and not long after, at the age of twenty-two, he debuted on-screen as the Naked Chef. Now one of the world’s top celebrity chefs, he remains committed to simple, unpretentious food, and strives mightily to break people’s unhealthy eating habits and get them cooking again.

With the obesity epidemic growing globally, he uses his fame to create change on both the individual and governmental level through campaigns such as School Dinners, Ministry of Food and Food Revolution USA. These programs blend his culinary tools, cookbooks and TV shows with more standard activism and community organizing as a way to spur the changes Englanders—and now Americans—need to make in their lifestyles and diet.

Jamie’s TED wish: “I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

Find out more here: http://www.tedprize.org/jamie-oliver/

Sylvia Earle

The New York Times and The New Yorker refer to oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer Sylvia Earle as “Her Deepness.” Time magazine calls her a “hero for the planet,” and the Library of Congress labels her a “living legend.”

Deeply committed to research through personal exploration, Earle says: “We’ve got to somehow stabilize our connection to nature so that in 50 years from now, 500 years, 5,000 years from now there will still be a wild system and respect for what it takes to sustain us.”

Her TED wish: “Use all means at your disposal—Films! Expeditions! The web! More!—to ignite public support for a global network of protected marine areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.” Read more and join in

Jill Tarter

Jill Tarter, director of the SETI Institute’s Center for SETI Research and holder of the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI, has devoted her career to hunting for signs of sentient beings elsewhere in the universe. Her work has influenced virtually every aspect of the field.

” ‘Are we alone?’ Humans have been asking [this question] forever,” she says. “The probability of success is difficult to estimate, but if we never search, the chance of success is zero.”

Her TED wish: “I wish that you would empower Earthlings everywhere to become active participants in the ultimate search for cosmic company.” Read more and join in.

Jose Antonio Abreu

Retired economist, trained musician and social reformer Jose Antonio Abreu founded El Sistema (”The System”) in 1975 because of his conviction that classical music could lift up poor Venezuelan kids and their communities. Thirty years and ten different political administrations later, El Sistema is now a nationwide organization of 102 youth orchestras, 55 children’s orchestras and 270 music centers.

“Music has to be recognized as an … agent of social development in the highest sense, because it transmits the highest values—solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion,” Abreu says. “And it has the ability to unite an entire community and to express sublime feelings.”

His TED wish: “I wish you would help create and document a special training program for at least 50 gifted young musicians, passionate for their art and for social justice, and dedicated to developing El Sistema in the US and in other countries.” Read more and join in.