TED Talks Daily TED Audio Collective

What can't Candace Parker do? A two-time NCAA champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time WNBA champion, Parker knows what it takes to fight for your dreams. In this inspiring talk, she shares what she's learned during a career spent not accepting limits -- and how her daughter taught her the best lesson of all. "Barrier breaking is about not staying in your lane and not being something that the world expects you to be," she says. "It's about not accepting limitations."

What does it take to build a legacy? Hip-hop artist Cordae tells how he went from mixtape-dropping high school kid to Grammy-nominated music star whose "Hi Level" mindset helps him achieve his dreams.

We tend to celebrate leaders for their dramatic words and actions in times of crisis — but we often overlook truly great leaders who avoid the crisis to begin with. Historian Martin Gutmann challenges us to rethink what effective leadership actually looks like, drawing on lessons from the famed (but disaster-prone) explorer Ernest Shackleton.

What if you could code just by talking out loud? GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke shows how, thanks to AI, the barrier to entry to coding is rapidly disappearing — and creating software is becoming as simple (and joyful) as building LEGO. In a mind-blowing live demo, he introduces Copilot Workspace: an AI assistant that helps you create code when you speak to it, in any language.

Whether or not you believe the world is doomed might depend on where you get your news, says journalist Angus Hervey. He delivers stories of progress that mainstream media organizations missed last year — from advances in clean energy to declining rates of extreme poverty, crime and disease — and suggests we should pay more attention to such occurrences. "If we want more people to devote themselves to the task of making progress, then maybe we should be telling more people that it's possible to make progress," says Hervey.

Democracy may be an abstract concept, but it holds the very essence of our autonomy and humanity, says lawyer and human rights advocate Fatma Karume. Sharing her journey navigating a tumultuous political transition in Tanzania that put her life at risk, she highlights the importance of speaking truth to power and fighting for a brighter democratic future.