TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged. TED is now an annual conference that brings together the world’s leading thinkers and doers to share ideas in diverse disciplines including technology, science, entertainment, motivation, social issues, health and wellness, entrepreneurship and the economy. The talks at the TED conference are then made available to watch for free at https://www.ted.com/talks.

With TED’s meteoric rise in popularity, demand for live, localized TED events increased too. In 2009, in the spirit of “ideas worth spreading”, TED created TEDx – a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share the TED conference-like experience at a very affordable price. At a TEDx event, live speakers combine with TED Talk videos to spark deep conversations based around ideas worth spreading. TEDx events are organized by local individuals under license from TED. In the order of 2,000 TEDx events now take place annually around the world.

A TED Conference is a 5-day live event with a ticket price of at least US$8,500. Speakers are from around the world. Attendance is by application. TEDx events are one day or less, are live and the organizers and speakers are generally local. The ticket price is a maximum of US$100 and attendees seldom need to apply to attend.