Leading brains take on big ideas

By Jo Twist
BBC News science and technology reporter

Among the guests will be Bob Geldof

Luminaries from the worlds of technology, entertainment and design are gathering in Oxford to share their thinking about our future.

The big thinkers include leading authors, musicians, playwrights, and pioneers in technology and science.

Bob Geldof, top political author Charles Leadbeater, and biologist Richard Dawkins will be among the distinguished delegates at TED Global.

TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is already a top US event.

TED Global will be the first time the US conference is held in Europe.

The aim of the event is to explore the three main arenas that shape and influence people's future.

But it also considers how politics, the environment, and other social issues impact daily life in the 21st Century.

Big names, big brains

"Our goal in designing TED Global is to ensure that it retains the TED magic", said co-producer Bruno Giussani.

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"Tedsters are not just brilliant, successful and influential; they are inventive, curious, open-minded, even playful, and want to have an impact, and in that spirit they attend the conference.

"This allows TED speakers to take risks and be more open than they might otherwise be, and the outcome of this conversation is often surprising and very valuable," he said.

Sessions at TED Global will include ideas about the cities of the future, the impact of networks and innovative, small business.

Other high-profile figures set to attend the event include artist Talvin Singh, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis, Nokia's director of design strategy Marko Ahtisaari, and net performance artist Ze Frank.

The first TED conference was in 1984 during which the Apple Macintosh computer and the Sony compact disc were publicly unveiled.

It was also the event during which mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals.

Past speakers have also included Microsoft boss Bill Gates, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, architect Frank Gehry; the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, James Watson; "biomimicry" specialist Janine Benyus, and musician Herbie Hancock.

TED Global runs from 12 to 15 July in Oxford, UK.