Stories have the power to change our perceptions, to open our hearts and minds up to new ideas and ways of thinking, and to strike a chord with our own experiences. The TED app is filled with thousands of talks given by people from all walks of life, covering topics such as science, personal growth and social change.
Make a start with the three talks below, delivered by three inspiring individuals: tennis icon Billie Jean King, Ziauddin Yousafzai (father of Malala) and businesswoman Dame Stephanie Shirley. You can watch all TED’s videos with subtitles – head to the profile tab and tap Settings > Languages > Subtitle language.
Billie Jean King
I don’t have any trouble with not finishing… you keep passing the baton down to the next generation, and they build another bridge
– Billie Jean King
In 1973, 29-year-old Billie Jean King, then the world number one, played 55-year-old retired player Bobby Riggs in a match dubbed “the battle of the sexes”. It was one of the most-watched televised sports events of all time, with King winning in three sets and sealing a landmark moment for women’s professional tennis.
In her TED talk, King discusses her seminal role in founding the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and her campaign for equal prize money in the men’s and women’s games when the open era began.
Thanks to the pioneering efforts of King and eight other female tennis players (known as the Original 9), the WTA now consists of more than 1,650 players across the world.
“Here was our dream for future generations: any girl in the world, if she’s good enough, would have a chance to compete,” King says in her TED talk.
Ziauddin Yousafzai
For a father, raising a child to be courageous is about not doing certain things, rather than the opposite. I did not clip her wings.
– Ziauddin Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai was just 17 when she won the Nobel Peace Prize. In his TED talk, her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, explains the challenges of raising his daughter in a society where women’s rights are repressed and how he inspired Malala to speak up for the rights of girls to have access to an education.
“I have five sisters, and none of them could go to school… what my father could not give to my sisters and to his daughters, I thought I must change it,” he says.
Yousafzai knew that sending his daughter to school would be be met with resistance, but as he explains in his talk, he wanted her to be able to explore her full potential in life.
Dame Stephanie Shirley
I’d hit that glass ceiling too often, and I wanted opportunities for women.
– Dame Stephanie Shirley
Dame Stephanie (Steve) Shirley arrived in Britain in 1939 as an unaccompanied child refugee and went on to become a successful entrepreneur, building a tech empire in the 1960s, pioneering new work practices and changing the work landscape for women in tech along the way.
“I couldn’t open a bank account without my husband’s permission. My generation of women fought the battles for the right to work and the right for equal pay. I could write software for the London Stock Exchange, but I couldn’t actually work there myself. Couldn’t drive a bus, couldn’t fly an aeroplane,” she says in her TED talk.
Dame Shirley adopted pro-women policies in her business and employed women coming out of universities, trying new and unconventional practices at the time, such as allowing maternity leave and supporting a return to the workforce afterwards.
“I started to challenge the conventions of the time, even to the extent of changing my name from Stephanie to Steve in my business development letters, so I could get through the door before anyone realised that he was a she!”