May 3, 2017 — Pope Francis gave a surprise recorded TED Talk
presented on April 25 at the TED2017 conference, the first time a pope has ever
given a TED Talk.
His message: “The only future worth building includes everyone.”
TED is a non-profit organization sponsoring short informative
talks, targeted at a wide audience, from experts in different fields.
During his talk, Pope Francis presented a hopeful message to
people of all faiths about solidarity.
“A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that
individual can be you,” the pope said in the 18-minute video in Italian (shown
with English subtitles, above).
"Let us help each other, all together, to remember that
the ‘other’ is not a statistic, or a number," he said. "We all need
each other."
The
arrangement was planned a year in advance and included several trips to
Rome, employing 40 TED translators who worked to post the pope’s message with
subtitles in 20 different languages.
“At a certain point, nearly 80 people across our team and in
Vatican City were aware of the talk — but we managed to keep it confidential
until the moment we unveiled it at TED2017,” said Bruno Giussani, TED’s
international curator.
The pope planned his own message, but included initial input
from TED curators “to better understand the nature of the TED community.”
“A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that
individual can be you,” Pope Francis said. “And then there will be another
‘you,’ and another ‘you,’ and it turns into an ‘us.’ And so, does hope begin
when we have an ‘us?’ No. Hope began with one ‘you.’ When there is an ‘us,’
there begins a revolution.” [Source: TED]
