Richard Saul Wurman, a 1953 Cheltenham High School graduate, is best known for founding the popular TED Conferences, bringing together many of America’s clearest thinkers in the fields of technology, entertainment, and design.

Wurman founded TED Talks in 1984. Today, TED (an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design) Conferences, LLC is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that shares short lectures online for free under the slogan “ideas worth spreading”. It covers almost all topics—from science to business to global issues—in more than 100 languages. Close to 50,000 talks have been given at 10,000 events since the program launched in 2009.

Wurman, an architect and graphic designer by trade, also created TEDMED in 1998 as well as the EG Conference in 2006.

According to local historian Chuck Langerman, the singular passion of his life is making information understandable for himself and others. Early on he coined the now popular term “information architect” to describe his unique confluence of training and talents. He received both his B.Arch. and M.Arch. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with the highest honors. He has also written, designed, and published nearly a hundred books on divergent topics, ranging from football to Rome.  

He was awarded the Arthur Spayed Brooks Gold Medal, several honorary doctorates, a Graham fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, numerous federal National Endowment for the Arts grants, and has served as a distinguished professor at Northeastern University. He is a recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, an Annual Gold Medal from Trinity College, Dublin, a Gold Medal from AIGA, and Boston Science Museum’s 50th Annual Bradford Washburn Award in 2014. He is also an American Institute of Architects fellow and member of the Art Directors Club of New York hall of fame.

Today he lives in Golden Beach, Florida with his wife and novelist Gloria Nagy. They have four children and six grandchildren.

To check out the most popular TED Talks of all-time, you can click here. For more on Wurman, you can click here. You can also watch this video:

Fun Fact: Wurman designed Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia and the digital clock in the City Hall courtyard.

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Photo: Wikipedia