Richard Wurman

Spurred by the dance between his curiosity and ignorance, Richard Saul Wurman has sought ways to make the complex clear. He has now written, designed and published 83 books on topics ranging from football to health care to city guides, but he likes to say that they all spring from the same place - his ignorance. Described by Fortune magazine as an "intellectual hedonist with a hummingbird mind," Wurman has been shaped by an epiphany had as a young man: ignorance and embracing the understanding of what it is like to not understand. Wurman created and chaired the TED conference from 1984 thru 2002, bringing together many of America's clearest thinkers in the fields of technology, entertainment and design. He has been awarded several honorary doctorates, Graham Fellowships, a Guggenheim and numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards. Wurman has also been awarded the Annual Gold Medal from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and a Gold Medal from AIGA. He is also a Fellow of the AIA. Wurman lives in Newport, RI with his wife, novelist Gloria Nagy, and their three yellow labs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I'm passionate about curiosity

Founder of TED, TEDMED, eg

I seem to have no skill sets