The world has over a trillion hours a year of free time to commit to shared projects," says professor Clay Shirky. But what motivates dozens, thousands, even millions of people to come together on the Internet and commit their time to a project for free? What is the key to making a successful collaboration work? TED speakers unravel ideas behind the mystery of mass collaborations that build a better world.
Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia. Computer programmer Luis Von Ahn discusses massive scale online collaboration. Social media guru Clay Shirky explores how cognitive surplus will change the world. Software entrepreneur Jason Fried explains why work doesn't happen at work. Finally, coder and activist Jennifer Pahlka on coding a better government.
Learn more or listen again to this week's episode, which originally aired July 14, 2013.
Banner image: Joos Mind/Getty Images