Announcing the 2010 TED Prize winner: Jamie Oliver
We’re delighted to announce the TED Prize winner for 2010: the chef who’s transforming the way we feed our children: Jamie Oliver.
The prize grants him $100,000 — and something much bigger: “one wish to change the world.” He’ll unveil the wish on February 10 at TED2010, and we, the TED community, will seek to make it come true.
Some of Jamie Oliver’s key achievements:
- The Jamie’s School Dinners/Feed Me Better campaign pressured the UK government to invest $1 billion to overhaul school lunches.
- The Fifteen Foundation, a social enterprise and chef apprenticeship for at-risk 18-24 yr olds. Based in London, it has been replicated through franchising in Amsterdam, Cornwall and Melbourne.
- A new TV series, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution USA, is to air on ABC in 2010, bringing Jamie’s vision of fun, healthy cooking to America.
- 12 television series, seen in 130 countries
- 10 cookbooks, translated into 29 languages, with almost 24 million copies sold in 56 countries
At the heart of Oliver’s work is an assault on the obesity epidemic: The CDC states that one in four Americans are considered obese. It is estimated that 43 percent of Americans, or 103 million people, will be obese by 2018. The cost of this epidemic, anticipated to reach $344 billion per year. It currently accounts for almost 10 percent of the yearly US health care costs, and that rate will rise to 21 percent by 2018. WHO’s latest projections indicate that globally in 2005 approximately 1.6 billion adults were overweight and projects that by 2015, that figure will rise to 2.3 billion.
From the New York Times: “…this British celebrity chef has made it his mission in recent years to break people’s dependence on fast food, believing that if they can learn to cook just a handful of dishes, they’ll get hooked on eating healthfully. The joy of a home-cooked meal, rudimentary as it sounds, has been at the core of his career from the start, and as he has matured, it has turned into a platform.”
Just one winner?
Those who’ve followed the TED Prize in recent years will know that in prior years we’ve announced three winners, not one. For 2010, the fifth-year anniversary of the launch of the prize, we’re doing things differently.
When we first created the TED Prize, we envisioned supporting projects that could be completed in 12 months. But our winners have dreamed up wishes more powerful, more wonderful than we ever could have imagined, and we’ve found that we simply don’t want to stop that quickly! Members of the community are getting passionately engaged in these projects, and they’re not shy to tell us that changing the world can take more than a year … To effect real impact, it’s right to stay involved and sustain the effort.
We agree. And that means it would be a mistake to add three brand-new wishes every year. There are already 15 TED Prize projects, and at least half of them still require our engagement. Adding too many more risks dilution of effort.
Therefore, after discussion with various wise souls in the community, we are moving to a new format of ONE new winner every year. At the same time, we’re increasing our capacity to facilitate your amazing efforts on the existing wishes:
- Like the Charter for Compassion, which launched last month, but which can create a ripple effect for years to come
- Like Sylvia Earle‘s campaign for marine protected areas, for which we have exciting news to announce shortly
- Like Jill Tarter‘s plan to make SETI data publicly available so that millions can join the search for extra-terrestial intelligence
- Like Jose Antonio Abreu’s dream to see his visionary El Sistema music program flourish in America via a fellows program
- Like Neil Turok’s Next Einstein project, Cameron Sinclair’s Open Architecture Network, Dave Eggers’ Once Upon A School and E.O. Wilson’s Encyclopedia of Life
There has been exciting progress on all these projects and we can see that there’s much more to come.
It’s incredibly exciting to welcome Jamie Oliver to join our line-up of change catalysts. And exciting, too, to know that our existing winners are going to stay at the heart of the TED community, as we continue working to realize their inspirational visions for a better future.
Congratulations Jamie! You are someone who makes a hugely positive impact in the world as well as a person of integrity. It is wonderful to hear this year’s TED Prize has been awarded to you and I absolutely trust that the wish you make will be realised in grand style and will seriously make our world a better place. Thank you for all you have contributed to the health and wellbeing of your fellow man. And thank you for all you will continue to contribute and how you will continue to inspire others. All the best, Noel Posus – Sydney, Australia
Congratulations Jamie!! It is great to hear about someone who uses their celebrity and talent to truly help people not solely for cause marketing purposes. I’m excited to hear about your “one wish to change the world,” come February 2010. Congratulations again. – Justin Rasmussen – Los Angeles, CA
In my life TED had great amount of influence in the creation of my personal insights about many topics on many levels, as well and on my professional scientific preoccupations. However, it is quite shameful to give a TED prize to entertainer such as Jamie Oliver, who in his “mission” tries to save fat british children from their over- consumerist society. In the period when the world fights world crises, when more infants die from malnutrition, dirty water or vaccines every second minute, the so called “mission” of such person is senseless and has no aim. TED enjoys much respect, and has many wise speakers from scientific and from non-scientific world who affected the world with their humane activism globally on many scales, but I guess with such a choice for a TED prize 2010 the “law of the colon” rules again. As for me, TED loses much of its reputation! SHAME!!! SHAME!!! SHAME!!!
P.S. If Mr. Oliver wants to make an improvement about cruelty free food, he should just not pose with the poor animals as their protector, he should give living example by refusing to eat them!!! Hypocrisy and double standards again…pffff… Mirja from Macedonia
Jamie Oliver
An omnipresent but decent bloke putting effort behind his words and actually managing to change things for the better. The episode of his School Diners program that showed 5 – 10 year old’s unable to identify basic vegetables like broccoli and cabbage was truly frightening and has hopefully served as a wake up call to the whole of the UK.
Congratulation.
Jamie congratulations!
Your vision and the energy and passion you are putting in to make a difference in the health and lives of our children, our future ‘us’, is an inspiration. I’m thrilled with your being granted the award, and look forward to celebrating the results you and TED create in the world’s true health.
Linda Feinholz
Congratulations Jamie! I have watched your career develop and take off over the years. You have been such an inspiration and joy to watch. Your work with kids, obesity and more is truly astounding. You are truly making a difference on the planet globally. Congratulations! Laura Klein – OrganicAuthority.com
Congrats Jamie!
A stamp of approval for your work.
It would be great to find a sports person to have the same level of popularity and media penetration, to stir people into getting off the sofa.
Paired with your healthy eating campaigns this would really kick obesity into shape!
Congratulations! One more win for those of us trying to change the world through nutrition.
~Rose Cole
Well done Jamie
He has inspired, encouraged, nagged and shamed us into improving our diets and therefore that our children. As a celebrity he probably doesn’t need any more publicity, but well done TED for recognising that popular culture can change its world.
Congratulations Jamie. I think that the fundamental root of the ills that Mirja listed is one of mindfulness in the west. I totally applaud the work of anyone in those fields, it is nothing short of heroic. Unfortunately, until the mass of western society wakes up and smells the coffee, most of these efforts will be preaching to the choir. I think that how we feed ourselves can be a fundamental first step in the process of waking up as a society. What I love about Jamie’s work is that he engages with real people to tackle real issues with humor, warmth and, what seems to be, genuine concern for their well being. Is Jamie preaching to the choir, probably; will he make a fundamental difference to western society, probably not; is he a genuine bloke doing what he can to tackle the big questions in his field, definitely yes. I think that Jamie is brave for tackling the issues he does in the way that he does and I think that TED is brave for selecting a ‘TV Chef’ for the TED prize. Good on both of you!
This is awesome. We need more attention paid to the obesity issue in the US, not just the UK. Obesity in the US is a major public health issue that does not get the attention it deserves. While it would help to change awareness and attitudes, it is also necessary to target the food industry. Unfortunately, Americans have allowed processed, chemicalized, artificial junk food to become a part of our lifestyle. It is very sad to know that most people won’t spend even 15 minutes in the kitchen preparing a meal made with whole food. I am anxious to see the energy, effort and attention that Jamie will put toward this issue. Congratulations!
Like Mirja (but for different reasons) I was disappointed to hear of Jamie Oliver’s award. After reading the reasons for the award I am confused because see merit in Jamie’s award and I agree with Mirja. Perhaps we could bring these two issues together.
For example I found that “losing weight” wasn’t working for me so I decided that I would create personal campaign to “give away my weight for charity”. Every danger item that I say “no” to has a $ value e.g. a chocolate bar, glass of wine, extra slice of toast. This money is saved into a jar and I make a monthly donation to a charity such as the Hunger Project.
Perhaps such a campaign can encourage people to reduce their consumption because they are “doing good for themselves and others by eating less”.
dohenuho…
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Congratulation Jamie! Obesity is a serious issue in the western world and it costs lives and money that could be invested in so many other medical cures. Best of luck with the project!
I am slightly surprised at this winner. Surely someone like Jamie Oliver could be donating $100 000 rather than applying for a prize fund?
Lets be clear, all his endeavors have also paid him well (books, restaurants, TV shows, advertising) AND they have all been funded by other people to begin with i.e. Jamie Schools Dinners was a commissioned programme. I believe Jamie Oliver is a multi millionaire.
It seems odd that you award a prize fund to a multi millionaire, especially in a year when the opportunity to win has reduced by from 3 prizes to 1.
Finally, with all the above said, I am also highly concerned with Jamie Oliver’s consistency. Whilst claiming accolades for promoting healthy eating and supposedly tackling the causes of this issue – such as taking on the supermarkets (who actively promote junk food, poor labeling, pre-packaged meals and destroy local produce and producers), Jamie Oliver also appears on UK TV regularly promoting a major supermarket chain (who pays him well) and promoting the cheap food they serve up and the credibility of their brand.
On one hand promoting healthy eating, local produce, quality ingredients etc. and the other he promotes supermarket shopping, family use of supermarket cheap foods and presents all this as his role as educator/ food expert. I assume a ‘successful’ campaign will therefore lead to greater use of supermarket for shopping and subsequently less healthy eating, greater exposure to unhealthy foods and marketing/ promotions (e.g.2 for 1) and greater difficulty for local and healthy food producers to compete – especially with Jamie promoting supermarkets. Is this part of Jamie’s vision or just a pay day? (worth millions)
Maybe Jamie’s wish will be for more advertising contracts? Or maybe he will wish for all school dinners to be sourced from Sainsbury’s Basic range? Pondering but disinterested. There is a lack of credibility here amidst the gushing praise for our prizewinner.
Congratulations Jamie on winning the TEDPrize. I hope you really channel it to teaching children to love the art of cooking.
I love food, all kinds of food and am keen to try different cuisines. Unfortunately I do not like cooking – for 3 key reasons:
a) I believe I cannot cook good food; and
b) I believe that cooking kills ones hunger; and
c) I like to eat what my wife cooks – most of the times :-) you know the home cooked food feeling.
I suppose the second one can be overcome; but for the first one I sometime think that I should somehow start to love cooking – so that I can truly enjoy all types of food without blowing a hole in my pocket (by eating out at restaurants).
I wish I had learnt cooking when I was younger and had learnt to love cooking… I’m not sure if it is too late to learn now… But if I do – I’m pretty sure that I’ll have a much happier wife at home.
Dear Sue B,
I hear your call for consistency, but what facts are you working from with your questions here?
Do you really think that with all of the numerous people involved in creating the media that is fronted by Jaime, he’s really a multi-millionaire? And even if he is – do you have a problem with the fact that he’s tackling a big problem that faces the world in an innovative way, and trying to make a positive change?
I’ve watched his shows and his enthusiastic support for fresh, unprocessed food, cooked simply & deliciously, enjoyed with friends and a good dose of joi de vivre. I say he deserves wealth, success and distinction for the energy he spends trying to help others and improve the world. Sure – he can be a bit dramatic in his presentation, but in this case that is an asset to his cause.
Bravo Jaime – may success be yours, and ours! Keep up the good work.