Many of you may have seen pictures of the TED Prize trophy presented to every winner. Designed by sculptor Tom Shannon, the trophy is emblematic of his sculpture, using hidden magnets and tiny suspension cables to make an otherwise inert material such as steel and wood take on a truly otherworldly quality.

TED visited Tom Shannon in his Manhattan studio last year for an intimate look at his science-inspired art. Watch this eye-opening, personal conversation with John Hockenberry which reveals how nature’s forces — and the onset of Parkinson’s tremors — interact in Tom’s life and craft.

In the lifetime of the TED Prize, we’ve launched more than 20 wishes, generating ongoing projects to save the oceans…to teach and to connect… to prepare for health crises…to catalog all life on Earth. The TED Prize provides seed money and organizational help for each wish.

The TED Prize is unique among global honors. Winners receive not only recognition for their past achievements and a handsome cash prize, but are, more important, granted something extraordinary: “One Wish to Change the World.” Each winner develops a wish project that draws on the passion and engagement of the TED community to
produce a powerful, long-lasting result.

Next Wednesday, we will celebrate our 2010 TED Prize winner, Jamie Oliver, and all previous winners — whose wishes are still very vital.

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 created the 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 more than a dozen 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, from Karen Armstrong’s 2008 wish. It launched late last year, 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 extraterrestial intelligence.

Like José Antonio Abreu’s dream to see his visionary El Sistema music program flourish in America via a fellows program

Like Neil Turok’s NextEinstein project to build science and math academies in Africa; like Cameron Sinclair’s Open Architecture Network, Dave Eggers‘ OnceUponASchool and EO Wilson’sEncyclopedia 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 lineup 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.

From TED Curator Chris Anderson on the TEDBlog…

Numerous members of the TED community have sought to find a way to help victims of the Haiti quake. We believe one of the organizations best placed to make an immediate difference is Partners in Health. They have operated medical facilities in Haiti for more than two decades and have numerous people on the ground. (We had the honor of working with them as part of President Clinton’s TED Prize wish. They’re trustable and effective.)

We asked how best the TED community could help and this was their response. Do join us in making a donation here.

• Help us track down helicopters! That’s our #1 need right now is transport. There are thousands of badly injured ppl in Port-au-Prince, and there are PIH hospitals, supplies and teams standing ready to treat them in the central plateau. It’s a long, difficult drive over uncertain roads — OR a 10-min helo ride
• Satellite phones! Cell communications are mostly down and we can’t send docs out into PAP with no way to be in touch
• Donate medicine, food, blankets, supplies … anyone with in-kind products to donate can write to procurement@pih.org
• Lend your time and skills — we need experienced trauma surgeons, pediatric trauma surgeons, burn specialists, nurse anesthetists, trauma nurses
• We need solar chargers, generators, fuel for generators
• Water purification that does not require electricity — so massive quanitities of water purification tablets or a system that is standalone
• Transport — we have had a few offers of private planes plus a big Air Canada jet — we are filling them with doctors and supplies and mobilizing
• Donate at http://www.pih.org/home.html.

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.