In a zippy demo at TED U, AnnMarie Thomas shows how two different kinds of homemade play dough can be used to demonstrate electrical properties -- by lighting up LEDs, spinning motors, and turning little kids into circuit designers.

AnnMarie Thomas works on the playful side of engineering -- using cool tools to teach and help others.

AnnMarie Thomas joined the faculty of the University of St. Thomas in the fall of 2006.

Previously, she was a faculty member at Art Center College of Design. She is the director of the UST Design laboratory and leads a team of students looking at both the playful side of engineering (squishy circuits for students, the science of circus, toy design) and ways to use engineering design to help others (projects in technology design for older adults).

Activist Caroline Casey tells the story of her extraordinary life, starting with a revelation (no spoilers).

In a talk that challenges perceptions, Casey asks us all to move beyond the limits we may think we have.

First, Caroline Casey put Ireland on the accessibility map. Now she's changing the global social landscape for people with disabilities.

Caroline Casey has dedicated the past decade of her life to changing how global society views people with disabilities.

In 2000, she rode 1,000 kilometers across India on an elephant to raise funds for Sight Savers.

Then, as founding CEO of Kanchi in Dublin, she developed a set of best practices (based on ISO 9000 quality standards) for businesses, to help them see "disabled" workers as an asset as opposed to a liability.

Pioneering surgeon Susan Lim performed the first liver transplant in Asia.

But a moral concern with transplants (where do donor livers come from ...) led her to look further, and to ask: Could we be transplanting cells, not whole organs?

At the INK Conference, she talks through her new research, discovering healing cells in some surprising places.

A surgical pioneer in Singapore, Susan Lim is a researcher and entrepreneur.

Susan Lim established her reputation as a surgeon in 1990 after performing Singapore's (and southeast Asia's) first successful liver transplant.

She has gone on to further pioneer in the field of general surgery, two new surgical technologies for Singapore, the mammotome minimally invasive breast biopsy and robotic surgery for the private sector.

Jacqueline Novogratz founded and leads Acumen Fund, a non-profit organisation that takes a businesslike approach to improving the lives of the poor.

In her book, The Blue Sweater, she tells stories from the new philanthropy, which emphasizes sustainable bottom-up solutions over traditional top-down aid.

Mum and Dad were watching TV when Mum said, “I’m tired, and it’s getting late. I think I’ll go to bed”.

She went to the kitchen to make sandwiches for the next day’s lunches, rinsed out the out the popcorn bowls, took meat out of the freezer for supper the following evening, checked the cereal box levels, filled the sugar container, put spoons and bowls on the table, and started the coffeepot for brewing next morning.

She then put some wet clothes into the dryer, put a load of clothes in the wash, ironed a shirt, and secured a loose button.

She picked up the newspapers strewn on the floor, picked up the game pieces left on the table, and put the telephone book back into the drawer. She watered the plants, emptied a waste-paper basket, and hung up a towel to dry.

She yawned and stretched and headed for the bedroom.