TED, the nonprofit organization that is devoted to spreading ideas, is actually about as old as 3D Printing. You thought they were both new? No, 3D Printing has been around for decades doing prototyping for manufacturers, and TED began in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from technology, entertainment and design. But just as 3D Printing has been moving into the limelight in recent years as the technology has become good enough and cheap enough to enter the mainstream market, TED has over the last few years reached out and touched tens of millions of people it hadn’t before, thanks to the internet and social media.

This isn’t the first 3D printing talk at given at TED, but it’s a good one and the latest one published on their site. It was given at what they call TEDSalon in London in the spring of last year by Lisa Harouni, co-founder of Digital Forming. This is a company that works on the software side of 3D printing — the design tools needed to run the new generaion of 3D printing processes. She has a background in economics, and worked in the G7 Economics team at Deutsche Bank AG before moving over to the consumer products business.

In this video, Lisa gives the audience a useful introduction into the world of additive manufacturing, what we like to more commonly call 3D Printing. She does a great job showing the audience what a fascinating way it is to make things — and she includes examples of intricate objects once impossible to create.

As Wired says of today’s speaker: “Lisa Harouni is in the vanguard of a wave of entrepreneurs who want to make it easy for anyone to design and create bespoke products at the click of a button.”

Sit back and enjoy the 15 minute video. Then be sure to send this page over to a friend — it’s easier than trying to explain the technology.