Dr. Rufaro Nyamuda is the founder and CEO of KeepSafe Schools, she considers herself a calculated risk-taker and concerns herself with the long-term sustainability of new healthcare and technology advancements. She’s taking to the TEDx stage to share her idea that children can and should be empowered to create safer schools.
Ruth Hall, a Professor at the Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape, is an accomplished academic whose research on land and agrarian reform in South Africa spans 23 years.
Passionate about social justice, Ruth says her mission is “to make land reform sexy” , and is excited about the opportunity to present her case on the matter at TEDxCapeTown’s Salon event on 19 October, 2019.
After a successful corporate career, this writer, speaker, host of The Eco-Logic Awards and editor of The Enviropaedia publication turned to his ‘heart's-calling’ in 1997.
David is extremely passionate about raising public understanding of current environmental challenges; empowering individuals and businesses to adopt more sustainable practices; and encouraging people to re-evaluate their own role and responsibility towards Natures community of life on Earth.
Gokul Nair is a co-founder of Impulse Biomedical, a start-up company spun out from the Medical Devices lab at the University of Cape Town, which commercialises affordable healthcare technologies for the developing world.
When we asked what gets him out of bed in the morning, his response was “Healthcare and its accessibility.” Nair adds that, “Healthcare is a core human right, and after reading and trying to grapple with the historic, political and economic nuances of why people cannot access basic healthcare (especially on our continent) I have had a passion for trying to rectify some of that.”
Giancarlo Beukes is a mechanical and biomedical engineer, inventor, entrepreneur and co-founder of a multi award-winning medical devices start-up called Impulse Biomedical. Along with his business partner and fellow TEDx speaker, Gokul Nair, the vision that led to founding Impulse Biomedical was to develop affordable healthcare technologies for developing and emerging markets, with the aim of ensuring accessibility for all to necessary life-saving technologies.
Baratang Miya is not only a Social entrepreneur, she is currently the Managing Director of Uhuru Spaces a Cultural Innovation Coworking space, and the CEO of GirlHype - a coding school for women and girls that offers free and paid coding courses, events, advises companies on tech talent processes and procedures, and manages an eco-system for female developers.
This serial entrepreneur who’s passionate about people and technology, is on a quest to build a better world. In 2018 Kyle resigned from his company to pursue an ambitious idea that he believes has the potential to eradicate avoidable poverty in our lifetime. And so Vollar was founded.
Dr Tinashe Mutsvangwa is enthusiastic about changing the landscape of healthcare in Africa and is the Lead of a research group called Medical Image-based Inference and Distributed Diagnosis (Mi2D2), which focuses on the development and use of low-cost medical imaging solutions, particularly for resource-limited settings.
Adewale Adejumo, or Wale as he prefers to be called, is the Founder and Managing Director of Zasttra - one of the fastest growing online retail stores in South Africa.
An entrepreneur, with a postgraduate degree in Marketing, Finance, Banking and Investment, has been recognised a number of times for his business acumen and ‘forward-thinking’, this includes being selected as Destiny MAN’s 40 under 40 Entrepreneurs (2017), The Young Independent Newspapers 100 Young Innovators in South Africa of 2017, and one of Nedbank’s 25 young future change-makers in South Africa (2015).
Recognised as one of the 100 Brightest Young Minds in Africa, Cindy Mkaza-Siboto is the co-founder of Emagqabini Education Academy, an educational non-profit organisation operating in Site B Khayelitsha.
The organisation - which was established to assist young people from the township through academic support, mentorship and career planning- started off assisting 15 learners and today supports more than 100 young people.
Richard Mulholland is an ex-Rock ‘n Roll roadie, entrepreneur and renowned speaker who has presented his ideas in many countries including Canada, Puerto Rico, UK, USA, Germany, Kenya and Pakistan.
Passionate about problem-solving and spreading ideas, Richard spends his time doing what he loves - activating his audience. When he’s not doing that he can be found coaching many top CEOs and TED speakers.
Carryn Ortlepp is the Chief Operations Officer at a Cape Town-based leadership development consultancy called Lockstep. Under the Lockstep banner, she also facilitates a dedicated leadership program focussed on NGO leaders and her side hustle / passion project is speaker and presentation coaching.
Lauren Jacobs is a ‘Her’storian, a word she chooses to describe herself as she is passionate about discovering and sharing women’s stories, especially from the past. She hopes the TEDxCapeTown speaker experience will be filled with personal growth and fresh vision for the future. She adds that, “I hope to see lives changed. I hope the audience will be deeply moved, especially women when they hear that their stories and their lives hold unique value and deserve to be preserved for future generations. We all are a living story and we will leave something behind that deserves re-telling.”
Dr Nicki Spies is a corporate coach, trainer, facilitator, gender discourse analyst and narrative practitioner. She’s inspired by observing positive change in individuals, seeing them own who they are and being more comfortable with their sexuality and in their relationships.
Gill Grose describes herself simply as a sixty-something serial volunteer who is a book, travel and tree lover, but there is far more to her story.
When the ex-librarian retired more than eight years ago, Gill looked for something constructive to keep her occupied and through a series of events she landed up volunteering 30 minutes of her time twice a week to help children who were struggling at school.
Penni Cox is a well established psychologist spending the past decade working in a variety of contexts, from patient clinics to private practice, and the humanitarian sector. These roles in the world of psychology, contributed to her vast experience in working with addiction, adolescents, as well as family and organisational systems.
The talented Preston Jongbloed loves people, something that shines through in every project he takes on whether it is public speaking or presenting on the radio. He currently dedicates much of his time to the Refocus Foundation, an organisation which specialises in working with youth at risk. This opportunity has provided him a platform to inspire troubled youth and prisoners, and change their lives for the better.
Verity is a former singer/songwriter who became one of the forerunners of crowdfunding in South Africa when she sold 2000 copies of her album that ‘didn’t exist’ in 2006. As a result, she is a sought after speaker on innovation and the power of thinking differently, and now owns and runs TAP Results where she’s a full-time speaker and facilitator.
Sam Beckbessinger is a writer, user-experience designer and entrepreneur who is on a quest to help the emerging middle class understand how to take charge of their finances. Author of ‘Manage Your Money Like a F*cking Grown Up’, she is also a co-founder of Lettuce, an app that wants to make managing your money as simple as making toast.
Jared Molko is an ex-Googler who has worked across Africa, Europe and the Middle East, training and educating people on Google products and delivering digital transformation programmes to top multi-nationals across the globe. He is now focusing his attention towards the intersection between technology and psychology, more specifically, leveraging data-driven intelligence to improve job placement and skills development.
Tegan Phillips is an adventurer, avid cyclist, comic artist and the creator of Unclipped Adventure comics. She regards adventure as a privilege, which urges one to see the world differently, and furthermore realise the possibilities for creating one’s own freedom and happiness.
Ndoni Mcunu is a PhD Candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Global Change Institute and the Founder & CEO of Black Women in Science (BWIS). She's passionate about improving the lives of our youth, specifically young women. “I believe that education is a tool to enable improved and informed personal and professional decisions. It could also be a tool to empowering rural and disadvantaged young women to improve their livelihood, ” she says.
On the 18th September 2018 our team decided to take up the opportunity to try something new, in a space we’ve recently been welcomed to utilise.
What We Do: Take TEDx beyond the stage to new audiences, to expose, engage and inspire 'ideas worth spreading'
Every year, Greenpop - in partnership with the Platbos Forest Reserve - brings people together in the Platbos Forest to plant thousands of trees, dance to live local bands, learn from sustainability leaders, camp under the stars, and be inspired by collective action.
