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Dr. Abdigani Diriye is a research scientist and manager for the financial services research group at IBM Research Africa and the co-founder of Innovate Ventures, the leading startup accelerator and technology fund in Somalia. At IBM, Dr. Abdigani and his team design, develop and deploy innovative and commercially viable technologies to extend access to financial services in Africa. Dr. Abdigani co-founded Innovate Ventures in 2012, the first startup accelerator and technology fund in Somalia and Somaliland. He and his team train, mentor and invest in early stage tech startups. Dr. Abdigani has held research positions in industry and academia for some of the largest companies and institutions such as Fuji-Xerox Palo Alto Labs, The Open University, Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University and has previously founded a FinTech startup. Dr. Abdigani has published over 35 papers and patents in leading scientific outlets, and holds a Bachelors, Masters and PhD in Computer Science from the University of London. Dr. Abdigani Diriye is a TED Fellow, Next Einstein Forum Fellow and has been listed as one of 35 innovators under 35 by MIT Technology Review. His work has been featured in Forbes, Wired, Technology Review, Quartz, BBC Radio, CNN and Fast Company among others.

If American old-time music is about taking earlier, simpler ways of life and music-making as one’s model, Abigail Washburn has proven herself to be a bracing revelation to that tradition. She—a singing, songwriting, Illinois-born, Nashville-based clawhammer banjo player—is every bit as interested in the present and the future as she is in the past, and every bit as attuned to the global as she is to the local. Abigail pairs venerable folk elements with far-flung sounds, and the results feel both strangely familiar and unlike anything anybody’s ever heard before. To put it another way, she changes what seems possible. Abigail has circled the globe performing at festivals, clubs, theaters and universities around the world including 10 tours of China in the past 8 years. She led the first and only official musical tour of Americans to Tibet in 2006, performed at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the World Expo in Shanghai 2010, produced & released a record of healing from Sichuan's earthquake disaster zone in 2009 as well as leading a month-long State Dept and Chinese government sponsored tour of the Silk Road in winter 2011. She is a 2012 TED Fellow and will likely be performing somewhere near you soon with 2 tours of Europe, festivals in Canada and the US as well as tours of Indonesia and China in the near future. Her discography includes: 2011 City of Refuge (Rounder Records) 2009 w/ Shanghai Restoration Project - Afterquake (self-release charity CD) 2008 Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet (Nettwerk Records) 2007 w/ all-g'earl stringband 'Uncle Earl' - Waterloo, Tennessee (Rounder Records) 2006 The Sparrow Quartet EP (Nettwerk Records) 2005 Song of the Traveling Daughter (Nettwerk records) 2005 w/ all-g'earl stringband 'Uncle Earl' - She Waits for Night (Rounder Records)

I'm an epidemiologist, mathematician, author, and a TED Senior Fellow. I’m co-director of the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where I use data-driven analysis to understand outbreaks, from immunity to human behaviour. I have advised multiple governments on major disease epidemics, as well as infodemics and social contagion. I regularly write about science, and my articles have appeared in places like Wired, Financial Times, and The Atlantic. I am author of 'The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread – and Why They Stop', which was named a Science Book of the Year by the Times, Guardian and Financial Times, as well as ‘The Perfect Bet’, about the relationship between science and games of chance. My new book ‘Proof: The Search for Certainty in an Uncertain World’ is out in spring 2025. I am also co-founder of wishidknown.co, a new platform for harnessing collective wisdom - we’ve already been growing a community for parents and will soon be launching one for founders.

Adetayo is a motorcycle financing entrepreneur and Cofounder of MAX, a mobility platform which provides Africans access to clean vehicles and is improving on the current gig economy model.

Sustainability Designer and thought provoker incorporating indigenous knowledge into sustainable design. I am an industrial designer and impact driven entrepreneur specializing in the field of design for sustainability. I am founder and CEO of CRIATERRA EARTH TECHNOLOGIES (www.criaterra.com) I hold a BA in industrial design from the Holon Academic Institute of Technology (HIT) and a Masters of Design from the ‘Man and Humanity’ Masters program at the Design Academy Eindhoven. My company CRIATERRA develops eco-innovative materials that are as strong as concrete and yet create only 5% of its environmental imprint. CRIATERRA’s novel Earth Technologies are scientifically designed to perform in a wide range of applications, embody the vision of a circular economy and are 100% natural & recyclable. CRIATERRA is currently launching its biophilic collection of wall tiles (B2B). I am a TEDfellow, Switcher, Senior sustainability design lecturer, former Board Member of O2 Global Network. I regularly speak at sustainability related conferences as well as impact driven entrepreneurship events. Specialties: Design for sustainability, Impact driven entrepreneurship, Circular Products

In 2006, a T. A/Masters student at Makerere University, Adong returned to her war-ravaged hometown, Gulu, to study the use of theatre in the psychosocial therapy of the children who filled the ranks of Kony’s army, one of the largest child armies in human history. Adong knew then that a dissertation that would gather dust in academic shelves would be an injustice to these war-weary yet raw defiant powerful voices that needed to be heard by the world. So, she wrote Silent Voices, a play that depicts a former LRA slave-wife’s struggle to make sense of the justice she was dealt. While working on the play at Sundance Theatre Lab, Adong met her first openly gay person. The encounter challenged her to re-assess her understanding of homosexuality and she wrote Just Me, You and THE SILENCE, partly developed at the Royal Court Theatre in London and read at Makerere University and to 300 Ugandan LGBTQ & the Diplomatic community. Silent Voices’ acclaimed World Premiere at the National Theatre of Uganda amidst fear of Adong’s arrest for her daring portrayal of the government’s role in northern Uganda war crimes was described by many a Ugandan as, ‘the spiritual rebirth of theatre in Uganda since the decline of critical theatre due to political persecution of artists during the Idi Amin Regime’. It brought together victims, political, religious, cultural, Amnesty Commission and transitional justice leaders for critical, transformative conversations about issues of war crimes. For many in the Kampala audience, the atrocities in Gulu were unfamiliar and shocking, eliciting feelings of betrayal by their Government. Without a doubt, Adong had found her calling! However, a filmmaking dream nurtured since the age of 13 after watching her first African film, Consequences (Zimbabwe, 1987) still ate at Adong’s soul. Fall of 2012, she joined Temple University’s MFA Filmmaking and Media Arts under the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship, where true to her calling, her 50mins thesis film, Right Song, Wrong C(h)ord, explores the journey of a young Ugandan woman’s search of home, recognition and respect in the face of racial prejudice and the burgeoning promise of true love in the world of the American Dream. In 2015, Adong returned home with an Acholi language production of the play whose journey started there, which this time around she directed and toured 3 towns of northern Uganda and yet again brought together stakeholders in a conversation and moved Acholi people to tears, christening Adong the ‘rebirth of Okot P’ Bitek’. “The way you captured the events of the war are so spot-on. The most truthful depiction of the war ever. So, I laughed because I recognized myself in the actors on stage. I saw the meaningless atrocities I committed and saw how stupid and meaningless it all was. So, mine was a laugh of recognition, not enjoyment”, explained a former LRA Soldier audience member when Adong expressed disappointment at a few inappropriate laughter. Adong, who is 1 of 12 global Theatre Influencer’ for the 2017 54th Berlin Theatre Meeting, has found a multiplier effect approach that blends her theatre influence goals through an annual summer Theatre Production Apprenticeship she designed that teams up 10 Aspiring Theatre Makers with Renowned Local and International Theatre Makers in a hands-on-on-the-job training under her non-profit production company, Silent Voices Uganda., whose 1st Edition commenced in 2016 upon her return from the ‘Get Lost Program’ Artists Residency in Amsterdam. She continues to write, direct and produce social change plays- Holy Maria (2017), a play that asks, ‘how free is the 21st century woman?’ & Blood (2017), Adong’s Modern Day Impression of Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs that exposes the hypocrisy of White American journalists that flock the African continent to cover stories of ‘barbaric’ acts, while ignoring the savagery unleashed on Black Americans back home. Adong uses a multi-layered storytelling approach that combines conventional and experimental styles with dark humor and a blend of music, dance and drama that exposes absurdities and layers of issues that make her plays accessible to diverse groups. Her plays have received Public Readings in New York, London, Toronto and Chicago and been studied at Ivy League Universities like Princeton, Dartmouth, NYU and UNC, where she has been invited as a visiting artist. Adong’s theatre directing style draws from her cinematic background creating stunning visuals on stage. Veteran Ugandan Art reporter, Wabweyo George described Adong’s 2016 directions of her play Ga-AD! as, “The Hand of God of Ugandan theatre, so reminiscent of Argentinian Diego Maradona's 1986 World Cup epic steal against England…” Adong recently signed a publishing contract with Methuen Publishers, UK for her play, Silent Voices and is currently in pre-production of her 2017 Summer Apprenticeship using the production of her LGBTQ Rights play, Just Me, You and THE SILENCE.

I’m a global health nerd, a poet, and a leadership coach. I write a substack about pandemics.

Albert Fox Cahn is the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project’s ( S.T.O.P.’s) founder and executive director. He is also a Practitioner-in-Residence at N.Y.U Law School’s Information Law Institute and a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center For Human Rights Policy, Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, Ashoka, and New Profit’s Civic Lab. Albert started S.T.O.P. with the belief that local surveillance is an unprecedented threat to public safety, equity, and democracy. Albert is a frequent commentator, with more than 100 articles in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Guardian, WIRED, Slate, NBC Think, Newsweek, and other publications. He frequently lectures at leading universities and speaks at leading technology governance forums. Albert previously served as an associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, where he advised Fortune 50 companies on technology policy, antitrust law, and consumer privacy. Albert also serves on the New York Immigration Coalition’s Immigrant Leaders Council, the New York Immigrant Freedom Fund’s Advisory Council, IEEE Standards Association P3119 AI Procurement Working Group, and is an editorial board member for the Anthem Ethics of Personal Data Collection. Albert received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School (where he was an editor of the Harvard Law & Policy Review), and his B.A. in Politics and Philosophy from Brandeis University.

ALEX ODIRA ODUNDO - BIO Alex Odira was a unique child. He was born a unique boy to a blind father the Late Gabriel Odundo in Rural Gembe Location, Suba District, Nyanza , Kenya; on an equally unique date on 25th December ! Even before joining primary school, the small Odira was already busy making motor vehicle and musical toys for fellow children using dry reeds, millet stems, milk plastic containers, cooking oil tins, wires and banana trunks. His curiosity would sometimes go too far and court some whipping from his father when the only radio in the village could not broadcast the news simply out of Alex curiosity who had dismantled the radio to see who could be talking inside! Hence goes the saying that the man was born a researcher since his childhood. Alex the man has continued designing and inventing simple tools for his community use in Agriculture, Water and Energy sector . His commitment to innovate and invent excellent mechanical solutions means that he produces simple affordable tools using basic technology for genuine solutions for use by the poor in the community in which he lives, in a competitive industrialized world. Alex is an Alumni of Kisumu Polytechnic,Kenya where he trained as a mechanical engineering technician. He also attended a training on engineering fabrication and design at the TECH SHOP, San Francisco in the United States of America and a TED Fellow member 2012. He successfully worked with the Hard ford University students in the construction of a motor bike trailer and a multigrain thresher machine. Alex has collaborated with the Ministry of Science and Technology, Kenya Sisal Board , Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Labour, Lake Basin Development Authority , Kisumu Polytechnic and many more in the development of simple tools for agriculture. He has successfully invented both manual and electrical Sisal Decortication machine, Sisal Twinning machine , a Sisal Rope Spooling machine, Cycle water pump, Hyacinth Harvester, Solar Water pump, Gravity Power generator, Wind water pump, Gasifier stove ( Linda Jiko), a multigrain thresher machine, name it and many more!. The man is a genius extraordinary. Whenever he sees a problem in production of anything, he instinctively thinks of innovation or invention to solve the problem ! His major limitation is lack of resources and working capital to research and develop the ideas further. He has however developed a resilience. He never gives up ! In order to share his talent with humanity lest the Almighty asks him what he did with it at the end of times on Mother Earth, Alex is the founder member or Director of many institutions, a few of which are listed here viz Sifa Machinery Limited, Olex Technology Enterprises. Lake Basin Agrotech Limited ,Kartuoro Industries Limited,Equifarm Solutions Machineries Limited ,Angel Farm Solutions Limited, Kisumu Innovators Association , South Nyanza Sisal Association forum . Alex has received many awards from the following institutions and organizations in recognition of his efforts ,dedication and commitment as a Change Agent, Consultant, Explorer, Ideas generator, Innovator and Inventor : Ministry of Labour for Best Technology in Processing Agricultural products; 2011 Ministry of Science and Technology Kenya Expo- Kenya – for Best Agricultural Technology Award ; Best Dissemination of Research Results and Exhibition of Innovations 2010 ; Technical institutions for Vocational Training Kenya for Best Creative and Innovator; Kisumu Polytechnic for 2011 Overall Best Innovator; Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Contribution to Research and Innovation; 2010 University of Nairobi- the Makers Faire Africa Exhibition for Best in Technology Category: Nairobi International Trade Fair 2010 for Best Award in Driving Agribusiness in Attaining Food Sufficiency and Vision 2030 and second Best innovator in Africa Forum for science and Technology and innovation. Business Achievements: Alex has created direct and indirect Job opportunities to over two thousand people from his innovations and business enterprises. He has sold more than 200 Sisal Decorticator machines across the country and beyond the borders of our country Kenya. He has created a strong value on sisal plant amongst small scale farmers across the country. In order to sustain the emerging attitude change amongst these farmers,he has initiated, using his meagre resources a project whereby he would buy an ox and a plough for any farmer who has five acres of land or more and willing to start a sisal plantation. He would later sell them a decorticating machine at harvest to help boost their income. He is currently introducing an energy saving stove to the market where low income families, Orphanages, Primary and Secondary schools in poor rural areas which prepare meals for students are targeted. This is a type of gasifier stove that uses timber cut offs, carpenters saw- dust ,sisal and sugar cane waste, dried hycinth and brickets genera

Alexander MacDonald is the Chief Economist at NASA. He is also the Program Executive for the International Space Station National Laboratory. He was previously the Senior Economic Advisor in the Office of the Administrator and was the founding program executive of NASA's Emerging Space Office within the Office of the Chief Technologist. He is the author and editor of a number of NASA reports including Emerging Space: The Evolving Landscape of 21st Century American Spaceflight, Public-Private Partnerships for Space Capability Development, and Economic Development of Low-Earth Orbit. He is also a former executive staff specialist on commercial space at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a former research faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University, and has worked for the Universities Space Research Association while at NASA’s Ames Research Center where he worked on small satellite mission designs and served as the center's first research economist. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from Queen's University in Canada, his master's degree in economics from the University of British Columbia, and was a Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford where he obtained his doctorate on the long-run economic history of American space exploration. He was also an inaugural TED Senior Fellow and received the AIAA History Manuscript of the Year Award in 2016.

I am delighted to have been named by TIME magazine as one of their 30 under 30s changing the world. As a result of visiting death row in Uganda at the age of 18 I founded the African Prisons Project to bring dignity and hope to children, women and men in prisons in Africa through healthcare, education and access to justice. By training I am a barrister. I am an Ashoka Fellow as well as a Senior TED fellow. http://ideas.ted.com/how-african-prisoners-are-learning-to-fight-for-their-own-rights/