Step inside the TED Fellows community

Kaitlyn is a biomedical researcher focusing on how we can use our immune system to help heal wounds quicker and regenerate tissue. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology working in the lab of Dr. Robert Langer and Dr. Daniel Anderson. She completed her PhD at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2016, and her bachelor's degree at University of Maryland Baltimore county in 2011.

Kamal Quadir is the founder and CEO of CellBazaar Inc., a communications company that has introduced a mobile phone-based electronic marketplace for developing countries. With twelve years of experience in finance, art, energy and animation, Kamal capitalized on the proliferation of mobile phones in Bangladesh (where the Internet and electricity have reached respectively .03% and 23% of the country’s 140 million people) to build a nationwide electronic marketplace which can be accessed by 23 million people. Under his leadership CellBazaar won the Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development Award 2008 from GSM Congress and Asia Telecom’s Innovation of the Year 2008 Award. Previously, Kamal led the business development division of Occidental Corporation's energy initiatives in South Asia, worked in the New York City Chamber of Commerce and Insight Venture Partners. Kamal is a founding member of Open World Initiatives, a Lausanne, Switzerland based organization of young thinkers. He is involved with Anwarul Quadir Foundation which recognizes innovations in developing countries. He received the Tech Award 2007 for “Applying Technology to Benefit Humanity.” He is a First Mover Fellow of The Aspen Institute. In 2009, the World Economic Forum selected Kamal as a Young Global Leader. Kamal is a recognized artist in Bangladesh and his works are in the permanent collections at the Bangladesh National Museum. He has a BA from Oberlin College and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Karim Abouelnaga is a vanguard and catalyst for change in urban education. He was raised by a single mother on government aid and went through some of NYC’s most struggling public schools, however, he was fortunate to have a series of nonprofits and mentors who changed his life trajectory. Karim founded PRACTICE in his Cornell dorm room at 18 and has dedicated his career to equitably leveling the playing field for low-income children and closing the opportunity gap. He is an author, a TED Fellow and Echoing Green Fellow. At 23, he was named to Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in Education, and at 24 was named to Magic Johnson’s 32 under 32 list. Karim earned a Bachelor’s in Hotel Administration from Cornell University and a Master’s in Education Policy from Columbia University.

I am a co-founder of Wildlife SOS, a non profit nature & wildlife conservation organization dedicated to protecting and conserving India's wildlife. One of Wildlife SOS's keystone projects is to end the brutal age old practice of 'Performing bears' in India. Since 2002, we have rescued more than 550 bears from a cruel life as street performers in the hands of the Nomadic Kalandar Tribal community. Wildlife SOS has provided seed funds & alternative livelihoods to rehabilitate the former Kalandar bear dancers in sustainable, alternative and humane vocations so they can rise from their life of crime and live with dignity . Wildlife SOS also works to prevent poaching, and to protect critical habitat throughout the country. WSOS Centers in India 1. Agra Bear Rescue Facility and Conservation Center 2. Bhopal Bear Rescue Center 3. Bannerghatta Bear Sanctuary 5. Purulia Bear Rescue Center 6. Elephant Rescue & Rehabilitation Center 7. Junnar Leopard Rescue Center 8. Gurgaon Wildlife Rescue Center WILDLIFE SOS (WSOS) (Registered Charity, headquartered in India with offices in UK & USA) • Founded in 1995 with Ms Geeta Seshamani. • Objective - to protect India’s environmental and wildlife resources from unsustainable exploitation. WSOS ACTIVE PROJECTS 1. Agra Bear Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre - 16 km from Agra city center, largest bear rescue centre in the world - established in 1999 in collaboration with the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department. Houses over 270 endangered sloth bears in large, free-ranging forested enclosures. Most bears rescued dancing bears which were once cruelly dragged around the streets of India, with their muzzles pierced and their teeth broken, to entertain tourists and villagers. Bear cubs rescued from poachers are also rehabilitated at the center. The center has a unique Wildlife Hospital with modern dental & surgical equipment. 2. Tribal Rehabilitation & Education – To enable Kalandars to surrender their bears to WSOS and not use wildlife as a source of income, WSOS provides training and financial support to the Kalandar community while sponsoring the education . Alternative livelihoods training include carpet weaving, dairy farming, cycle repair shops, and welding. WSOS also runs health camps for the Kalandars and sponsors the education of children in seven villages. Over 500 Kalandar families have given up their bears and are now engaged in alternative businesses & enjoy a better quality of life. 4. Wildlife & Snake Helpline – WSOS team receives over 600 calls a month and works around the clock to help people who get into conflict with wild animals - we rescue wild animals such as Snakes, monkeys, monitor lizards, civet cats, birds, jackals, Leopards that are trapped in Delhi and its surrounding urban areas. The animals are given veterinary care, and carefully rehabilitated and released in their natural habitat in the wild. 5. Reptile Conservation and Rescue - WSOS works with snakes and crocodiles in an attempt to create awareness amongst the public to reduce ignorance about these creatures who are always misunderstood. 6. Forest Watch Project – WSOS’ Anti-Poaching Unit works with Government enforcement agencies across India. Field investigators work hard to prevent poaching & illegal wildlife trade and assist enforcement authorities in taking action against wildlife criminals. 7. Rehabilitation of Hunting Tribes & Snake Charmers – WSOS has harnessed tracking & trapping skills of these tribes and retrained them in responsible animal handling while providing them an alternative livelihood and steady income. Today over 50 families from these communities are working on WSOS projects. One of our landmark projects is the Wildlife & Animal Control for the Delhi International Airport. 8. Eco Volunteers / INternships / Wildlife Awareness Field Hands on Workshops - WSOS runs interactive wildlife awareness camps for school children & adults. 9. Elephant Conservation & Welfare Project – WSOS focuses on elephants that are used for begging in Indian cities and survive in extremely harsh, wretched conditions, plagued by foot sores, abscesses and dehydration. WSOS is embarking on an ambitious project to establish an Elephant Orphanage Hospital and Rescue Centre for sick and abused elephants. Another huge concern is for wild elephant calves that are trapped illegally and sold into the captive elephant market. They are trained using cruel methods and later used for begging, the tourist industry or in temples. 10. Habitat & Nature Protection - WSOS is acquiring privately owned wildlife habitat near Hampi in Karnataka. Situated on the Deccan Plateau of South India, the rocky outcrops, caves and enormous boulders are home to bears, leopards, hyenas, pangolins, blackbuck, wild boar, civets and porcupines etc

Oakland artist Kate Nichols synthesizes nanoparticles to mimic structurally colored animals, grows artificial skin from microorganisms, and makes her own paints following fifteenth-century recipes. The long tradition of painters as material innovators inspired Nichols to become the first artist-in-residence in the Alivisatos Lab, a nanoscience laboratory at UC Berkeley. Following this, Nichols was named a Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellow at the San Francisco Art Institute, a Jacob K. Javits Fellow, and a TED Fellow. Her artwork has been featured on the cover of the journal Nature, on the TED stage, in the Stavanger Kunstmuseum in Norway, and in The Leonardo Museum’s permanent collection. Nichols has been a fellow at the Vermont Studio Center, and an artist-in-residence at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Stochastic Labs, and the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California at Berkeley. Nichols has an MFA from California College of the Arts, an MA in Visual Studies from the UC Berkeley, and a BA in Studio Art from Kenyon College.

Kathryn Hunt, a biological anthropologist and Near Eastern archaeologist, interwove a childhood dream to be an Egyptologist with a personal life crisis. At 22, she had lived and studied in Cairo, Egypt, and excavated in Mendes and the Valley of the Kings before receiving a devastating diagnosis of an aggressive ovarian cancer. Throughout treatment, her thoughts centered on what she might be able to contribute to the fight against cancer. The result was a passion to pursue the under-served niche of palaeo-oncology, the study of cancer in antiquity. Her research has revealed literary and biological patterns in evidence of cancer in ancient societies. She advocates for further research into this niche, having the potential to change the way we understand the development of cancer today.

Katie Hill is an expert in sustainable infrastructure, technology, and renewable energy. She is currently the Global Director for Energy and Strategy at Liquid Telecom, a pan-African technology company spanning 13 countries. Prior to Liquid, Katie launched and led Apple’s Clean Energy Program, an ambitious program to transition Apple's product manufacturing worldwide to renewable energy. Her team enabled 3GW of new clean energy contracted for Apple production in less than 2 years, and she led 10 joint-ventures in renewable energy across 6 provinces in China. Katie started her career at Acumen, a leading impact investment fund. She launched Acumen’s Energy Portfolio in India, investing in some of the first off-grid energy companies. Katie received her MBA and an MS in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University. She is a TED fellow and World Economic Forum "Young Global Leader.”

Theoretical cosmologist studying the history, evolution, and long-term fate of the universe. Science writer and public speaker. Very online. Author of New York Times Notable Book about our ultimate cosmic fate, "The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)".

Kaustuv De Biswas is the co-founder of Mappr, a visual intelligence platform for complex, interconnected data. He studied design technology, computer science and artificial intelligence at MIT and previously ran a venture-backed company delivering cloud based solutions for open engineering. Kaustuv is a senior TED fellow and is passionate about building "tools for thinking" at the intersection of design and science that empower you to find meaning in complexity.

The American soprano Kavita Baliga has sung in concerts around the U.S., Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, and India with repertoire ranging from Opera and Art Song, Musical Theatre to Indian film. The classically trained singer earned her Bachelors in Music degree in vocal performance from The University of California at Irvine, and Masters in Music degree from The Boston Conservatory. From 2008 - 2013, Kavita worked in India singing in Bollywood scores; building the curriculum for A.R. Rahman’s KM Music Conservatory, conducting choral studio sessions for Indian films, and developing her startup company, Desi Music Entertainment. She has sung in the films "Yuvraaj", "Ghajini", "Blue", and "Jab Tak Hai Jaan", but she is most known for singing "Moi, je nage dans l’espoir" and "Lux Aeterna" from the film "Passage", directed by Shekhar Kapur with music by A.R. Rahman. The film premiered as an accompaniment to a sculpture exhibition at the Swarovski Kristallwelten museum in Austria. She also conducted the KMMC Chamber Choir for the "In Memoriam" segment of the 2012 Oscars. Notable performances have included the Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute concert to mark the 50th anniversary of King’s pilgrimage to India and to recognize his non-violent activism toward human rights. The concert featured Ms. Baliga, the KMMC Chamber Choir and faculty, and included Martin Luther King III and Indian film actor Kamal Haasan who both spoke at the event. In 2009 Ms. Baliga sang at the premiere of the film "Passage" at the Venice Film Festival in Italy where the Venetian String Orchestra, conducted by Hollywood arranger and conductor, Matt Dunkley, accompanied her. Amy Kaufman, Haley Bennet, and Nadja Swarovski were among those present. In January 2012, Ms. Baliga sang pieces from "Passage" and "Lord of the Rings, The Musical" in a 5-city concert tour called Classic Incantations: The German Film Orchestra Babelsberg plays A.R. Rahman. The event featured Rahman’s film and stage scores in a concert setting, conducted by Matt Dunkley. She also trained the KMMC Chamber Choir to sing in the event. Since 2013, she has been performing across France with the group, "Olli Goes to Bollywood" with Ollivier Leroy, Asad Khan, Jesse Lucas, Erwan Volant, Jacques-Yves Lafontaine, Ashok Shinde, and other notable musicians. She also runs her startup record label, Desi Music Entertainment that produces and supports South-Asian independent music, and has been coaching young and professional singers through Skype for over 10 years. Quotes/Awards: TED Fellowship - Kavita was awarded the TEDIndia Fellowship in 2009. Her voice has been described as “the voice of an angel” by Shekhar Kapur. Stanley Meyerson, the father of the Hollywood sound engineer Alan Meyerson who has worked on films such as Sherlock Holmes, Pirates of the Caribbean and Inception said, “I think she has a magnificent voice. I love her voice. [she] impresses me a lot.” Alan Meyerson said, “[It’s] a voice that crosses the boundaries of style and genre.” Following the Classic Incantations tour, conductor and arranger Matt Dunkley described Ms. Baliga as his ‘favorite soprano’. Shabhana Azmi, the art film actress and activist who was present during the Classic Incantations concert in Mumbai exclaimed, “Who is that? Where did she come from?! What an incredible voice.”

Twenty-year-old Kayla Briët explores themes of identity and self-discovery in multiple mediums of storytelling: film, multi-media arts, and music. Kayla’s short documentary, Smoke That Travels, immerses viewers in her native Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation heritage and explores fears that her culture may someday be forgotten. This film has screened and won awards at over 45 festivals internationally, including MoMA in NYC, and has been archived in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. As a multi-instrumentalist and self-taught composer, Kayla also scores her own films and creates music in styles ranging from cinematic to alternative pop to electronic. Her one-take, improvised live-score for director Ingrid Veninger's 80 minute feature film, "He Hated Pigeons," was performed at Outfest 2016 at the Director's Guild of America, and is described by The Hollywood Reporter as "a stirring mix of tribal themes, melodic delicacy and heartbeat percussion." She performs live as a one-woman band, with her keyboard, guitar, loop pedal, and guzheng zither, a traditional Chinese instrument. Recently, Kayla was named a 2017 TED Fellow, a 2016 Sundance Film Festival Ignite Fellow, 2016 Adobe Creativity Scholar, 2016 MIT Chamber Scholar for her interest in blockchain technology, and a 2016 Oculus Launch Pad Artist for virtual reality. Currently, she is creating and directing documentary and experimental film to preserve identities and culture, as well as immersive experiences in the virtual reality space.

Award winning musician Karen Kaz Lucas is an established leader in the Kenyan arts and culture ecosystem. Having begun her career in 1997 as a rapper/singer, she has gone on to run creative ventures and projects cutting across the performing arts, media production, digital marketing and innovative events that shape the industrial standard. Kaz has had a lifelong passion for changing the way sex education is taught to young people. Driven by this passion and enabled by her media experience, she started The Spread Podcast. The Spread is a sex positive podcast that only exists because there is no comprehensive sex education in Kenya. Information about sex is rooted in the negative consequences: HIV and AIDS and unwanted pregnancies. But while these are some real consequences, there’s need to highlight all the positive things that can come out of healthy, informed and consensual sexual practices. The Spread provides a platform advocating for informal and comprehensive sexuality education in our academic institutions.