Step inside the TED Fellows community

Marcin came to the U.S. from Poland as a child. He graduated with honors from Princeton and earned his PhD in fusion physics from the University of Wisconsin. Frustrated with the lack of relevance to pressing world issues in his education, he founded Open Source Ecology in 2003 in order to make closed-loop manufacturing a reality. He began development on the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) (see http://vimeo.com/16106427), an open source DIY tool set of 50 different industrial machines necessary to create modern civilization. His main interest is evolving to freedom by eliminating resource scarcity as the main force behind geopolitical relations - with the wise use of modern technology adapted for human service. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am a boundary-crossing iconoclast who believes that material well-being should not be a privilege that only the few can enjoy. I believe that the necessity 'to make a living' should not be an underlying force in civilization that prevents people from pursuing their true passions. I am convinced that by injecting a little wisdom into our technology, we can tame technology for true human service. I believe that open society and open source economic development is a route to abundance and prosperity for all. I am convinced that until we learn to share, there will not be enough for everybody. Sharing means engaging in open source economic development. Open source economic development is an economic paradigm where everybody has access to best practices, optimized product designs, and access to local production. I believe that one day, open access to the means of economic production may become a favored option over monopoly money - and stimulate much higher levels of innovation that are currently possible. I am also convinced that economies based on artificial scarcity are coming to the end of their useful life. Abundance is not an airy ideal - but a state of mind and a rigorous condition where people have not only the access to knowledge and tools of production - but also to free time in which to cultivate their wisdom, honor, and happiness. I am dedicating my life to live by these principles, and to make this a practical option for anyone who chooses to do so. In practical terms, I am looking for collaborators who are interested in developing a world-class center for open source product development - with the stated goals of eradicating poverty as we know it; increasing meaning in peoples' lives; and evolving to freedom beyond material scarcity - while living regeneratively with balance in our life support systems. I am looking for people who endorse open source culture - to the point of understanding that open, collaborative development - if carried out effectively - has the potential to produce results far beyond and fear-based development path. To date, nobody has figured out how to truly leverage open economic development for disruptive social change. There are many hints that this is happening, but to date, open economic development has been grossly under-utilized. Our Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal is to develop and propel the open source economic development methodology into the mainstream. See my bio at https://www.opensourceecology.org/marcin-jakubowski/

There is nothing about Marvin Hall that should ever be taken at face value. He's not a brilliant mind that stayed locked away in the halls of academia. He goes beyond theories and plies his trade in the real world. He is an innovative educator using his entrepreneurial skills to improve learning for Jamaican youth. Trained in Mathematics and Technology, Marvin has always sought ways to excite children about Math, Science and Art, through hands-on learning activities. Driven by a desire to build a school for his son, he evolved beyond "middle school Math teacher" to form his brainchild, Halls of Learning. Halls of Learning is committed to providing educational experiences, equal to, or exceeding international standards, regardless of background. Through after-school workshops, summer camps and inner-city projects ranging from animation and music to robotics, their mission is to lead a learning revolution in Jamaica. Marvin is kept awake at night by visions of a sea of robotic creations, held high in the hands of the children who made them.

Matilda Ho is a serial entrepreneur and investor driving to create more sustainable food systems. She is founder and managing director of Bits x Bites, China’s first food tech accelerator and VC that invests in startups tackling global food system challenges. With a mission to shape the future of food, Bits x Bites is a big step forward to inspire China’s entrepreneurial community to bring new ideas to solve global issues. In addition to Bits x Bites, Matilda has founded Yimishiji, one of China’s first online farmers markets to bring organic and local produce to families. Yimishiji stands alone as a farm-to-table e-commerce platform that has engineered food education and transparency into the entire supply chain and customer experience. Prior to entrepreneurship, she filled leadership roles at IDEO and BCG (The Boston Consulting Group) in both Shanghai and Washington DC. She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She currently serves as an advisor on the board of Shinho, China’s first and largest organic condiment company. She is named a 2017 TED Fellow.

Matt Kenyon is a new media artist and designer. Kenyon’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in such venues as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, MOCAD Detroit, Science Gallery Dublin, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, and the International Print Center. He is a TED Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and his work has been awarded the FILE Prix Lux. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, and Gizmodo, and has also appeared in edited volumes such as A Touch of Code (Gestalten Press) and Adversarial Design (MIT Press). He lives and works in Buffalo, New York, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University at Buffalo, and part of PLATFORM, UB's socially engaged design studio. Visit www.swamp.nu for more about Matt Kenyon and his work.

Using clouds, giant flamingos, houses and dog waste to design unique public spaces with communities to solve unaddressed issues. Matthew Mazzotta works at the intersection of art, activism, and urbanism, focusing on the power of the built environment to shape our relationships and experiences. His community-specific public projects integrate new forms of civic participation and social engagement into the built environment and reveal how the spaces we travel through and spend our time living within have the potential to become distinct sites for intimate, radical, and meaningful exchanges. Through his process, each project starts by creating temporary public spaces for listening – ‘Outdoor Living Room’ - as a way to capture voices from local people that might not attend more formal meetings. Stemming from this approach are experiences that involve people from a range of backgrounds working together to create new models of living that contribute to local culture beyond the economic realm. Mazzotta received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Masters of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology, a Loeb Fellowship from Harvard University, and is a Guggenheim Fellow.

A data scientist with a background in math and stats, Max helps accelerate the search for cures for diseases such as Parkinson's by inventing radically simple, non-invasive technologies to measure symptoms outside the clinic. He developed algorithms that quantify Parkinson's symptoms using 30-second voice recordings, displacing expensive in-clinic physical exams. These algorithms detect Parkinson's signs in newly diagnosed patients to 98% accuracy, and work over the mobile phone network. Max is working to apply these algorithms to the environmental causes of disease: genetics is making extraordinary progress, but explains only a small part of the medical picture. By making these algorithms accessible to the global population where mobile phones currently have 75% reach, they could help fill in the massive hole in medical understanding about why one person gets ill but others do not.

Affectionately called the 'giant clam girl', Mei Lin is studying the endangered giant clams of the Indo-Pacific oceans, and promoting ways to protect these rare marine species from going extinct. Beginning her work ten years ago in Singapore, she spearheaded the Singapore's giant clam breeding and restocking program in 2011 during her Ph.D. Mei Lin now oversees the transplantation of baby clams in Singapore's reefs, and monitors their growth and survivorship. She hopes to use science communication to inspire others to join her in protecting the oceans. Mei Lin has received several honors and awards for her research efforts such as the World Future Foundation PhD Prize in Environment and Sustainability (2014), the L'Oréal for Women in Science National Fellowship (2015), The Singapore's Women Weekly Great Women of our Time honoree (2015), Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 (2016), a Young Scientist at the World Economic Forum (2016, 2017), AsianScientist 100 (2017). Mei Lin is recently named a TED Fellow (2017)!

Meklit is an Ethio-American vocalist, singer-songwriter and composer, making music that sways between cultures and continents. Known for her electric stage presence, innovative take on Ethio-Jazz, and her femotive live shows, Meklit has rocked stages from Addis Ababa (where she is a household name) to San Francisco (her beloved home-base), to New York, London, DC, Montreal, Nairobi, Chicago, LA, Arusha, Rome, Zurich, Rio Di Janeiro, Seattle, Cairo, and more. Meklit is a TED Senior Fellow and her TED Talk, The Unexpected Beauty of Everyday Sounds, has been watched by more than 1.2 million people. She is a National Geographic Explorer and has been an Artist-in-Residence at Harvard, NYU, Purdue and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Meklit has received musical commissions from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the MAP Fund and has toured extensively across the US, UK, and East Africa. She has collaborated with Kronos Quartet, NASA Kepler Co-Investigator Dr. Jon Jenkins (and his star sounds), musical legend Pee Wee Ellis and members of the BBC Philharmonic. She is a Co-Founder of the Nile Project, served as musical director for the beloved Bay Area powerhouse UnderCover Presents, and sang alongside Angelique Kidjo and Anoushka Shankar as a featured singer in the UN Women Theme Song. Her fame in Ethiopia skyrocketed in 2015 when her TED talk went viral in the country and her music videos began playing daily on multiple Ethiopian television stations. She goes back to Addis Ababa regularly to perform. Meklit's album - When the People Move, the Music Moves Too - was released June 23rd on Six Degrees Records, receiving rave reviews and quickly reaching #4 on the iTunes World Music Charts, #1 on the NACC World Charts and #12 on the World Charts in Europe. It was also named one of the 100 Best Albums of 2017 by the Sunday Times UK, one of the Best Soul Albums of 2017 by Bandcamp and amongst the 10 Best Bay Area albums of 2017 by KQED. These 11 songs were deeply inspired by Mulatu Astatke (the Godfather of Ethio-Jazz). Back in 2011, he told Meklit, "find your contribution to Ethio-Jazz and keep on innovating!" Produced by multi-GRAMMY winning artist/songwriter Dan Wilson (Adele, John Legend, Dixie Chicks), the album also features world renowned musicians Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the violinist/whistler Andrew Bird. Meklit has been featured in NPR, Vibe Magazine, CNN International, USA Today, Wall St. Journal, New York Magazine, MTV Iggy, Gizmodo, PBS, PRI’s The World, BBC Africa, BBC World Service, BBC Women’s Hour, BBC Front Row, BBC Loose Ends, The New Yorker, Brain Pickings, Wired UK, OkayAfrica, AfroPop, Google Music, Relix Magazine, Pidgeons + Planes, KEXP, WBEZ, WNYC, KQED, KBLX, Live Wire Radio, CBS Bay Area, CBS San Diego, Chicago Sun Times, Seattle Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, La Presse (Montreal), The Village Voice, Dig Boston, Seattle Weekly, San Francisco Magazine, SF Bay Guardian and many more. She has played at festivals and venues in the US, the UK and East Africa, including: Monterey Jazz Festival, SFJAZZ Center, Bumbershoot, SXSW, Southbank Centre, Hollywood Bowl, TED Conferences (Rio Di Janeiro, Edinburgh, Oxford, Long Beach, Arusha), Lincoln Center, Grand Performances, The Schomburg, the Apollo, YBCA, Davies Symphony Hall, Skirball Center (NYC + LA), Winter Jazz Fest, Smithsonian Folklife Fest, Kennedy Center, Stern Grove, World Cafe Live, Nuits D’Afrique (Montreal), Moods (Zurich), The Monk (Rome), Chicago World Music Festival, Gondar Castles (World Heritage Site - Ethiopia), Mulatu Astatke's Africa Jazz Village (Addis Ababa), Aswan Cultural Palace (Egypt), Blankets +Wine (Nairobi), National Theater (Uganda). Meklit’s work has been supported by grants from National Geographic, California Humanities, the MAP Fund, the Center for Cultural Innovation, Panta Rhea Foundation, The Christensen Fund, San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Intersection for the Arts, Grants for the Arts, the San Francisco Foundation, Oakland Cultural Funding Project, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, The Belle Foundation for Cultural Development and more. Meklit holds a BA from Yale University.

When we support indigenous arts and cultures, we contribute to societal wellbeing, peace, and the sustainability of our shared humanity. Who Am I? An Ethiopian dancer/choreographer, founding director of Fendika Cultural Center, working to bring global attention to indigenous arts and cultures of Ethiopia. What Keeps Me Up at Night? Some of the Ethiopian indigenous art forms will disappear eventually due to lack of support. Fendika, the most prominent cultural center in Ethiopia that supports indigenous arts and cultures, faces the threat of being forced out by the government’s urban “development” agenda. What Am I Doing to Solve the Problem? I promote Azmari music, a 2000-year-old indigenous Ethiopian music form, by paying Azmari musicians regular salaries and programming Azmari performances all year round. Fendika is the only remaining Azmari venue in the Kazanchis neighborhood, which boasted 17 venues in the 1990s. But Fendika is not safe, as the government threatens to take over the land unless a 12-story building is constructed on it. What Difference Does My Work Make? About 18,000 local and global visitors experience Azmari music at Fendika each year. Our work has brought some global attention to indigenous arts of Ethiopia, through a 2017 UNESCO grant for a national Azmari festival, 2020 Prince Claus Award, and a 2015 French Medal for Arts and Letters. Why Do Indigenous Arts Matter? Ethiopia’s peace and stability are fragile, especially now. Arts promote peace and healing by bringing people together across differences. The loss of indigenous art forms will result in the weakening of our social fabric. Given the government’s mandate, no one knows what will happen to Fendika tomorrow. What’s under threat is not only a building, but also memories and hopes for indigenous arts of Ethiopia. How Can You Help? You have the power to help us, by telling our story, and/or by helping us reach out to potential supporters and investors. I hope you buy a plane ticket to visit us in Ethiopia so that you can experience the joy of Azmari music and the magic of Fendika. Then you will understand why our supporters tell us “Fendika is our Noah’s Ark.” What Makes Me Unique As a Social Entrepreneur? Contrary to the myth that I am wealthy from owning Fendika, I struggle to pay rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Addis Ababa, where I live with my family of five; I give everything I have and work 20-hour days to keep Fendika’s programs going. I feel rich in my heart: through working with the arts, I share the joy and pain of all humanity. I am passionate about mentoring young artists. Some of our best dancers and musicians started working at Fendika as waiting staff and cashiers. Now they are touring the world with my band also named Fendika. Fendika survived COVID-19 by streaming 18 concerts; we were among the first organizations to stream concerts from the African continent. Now Fendika is livestreaming 2-3 concerts a week.

She is an Egyptian research mycologist. Her work focuses on the identification of biological mechanisms involved in fungal pathogenecity - in an effort to develop more efficient strategies to combat fungal infections. She is currently working in the Biology and Pathogenicity Unit at Institut Pasteur (France) to study Candida albicans, an opportunistic pathogenic fungus and the main cause of fungal infections in immunocompromised humans. She received an Initial Training Networks (ITN) - Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship to pursue her PhD project in the Molecular Genetics of Fungal Pathogenicity Unit and the International Campus of Excellence in Agrifood CeiA3 at the Universidad de Cordoba (Spain). During her PhD, her former team (Pr. Antonio Di Pietro and Dr. David Turra, PhD director and co-director respectively) and herself identified the compounds secreted from the plant roots attracting Fusarium oxysporum, a soilborne plant pathogenic fungus and characterized the underlying mechanisms of attraction. Such compounds were tracked since the 19th century. The discovery was published in the Nature Journal. She co-founded ConScience (means WithKnowledge in latin), a non-profit organisation which purpose is promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics STEM education in Egypt through innovative, effective, exciting and transparent learning promoting curiosity and critical thinking.

Hi there nice to meet you! 🙌 I am Micaela Mantegna, a video game lawyer and activist known as Abogamer, (a portmanteau of 'abogada', the Spanish word for lawyer, and gamer). Some facts about me: ✔️My first book "ARTficial: creativity, AI and copyright" is currently on press! 🎉 ✔️Currently, I am a TED Fellow and an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard, doing research at the intersection of video games, AI ethics, ©️ , immersive technologies for extended reality (XR) with a focus on the governance of the Metaverse. ✔️As an activist, I am the founder of Women In Games Argentina (WIGAr), a non-profit working towards a more inclusive gaming industry; and a Women in Games International (WIGJ) Ambassador. ✔️I have been featured by EA in the official video of my favorite video game. Just ask me, is great to start a conversation! ;) Here you can find more about me and my work: https://cyber.harvard.edu/people/micaela-mantegna

Michael is the CEO of Skillshare, a platform to learn anything from anyone.

Michael W. Twitty is a noted culinary and cultural historian who recreates the American slave experience through food and its preparation. He created Afroculinaria, the first blog devoted to African American historic foodways and their legacy, and was honored by First We Feast.com as one of twenty greatest food bloggers of all time. He has appeared on Bizarre Foods America with Andrew Zimmern, Many Rivers to Cross with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, and has lectured to more than 250 groups including at Yale, Oxford and Carnegie Mellon Universities, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Smithsonian Folklore Festival. Michael has been invited to speak around the world, from the MAD Symposium in Copenhagen to the Guardian Festival of Ideas in London to film festivals in Jerusalem, all on culinary justice and the African American impact on Southern foodways. His work has been featured in many publications and websites Ebony, the Guardian, Eater.com and NPR’s Codeswitch blog. He has appeared on NPR on a number of occasions including being interviewed on the acclaimed food program, The Splendid Table. He has also served as a judge for the James Beard Awards and is a Smith fellow with the Southern Foodways Alliance. He was recently named one of "Fifty People Changing the South" by Southern Living and one of the "Five Cheftavists to Watch" by TakePart.Com. HarperCollins will release Twitty’s first major book in 2016: The Cooking Gene, which traces his ancestry through food from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. And most recently he is a TED Fellow, who spoke at #TED2016 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/his-paula-deen-takedown-went-viral-but-this-food-scholar-has-more-on-his-mind/2016/02/12/f83900f8-d031-11e5-88cd-753e80cd29ad_story.html

A keeper of the stories of ice and stone, Michele Koppes is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia, a Canada Research Chair in Landscapes of Climate Change, the Director of the UBC Climate and Cryosphere Lab and a Senior TED Fellow. She is grateful to live and work on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people, in Vancouver, Canada. Her passion is forensic geomorphology: the art of reading and listening to landscapes to decipher their stories and the forces that shaped them. Her particular focus is on understanding how glaciers respond to climate change, and how glacier changes impact landscapes, waterscapes and people. She believes deeply that in order to address the ongoing climate emergency, there is a dire need for more place-based, integrated and embodied understandings of how the lives of the ice, the mountains, the rivers and the people who dwell among them are intertwined. She spends her time exploring and collecting these acoustic stories in remote places all over the world, from the mountains of the Pacific Northwest to the Patagonian Andes, the Himalayas, the Tien Shan, and the margins of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets, where she and her team combine detailed field observations of glacier and landscape changes with local perspectives, oral histories, acoustic mapping and conceptual modeling of ice-ocean-landscape-human interactions.