Directory

Step inside the TED Fellows community

Each year, a new group of TED Fellows from around the world, and from every discipline, are welcomed into this international community of remarkable thinkers and doers.

TED Fellows
2024 Cohort

TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Photojournalist, visual artist

Daro Sulakauri

Photojournalist Daro Sulakauri chronicles social and political issues in the Caucasus. By focusing on issues that are considered taboo, such as early marriages and the impact of Russian occupation, she defends against the erasure of Georgian culture, history and borders.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Equity bioengineer

Erika Moore

Biomedical engineer Erika Moore Taylor researches how ancestry and sociocultural data affect disease development. Unlike many researchers, she accounts for diverse populations when building regenerative tissue models to create more equitable disease models

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Visual artist, poverty researcher

Huiyi Lin

Huiyi Lin is an economic policy researcher and one-half of Chow and Lin, an artist duo using statistical, mathematical and computational techniques to address food insecurity and poverty. Chow and Lin combine research, design and photography to raise awareness about global inequality in visually arresting ways.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Medical mythbuster

Joel Bervell

Joel Bervell is a medical student educating people about health care disparities and biases through viral social media content. By sharing stories and studies with his audience of more than one million about the neglect of marginalized groups, he advocates for change in the health care system. 

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Ocean navigator

Lehua Kamalu

Lehua Kamalu is a captain and navigator of traditional Hawaiian ocean-voyaging canoes. She preserves and teaches these ancient sustainable navigation practices by integrating them into digital storytelling and daily life for future generations.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Health systems entrepreneur

Mohamed Aburawi

Mohamed Aburawi is a surgeon and founder of Speetar, a digital health platform reshaping health care in conflict zones across the Middle East and Africa, especially his native Libya. Through this work, Speetar is helping to dismantle barriers to quality care and advocate for health care as a fundamental human right.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Mechanical engineer

Norah Magero

Norah Magero is a mechanical engineer and creator of VacciBox, a cold chain solution saving lives in rural communities. She is working to build an Africa that manufactures and produces its own climate-health care technology.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Chemosensory researcher, nurse

Paule Joseph

Taste and smell researcher Paule Joseph explores how conditions such as COVID-19, obesity, neurodegenerative disorders and substance abuse affect the chemical senses. Her lab combines clinical research, behavioral neuroscience, genomics and molecular biology, offering insights on how taste and smell affect our daily lives.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

AI scientist, entrepreneur

Ramin Hasani

Ramin Hasani is cofounder and CEO of Liquid AI, where he helped invent liquid neural networks: a new AI technology inspired by living brains and physics. These revolutionary networks are more flexible and efficient than current AI solutions, shaping the future of machine learning and artificial intelligence research.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Wildland firefighter

Royal Ramey

Royal Ramey is the cofounder of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (FFRP), a nonprofit providing career opportunities to formerly incarcerated firefighters in California. A 12-year wildland firefighter veteran, Ramey draws on his own lived experience, rethinking job training for the formerly incarcerated and addressing the challenges they face re-entering the workforce.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Composer, artistic director

Sahba Aminikia

Iranian-born composer, pianist and educator Sahba Aminikia is the founder and artistic director of Flying Carpet Children Festival, an annual mobile arts festival and artist residency for refugee children escaping conflict zones.

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2024
Cohort

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Wildland firefighter

Royal Ramey

Royal Ramey is the cofounder of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (FFRP), a nonprofit providing career opportunities to formerly incarcerated firefighters in California. A 12-year wildland firefighter veteran, Ramey draws on his own lived experience, rethinking job training for the formerly incarcerated and addressing the challenges they face re-entering the workforce.

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TED Fellows 2021 Cohort

Adventurer, entrepreneur

Rumaitha Al Busaidi
Rumaitha is an Omani marine scientist and an advocate of women empowerment as a solution to the climate crisis. Rumaitha currently serves as director of the first and only environmental NGO in Oman called; Environment Society of Oman. An award-winning radio presenter and sportswoman, Rumaitha is considered to be the first female soccer analyst in the Arab World. She continues to be a trailblazer setting an example for Arab women by visiting over 70 countries solo. As someone who has personally witnessed climate change impacts as a result of her expedition to the Antarctic and becoming the youngest Omani in history to step foot on the coldest, windiest and driest place on Earth, her passion and advocacy for climate using the lens of women and girls empowerment has grown even stronger. So, during her time at Harvard, she founded WomeX; a platform providing culturally-relevant mentoring for Arab Women to achieve their 10x potential.
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TED Fellows 2022 Cohort

Social innovator, educator

Ryan Gersava
Social entrepreneur, educator, and diversity and inclusion champion. He is the Founder and President of Virtualahan, an impact driven company that breaks down employment barriers for Persons with Disabilities and other excluded communities using the equalizing power of technology. He is also an Ashoka Fellow and a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree.
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TED Fellows 2013 Cohort

Musician

Ryan Holladay
Brothers Hays and Ryan Holladay create innovative music experiences that celebrate the act of discovery. With a shared background in composition and music production, their projects span a range of fields and disciplines and frequently invite user interaction, blurring the lines between performer and participant. From sound and video installations to mobile apps, their expansive body of work represents an intricate blend of art and technology that reimagines how we interact with and experience sound. The duo received early praise for their location-aware composition: music created and mapped to a physical landscape, released as mobile apps, using GPS to dynamically alter the music as the listener explores their surroundings. Their first production, “The National Mall,” a location-aware album mapped to the eponymous park in Washington, DC, was described by the Washington Post as “magical…like using GPS to navigate a dream” and was included in their list of the year’s top albums (a first for an app). They’ve since gone on to create similar works for New York’s Central Park, SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, and other sites around the world, partnering with groups like IBM and the US State Department in the process. As a Senior TED Fellow, Ryan spoke about the project at the annual TED Conference in a talk that has been viewed more than a million times. In 2013, they served as visiting artists at Stanford University’s Experimental Media Art Department where they began work on their forthcoming location-aware composition spanning the entirety of the Pacific Coast Highway in the US. Hays and Ryan continue to break new ground with the latest iteration of their live show, which showcases an interplay of old and new, utilizing an array of antique lamps retrofitted with LED bulbs, networked and synchronized with the music to create a duet of light and sound. Last year, they created new commissions for Dolby’s headquarters, the Hirshhorn Museum of Art and Disney’s Magic Kingdom, among others. Their scoring and sound design work can be heard in television shows like ESPN’s 30 for 30 series and on podcasts such as Sincerely X, Constitutional and Reid Hoffman’s Masters of Scale. The Holladay Brothers have spoken at universities and institutions worldwide and have been featured in numerous media outlets including The New York Times, BBC World Service, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, WIRED and Fast Company. Follow us on Instagram: @holladaybrothers
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TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Co-Founder and CEO

Rye Barcott
Rye Barcott is co-founder and CEO of With Honor, a cross-partisan movement that advances principled veteran leadership to fight polarization and disfunction in the U.S. Congress. He has built a career in service and entrepreneurship by building bridges across often difficult divides. Previously, he co-founded the solar power investment firm Double Time Capital and co-founded the youth leadership and public health organization CFK Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. His memoir, It Happened on the Way to War, juxtaposes military service in combat in the Marine Corps with social entrepreneurship. Dartmouth awarded him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters following its publication. Rye earned his BA in Peace, War, and Defense from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he delivered the 2018 commencement address, and his MPA and MBA from Harvard, where he was a Center for Public Leadership Social Enterprise Fellow. He serves on the boards of CFK Africa, the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation, NDI, and the U.S. Institute for Peace. Rye was part of the 2009 inaugural class of TED Fellows.
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TED Fellows 2013 Cohort

Artist, graphic designer, filmmaker

Safwat Saleem
I am a visual artist and graphic designer. Having spent my life as a professional immigrant, my art focuses on the idea of belonging. I work in a variety of media including illustration, writing, animation, audio, video and sculpture. I often combine several media to create multimedia storytelling experiences. In a past life, I was also the founder of Bandbaja, a Pakistani music magazine that promoted the use of modern popular music as a socio-political tool. I have a penchant for doing voiceovers in my videos for all kinds of silly characters like a bear, sheep, greeting card and a whale to name a few. I am a TED Senior Fellow and spend all my free time listening to podcasts.
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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Composer, artistic director

Sahba Aminikia

Iranian-born composer, pianist and educator Sahba Aminikia is the founder and artistic director of Flying Carpet Children Festival, an annual mobile arts festival and artist residency for refugee children escaping conflict zones.

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TED Fellows 2016 Cohort
TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Executive Director

Sandeep Sood
CEO @ Monsoon, a boutique app design and development company.
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TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Community Architect

Sandhya Naidu Janardhan
Sandhya Naidu Janardhan, is the Founder of Community Design Agency, a social enterprise that envisions an inclusive world where every human enjoys access to vibrant, safe and healthy spaces to live, work and play. For Sandhya, spatial equity is inextricably linked to dismantling systemic issues including gender, social and health inequity, climate vulnerability, economic inclusion and identity. Most of Sandhya's 15-year professional career has been about cultivating processes that provide the marginalized communities with clear agency and voice over where and how they live. Her participatory methodology is rooted in intentional deep listening and empathy, democratizing access to architecture and design. Licensed and educated in India, Sandhya is also a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. She is a TEDIndia Fellow, a Young Climate Prize Design Champion and a Regional Leader, Placemaking India. Sandhya’s previous work spans multiple countries including landscape architecture and design for a Singapore-based interdisciplinary design firm, and post-earthquake reconstruction in Haiti for a US Based non-profit. Okay
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TED Fellows 2016 Cohort

Conceptual artist

Sanford Biggers
An LA native working in NYC, Sanford Biggers creates artworks that integrate film, video, installation, sculpture, drawing, original music and performance. He intentionally complicates issues such as hip hop, Buddhism, politics, identity and art history in order to offer new perspectives and associations for established symbols. Through a multi-disciplinary formal process and a syncretic creative approach he makes works that are as aesthetically pleasing as they are conceptual. The significance of Biggers’ work within contemporary society has been celebrated through solo exhibitions both nationally and internationally, most recently at the Brooklyn Museum, Sculpture Center and Mass MoCA. He has participated in prestigious residencies and fellowships including: Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany; Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland; Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California; ARCUS Project Foundation, Ibaraki, Japan; and the Art in General/ Trafo Gallery Eastern European Exchange in Budapest, Hungary. He has been a fellow of the Creative Time Global Residency, the Socrates Sculpture Park Residency, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council World Views AIR Program, the Eyebeam Atelier Teaching Residency, the Studio Museum AIR Program, the P.S. 1 International Studio Program, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture residency. Sanford Biggers’ installations, videos, and performances have appeared in venues worldwide including Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, the Whitney Museum and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and the Yerba Bue a Center for the Arts in San Francisco, as well as institutions in China, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Poland and Russia. The artist’s works have been included in notable exhibitions such as: Prospect 1 New Orleans Biennial, Illuminations at the Tate Modern, Performa 07 in NY, the Whitney Biennial, and Freestyle at the Studio Museum in Harlem. His works are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Bronx Museum. Biggers has won awards including: the American Academy in Berlin Prize, Greenfield Prize, New York City Art Teachers Association Artist-of-the-Year, Creative Time Travel Grant, Creative Capital Project Grant, New York Percent for the Arts Commission, Art Matters Grant, New York Foundation for the Arts Award, the Lambent Fellowship in the Arts, the Pennies From Heaven/ New York Community Trust Award, Tanne Foundation Award, and Rema Hort Mann Foundation Award Grant. Biggers is Associate Professor at Columbia University's Visual Arts program and a board member of Sculpture Center, Neuehouse, Soho House and the CUE Foundation. He has also taught at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Sculpture and Expanded Media program and was a visiting professor at Harvard University
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TED Fellows 2012 Cohort

Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Sanga Moses
Imagine a young man who was born and grew up in one of the poorest villages in the world, first put on shoes at age 13, first saw television at age 15, was the first graduate in his entire clan and is crazy enough to believe that he can slow down deforestation in Africa! Sanga is a passionate African social entrepreneur who does not take no for an answer! He is obsessed with stopping deforestation and combating climate change and believes that this generation has an obligation to stop deforestation. He has dedicated his life to ensuring that people in developing countries have a sustainable alternative to fuel-wood and has developed low-cost, tailor-made technology which creates alternative sources of income for communities that destroy forests for income. Sanga is a TED Fellow, 2012, a Community Solutions Fellow, 2012 and an Unreasonable Institute Fellow, 2011. He has been interviewed by the BBC, his life story has been published by the New York Times, NextBillion and Revolution.is.
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TED Fellows 2014 Cohort

Entrepreneur

Sangu Delle
Biography of DR. SANGU JULIUS DELLE Born in Ghana, Sangu’s childhood home was a refuge for victims of torture and violence from neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. Sangu graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (highest honors) in Economics and African Studies, a Doctor of Law and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University. At Harvard, he received many academic honors including the Thomas Hoopes Prize, the Reverend Peter Gomes Prize, the Philippe Wamba Prize, the Deshaun Hill & Harvard Stephens, the Maurice Sedwell Prize, the Harvard Law School Dean’s Award for Leadership and the Soros Fellowship. Sangu also graduated merit-equivalent with a Master in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University, where he was an Oxford-Allan and Nesta Ferguson scholar. He further graduated with a PhD in Economic Anthropology and African Studies from the University of Birmingham where he was awarded a College of Arts and Law Scholarship. He has obtained Executive Education Certificates in Leadership from the Oxford University Said Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. As a freshman in college, Sangu founded Golden Palm Investments Corporation (“Golden Palm”) in 2006 with $100 to invest in projects to generate social impact and create jobs in Africa. Today Golden Palm is a leading venture capital firm with over $100 million of assets under management across Africa and the Middle East and has backed leading tech startups such as Andela, Flutterwave, Wasoko, Autochek and mPharma. In 2017, Sangu founded a tech-forward healthcare system called CarePoint, with a vision to “build Africa’s healthcare future.” Sangu currently serves as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. CarePoint serves 1 million+ patients a year through its portfolio of 65+ hospitals and clinics in Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya and through its telemedicine platform. Sangu previously founded the non-profit Cleanacwa in 2006, which worked on clean water and sanitation initiatives to impact over 200,000 people in 160 villages across Ghana. In 2022, in honor of his 35th birthday, Sangu established the Sangu Delle Foundation to make philanthropic investments in health, education and economic empowerment in Ghana. Sangu has served on several boards and advisory boards including the Peddie School, Flutterwave, mPharma, Autochek and AXA. At Harvard University, Sangu has served on the boards of the Harvard Alumni Association, the Harvard Medical School Dean’s Global Health and Service Advisory Council, the Harvard Business School Fund Council and the Harvard Center for African Studies. He currently serves on Harvard University’s Board of Overseers as the second African (after the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu) to be elected since 1637. He is the President of the Harvard Club of Ghana and chairs Harvard interviews in Ghana. He is also a member of the West Africa Advisory Group of the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford and the Selection Committee of the West Africa Rhodes Scholarship, for which he was awarded the George Parkin Service Award by the Rhodes Trust at Oxford University in 2019. Sangu serves on the Board of Directors of Ashesi University where he chairs the Audit and Risk Committee and the Legal Committee; and the Board of Directors of his alma mater, Ghana International School. Sangu has received several international accolades including 2023 Institut Choiseul “Digital Entrepreneur of the Year”, 2023 Top 100 Economic Leaders in Africa, RoW 2022 “100 Global Tech Changemakers”, The Root 100 Most Influential Black Americans (2022), 2022 African Young Business Leader of the Year, 2022 Eisenhower Fellow, 2021 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Harvard Black Students’ Association 2020 Legacy Award, New Africa Magazine “100 Most Influential Africans of 2019,” Africa CEO Forum Finalist for “Young CEO of the Year”, 2016 GOOD 100 List of “100 people who are improving the world through creativity and innovation,” three times winner of Forbes top 30 most promising entrepreneurs in Africa, Future Africa Awards 2014 “Young Person of the Year,” and Euromoney’s “Africa’s Rising Stars” award. He is a TED Fellow, an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow and a GLG Social Impact Fellow. In 2005, as a high school student, Sangu was featured in TIME magazine’s Tomorrow25 as one of 25 future world leaders. Sangu is a licensed attorney, admitted to practice law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. He has traveled to over 100 countries globally including 47 in Africa and is the award-winning author of Making Futures: Young Entrepreneurs in a Dynamic Africa, which was shortlisted for the Financial Times / McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize for best business book by an author under age 40. Sangu’s Catholic faith is very important to him and he serves the church ministry as a lector and a member of the Noble Order of the Knights of Marshall and the Knights of Colombus.
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TED Fellows 2010, 2011 Cohort

PhD student

Sanjana Hattotuwa
An Ashoka, Rotary World Peace and TED Fellow, I have since 2002 explored and advocated the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to strengthen peace, reconciliation, human rights & democratic governance. I founded in 2006 and for eleven years curated the award-winning Groundviews, Sri Lanka's first citizen journalism website. Having joined in 2002, I am a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where I focus on civic media production, social media strategy, digital activism and digital security for civil society activists. I specialise in, advise and train on new media literacy, web-based activism and advocacy. With the UN and other actors, through the ICT4Peace Foundation, I also work extensively on the advancement of information management during crises, both sudden-onset as well as protracted. Since 2008, I have conducted workshops and training programmes in Sri Lanka, South Asia, South East Asia, Europe and the Balkans, focussing on using a wide spectrum technology to capture, disseminate and archive inconvenient truths in austere, violent contexts. I am currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand on social media and politics. Contact me at sanjanah {at} gmail {dot} com. FastCompany profile of my work at http://www.fastcompany.com/1711352/2011-ted-fellow-cuts-through-wartime-censorship-in-sri-lanka
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TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Digital Activist

Sanjukta Basu
Sanjukta Basu is a writer, photographer and feminist scholar. She writes on women, politics, minority rights, and other social issues. Her literary and photography works have been published by media houses across the globe, reaching audiences in France, Canada, Sweden, Germany, UK and more. One of India’s early digital activist, her personal blog is a political tool of self-representation, with over 700,000 unique page views. She has over 30,000 followers on social media. In 2009 she was awarded the TED Fellowship for her blogging and digital activism. Her work and life have found mentions in national and international media. A leading political voice on Twitter with a verified profile. A public speaker and a trainer she has delivered talks / lectures at TEDx conferences, Colleges, NGOs and conducted workshops on digital media and gender. Her bylines can be see on Firstpost, Huffington Post, Outlook, The Wire, Daily O among others. As part of the Karwan E Mohabbat collective led by Harsh Mander, Sanjukta has traveled across India to document stories of hate crimes. Her Karwan experience and photography are published in a book, Reconciliation. She is also working on women oriented photography projects Single Woman Budget Travel—SWBT; Women With Tattoos. Sanjukta studied BA, LLB from Delhi University and currently pursuing PhD in Women and Gender Studies.
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Fellows Talks

We’ve organized Fellows talks into curated playlists to make it easier to find content you’re interested in.

TED Fellows impact at a glance

Change that gets noticed

200M

200M people impacted by Fellows work annually

451M

451M TED Talk views

2,234

2,234 articles published by/about Fellows per year

1,303

1,303 speaking engagements each year

234

234 businesses launched

The groundbreaking work of a TED Fellow does not stay in the shadows. Each year we study the impact Fellows have on their respective fields, as measured by tangible forms of recognition. Here are some highlights from the past few years.

Our purpose

What makes a TED Fellow?

TED Fellows are some of the brightest, most ambitious thinkers, future-shapers and culture-shakers from nearly every discipline and corner of the world.

Whether it’s discovering new galaxies, leading social movements or making waves in environmental conservation, with the support of TED, Fellows are dedicated to making the world a better place through their innovative work. In 2024 the program will shift to a nomination-based application process.

Qualifications

We look for the proximate emerging leaders working on-the-ground on world-changing ideas -- the doers, makers, inventors, technologists, filmmakers and photographers, musicians and artists, educators, scientists, entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and human rights activists. Here is what we look for in a TED Fellow:

1

Emerging leaders. We focus our efforts on individuals who are in the earlier phases of their career, those who have a track record of excellence but have not received a numerous other fellowships and accolades. We search for those who are not already on the global stage.

2

Originality and authenticity. We look for proximate leaders with a unique approach to solving humanity’s greatest challenges. We look for the people working on-the-ground on world-changing ideas, putting ideas into action.

3

Kind, collaborative character. We look for individuals who have an early track record of great work in their field. We look for individuals from all disciplines, who have collaborative, kind personalities. Many Fellows claim that the community of other Fellows is the most valuable aspect of the fellowship. We try to nurture this collaborative spirit in the community.

4

Poised to grow. Since this is not a granting fellowship, we look for individuals who would best be able to use the TED community and this opportunity as a launching pad. The TED Fellowship is best for candidates who are prepared to grow with TED’s forms of support: amplification, network-building, communication training, professional development coaching and mentoring.