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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Fellows Directory

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TED Fellows 2011, 2009 Cohort

Blogger/Author

Awab Alvi
Dr. Awab Alvi is a dentist by profession, with a specialty in Orthodontics [Braces] from Saint Louis University and training in Microscopic Endodontic [Root Canal] from the University of Pennsylvania. Has been practicing in Karachi, Pakistan as a full time dentist and orthodontist at the Alvi Dental Hospital. As a part time hobby he runs and manages the Teeth Maestro blog http://teeth.com.pk/blog since 2004, has transformed to playing a very active role in the civil society movement for a better political change in Pakistan. He now has a weekly column in The Express Tribune, the Pakistani version of the International Herald Tribune
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TED Fellows 2014 Cohort

Peacemaker, entrepreneur

Aziz Abu Sarah
Aziz Abu Sarah is an author, peacemaker and an entrepreneur. In 2009, he co-founded MEJDI Tours, a social enterprise as a bridge between peacebuilding and business. Aziz was the Executive Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University for 7 years. Aziz is a National Geographic Explorer and a 2014 TED fellow. He won the Intercultural Innovation award from the UNited Nations and the Alliance of Civilizations and BMW Group. His latest book Crossing Boundaries - A Traveler’s Guide to World Peace advocates that travel is an act of diplomacy. Aziz is a lecturer and has spoken at hundreds of Institutions, corporations, and public events on the subjects of travel, education and storytelling, the role of business in peacebuilding, international conflicts, reconciliation, and others. He is an expert on sustainable travel, conflict resolution practices, Middle East conflict dynamics and Islamic conflict resolution tools. He has lectured and facilitated workshops and trainings for countless international organizations and universities, including National Geographic,European Parliament, TED, and the United Nations. He was named one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre. Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recognized Aziz Abu Sarah work during his speech at the 5th Global Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations.
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TED Fellows 2014 Cohort

Architect, ecotourism specialist

Aziza Chaouni
Aziza Chaouni is founding principal of Aziza Chaouni Projects and assistant professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. She was formerly principal and co-founder of Bureau E.A.S.T. At the University of Toronto, Chaouni directs the research platform Design Ecological Tourism (DET). DET Projects have won several awards in 2012 including the ACSA Collaborative Award and a Progressive Architecture (P/A) Award Citation. Chaouni’s personal research focuses both on developing world design issues and on methodologies to integrate architecture and landscape, and more particularly through investigating the potential of sustainable design approaches in arid climates. Chaouni's former office with partner Takako Tajima, Bureau E.A.S.T., as well as Aziza Chaouni Projects have been recognized with top awards for both the Global and Regional Africa and the Middle East competition from the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction; the Architectural League of New York Young Architects Award; Environmental Design Research Association Great Places Award; the American Society of Landscape Architects Design Awards; and other professional design awards and prizes. Chaouni's work has been published and exhibited internationally, including the International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam; INDEX: Design to Improve Life in Copenhagen; and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN HABITAT) World Urban Forum. Chaouni graduated with a MArch with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and with a B.S. with Honors in Civil Engineering from Columbia University.
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TED Fellows 2013, 2010 Cohort

BONIFACE MWANGI
Boniface Mwangi is one of the most vocal and courageous Kenyans of his generation. Recognized globally for his passion and excellence in photography, this photographer-cum-activist could not resist the call to activism after witnessing first-hand the brutality that disadvantaged Kenyans experienced in the wake of the Post- Election Violence in 2008. He then established Picha Mtaani a traveling photography exhibition telling of the violence. The travelling photo exhibition toured across Kenya and drew more than 2 million people.- The tour of the exhibition offered a platform for individual reflection, honest dialogue, interpersonal healing and community reconciliation. In 2012 Boniface founded PAWA254, a hub for creatives in Kenya where journalists, artists and activists find innovative ways of achieving social change. At 38, he has been a guest of the state on many occasions for championing justice and calling out powerful leaders for their wanton corruption and blatant violation of human rights. This has earned him friends and foes alike. His commitment to promote social change has also come at a heavy price. As a husband and father, his wife and children have endured hostilities from different quarters. The escalation of these hostilities has seen him being threatened with harm and/or death by powerful forces in government. Like many Kenyans with a challenging upbringing where basic needs were not always met, Boniface Mwangi is all too familiar with the struggles of the ordinary Kenyan. He has worked as a bus-park sweeper, house-boy and hawker. He even served time in Approved School. Despite monumental odds, he has risen, discovering photography at a young age and applying his entrepreneurial brilliance to break free from the clutches of poverty. Those who have worked with Boniface Mwangi can attest to his diligence, compassion and self-drive. He has twice won the CNN Multichoice Africa Photojournalist of the Year Award and is the youngest Prince Claus Laureate. New African Magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential Africans of 2014, 2016 and 2020 and he is also a senior TED Fellow. Time magazine recognized him as a Next Generation Leader in 2015 and was selected as Kenya’s Top 40 under 40 men 2016. He was named as top 100 Kenyans 2019 and 2020. He was the recipient of Luxembourg Peace Prize 2020/21 awarded Schengen Peace Foundation and Luxembourg Peace Prize. He is currently a Tutu Fellow. Boniface Mwangi continues to wage a spirited campaign against oppressive establishments. Although at one point he stood alone, today his movement has gained traction with many – inspired by his vision and consistency – adding their voices to champion for a better Kenya. Boniface and his wife Njeri Mwangi are the loving parents of 3 adorable children. He is the author of Unbounded – a poignant and riveting memoir that captures his incredible journey.
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TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Teacher

Babar Ali
Babar Ali is an Indian student and teacher from Murshidabad in West Bengal. He was called the "youngest headmaster in the world" by BBC on October 2009, at the age of sixteen. Babar Ali is still a student himself, enrolled at the government-run Cossimbazar Raj Govinda Sundari High school in Beldanga, West Bengal.[3] In the afternoons, starting at 4:00 p.m., he in turn teaches students in a school he founded in his parents´ back yard in Murshidabad. He had begun teaching at nine years of age, mostly as a game, and then decided to continue teaching other children at a larger scale.[4] Currently (October 2009), the school continues to be run as an outdoor school and counts a total of ten teachers including Babar Ali himself, all of them students at school or college who volunteer to teach at the school. There are 800 children learning at the school, starting from four or five years of age. That the school is tuition-free makes it affordable for the poor in this economically deprived area, so that the school has been recognised to have helped increase literacy rates in the area.[4] In Murshidabad there had been no governmental or private schools.[5] Pupils come from nearby villages and walk up to four kilometres in order to attend their lessons.[3] Babar Ali succeeded in having his school recognized by the local authorities when he realised that this would entitle its pupils to the portion of free rice given to pupils at the end of the month by the government.[3] Babar gets his inspiration from Swami Vivekananda. In 2009, Babar Ali won a prize from the program Real Heroes of the Indian English news channel CNN IBN for his work and was awarded the NDTV ‘Indian of the Year’ award and LITERACY HERO AWARD, BY ROTARY INDIA LITERACY MISSION and recently featured in ‘FORBES ASIA’ in their 30 under 30 list as a ‘SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR’, also recognised as the Literacy hero by international literacy association in their "30 under 30" list,Also received Education leadership award by BBC knowledge,His story became a part of the syllabus for the CBSE 10th standard English textbook, PUC English textbook for Govt. of Karnataka, and also in a curriculum in Europe. He was featured on Aamir Khan’s TV show Satyamev Jayate in July 2012, and is regularly invited to speak at various conferences and forums all over the world. Babar is also a TED Fellow and an INK FELLOW AND INK Conference speaker and Wired fellow, Babar graduated from Berhampur Krishnath College (under Kalyani University in West Bengal, India) in English Honours, and Completed his M.A. in English Literature. The Karnataka government has included Babar’s story in the prescribed English text for first year PU course.
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TED Fellows 2012 Cohort

Artist and historian

Bahia Shehab
Bahia Shehab is an artist and author based in Cairo. She is Professor of design and founder of the graphic design program at The American University in Cairo. Her work has been exhibited internationally and has received a number of international awards including the BBC’s 100 women’s list, a TED Senior Fellowship, a Prince Claus Award, and the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture. Her latest publications include You Can Crush the Flowers: A Visual Memoir of the Egyptian Revolution and the award winning co-authored book A History of Arab Graphic Design. She is the founding director of TypeLab@AUC.
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TED Fellows 2013 Cohort

Assistant Professor

Baile Zhang
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Dr. ZHANG Baile
TED Fellows 2020 Cohort

Data transparency advocate

Barbara Maseda
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TED Fellows 2014 Cohort

Creative spirit

Bassam Tariq
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TED Fellows 2018, 2016 Cohort

Independent news publisher

Bektour Iskender
Bektour Iskender is a co-founder of Kloop, one of the leading news websites in Kyrgyzstan. The most amazing thing about Kloop is that its authors are very young journalists, usually aged 14 to 25. Despite their age, they cover all the serious issues, including politics, human rights and corruption. (And not only bad stuff, of course, they cover sports and culture too.) This is a unique case for the whole world, when teenagers run one of the leading news outlets in a country. Bektour was behind launching Kloop's newsroom, served as the editor-in-chief of the website until 2014, and founded Kloop Journalism School, where are all these talented kids are being trained.
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TED Fellows 2012 Cohort

Entrepreneur

Bel Pesce
Bel Pesce, 27-year-old computer scientist from MIT, is considered one of “100 most influential people” in Brazil and also “30 under 30” according to Forbes. Recently, she was also named one of the “10 most admired leaders in Brazil” in a research that included votes from over 50 000 young people in Brazil. She is the founder of FazINOVA.com.br, a talent development school with over 100 000 students. Prior to that, Bel worked at start-ups in Silicon Valley such as Lemon Wallet and Ooyala, and worked in bigger companies such as Google and Microsoft. She has a very unique combination of technical and business skills. On the side, she has written three bestsellers, that altogether were downloaded over 3 million times and sold over 100 000 copies.
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TED Fellows 2015 Cohort

Conflict and security researcher

Benedetta Berti
Dr Benedetta Berti is Head of Policy Planning in the Office of the Secretary General at NATO. She is also Associate Researcher at the Institute for European Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussels and a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. An Eisenhower Global Fellow and a TED Senior Fellow, in the past decade Benedetta has held research and teaching positions at West Point, The Institute for National Security Studies and Tel Aviv University, among others. Throughout her career, her work has focused on human security and civil wars as well as on post-conflict stabilization and peace-building. She studies armed groups and internal conflicts, analyzing the impact of insecurity on civilians and working to build more peaceful communities. Dr. Berti is the author of four books, including "Armed Political Organizations. From Conflict to Integration" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) and her work and research have appeared, among others in Conflict and Terrorism, Parameters, the Middle East Journal, ORBIS, Democratization, Civil Wars, Government & Opposition and Mediterranean Politics. Twitter handle: @benedettabertiw
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TED Fellows 2013 Cohort

Benjamin Burke
Ben Burke (b. 1974) is an Oakland-based, multi-disciplinary performance artist, director, poet and story consultant who produces and performs unusual shows in unusual places at home and abroad and builds whimsical contraptions out of found materials. As a story consultant, he helps individuals and organizations discover and develop thematic personalized stories and performances for various events and productions. Recent clients include Camp Curiosity, The Crucible, Storied Haven, Symbiosis and Sublime Boudoir. He has been the artist in residence at SFMOMA, the California Academy of Sciences, Recology’s AIR program at the San Francisco dump and the Dream Community in Taipei, Taiwan. His latest piece, Page-Turner, is currently on display at the Exploratorium’s Tinkering Studio. Burke has given poetic lecture performances at the DeYoung Museum and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, cofounded both the Stars & Garters Theatre Company and Apocalypse Puppet Theater, is a TED Fellow and occasionally teaches art and woodworking to kids at the San Francisco Day School and the Randall Museum. An avid collector of lost treasures, Burke puts his Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, on public display annually at San Francisco’s Edwardian Ball. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Universal Design from UC Davis, a self-directed degree combining fine art, graphic design, visual merchandising, costume design, photography, landscape architecture and early childhood education.
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TED Fellows 2010 Cohort

Chairman

Benjamin Gulak
Benjamin Gulak started BPG Inc. three years ago when his high-school science fair project Uno gained international media attention. With a "green" conscious, Ben designed the electric Uno vehicle to help combat the global pollution problem. The Uno has won "Top 10 Inventions of 2008" by Popular Science magazine and a Grand Award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Currently pursuing a mechanical engineering degree at M.I.T., Ben continues to develop the Uno and his latest vehicle, the DTV Shredder. His personal goal is to find innovative solutions to every day transportation problems by looking at issues from a slightly left-of-center perspective. BPG Inc., develops revolutionary designs that combine function and form.
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The UnoDTV Shredder
TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Co-Founder

Benji Zusman
Benji is an artist and scientist who studied biochemistry at Harvard, and then worked to create novel antiviral medications and bio-fuel cell designs for 8 years at MIT. A Rockefeller Fellowship brought Benji to Panama to study insect biochemical defenses and systematics at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute- but his focus soon shifted to the debate over extending the Pan-American Highway into a pristine, indigenous rain forest region. This resulted in his first documentary "The Road to Darien", produced with the support of the Harvard Film Study Center. Hoping to facilitate the creation of unique work from a new, global breed of artist-scientist, Benji recently co-founded the multidisciplinary production collective CURIOUS. Ongoing projects range from film in South Africa and oral histories in Mexico to collaborations with doctors at San Francisco General Hospital and electronic musicians at MIT.
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Curious

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.