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.

Watch talk

Follow Daro Sulakauri

WebsiteInstagram
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

Watch talk

Follow Erika Moore

WebsiteInstagram
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.

Watch talk

Follow Huiyi Lin

WebsiteInstagram
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. 

Watch talk

Follow Joel Bervell

Instagram
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.

Watch talk

Follow Lehua Kamalu

Instagram
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.

Watch talk

Follow Mohamed Aburawi

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.

Watch talk

Follow Norah Magero

LinkedInWebsite
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.

Watch talk

Follow Paule Joseph

InstagramWebsite
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.

Watch talk

Follow Ramin Hasani

X (formerly Twitter)Website
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.

Watch talk

Follow Royal Ramey

WebsiteLinkedIn
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.

Watch talk

Follow Sahba Aminikia

InstagramWebsite
2024
Cohort

Showing 20 Fellows

Watch the new 2024 TED Fellows Films

go.ted.com/fellows24

Fellows Directory

A global community of over 500 remarkable individuals who are collaborating across disciplines to spark future-shaping change.

Clear
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
TED Fellows 2017 Cohort

Artist and filmmaker

Damon Davis
Damon Davis is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist who works and resides in St. Louis, Missouri. His scope includes illustration, painting, printmaking, music, film, and public art. His most identifiable work, All Hands on Deck, helped shape public perception of the Ferguson Uprising as part of the broader international human rights movement. Davis has work in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History, and has exhibited at the MoCADA and San Diego Contemporary Museum of Art. Davis is founder of independent music and art imprint, Far Fetched. He is a recipient of The Riverfront Times Master Mind Award (2013), and Best Hip Hop Producer SLUMfest Award (2014). The documentary short A Story To Tell (2013), which profiled Davis, his work and creative process, won an Emmy Award Mid America for Best Short Form Program. Whose Streets? is his first foray into feature-length documentary; Filmmaker Magazine selected him and Director Sabaah Jordan for their 2016 “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” Davis is a 2015 Firelight Media Producers Lab Fellow and a 2016 Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Lab Fellow at Skywalker Sound.
Watch talk
TED Fellows 2014 Cohort

Composer + concert presenter

Dan Visconti
Watch talk

Follow Dan Visconti

TED Fellows 2010 Cohort

Daniel Zoughbie
Daniel Zoughbie is the Founder, CEO, and President of the Global Micro-Clinic Project (GMCP), an organization dedicated to providing access to health care in the developing world. Zoughbie's research interests and community service activities combine the fields of international development, global health, international relations, and higher education. Zoughbie received his BA in Urban Studies (2006) with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies (Phi Beta Kappa and Highest Honors) from the University of California, Berkeley. He has received many honors and awards including the Marshall Scholarship for graduate studies at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
Watch talk

Follow Daniel Zoughbie

The Global Micro-Clinic Project
TED Fellows 2020 Cohort

Performance artist, writer, professor

Daniel Alexander Jones
Daniel Alexander Jones exemplifies the artist as energy worker. Daniel’s wildflower body of original work includes plays, performance pieces, recorded music, concerts, music theatre events, essays, and long-form improvisations. Energy is his true medium and provides the current for his formal fluency. Jones creates multi-dimensional experiences where the bodies, minds, emotions, voices, and spirits conjoin, shimmer, and heal. PEN America named Daniel the 2021 Laura Pels Foundation Awardee in Theatre. Jones’s critically-acclaimed pieces include Black Light (Public Theater, Greenwich House Theatre); Duat (Soho Rep); An Integrator’s Manual (La MaMa, etc. and Fusebox Festival); Bright Now Beyond (Salvage Vanguard Theatre); and Radiate (Soho Rep and National Tour). Jones has recorded five albums of original songs as his alter-ego, Jomama Jones. Daniel is enlivened by collaborative process and maintains a fierce tribe of artist-collaborators. His roots reach deep into Black American and Queer Theatre and Performance traditions; Jones is recognized as a key voice in the development of Theatrical Jazz and has made a significant contribution to Black Experimental Theatre and Performance. Jones explores ideas of the Afromystical (awakening awareness of the numinous in the everyday through ritualized performance) in all his work. He has also been a pioneer in the exploration and articulation of identities and experiences that move beyond caging binaries and transcend limited civic, cultural, and political imaginings. Moved by silenced histories of sovereignty and agency, and emboldened by acts of survival and transcendence, Jones creates his own distinctive dramaturgy. For over twenty-five years of professional practice, Jones has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the rigorous work of civic healing through vulnerable presence, truth telling, and collective critical engagement with possibility. Jones directed world-premieres of new plays and performance pieces by E. Patrick Johnson, Erik Ehn, Renita Martin, and Shay Youngblood, among others. He is a company member of Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul; an associate company member of Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis; an alumnus of New Dramatists, and was a company member of Frontera@Hyde Park Theatre in Austin. Jones is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2019 recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award. He was awarded a Doris Duke Artist Award, an Alpert Award in the Arts, a USA Artist Fellowship, an Arts Matters grant, an inaugural Creative Capital Grant, a McKnight National Residency and Commission, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, a NEA/TCG Playwriting Residency, a Jerome Fellowship, and a Many Voices Playwriting Fellowship. Jones was lead artist on five projects awarded support by the MAP Fund. Daniel has been a Mellon Creative Research Fellow at the University of Washington, a Hume Fellow at Occidental College, was a Fellow at the Hemispheric Institute at NYU, and has been in residence at a number of colleges and universities across the country including most recently, Reed College and Hampshire College. Jones received a Bistro Award for Outstanding Performance Artistry for Jomama Jones in 2019, and a Franky Award from the Prelude Festival in recognition of long-term, extraordinary impact on contemporary theatre and performance. Daniel Alexander Jones did his undergraduate study at Vassar College in Africana Studies with a focus on literature and the arts, and graduate study at Brown University in Theatre. He is a widely respected, innovative educator, who has taught across the United States, and held faculty positions at Goddard College, The University of Texas at Austin, and Fordham University, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Theatre.
Watch talk
TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Musician

Daniela Candillari
Conductor Daniela Candillari continues to be recognized for her dynamic and compelling performances at opera houses and concert stages throughout North America and Europe. Her 2019-20 season features a number of important debuts, including her New York Philharmonic debut conducting Thomson’s The Mother of us All at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She makes her mainstage debut at Arizona Opera in November conducting Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers, which she led in previous seasons with both the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Minnesota Opera. Following her acclaimed performances of Acquanetta with the PROTOTYPE Festival, Candillari returns to New York in January to conduct Rev. 23, produced by Trinity Wall Street and directed by James Darrah. An avid educator, she spent the summer of 2019 conducting the West Coast premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain at the Music Academy of the West. She makes her debut at the Mannes School of Music this season for performances of The Turn of the Screw, and returns to the Manhattan School of Music for a new production of Martha. Candillari makes her debut with Cincinnati Opera in the summer of 2020 for the company’s 100th Anniversary season, leading Dvořák’s Rusalka. Recent engagements include her debut with Los Angeles Opera for Ellen Reid’s Pulitzer Prize winning opera, prism, Opera Philadelphia in a new production of Rene Orth’s Empty the House, her Boston conducting debut in the world premiere of PermaDeath, and her Asian debut in Hong Kong conducting Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize winning opera, Angel’s Bone. She appeared in concert with Trinity Wall Street’s NOVUS NY Festival to open their 2018 season in celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s Centennial, and returned to the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2019 for Jack Perla’s An American Dream. In past seasons Candillari has collaborated with Matthew Aucoin on his opera Crossing for The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s NEXT WAVE Festival and Vasily Petrenko on a production of Falstaff with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic featuring Sir Bryn Terfel. In addition to leading workshops for Arizona Opera (The Copper Queen) and Opera Philadelphia (Double Exposure), she workshopped Rachel Peters’ and Royce Vavrek’s opera Wild Beast of the Bungalow, and gave the first public presentation of Hannah Lash’s opera Beowulf for the New Works Showcase, presented by OPERA America. Candillari conducted the world premiere of Stefania de Kenessey’s Bonfire of the Vanities at the Museo del Barrio in New York. As a composer, Candillari has been commissioned by artists including instrumentalists from the Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh Symphonies, as well as the three resident orchestras of Lincoln Center - the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the New York City Ballet. A champion of contemporary repertoire, Candillari founded her own chamber orchestra Gravity Shift in New York City in order to bring traditional repertoire to new audiences. A native of Slovenia, Candillari holds a Doctorate in Musicology from the Universität für Musik in Vienna, a Master of Music in Jazz Studies from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and a Master of Music and Bachelor in Piano Performance from the Universität für Musik in Graz. She was a Fulbright Scholarship recipient and was subsequently awarded a TED Fellowship.
Watch talk

Follow Daniela Candillari

WebTwitterSoundcloud
TED Fellows 2015 Cohort

Behavioral biologist

Danielle Lee
Danielle N. Lee is an Outreach Scientist who studies animal behavior and behavioral ecology. While completing her dissertation research on individual differences on exploratory behavior of field mice, she mentored several undergraduate and high school students as biology research assistants. She also coordinated ecology outreach programs with nearby public high schools for the Department of Biology at her graduate institution. This included co-coordinating a summer internship research in urban ecology for high school students and an after-school biology club at a nearby public high school. She is currently an assistant professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville studying the behavioral biology and natural history of nuisance rodents across urban gradients. She studies field mice in the Midwest United States and African giant pouched rats in Tanzania, Africa. Lee is passionate about science outreach and is well known for her science promotion and outreach in social media. Lee has a particular focus on science outreach to under-served audiences and is an active member of Animal Behavior Society including the Education and Diversity Committee. Her social media efforts have garnered several accolades from the Huffington Post, Under the Microscope, Black Weblog Awards, and Niche Blogging in Science. Her outreach efforts emphasize sharing science to general audiences, particularly under-served groups, via outdoor programming and social media. She writes about science, research news, and diversity outreach in science, technology, engineering, and math for several online communities and at her blog - The Urban Scientist on the Scientific American Blog Network. She is an avid user of Twitter. Recently, Lee has been honored as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer (2017) and has been named as one of EBONY Magazine’s Power 100, a list of the most influential African Americans. She was also one of ten White House Champions of Change in STEM Diversity and Access in 2014. In 2009 Lee was honored as a Diversity Scholar by the American Institute of Biological Sciences and in 2011 she was named the Young Professional of the Year by the Urban League Young Professionals of Metropolitan St. Louis; and was given the S.T.E.M. Leader Award by the Kansas City Black Family Technology Awareness Association in 2013. Her current science outreach efforts emphasize engagement with broader audiences via science journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the National Black Journalists Association. In 2013, Lee helped found the National Science &Technology News Service, a media literacy initiative to bring more science news to African-American audiences and promote science news sources diversity in mainstream media. Lee received a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Missouri at St. Louis, Masters in Vertebrate Zoology from the University of Memphis, and Bachelors in Animal Science from Tennessee Technological University.
Watch talk
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.

Watch talk

Follow Daro Sulakauri

WebsiteInstagram
TED Fellows 2010 Cohort

Chief Product Officer

David Gurman
David Gurman, a TED Fellow, is an artist and designer known for using real time data and citizen reportage from conflict zones to drive kinetic art installations. His "real-time memorials" are beacons for events we hear about but have no access to, broadening awareness and bridging distant cultures and landscapes. David co-founded Vibrant Data with TED Senior Fellows - Ecologist, Network Scientist, Eric Berlow and Computer Scientist, Kaustuv DeBiswas to build tools for data storytelling and collaborative understanding of complex networks. Current projects include mapping the network structure of the Syrian conflict and visualizing the ecology of human creativity. David has received grants and fellowships from TED, National Endowment for the Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts, the Center for Cultural Innovation, the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship, the Eureka Fellowship, the Fleishhacker Foundation, the Wattis Foundation, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. His work has been included in national and international exhibitions. His design work has been recognized by the FWA, WordPress, and Communication Arts.
Watch talk
TED Fellows 2015 Cohort

David Hertz
David Hertz is a Brazilian-born chef and Ashoka Social Entrepreneur. He is a TED 2015 Senior Fellow, He uses the power of Food and Gastronomy to transform lives of vulnerable people and underserved communities in Latin America. As a pioneer and visionary, he is a convener in complementary networks and advocates to make food systems more equitable dialoguing with public sector, companies and non-profits. In his TED 2015 Talk he launched Social Gastronomy Movement which now counts with over 200 organizations in 52 countries. For 18 years he is the lead figure at Gastromotiva, an NGO that is transforming Brazil and Mexico bringing job opportunities to thousands of people and also supporting food entrepreneurs. He has created with Chef Massimo Bottura "Refettorio Gastromotiva", a community restaurant school that serves homeless people cooking only with food surplus in Rio de Janeiro. When the pandemic outbreak hit Brazil, Gastromotiva began a movement of expansion to secure the access of healthy food to vulnerable families and children. Since 2020 Gastromotiva has started more than 130 solidarity kitchens distributing over 2 million meals in 15 cities in Brazil. This is a work that is generating social impact From Amazon region to Sao Paulo, From Salvador to Mexico City and beyond. David has as a commitment to transform the lives of 10 million individuals by 2030. Young Global Leader from WEF, Charles Bronfman Recipient 2019, UN Food Systems Champion 2021
Watch talk

Follow David Hertz

Gastromotiva
TED Fellows 2013 Cohort

Maker

David Lang
I run the Experiment Foundation. We fund science and technology at the earliest stages — mostly from early-career folks — when the projects and ideas are nascent. Prior to that, I co-founded Sofar (an ocean technology company) and OpenROV (an underwater drone company).
Watch talk
TED Fellows 2014 Cohort

Biomechatronics engineer

David Sengeh
David Moinina Sengeh is the minister of basic and senior secondary education and chief innovation officer for the government of Sierra Leone. He holds a bachelor’s and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Harvard College and MIT respectively. He is a TED Fellow, WEF Young Global Leader, Obama Foundation Leaders Africa Fellow and was included on the 2013 Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Sengeh serves as Chairman of the Global Education Monitoring Report to UNESCO. Radical Inclusion is his first book (link below).
Watch talk
TED Fellows 2018 Cohort

Environmental justice advocate

DeAndrea Salvador
Watch talk

Follow DeAndrea Salvador

retiset.orgjoulescout.comArticle
TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Co-Director

Deepti Doshi
Deepti builds technology that can strengthen our communities as building blocks of our democracy. She currently co-leads New_ Public with Eli Pariser and Talia Stroud. New_ Public is a product studio for healthy digital public spaces: spaces where people can connect one another, build understanding across differences, and work towards shared goals AND are built to maximize plurality, equity and cohesion not financial returns. With the decline of participation in PTAs, neighborhood groups, local newspapers and the increasing time we are all spending online, we believe that these digital public spaces, if built right (in deep proximity with community members and with public incentive structures), are the new building blocks of our democratic society and are partnering with community leaders, designers and engineers to build them. Previously Deepti was a Director at Facebook (now, Meta) where she focused on community building, cohesion, and incubation: she set up FB’s New Product Experimentation team; created the Community Partnerships team to build products (namely, Groups), programs, and partnerships that support community leaders to take their communities to the next level, and led Internet.org across Asia. Prior to Facebook, she has been working in the fields of social change, community organizing and leadership development for over 14 years across the private, non – profit and public sectors. She founded Haiyya, India’s largest neighborhood community organizing platform; Escuela Nueva India, an education company that serves the urban poor and the Fellows Program at Acumen to build leaders for the social enterprise sector. She started her career as a management consultant and has helped found an executive coaching and leadership development firm. Deepti is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School and the Wharton Business School and holds a bachelors degree in Psychology. She is a TED Fellow, an Aspen Institute First Movers Fellow and Ideas Scholar, and her work has been featured in publications such as Forbes, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, India Today, and in a PBS documentary, The New Recruits.
Watch talk

Follow Deepti Doshi

TwitterLinked InInstagram
TED Fellows 2017 Cohort

Diego Bohórquez
Born in the Ecuadorian Amazonia.
Watch talk

Follow Diego Bohórquez

TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Director

Dina Mehta
Qualitative Researcher and Ethnographer. Founder, Explore Research & Consultancy, Mosoci and Convo. I’ve spent over 20 years advising a global portfolio of clients including Nokia, MTV, Dell, Intel, Pitney Bowes, and Unilever. My projects have led me deep into rural markets, following trend-setting youth in urban settings, and digging deep into motivations and possible triggers across a wide range of demographic and psychographic groups. I work across both products and services and am driven to be at the forefront of technology trend research in India. While personally a heavy user I’m a keen observer of how people are interacting with digital tools and social media. I want to understand the impact it has on their lives, identities and on how they ‘consume’. As researcher, participant and advisor, I am also studying how technology is influencing and shaping the trajectory of India – both urban and rural; among youth and small businesses; web and mobile. Daily Motivation: What drives you is a question I’m often asked. A friend once said about me… “You’re like an archaeologist – who goes digging bravely and often in the dark. You gave up a very successful corporate career with a large Multinational company, to start your own research company because you wanted to be more selective about projects you worked on. You started blogging long before people had even heard of the term, and you proved all your cynics (who said it’s a waste of time) wrong in making it such a success. You have always been brave enough to venture into the unknown and live life by experimenting and experiencing.” I have a curiosity and willingness to dig deeper and listen carefully. I am very effective at uncovering what people think and feel, and their underlying drivers. Yet it is their stories that motivate me most. I know when I have an impactful one and that usually leads to better solutions and strategies for our Clients. What Drives Me: Then there are my ‘nothing’ days – a day that comes once in a while, where I can empty myself and just be. A day when I take the artist in me on a date, listen to music non-stop or spend a few hours by the sea. When I can I go to my little place in the hills and enjoy the silence and be at one with nature. I value this time immensely. What else? I’m known as one of India’s earliest bloggers, frequently on TV as a social media observer, and a friend and advisor to Global Voices Online. I’m a member of the Information Program Sub-Board at Open Society Institute and was a TEDFellows at TEDIndia 2009. From 2003, I have contributed to building several communities on the internet, including Worldchanging, Tsunami Help, KatrinaHelp, Asia Quake Help, SkypeJournal. I have presented papers and spoken at conferences around the world, including Reboot, EPIC, BlogHer, Microsoft Research’s Social Computing Summit, World Women’s Forum. Plus, been a lead facilitator at camps and workshops on engaging audiences online. I often get interviewed and have appeared on television and in print – CNN, BBC, The Guardian, Times of India, Outlook, India Today, Tehelka, DNA, CNN-IBN, NDTV. I have a Master’s Degree in Sociology and a background in anthropology and psychology. I live in Mumbai, India. My personal blog is Conversations with Dina - http://dinamehta.com/
Watch talk

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.