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2019 Tutu Fellow Ronak Gopaldas has delivered a powerful talk about thinking beyond the binaries and embracing Africa’s diversity. He delivered the talk in Cape Town in 2016. At the time, Ronak was the Head of Country Risk at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) in Johannesburg, where he managed a team of analysts who provide the firm with in-depth analysis of economic, political, security and operational dynamics across sub-Saharan Africa.

In his talk he describes his job as a political economist as trying to predict the future without a crystal ball. Ronak has travelled extensively across Africa to identify key country themes and trends, which in addition to a network of contacts and resources, help inform the qualitative and quantitative research the team produces, with the aim of guiding RMB’s strategic investment decisions.

In this TEDx talk in Johannesburg, novelist and medical doctor Kopano Matlwa Mabaso tells how she and her friend Chrystelle Wedi sought to turn the tide of preventable deaths in women at childbirth. Their idea made them winners of the first Aspen Ideas Award. Their idea was to set up mobile, ultrasound scan clinics in remote and rural parts of Africa and make lifesaving antenatal healthcare more easily accessible to pregnant women. But the deepest parts of Africa are tough places to do work. Matlwa, with humility, tells how even good ideas sometimes need self-correction during implementation.

2015 Tutu Fellow Mosunmola Cynthia Umora told her TEDx audience Ife, Nigeria about how she was broke, in debt and being called a failure as a startup farmer and entrepreneur.  Her advice: "Identify that reason, that purpose for which you have been created, and stick with it."  It is the only thing that will get you through those periods when the road is tough. 

She is a distinct type of farmer. For her, agriculture is a mainstay of the Nigerian economy and yet there is so little regard paid to it. Cynthia founded a company engaged in farming, food production, processing and distribution right out of college. The company has its flagship retail outlet under the Farmshoppe , a retail brand for freshly processed, organic farm produce.

2017 Tutu Fellow Hema Vallabh spoke at a TEDx event in Johannesburg about how she realized that young girls weren’t considering becoming engineers because it was a job for men only. She tried to find the source of this misconception and found it was in the definition of traditional engineering as being a space of strength and physical ability.

She makes the case that the needs of society nowadays should be addressed with the new definition of engineering as a space of innovation and invention, which are skills that women have. She wants to bring the information to a young generation of women who otherwise might be excluded from considering the profession.

2012 Tutu Fellow Julie Gichuru reveals in a TEDx talk how she has committed to tell Africa’s story and she challenges everyone to do so with their own means. With her long experience hosting TV shows and working in the news industry, Julie has been striving to offer African content to its people, rather than just importing it from other cultures or abroad. She gave her talk as part of the Brookhouse School series in 2013. 

She said the younger generation that concerned her especially, as many young Africans were going through something of an identity crisis regarding culture. Julie has always been preoccupied with young Africans, helping through her foundation Footprints Africa Foundation to provide better living conditions and education for children. She makes the case that to transform Africa, it cannot be possible without people aware of their roots.

2011 Tutu Fellow Shaka Sisulu shares with the audience at TEDx in Soweto in 2012 how much he was inspired by his uncle about the importance of dreams. In his homage to his uncle Zwelakhe, Shaka uses the power of imagination to travel into the future, where he brought back with him visions of a prosperous and affirmed Africa - the Africa that he says, we must create.

Born into a the renowned family that fought for and won the liberation of South Africa from apartheid. Shaka has a passion for start-ups. He points out how the best entrepreneurs have become successful from following their dream and working towards it. Dreams - and courage - are important if one is to realise those dreams.

In 2011, 2014 Tutu Fellow Mokena Makeka spoke at a TEDx event in Mfuleni township about the relationship between democracy and design. His perspective as an architect revealed to him how lot of problems are caused by the way design is used to separate and affect people.

Mokena is the Director of Makeka Design Lab an international award-winning Architecture practice. He said he noticed how areas of Cape Town that were more vulnerable to floods were inhabited by poorer people, while the ones with great views had homes for more privileged ones. This was not just about colonialism or apartheid, he said.  It was about the conscious choices of design in society.

2013 Tutu Fellow  Dr Francois Bonnici shares in his TEDx talk in 2010 the issue of newborn survival. He starts out by asking which seems more dangerous - bungy jumping, shark infested waters, air travel?  Rather, he says, it is infant mortality. The day we are born is the day we have the highest risk of dying.

Statistics show how incredibly big an issue newborn mortality is, and how investment in health has had great strides in improving the numbers. In some countries in Africa, the numbers can be as high as one child in 16 dies at birth. He has been trying to change the African health system and to raise awareness by working in humanitarian and development programs.

2009 Tutu Fellow Andrew Mwenda asks the audience at a TED talk in 2007 to reframe the "African question" - to look beyond the media's stories of poverty, civil war and helplessness and see the opportunities for creating wealth and happiness throughout the continent.

Andrew points out that the solution to Africa’s problems is not to increase the foreign aid, because that it comes with reinforcing negative narratives - but instead to reframe how aid can be best used. Among the consequences of the continent being seen in a bad light is that it appears as if it is only a place of despair, rather than one of great potential and opportunities.