Theme: Breaking barriers

TEDxDhaka is an independently organised annual TED event running since 2009 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is the biggest event of its kind in the country.

We started off with "Different Bangladesh" followed by "Be the Change" and "Problems as Catalysts" and....

This year's theme is 'Breaking barriers'. The story of a great idea doesn't end at its dream and philosophy, but moves forward by turning problems into catalysts and breaking barriers, on the ground. We recognise that these barriers help shape who we are, and what we do today.

The purpose behind the choice of this theme is to connect, celebrate, and share the stories of those who have crossed hurdles and gotten remarkable things done, in attempts to realise their dreams and philosophies.

KIB Complex
Khamar Bari Road
Krishibid Institution Complex
Dhaka, Dhaka, 1215
Bangladesh

Iftekhar Enayetullah & Maqsood Sinha

Iftekhar Enayetullah, a civil/environmental engineer, urban-planner, and Maqsood Sinha, an architect, urban-planner are co-founders of Waste Concern. They have been working and also conducting research and managing projects in the fields of solid waste management, industrial pollution control, urban environmental management, clean energy, inclusive business development and social innovation for more than twenty-two years. They are actively involved in planning, designing and implementation of several decentralised waste management projects in Bangladesh as well as in Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Nepal. Recently, they have been involved in designing, financing and implementation of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects based waste management and energy projects in Bangladesh and other developing countries.

Manik & Ratan

Young cartoonists, graphic artists and animator duo Humaun Kabir Manik and Kamruzzaman Ratan started drawing cartoons at a very young age during late nineties and got regularly featured in almost every major newspaper and magazine in Bangladesh, that includes Unmad, Bhorer Kagoj, Prothom-Alo, Daily Star and more. They are coming with the stories of breaking barriers of one visual media to another, along with some of their brilliant works!

Rini Eshan Khushboo & Rakib Reza

Roboticists and Entrepreneurs, despite being in the difficult scenario of robotics and mechanical engineering in Bangladesh, they continued to work towards creating a platform for Robotics enthusiasts and have already trained hundreds of them. They are also working on producing robots locally for real life use with commercial applications.

Anisul Karim

Mohd Anisul Karim is a doctor, health and nutrition researcher. After clinical internships, he wanted to scale preventive measures for the masses and joined ICDDR’B as a Research Fellow, in order to leverage his efforts to combat one of the scourges of the developing world – childhood undernutrition. Currently evaluating several cost-effective interventions, the Transform Nutrition consortium, where he is one of the co-investigators, will generate high quality evidence over the next 5 or 6 years that will help shape future national and international public health policies around the world.

Farzana Wahid Shayan

Farzana Wahid, popularly known as Shayan is an eclectic musician, lyricist and composer who can only be described in one word as 'different'! Each of Shayan's songs is born out of a story or an idea that picks your brain and moves your emotions, they talk of random tales, politics, freedom, art, culture, life and humanity. Often her songs are more of statements of an activist rather than popular numbers. They keep breaking barriers and transcending from music to literature, to slogans and posters.

Iqbal Habib

Iqbal Habib is among the most known environmental activists and architects of the country. He is the Joint Secretary of 'Bangladesh Environment Movement' (বাংলাদেশ পরিবেশ আন্দোলন - বাপা), active organiser and a public voice of some of the pressing environmental and urban issues. He is the Managing Director and one of the principal architects of the award winning architectural firm VITTI Sthapati Brindo Ltd. that designed Hatirjheel–Begunbari Integrated Development Project, Dhanmondi Lake Development Project, Asian University for Women (Local consultant), HQ of the Institute of Architects Bangladesh etc. Iqbal Habib comes with some new ideas of breaking barriers in Dhaka's urban issues and housing problems.

Moktadir Dewan Shanto

Being one of the few artists who love to go beyond the instruments and musical experiments, we introduce Shanto, an a-cappella enthusiast and a beatboxer. Having experienced music of different genres like hip-hop and metal, performing with the likes of Arbovirus & Chirkutt and being previously part of versatile bands like GrooveTrap, Old School and presently in Blunderware, Shanto has experimented with his beatboxing skills in various forms throughout his journey. He believes the human voice in itself is a gifted instrument of chords and he loves experimenting with it. He is a self-made artist who was and always is willing to take it a step ahead.

Monira Rahman

Monira is a strong voice to end gender discrimination and violence against women. Last 25 years she has devoted herself to build a society free from the fear of violence. Being first employee of the Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) Monira developed bio-psychosocial model which transformed hundred of acid victims to an active change agent. Under her leadership, the Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) became world’s leader in combating acid attacks, brought change in policy, laws, system and services to protect rights of the survivors and reduced the number of acid attacks significantly (from 500 in 2002 to bellow hundred in 2013). Before ASF, she worked for the rights of the homeless people and sex workers. Her new organization Innovation for Wellbeing is promoting mental health equity.

Munem Wasif

Munem Wasif is an eminent documentary photographer. He has been represented by Agence Vu in Paris since 2008. Wasif has won several awards, including the City of Perpignan Young Reporter's Award at Visa pour l’image, Prixpictet commission and the F25 Award for Concerned Photography from Fabrica. He had exhibitions worldwide including, Musee de elysee & Fotomuseam Winterthur in Switzerland, Kunsthal museum & Noordelicht festival in Netherlands, Whitechappel Gallery in England and Palais de Tokyo in France. He was one of the curators of Chobi Mela, International Festival of Photography and currently teaches at Pathshala, South Asian Media Institute.

Tanzeem Choudhury

Tanzeem Choudhury is an associate professor in Computing and Information Science at Cornell University. She directs the People-Aware Computing group, which is inventing technology to support individuals with serious mental illness and shaping the future of technology-assisted wellbeing. Tanzeem received her PhD from MIT Media Lab and was named one of the MIT Technology Review’s top 35 innovators under 35 in 2008. She is a Poptech Science Fellow, Public Leadership Fellow and a TED Fellow. Tanzeem’s work has been featured in the Economist, New York Times, BBC, and other popular press. Tanzeem is passionate about breaking gender stereotypes about women in technology.

Yamin Khan

Yamin Khan is the young talented standup comedian made a surprise guest appearance at TEDxDhaka 2014 stage. He did the funny sendup of the conference at the last session like last year. His performance gives us another opportunity to give a round of applause to all other speakers with a lot of laughter to go home with. Yamin is based in Dhaka, he often performs with Naveed's Comedy Club.