Theme: Explore

Adhering to TED's vision:
"How are women and girls reshaping the future in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta?
The first-ever TEDWomen invites men and women to explore this question in depth. From the developing world, where a single microloan to a single girl can transform a village, to the West, where generations of educated women are transforming entire industries, women are powerful change agents, intellectual innovators, idea champions ..."

Central
Hong Kong

Alexandra Harney

Alexandra Harney is the author of The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage (Penguin Press, 2008) and a respected voice on labor and economic issues in China and Japan The China Price, which drew on two years of undercover reporting, examines the human and environmental cost of China’s success as the world’s factory through the stories of ordinary Chinese. The book, published in six languages and optioned for adaptation to film and television, was named a best book of the year on globalization by Library Journal. Alexandra spent seven years as a correspondent and editor at The Financial Times, and has also written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Forbes, Slate, the China Economic Quarterly and Foreign Policy. A fluent Japanese and Mandarin Chinese speaker, Alexandra is the co-founder of Visibility Media, which conducts research for investors and institutions about economic, business and social issues in Asia, a contributing editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, and a regular commentator on the BBC, NPR and Japan’s Yomiuri TV.

Mara McCaffery

Short bio of this speakerI had no inkling that a book I read about 14 years ago, and a memorable encounter with an amazing juvenile orangutan in the Tanjung Puting National Park in 1996, would lead me, all these years later, to embark on a life-changing journey. The book was Reflections Of Eden - my life with the orangutans of Borneo, by Birute M.F. Galdikas, and the orangutan was Gistock. Twelve years later and I found myself packed and ready to fly off to Pangkalanbun in Central Kalimantan where I would spend a month volunteering at the Orangutan Care Centre and Quarantine near the village of Pasir Panjang. The Centre is run by the Orangutan Foundation International which was founded by Birute Galdikas, following her years of research on orangutans in the area which is now the Tanjung Puting National Park.

Vivian Lee

Director, ActionHouse International. Vivian LEE is responsible the day-to-day operations of the ActionHouse Hong Kong office as well as business development and project management in Hong Kong and China. Vivian is an Asian Games Silver Medalist in Swimming. She has a keen interest and passion in sports and education. She started her career in 1999 with an international sports event and PR consultant agent (Octagon), where, for four years she gained extensive event management and Public Relations consultancy skills. Her sporting background and competitive passion has driven her to work on various sports events. She has managed over 50 international and local events and press functions including Omega Hong Kong Open, Standard Chartered Marathon, Asian Games 2006 Bid, Yao Ming HK Visit, Tiger Woods Challenge, and the Cathay Pacific Championship. Vivian also worked for an International Communications Consultancy (Fleishman-Hillard) in 2003 where she was responsible for strategic public relations consultancy, day-to-day client contact and implementing marketing campaigns on behalf of both international and local Hong Kong corporate and consumer clients including Starbucks, Outback Steakhouse, Abbott, Watsons and Huawei.Short bio of this speaker

Su-Mei Thompson

Su-Mei Thompson joined The Women's Foundation as Executive Director in 2009. In this role, her responsibilities include strategic planning for the Foundation, fund-raising, donor relations, overseeing grants and programmes, as well as government relations, community outreach. Su-Mei started her career as a corporate finance associate at Linklaters before serving in senior management positions at Disney, the Financial Times and Christie’s in the Asia Pacific region. She is an external advisor to the Planning Committee for the Chinese University’s proposed gender studies undergraduate programme and a member of the Women’s Commission’s taskforce for Hong Kong women’s development goals. Su-Mei serves on the board of HKSE-listed Natural Beauty and is a corporate board member of The Cheltenham Ladies College. She also writes for the South China Morning Post on women’s and gender issues. Su-Mei is a graduate of Oxford and Cambridge Universities and earned her MBA at IMD in Lausanne, where she was the first woman to graduate on the Dean’s List.