Theme: Prism of Possibilities

The TEDxUFS event specifically caters to an academic orientated audience with students, lecturers
and academia being the target audience. The platform is awarded to speakers that will appeal and
broaden the minds of this audience through the ideas they seek to so read. This allows for a
continuous challenge in the perspective of individuals that reside within the intellectual space and
society.
At TEDxUFS, we pride ourselves by creating a story with our themes, as it has been from the
beginning in 2014. Our theme for the year is Prism of Possibilities which is a continuation from Last
year’s Impossible Is Nothing theme.
This year, we will explore a realm where Nothing is Impossible, a state of mind where Possibilities are as endless as our imagination.

Odeion school of music
Odeion school of music
Bloemfontein, Free State, 9301
South Africa

Chris Viljoen

Chris Viljoen is an associate professor in Human Molecular Biology in the Department of Haematology and Cell Biology at the University of the Free State. He is widely recognised for his GMO research which focuses on bio-safety and regulatory aspects regarding GMO detection and labelling, and the impact of GMOs on gene flow. He has served on several international committees, and is a member of the European Commission Global GMO Network Forum. He is coordinator of the Southern African Network for GM detection laboratories (SANGL), and the founder and manager of the GMO Testing Facility, which is a recognised business unit, generating a third-income stream for the UFS.

Elijah Djan

Elijah Djan is an Industrial Engineering student at the University of Pretoria. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and is committed to improving the state of Africa. He is the founder and inventor of Nubrix, a company that makes bricks from waste paper and he is the co-founder of an African clothing brand Bronsz. His company Nubrix is a private company that aims to be the premier supplier of paper bricks. They recycle waste paper to make building bricks cheaper.

Jedidjah Rotter

Jedidjah Rotter has been a world traveler most of her life, she doesn’t like to be pinned down to any one place to call ‘home’. Spurred on by observing and reflecting on the great divides in South Africa, between rich and poor, black and white, male and female, old and young. As a seasoned photographer, she started a Facebook page with the intent of sharing the stories of the nameless of South African society. The page, I Have A Name has discovered that learning people’s names gives perspective. A nameless person is easy to ignore, but a face with a name becomes a person, a father, a daughter, or a parent and they become someone we can all relate to and want to help. She wants to remind us that we are all in the human journey together.

Lerato Machetela

Lerato Machetela is a qualified and licensed Clinical Psychologist. She obtained her Masters in Clinical Psychology from the University of the Free State. She developed a “psycho-edu-tainment” group, drawing from elements of psychology, education, and entertainment using Gumboots dance with a group of male teenagers in Jagersfontein, called the Diamonds in the Rough. She is a 2017 Mail&Guardian 200 young South Africans. Moreover, she has been recognised for her leadership in social responsiveness and interviewed widely on several national and international networks.

Murendeni Mafumo

Murendeni Mafumo is a water scientist with 10 years experience working within the water and sanitation sector. He started off working within the City of Cape Town as a water scientist, looking at developing systems for a city that only receives winter rains, he worked as part of a team of scientist in design and monitoring water treatment systems for the City of Cape Town . He studied water treatment technology through the University of Cape Town and is currently founder of Kusini Water.

Muthoni Masinde

Muthoni Masinde is a computer scientist with B.Sc, M.Sc and Ph.D computer science degrees from the University of Nairobi, the Free University of Brussels and University of Cape Town respectively. She is currently Head of the Department of IT at the Central University of Technology. One of her greatest research achievements is the development of a novel tool to predict droughts in Africa. The tool taps into the rich African indigenous knowledge on natural disasters and augments it with ICTs.

Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh

Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh is a young and influential South African author, scholar, musician and producer. He was president of Cape Town University Students Representative Council 2010. He holds a MPhil with distinction from the University of Oxford, where he is currently pursuing a PhD. In September 2017, Mpofu-Walsh published his award-winning debut book, Democracy and Delusion: 10 Myths in South African Politics. Along with the book, he released his debut rap album, also titled Democracy and Delusion. He formed part of the Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford campaign and is a well-known advocate for transformation in South Africa, especially in governance and education.

Thato Mokhothu

Thato Mokhothu, born in Bloemfontein, studied Human Resource at the Central University of Technology (CUT). She owns RTT Construction and Shalom Bonds, a bond originator company – and she is currently setting up a manufacturing factory of alternative building technology tow other women partners under CPI Africa. She is a shareholder and Director at Tyremart Estoire (Free State) and Kathu (Northern Cape). So she is the first women in her province to own a fitment centre that provides new tyres, retreaded tyres and supplies tyres in the mines, construction companies in Lesotho and Kathu. Phenomenal Women is a business magazine she has set her sights on.