London
x = independently organized TED event

Theme: TEDxLondon: Festival of Ideas

This event occurred on
January 26, 2025
10:00am - 6:00pm GMT
(UTC +0hrs)
London, London, City of
United Kingdom

Ideas shaping tomorrow.

This January TEDxLondon is back. You can expect the same great TEDx talks from the world's most inspiring and innovative speakers – plus the opportunity to meet a community of people who believe in the transformative power of storytelling and ideas.

Drawing on the themes from past events, TEDxLondon’s Festival of Ideas will connect the dots across different movements and ask how do we solve these complex issues, together? The day will be a true festival, bringing together talks, workshops, film screenings and networking events.

Join us and be part of a community exploring how we can reshape our city and our world to build a more joyful, just and sustainable future – together.

291 Mare Street
London, London, City of, E8 1EJ
United Kingdom
Event type:
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Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check event website for more information.

Adam Kucharski

Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Adam is a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and bestselling author of The Rules of Contagion, which was Book of the Year in The Times, Guardian and Financial Times. A mathematician by training, his work on global outbreaks has included Ebola, Zika and COVID, and he has advised multiple governments and health agencies. He is a TED senior fellow and winner of the University of Cambridge Adams Prize and the Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize. His writing has appeared in The Times, Observer, Financial Times and Wired, among others, and he has contributed to several documentaries, including BBC Horizon. His new book Proof: The Uncertain Science of Certainty will be published in March.

André Anderson

Headmaster & Founder of Freedom & Balance
André is the Headmaster and Founder of Freedom & Balance, an Art College for the artist in everyone. He designs and leads creative programmes for communities and organisations of all kinds, helping them to playfully grow into the type of leaders their world looks for. His most notable programme, ‘Authors of the Estate’ explores the question “how do you turn council houses into publishing houses?” This curriculum is set in the Chalkhill and St.Raphaels estate in North-West London, resulting in dozens of local residents becoming confident, authentic, self-published Authors. Authors of the Estate is set to expand into other UK-based council estates in the near future.

Ben Williams

Marine biologist & data scientist
Ben is a marine biologist and data scientist completing a PhD at University College London and the Zoological Society of London. His work focuses on using AI to study the soundscape of coral reefs to support conservation and restoration. Ben collaborates closely with the world’s largest reef restoration program, led by the Mars' Sheba Hope Grows campaign, and has worked with Google DeepMind's bioacoustics team. Ben's research has allowed him to collaborate with local researchers in remote coral reef locations and with industry leaders in machine learning, all working together to protect one of the ocean’s most threatened habitats. Ben has seen firsthand the power of science communication after his early work gained global media attention and now supports others in this area as a committee member on Reef Conservation UK’s annual conference.

Hackney Empire Creative Futures

Young artists & producers
Hackney Empire Creative Futures is designed to support and fuel young artists and creative entrepreneurs. TEDxLondon will experience an exclusive original piece created by a small number of young participants from the programme ranging from 16-18. Everything is composed, written and directed by the young artists and will reflect the heart and truths of what matters to a younger generation of people that are too often undermined and ignored. Moving away from the notions of young people not having the wisdom to speak up, this is a group willing to express and prove those people wrong.

John Travulva & Jodie Mitchell

Stand-up comedian, writer & Drag King
John Travulva, aka Jodie Mitchell, is a stand-up comedian, writer and Drag King. They’ve appeared on ‘Comedy Central Live’, Channel 4’s ‘Jokes Only a Lesbian Can Tell’ and BBC Radio 4’s ‘Time of The Week’, which they were a writer for. They were featured in The New York Times for their work on trans representation in Netflix’s ‘Sex Education’, which they also wrote on. Their debut stand-up show ‘Becoming John Travulva’ had a sold-out, extended run at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2023 before transferring to Soho Theatre, and they’ve co-created and starred in numerous hit shows with their Off Broadway Award winning Drag King troupe ‘Pecs’.

Jolyon Maugham KC

Founder of Good Law Project
Jolyon Maugham KC founded Good Law Project in 2017. Good Law Project uses the law to hold power to account, protect the environment and ensure no one is left behind. It uses the law to tackle important issues of unlawfulness, wrongdoing and disadvantage with many campaigns, such as taking the government to court on their unlawful net zero plans, the right to swim and tackling transphobia. Under Jolyon’s leadership, the organisation raises millions of pounds every year to fund strategic litigation and has won a number of landmark constitutional cases. Good Law Project remains almost entirely funded by members of the public, which keeps it fiercely independent. A tax barrister by trade, Jolyon became a Queen’s Counsel in 2015. He is an honorary Professor at the University of Durham and is the author of the best-seller Bringing Down Goliath. He has been described by The Times as ‘one of the country’s leading barristers’.

Kiana Hayeri

Visual Storyteller
Kiana is an Iranian-Canadian photographer and visual storyteller whose work focuses on migration, adolescence, identity and women's experiences in conflict zones. She lived in Kabul for eight years and stayed after the Taliban's return to power, documenting the rapidly changing social landscape for women. Kiana has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Tim Hetherington Visionary Award (2020), James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting (2020), Robert Capa Gold Medal (2021), Leica Oskar Barnack Award (2022), and Carmignac Photojournalism Award (2024). She was part of The New York Times team that won the Hal Boyle Award (2022) and was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. A TED fellow and National Geographic Explorer, Kiana regularly contributes to The New York Times. She is currently based in Sarajevo, covering stories from Afghanistan, the Balkans, and beyond.

Nathalie McDermott

Founder & CEO of Heard
Nathalie is the founder and CEO of Heard, a charity that works with people and the media to inspire content and communication that changes hearts and minds. With 20 years of experience in the media and charity sectors, Nathalie is passionate about finding common ground on big, important issues, such as climate change, poverty, domestic abuse, and migration. Her work aims to create the necessary conditions for long-term social change. Nathalie started her career as a journalist, working at the BBC and the Guardian, where she produced the first Media, Science and Politics podcasts. She then launched Heard (formerly On Road Media) in 2008, with the vision of introducing new perspectives and experiences across the stories we see and hear in the media.

Sophie Morgan

TV host & Disability Advocate
British TV host and Disability Advocate, Sophie is best known for presenting the Paralympics, award-winning documentaries, and live-event broadcasts. Sophie recently made history as one of the first disabled women to host for NBC Sports in the US. She co-founded Making Space, a talent acquisition and learning platform, and Making Space Media, a disabled and female-led production company, partnered with Reese Witherspoons' 'Hello Sunshine'. Together, they co-produced the critically acclaimed documentary Fight to Fly, which follows Sophie as she holds the aviation industry to account for shocking failings to disabled travellers, and, in her mission to make air travel and space accessible for all, sees her become the first paralysed woman to go to Zero Gravity. As an avid traveller herself, she writes a monthly column for Condé Nast Traveler, for whom she also serves on the Global Advisory Board. She published her bestselling memoir Driving Forwards in 2021, soon to be a TV series.

Tinuke Awe & Clotilde Abe

Co-Founders of Five X More
Tinuke and Clotilde are pioneering advocates for Black maternal health and well-being in the UK. They co-founded Five X More CIC, an organisation that campaigns for improved health outcomes for Black mothers. Five X More was inspired by research that revealed that Black women were five times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth compared to white women in the UK. Since they started their work, this disparity has slightly improved, but still sees Black women facing four times the risk as white women.

Organizing team

Maryam
Pasha

London, United Kingdom
Organizer