This event is the grand finale of a journey that started last March when Johannesburg joined Doha, London, Nairobi, Tunis and 9 other cities, on 6 continents, in hosting the TED 2013 Worldwide Talent Search, a public search seeking to uncover new talents – voices and ideas the world needs to hear – to speak at TED 2013 this February in Long Beach, California, themed “The Young, The Wise, The Undiscovered”. TEDxSoweto proudly partnered TED in making the Johannesburg leg happen. This whirlwind process has now reached its final stage, and has produced a total of 34 remarkable innovators, 6 of whom come from Africa. The full line-up features the largest number of speakers in TED’s history – more than 70. Bringing them together has created a fast-moving program covering an incredible variety of topics.
Our event will focus on sessions 4 and 5, titled “Disrupt!” and “Dream!” respectively. Remarkably, both will feature South African talents in Jo’burg public art instigator Lesley Perkes (see her talent search TED Talk here) and US-based Pretoria-born über entrepreneur Elon Musk (founder of SpaceX, and co-founder of Tesla Motors and PayPal)