TED Names 2012 TED Fellows and TED Senior Fellows in Most Competitive Selection Process to Date

New York, NY (PRWEB) October 25, 2011

TED, the nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, announces 25 new members of 2012’s TED Fellows class. Founded in 2009, the TED Fellows program handpicks world-changing innovators from around the globe and brings them to the TED stage — literally and figuratively — to raise international awareness of their remarkable work. Interest in the TED Fellows program has grown at a torrid rate; since launching in 2009, the Fellows program has fielded over 5,300 applications. This current selection round saw a 100% increase in applications compared to the same conference last year.

“We are tremendously proud to announce this year’s class of TED Fellows, which includes 25 amazing cross-disciplinary innovators from around the world,” said Tom Rielly, the director of the TED Fellows program. “The generous and collaborative spirit of the TED Fellows, and the global nature of much of their work, allow them to find surprising and ingenious solutions to many of the world’s biggest problems. From struggling to fight disease, to engineering a sustainable future or saving our environment, to expanding human potential, this group of Fellows promises to make an impact for generations to come.”

This year’s Fellows hail from eleven different countries, including Ireland, Lebanon, Korea, Kenya and Uganda. The group includes Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona state senator, human rights activist and LGBT political leader; it also includes Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist who uses high-resolution and NASA satellite imagery to discover new archaeological sites in Egypt; and Greg Gage, a DIY neuroscientist and co-founder of Backyard Brains, an organization teaching secondary school kids neuroscience through experiments with robotic control of ordinary cockroaches.

See the full list of the 2012 TED Fellows below. For complete program information, visit: http://www.ted.com/fellows.

All TED Fellows will participate as full members of 2012’s annual TED Conference in Long Beach, where they deliver their own TEDTalks, as well as a three-day pre-conference event where they collaborate with their peers and learn new skills. The Fellows continue to actively participate in the TED community throughout the year, telling their ongoing stories on the TED Fellows blog, contributing to TEDx events, receiving 1:1 professional coaching, being featured in the online Fellows directory and participating in a private social network.

TED has begun accepting submissions for the next round of TED Fellows here. The Fellows program seeks individuals of age 21-45 (though anyone over age 18 is eligible) who demonstrate remarkable achievement in their field of endeavor. The program focuses on candidates from six regions: Asia/Pacific, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, though candidates from all regions are welcome.

The TED Fellows program, with its 274 fellows from 70 countries, is made possible by the visionary support of the Bezos family, the Harnisch Foundation, the Dhanam Foundation, the Kitchen Table Foundation and the Case Foundation, among other donors.

Connect with TED Fellows:

Email: fellows@ted.com

Twitter: @tedfellow

Facebook: facebook.com/TEDFellow

YouTube: youtube.com/tedfellowstalks

Web: ted.com/tedfellows

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place each spring in Long Beach, California, along with the TEDActive simulcast in Palm Springs; TEDGlobal is held each summer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

TED’s media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world, and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Follow TED on Twitter at @TEDNews, or on Facebook at facebook.com/TED.

TED2012, “Full Spectrum,” will be held February 27-March 2, 2012, in Long Beach and Palm Springs, California.

TED2012 Fellows:

Ayah Bdeir (Lebanon | US) — Engineer + artist

Lebanese artist, inventor and founder of littleBits, an open-source system of pre-assembled circuits that snap together with magnets — making learning about electronics fun, easy and creative.

Gabriel Barcia-Colombo (US) — Video sculptor

American video artist creating living video installation pieces of “miniature people” encased inside ordinary objects such as suitcases, blenders and more.

Laurel Braitman (US) — Science historian + writer

American historian and anthropologist of science studying the mental health of animals and what it means about humans. Her research, subject of her upcoming book Animal Madness, posits that animals suffer from mental illness too.

Asha de Vos (Sri Lanka) — Blue whale scientist

Sri Lankan cetologist, oceanographer and Ph.D. student studying a unique population of non-migrating blue whales found only in the Northern Indian Ocean.

Zena el Khalil (Lebanon) — Artist + writer + cultural activist

Lebanese interdisciplinary artist building bridges through glitter, faith and compassion. A blogger and publisher, she is also the author of Beirut, I Love You: A Memoir.

Marc Fornes (France | US) — Computational architect

French computational architect experimenting with structure and form to produce wild, otherworldly forms for his objects, environments and buildings.

Greg Gage (US) — DIY neuroscientist

DIY neuroscientist and co-founder of Backyard Brains, an organization teaching kids neuroscience through experiments with robotic control of ordinary cockroaches.

Jeffrey Gibson (US) — Artist

Contemporary Native American visual and installation artist whose abstract artworks dazzle with color and form.

E Roon Kang (Korea | US) — Graphic designer

Korean graphic designer and researcher who often employs computational techniques in his iconoclastic design work.

Michael Karnjanaprakorn (US) — Entrepreneurial educator

Co-founder of Skillshare, a community marketplace to learn anything from anyone, leading to the democratization of teaching.

Jimmy Lin (US) — Computational geneticist

Geneticist and founder of the Rare Genomics Institute, an organization that allows patients to crowdsource funds and genomes to accelerate research of their rare genetic diseases.

Christine Marie (US) — Shadow artist

American artist specializing in creating, directing and choreographing performances inspired by the ancient form of Balinese shadow art, all with live cinematic and 3D stereoscopic effects.

Lucy McRae (Australia | Netherlands) — Body architect

Australian artist and “body architect” straddles the worlds of fashion, technology and the body to create unusual forms around the human body.

Oliver Medvedik (US) — Molecular biologist

Open-source synthetic biologist and co-founder of Genspace, a first-of-its-kind community biolab. He believes that synthetic biology and biotech education should be made low-cost and accessible to all.

Jean-Baptiste Michel (France | Mauritius | US) — Cultural scientist

French Mauritian mathematician, biologist and co-founder of Culturomics, using millions of books and terabytes of historical data to quantify the evolution of human culture.

Sanga Moses (Uganda) — Biochar innovator

Ugandan biochar inventor and entrepreneur making and selling clean cooking fuel from agricultural waste. He uses the proceeds to plant trees to combat deforestation.

Alex Odundo (Kenya) — Agricultural machinist

Kenyan agricultural machinist and inventor of the Sisal Decorticator, a machine turning raw sisal into fiber, and the Sisal Twiner, a machine turning the fiber into rope, which customers sell for income.

Damian Palin (Ireland | Singapore) — Bio-mineralogist

Irish research engineer based in Singapore, developing a process that seeks to employ bacteria to biologically mine minerals out of the brine left over from the desalinization process.

Bre Pettis (US) — Maker

Inventor, maker and founder of MakerBot Industries, a company producing the Thing-O-Matic, the first affordable 3D printer.

Sarah Parcak (US) — Space archaeologist

Archaeologist who uses high-resolution and NASA satellite imagery to discover new archaeological sites and “long-lost” cities in the pyramid fields, Nile Valley and Delta of Egypt, most of which remain undetected and unexcavated.

Myshkin Ingawale (India) — Medical device innovator

Indian founder of BIosense Technologies, a low-cost medical device company that has created a device that tests for anemia in pregnant women without drawing blood, using only light.

Carl Schoonover (US | France) — Neuroscience PhD student + writer

Neuroscience PhD student, researcher, author of the amazing illustrated book Portraits of the Mind, and co-founder of a writing forum for neuroscientists and writers.

Kyrsten Sinema (US) — Human rights activist

Arizona state senator, human rights activist, LGBT political leader and political science PhD studying the Rwandan genocide.

Christina Warriner (US | Switzerland) — Archaeogeneticist

American archaeogeneticist studying the plaque on mummies’ teeth to determine how the human species evolved, including diet, diseases, environmental stressors and more.

Abigail Washburn (US | China) — Singer + banjo player + cultural activist

Singer, songwriter, clawhammer banjo player and recording artist who tours the world performing in both English and Chinese. Preparing to study law and settle in Beijing, she left to sing and play.

2012 TED Senior Fellows

Walid Al-Saqaf (Yemen | Sweden) — Anti-censorship activist    

Yemeni programmer and founder of Yemen Portal, and creator of Alkasir, free software that gives individuals access to blocked websites.

Eric Berlow (US) — Ecological networks scientist    

American ecologist and entrepreneur researching networks and environmental sustainability.

Jane Chen (US | India) — Infant health entrepreneur

American co-founder of Embrace, a social enterprise now shipping a low-cost infant warmer to Indian clinics.

Anthony Vipin Das (India) — Eye doctor + entrepreneur            

Indian ophthalmologist and founder of REPOrT, Rural Education and Prevention of Ocular Trauma, focusing on preventing eye injuries.

Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz (Venezuela | US) — Culture curator    

Venezuelan editor, writer and co-founder of The Gopher Illustrated magazine and the Plantanoverde Foundation, a platform for emerging artists.

Meklit Hadero (Ethiopia | US) — Singer + songwriter

Ethopian American singer, songwriter and recording artist working on bridging the Ethiopian diaspora living in the United States with Ethiopians in Ethiopia, through her organization the Arba Minch Collective.

Marcin Jakubowski (Poland | US) — Open-source inventor

Polish-American developing the Global Village Construction Set, a DIY, low-cost, platform of the 50 industrial machines necessary to build from scratch a small, sustainable civilization.

Teru Kuwayama (US | Afghanistan) — Crisis photographer    

American photojournalist covering humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir and Iraq, and founder of Basetrack, an open-source embedded media project that changes the relationship between war news and the families of soldiers and marines.

Suzanne Lee (UK) — Fashion designer    

British artist and fashion designer who “grows” clothing with bacteria.    

Sey Min (Korea) — Media artist    

Korean data visualization designer who works with live data to creatively and accurately visualize information from data sets that otherwise would be indecipherable.

Nina Tandon (US) — Tissue engineering researcher

American electrical engineer and research scientist who explores how electrical stimulation encourages tissue growth for generating tissue replacements and/or regeneration.

Skylar Tibbits (US) – Architect + computer scientist    

American artist and computational architect working on “smart” components that can assemble themselves.

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