Megaseeds Project for Madagascar - Andriankoto Ratozamanana

The mission of MEGASEEDS™ is to protect Madagascar’s natural resources, add value to agriculture, and produce food for today and generations to come. They strive to conserve, renew, and rejuvenate forests.

Unveiling the TED Fellows program

How it works: four steps

1. Candidates apply to attend one conference in either Long Beach or Oxford. Individuals can apply directly or be nominated by others. We'll also directly recruit potential Fellows and invite them to apply. Applications for TEDGlobal 2009 will open February 23, 2009. Email fellows@ted.com to be reminded when applications open. Please include your name, title, organization, email address, and country.

2. We'll choose 25 people to attend each conference as Fellows (50 per year).

3. In 2010, after the 2009 conferences, we'll choose 20 from 50 of the previous year's participants for the three-year TED Senior Fellows Program, bringing them to five additional conferences (for a total of six).

4. We'll recruit 50 new Fellows each year, resulting in 20 Senior Fellows each following year. By 2012, we'll have 50 TED Fellows annually (split between Long Beach and Oxford) and 60 concurrent Senior Fellows.

TEDIndia

At TEDIndia in Mysore in November 2009, we'll replicate our successful TEDAfrica 2007 program by bringing 100 Fellows together from around the subcontinent and beyond. Working with the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, we plan to establish a follow-up network and Fellows meeting. Complete program details are forthcoming.

To participate, contact fellows@ted.com or call Logan at the TED office in New York at +1 212 346 9333.

Fellows

Benefits to Fellows

• Attendance to one TED or TEDGlobal Conference with all expenses paid (conference, travel, room and board)
• Participation in Fellows pre-conference activities
• Private social networking on TED.com
• Potential to speak on the TED Fellows or TED University stage
• Potential to have that talk posted on TED.com

Responsibilities of Fellows

• Full attendance and participation at the Conference
• Submission of a post-conference report
• Regular posting on the TED Fellows Blog

TED Africa 2008 registration now open!

TED Africa registration is now open. TED Africa is an awakening many people don't have the opportunity to witness.

Don't miss the opportunity to get engage in the "community" and participate in sharing your knowledge.

Register today for TED Africa in South Africa!

George Ayittey speech at World Affairs council in Houston

George and Bono at TED

George Ayittey has coined the term "Cheetah generation" for those who want progressive and sustainable change in Africa. George also believes cheetah's are not blinded by government corruption or coercion.

George goes into great detail about corruption and African economics in his speech he delivered at World Affairs council in Houston.

Watch his speech here

TED William Kamkwamba profiled on Wall Street Journal

TED fellow William Kamkwamba is profiled on the Wall Street Journal. William Kamkwamba is a self-taught engineer who built a windmill from an American text book he found lying around. Not only did this windmill work, it powered electricity in his village home.

The whole TED community is proud to see William Kamkwamba progressing so much. William Kamkwamba will be in the states next week.

Please read more here

Announcing TEDAfrica 2008!

From the TED Blog

Chris Anderson and Emeka Okafor write:

We're delighted to tell you that there will be another TED conference in Africa next year, and that we hope to make it an annual event on the continent!

TEDAfrica will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, September 29-October 1, 2008 (save the date!), and will follow the format of this year's TEDGlobal conference in Arusha, Tanzania.

The conference will be organized by a wonderful local team, including TED Fellow Kelo Kubu, and the conference will be operated out of a new South Africa-based nonprofit organization devoted to promoting a better future for the continent, the TEDAfrica Foundation. TED will be supporting the foundation both financially and logistically, to help ensure that the event maintains and builds on the quality and success of the Arusha event.

We hope to see you in Cape Town!

And team member Kelo Kubu writes:

It has been an honor and a privilege to be part of the TEDAfrica process . The team is naturally excited to be hosting TEDAfrica 2008, and we look forward to the challenge of generating the usual TED cocktail of inspiration and magic. The task is undoubtedly a daunting one, but Africa provides the perfect platform and Cape Town the ideal location for yet another memorable event.

We look forward to welcoming the world to the southernmost tip of Africa to share, spread and nurture groundbreaking ideas that could open new possibilities to growth and prosperity on the continent.

TED fellow Segeni Ng'ethe MamaMikes, hooks up Diaspora with motherland

I just read this article about TED fellow Segeni Ng'ethe's company Mama Mikes.

Written by Bob Wayne Bell Jr.

Mr. Ng'ethe (seated) and colleagues

25-July-2007: Tech firms are being established by a new breed of technology entrepreneurs who are tapping and exploiting international markets, making a profit, and making a difference in the lives of Kenyans.

MamaMikes is a local e-commerce company that allows the Kenyan Diaspora to meet the needs of their family at home without the need for money transfer services.

Kenyans abroad can pay school fees, provide vouchers for shopping or home utilities, buy stocks, or transfer mobile airtime directly through the Internet. MamaMikes is cashing in on the estimated Sh70 billion remittances industry, which catapulted ahead of Kenya’s tourism sector last year.

According to a study done by Monice Nyamwange of William Paterson University, 72.5 per cent of remittances are for consumption while 64.9 per cent are spent on school fees.

With MamaMikes focusing on consumption goods and services as well as school fees, this company is tapping a lucrative market while reducing the transactional costs.

Estimates of the Kenyan Diaspora in America vary from 40,000 to 60,000 depending on the source.

However, the average Kenyan in the US has more education and makes more money per capita than other black African immigrants as well as average Americans.

With many African enterprises bootstrapped for growth by the low incomes of their customer, MamaMikes targets customers with relatively high incomes.

The founders of MamaMikes conceived the company in Washington, DC. They are part of what Professors Barbara E McDade and Anita Spring of the University of Florida (USA) consider to be “new generation entrepreneurs.

Read more here

This is belated, but thanks TED and Emeka Okafor

Chris Anderson, Emeka Okafor, and David McQueen

I was sitting in the subway today and was thinking how fortunate it was that I was invited to TED. Organizing that event was not that easy, I organized the 2003 Ghana Outsourcing Conference a few years ago in Philadelphia and that was hard. Multiple my event times 1000 and you have TEDGlobal 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania.

First, I owe a lot of people thanks to. I want to thank Bono, who had the vision of bringing this event to our continent and for even showing up. I want to thank Chris Anderson the owner of TED for putting his resources and time into organizing a wonderful event. I want to thank the TED staff, for without their help we probably would be stranded in Arusha or Nairobi (I believe some did actually...like me). I want to thank the all the sponsors, especially Google and Dan Shine from AMD on giving the Fellow's a choice of our own laptop (PC or Mac).

The last person I want to thank was very instrumental in getting many of the speakers. I've talked to this person via email a couple of times before we actually met at the annual Wharton African Business conference. I want to thank Emeka Okafor for a brilliant, masterful, and diverse speaker line-up for TEDGlobal2007. If Emeka hadn't told me to apply for a Fellowship I might not have made it to TED.

Many know Emeka as the face behind his blog Timbuktu Chronicles, jokingly I introduced Emeka to a friend of mine Derrick Ashong, at the Wharton Conference last November as the Walter Cronkite of Africa. No, Emeka is not a journalist. I think if you would talk to Emeka, he would say he is an entrepreneur with a journalist itch of spreading the word every now and then. Emeka in every sense is an entrepreneur, he is co-owner of specialty Food company called Caranda foods. Caranda specializes in Coffee, Tea and specialty foods.