Dr Mamphela Ramphele

Activist, Author, Academic, Businesswoman and Medical Doctor

Idea worth spreading: Education Activism?

Dr Ramphele is a South African academic, businesswoman and medical doctor and was an anti-apartheid activist. She was one of the founders of the Black Consciousness Movement. She was the first South African to be appointed as managing director of the World Bank and in 2004 was voted one of the Top 100 Great South Africans.

Prof Tim Noakes

UCT Professor of Sports Science

Idea worth spreading: The successful mindset

Prof. Tim Noakes is a co-founder and executive director of the Sports Science Institute of SA, author, respected academic and A1 rated scientist. He has long been acknowledged as an expert in the field of sports and the science of physical exercise. Tim is a Director of UCT/MRC Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine (ESSM), Department of Human Biology, Faculty of Health Science, University of Cape Town. He is also the Professor, Discovery Health Chair of Exercise and Sports Science, University of Cape Town.

Soli Philander

Seasoned broadcaster, award-winning actor, television presenter, director, comedian, playwright, columnist and motivational speaker.

Born and bred in Elsies River, Soli’s roots are firmly planted in the Cape. After matriculating from John Ramsay Secondary School in Bishop Lavis, he says he “fell into acting” after accompanying a friend to an audition. Since then he has performed around South Africa in all the key theatres. He has also performed internationally in Sweden, The Netherlands, America, the UK, Swaziland and Namibia. Over the course of his prestigious career Soli has hosted numerous radio shows and formed part of the original 567 CapeTalk line-up in 1997.

John Gilmour

Founder and Director of six LEAP Science & Maths Schools & Principal of one them

John Gilmour is the Founder of the LEAP Science and Maths Schools. He was Principal of Abbott’s College for five years before leaving to set up the LEAP Science and Maths School. The aim of the LEAP School is to transform the lives of disadvantaged young people, as well as the communities from which they come.

LEAP Science & Maths Schools

Leigh Meinert

TSiBA Education Co-Founder & MD

Idea worth spreading: The Soul of Education

Leigh only recently began to consider herself an educator. She's still amazed that, with no educational background whatsoever, she was allowed to co-found SA's youngest and smallest university when she was only 25. A lot of what she and her colleagues did when they set about starting the Tertiary School in Business Administation (TSiBA) 8 years ago was done based on intuition and common sense - which turned out to be a pretty good guide. Leigh is currently pursuing a Masters in Higher Education and she says that she's gone back to study how she should have done it - but she's not serious.

Brent van Rensburg

Founder of the Zip Zap Circus School

Idea worth spreading: Your failures are my superstars

Apparently, Brent hates education. He didn't consider himself an educator before the TEDxCapeTownED team convinced him otherwise. Born in 1961 in Cape Town, he started to learn daring aerial skills at the Circus school in Cape Town and for the next 15 years performed internationally. After an accident he decided to leave the performing side and became an acrobatic instructor and conducted circus workshops. At that time he met his future wife and Co-Founder of the Zip Zap circus school Laurence Esteve. In 1992 he and Laurence returned to South Africa and founded the Zip Zap circus school. Brent brings over 20 years of experience and passion for the circus to training young, aspiring Zip Zap performers from all walks of life.

Zip Zap Circus School

Phadiela Cooper

Principal of Centre of Science & Technology (COSAT) Khayelitsha

Phadiela Cooper is the principal of a Khayelitsha school, Centre of Science and Technology, the first to make it on to the province’s list of top 10 schools. One of their students achieved six distinctions. The school is one of three STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) facilities in the Western Cape where pupils with an aptitude for maths and science are accepted. The other two facilities are the Cape Academy in Tokai and the new Claremont High School.

Jos Dirkx

Girls & Football SA Founder

Jos Dirkx has lived on five continents and currently resides in South Africa. Her dedication to social justice and gender equality has propelled her participation in projects, debates, fund-raising and campaigning for increased public awareness of women’s rights, and her hands-on experience with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Sudan has furthered her dedication to making social justice and gender equality a worldwide priority. She is the Founder and Director of award-winning Girls & Football SA and passionate about girls' education.

Girls and Football SA

Prof Laura Czerniewicz

Head of UCT’s Centre for Open Education

An educator, researcher and strategist, Associate Professor Laura Czerniewicz has worked in the field of educational technology at the University of Cape Town for over a decade, previously working in education and publishing in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The founding Director of the Centre for Educational Technology, she is currently the Director of the OpenUCT Initiative leading the university to open up its knowledge resources to all with internet connectivity and engage globally with the open education agenda and scholarly communication issues from a Southern perspective. Her research  interests include open education, scholarly communication, digital

scholarship, students' digitally-mediated practices, digital identities and the field of learning technology as a scholarly domain. She blogs at lauraczerniewicz.uct.ac.za and tweets as @czernie

Murray Gibbon

Claremont High School Principal

Education runs deep in Murray's blood. He's passionate about people - young people in particular - and transforming our country. He has taught at various schools around Cape Town and overseas. Most recently he has pioneered the establishment of the new Maths & Science focus school, Claremont High, in Cape Town, in partnership with Westerford High.

Louise Van Rhyn

Symphonia Founder & CEO

Louise van Rhyn is an organization change practitioner with a focus on large-scale change in complex social systems. She has worked with diverse local and global organizations, across all sectors, in many countries. She is the founder of Symphonia for South Africa, a group of organizations committed to sustainable transformation in people, teams, companies, organizations and communities throughout the world. Through Symphonia, Louise works to mobilize citizens to become actively involved in addressing the education crisis facing South Africa. She has also initiated the innovative School @ the Centre of Community leadership development process that creates an opportunity for business leaders and school principals to develop their leadership skills in a co-learning partnership.

Symphonia

Malinga Nopote

Idea worth spreading: Excellence through trust

Malinga Nopote trained as a secondary school teacher at UWC and has been teaching in the Western Cape since 1995. She was appointed principal of Sinenjongo High School in Joe Slovo, Cape Town in July 2010. She and her team increased the matric pass rate at Sinenjongo from 44% in 2009, to 98% in 2010, and 88% in 2011. Her vision is to produce well-educated learners who can be independent thinkers. Malinga wants to see South Africa benefit from ‘the best leaders’ - particularly leaders from disadvantaged backgrounds – appointed into governance positions.

Christoph Hagspihl

Maths Teacher at Mfuleni High School

Christoph grew up in Joburg and went on to study mathematics at UCT. He is currently completing his masters in mathematical finance. Because of his passion for education and bridging the divide, he is also teaching full time at a township school called Mfuleni High School. His involvement with Mfuleni has opened the door to a number of further partnerships.

Rich Mulholland

Thinker, starter of things, passionate about education

Idea worth spreading: Escaping educational legacide

Richard kicked off his career as a rock n roll roadie, operating lights for bands such as Iron Maiden and Def Leppard. From there he started SA's largest presentation firm, Missing Link and co-founded 21Tanks, SA's first perspective lab. Richard is a highly regarded speaker. When not addressing many of South Africa's top corporations, he guest lectures on courses for The Cape Graduate School of Business (GSB), and the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). As well as blogging on richmulholland.com, Richard is a columnist for Longevity and Destiny Man magazines.

Steve Sherman

Founder of Living Maths

idea worth spreading: The global classroom, live from South Africa

Steve is the Managing Director of an Educational NGO called Living Maths. He teaches approximately 4500 students weekly in schools around Cape Town and now recently, the world. He is passionate about sharing knowledge and empowering young people. He is also a multi-award purchasing educator and was voted third best-looking educational innovator by his mother. He feels that it is his destiny to spread the joy of numbers to anyone who is willing to listen and even to those who are not. He knows Karate, Ju-jitsu and 2 other Japanese words.

Living Maths

Prof Ian Scott

UCT's Director of Academic Development

Prof. Ian Scott is the director of Academic Development and a professor and deputy dean at the University of Cape Town. He has been a member of the Ministry of Education's Reference Group on Academic Development since 2000. His research and development interests include higher education policy related to teaching-and-learning, curriculum and qualifications frameworks, and comparative models for widening participation in higher education. He is also involved in improving throughput in the Engineering Bachelors Degree.

Xola Sdiki

GOLD Peer Educator

Idea worth spreading: The power of peers

Xola is an 18 year old male who was selected as a GOLD Peer Educator when he was in grade 10 due to his leadership potential. He lives in Kraaifontein, a community riddled with poverty, gangsterism and crime. Xola grew up in a single parent household with four siblings. Before joining GOLD, he used to think it was “only his opinion that mattered”. He now sees himself as a positive role model for his generation and he has been able to influence the decisions of his peers in a measurable way. Xola has encouraged his peers to finish school like himself and to study further after matric despite the tough circumstances that young people in his school and community face. He plans to start a Theatre for youth in his community, to get them involved in something positive. Xola is passionate about spreading an idea to help others to “think out of the box” about the power of positive peer pressure to bring about real change at an individual, group and community level.

GOLD Peer Education

Sam Paddock

GetSmarter Founder & Executive Director

Sam is the Executive Director of GetSmarter - a high touch online education company that works with Universities to deliver online short courses. The company is 4 years old, and in 2012, now headed by Sam's brother Rob and his 70-person team, will educate over 5,000 students throughout South Africa. With a deep passion for disruption, Sam now heads up GetSmarter's Incubator which amongst other things has initiated projects in mobile maths education, worksheet and lesson plan sharing, a web-based teaching platform and delivery models for online education in township conditions.

GetSmarter