TEDxJohannesburg

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Charles Mpofu

  National Geographic Explorer Charles Mpofu follows the wattled crane, one of Africa’s most endangered bird species, as a sentinel for ecosystem health. His work highlights how protecting wetlands and waterways is critical not just for biodiversity, but for human survival in a changing climate.

• Clyde Mallinson

  Clyde Mallinson is an energy systems modeller who uses data to map South Africa’s path from coal to renewables. Known for his clarity and precision, he makes complex scenarios accessible, showing how the country can secure a just and sustainable energy transition.

• Crispian Olver

  As Deputy Chairperson of the Presidential Climate Commission, and its former Executive Director, Crispian Olver has been at the centre of South Africa’s just transition. He works across government, business, labour, and civil society to align climate policy with urgent action, making sure the path to net zero is both ambitious and inclusive.

• Gamuchirai Mutezo

  Founder of Madam Waste, Gamuchirai Mutezo is pioneering circular-economy solutions that turn organic waste into decentralised energy. Her work demonstrates how African cities can reduce emissions, cut landfill, and build resilience through innovation.

• Itai Hakim

  Itai Hakim is a multifaceted musician and performance poet whose work reshapes folklore into a contemporary, socially resonant art form. Grounded in the languages and sonic traditions of Tshivenda and Xitsonga, he combines refined finger-style guitar, traditional folk plucking, and the improvisatory edges of Afro-blues and indie jazz to craft a distinctive “folk-soul” sound. Through his art, Hakim explores sound as both a social infrastructure and a spiritual technology - an embodied practice of listening that reimagines what collective healing can sound like.

• Jen van den Bussche

  As director of Sticky Situations, Jen van den Bussche works to improve water and sanitation services in high-density urban areas. Her projects combine technical solutions with community engagement, ensuring that access to clean water is treated as a matter of dignity and justice.

• Johan Thom

  South African artist Johan Thom works across performance, video, and installation to probe the human condition in a changing world. As curator of the forthcoming Soil and Water exhibition at NIROX, he brings artists together to engage with ecology, resilience, and our shared climate future.

• Leanne Emery-Hunter

  As Chief Executive Officer at Tshikululu Social Investments, Leanne Emery-Hunter helps channel corporate and philanthropic capital into projects that tackle climate change and inequality. She focuses on building resilient communities, proving that smart investment can drive both social and environmental transformation.

• Leonie Joubert

  Science writer Leonie Joubert has spent years documenting the human side of the climate crisis. Her work gives voice to those on the frontline of drought, flood, and food insecurity, transforming abstract data into urgent, personal stories of survival.

• Nokulinda Mkhize

  Cultural and indigenous knowledge educator, sangoma, and writer Nokulinda Mkhize draws on Africa’s ancestral intelligence systems to rethink how we live with the earth. She illuminates how age-old practices of respect, reciprocity, and balance can strengthen climate resilience today.

• Oupa Sibeko

  Oupa Sibeko is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar whose work bridges performance, ritual, and African Indigenous Knowledge to confront the spiritual and ecological legacies of colonialism. Through projects like Black is Blue, he turns play and embodied storytelling into tools for climate justice — transforming art into an act of repair, remembrance, and resistance.

• Sifiso Gumbi

  Sifiso Gumbi started his journey as a waste picker on Johannesburg’s streets. Today, as co-founder of Urban Surfer, he brings a grassroots perspective to the circular economy, showing how waste can be reimagined as a resource in the fight against climate change

• Steve Carver

  As co-founder of U Can Grow Africa, Steve Carver champions regenerative farming practices that help communities adapt to climate shocks. By combining traditional knowledge with modern techniques, he is helping farmers build resilience from the soil up.

• Taylen Reddy

  As founder of Zero Waste Durban, Taylen Reddy mobilises young people to confront plastic pollution, waste colonialism, and urban inequality. His activism makes the fight for clean cities and healthy ecosystems inseparable from the struggle for justice. As the Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Convenor for Climate Youth Resilience, he works to decolonise mindfulness spaces, helping young climate activists reclaim, reconnect with, and remember contemplative practice as a pathway to disrupting and transforming the systems that shape their lives and environments.

• Tebogo Makhubela

  Climate resilience is written in stone. What geological time and human evolution reveal about surviving climate change—if we choose to listen | Climate resilience is written into stone. Deep underground, geological time preserves the story of human evolution, extinction, and survival. In the Cradle of Humankind, rocks record how climates shifted, rivers vanished, and species either adapted or disappeared. Geologist and National Geographic Explorer Tebogo Makhubela reveals how ancient evidence—from cave sediments to Homo naledi—shows that survival has never meant conquering nature, but listening to it. These deep-time lessons challenge modern ideas of progress, justice, and ownership, urging us to think beyond our lifetimes. The Earth has already survived radical change. Our future depends on whether we learn how.

• Viaksha Mohabir

  Viaksha Mohabir is an Energy Advisor at the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), working across energy and climate-related topics in South Africa. Her work bridges local realities with international frameworks, ensuring that African perspectives are reflected in shaping a just and sustainable global energy future.