20 outstanding individuals chosen for three-year fellowship

NEW YORK, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Organizers of the TED Conference today announced the inaugural class of TED Senior Fellows.

The TED Senior Fellows program is an extended, three-year fellowship awarded to 20 individuals from the disciplines of arts, science, entrepreneurship, the NGO sector and education. Senior Fellows are selected from the previous year's class of TED Fellows. Over the course of their Senior Fellowships, the Senior Fellows will work on projects within their individual disciplines.

Benefits to the Senior Fellows include attending five additional TED conferences (TED and TEDGlobal), participating in five Senior Fellows pre-conferences, the potential to deliver a full-length talk on the TED University or main TED stage, and the possibility to have that talk posted on TED.com.

The Senior Fellows' responsibilities include mentoring the newer Fellows, holding a TEDx event in their communities, posting on the TED Fellows blog, and year-round participation in the TED community.

"Of the 65 outstanding Fellows that joined us at TED and TEDGlobal this past year, we are thrilled to welcome 20 into the Senior Fellows program," says Tom Rielly, TED Fellows Director. "This group is especially important to us, as they pioneered the Fellows program. We look forward to helping them grow as leaders, and to assisting them to further their important work."

Meet the 2010 TED Senior Fellows:

Taghi Amirani (Iran/UK) - Documentary filmmaker, Amirani Films

Rachel Armstrong (UK) - Teaching fellow, The Bartlett School of Architecture; physician; science-fiction author

Frederick Balagadde (Uganda/US) - Research scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; co-inventor of the microchemostat, a medical diagnostic chip

April Karen Baptiste (Trinidad) - Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Colgate University

Faisal Chohan (Pakistan) - CEO, Cogilent Solutions; founder, Brightspyre, Pakistan's largest online job portal

Colleen Flanigan (US) - Fine artist; stop-motion armaturist, coral reef restoration expert

Gabriella Gomez-Mont (Mexico) - Founder, Toxico Cultura, a Mexico City-based artistic think tank

Jonathan Gosier (US/Uganda) - Founder, Appfrica, a business incubator in Kampala

Peter Haas (US/Haiti/Guatemala) - Founder, Appropriate Infrastructure

Development Group (AIDG)

Erik Hersman (Kenya) - Co-founder, Ushahidi.com; blogger, AfriGadget and White African

Adrian Hong (US/North Korea/South Korea) - Director, The Pegasus Project; former director, Liberty in North Korea

Juliette LaMontagne (US) - Education consultant; innovation facilitator

Alexander MacDonald (US) - Economist, NASA Ames Research Center

Juliana Machado-Ferreira (Brazil) - Biologist, SOS FAUNA; PhD candidate, Sao Paulo University

VK Madhavan (India) - Executive Director, Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (Chirag)

Naomi Natale (Italy/US) - Founder, One Million Bones, a large-scale social activism art installation

Bola Olabisi (Nigeria/UK) - Founder, Global Women Inventors and Innovators

Network (GWIIN)

Alexander Petroff (US/Democratic Republic of the Congo) - Founder, Working Villages International

Juliana Rotich (Kenya/US) - Co-founder, Ushahidi.com; blogger, Afromusing and Global Voices

Mohammad Tauheed (Bangladesh) - Architect; founder, ArchSociety

To learn more about the 2010 Senior Fellows, please visit www.ted.com/fellows.

About the TED Fellows Program:

The TED Fellows program seeks individuals 21-40 years old (although anyone 18-20 and 41 and over can apply) who have demonstrated remarkable achievement in their fields of endeavor. The program will be accepting fellowship applications on Jan. 11, 2010, for the TEDGlobal 2010 Conference, "And Now the Good News," to be held July 13 - 16, 2010, in Oxford, UK. The program focuses on candidates from five regions: Asia/Pacific, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East. The TED Fellows program is made possible by the visionary support of the Bezos family, Sherpalo Ventures, the Harnisch Foundation, the Case Foundation, Google.org, Nokia and private donors.

Details on each Fellow and the program are available at TED.com/fellows. To support the program, or to request more information, contact Logan McClure at +1 212.346.9333 or at fellows@ted.com. Follow the TED Fellows blog at tedfellows.posterous.com.

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 UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place in Long Beach, California; TEDGlobal is held each year in Oxford, UK. 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 three exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action, and TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world. Follow TED on Twitter, twitter.com/tedtalks, or on Facebook, www.facebook.com/TED

TED2010, "What the World Needs Now," will be held Feb. 9-13, 2010, in Long Beach, California, along with TEDActive, a simulcast conference of TED2010, in Palm Springs, California. TEDGlobal 2010, "And Now the Good News," will be held July 13-16, 2010, in Oxford, UK

SOURCE TED Conferences

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