Accredited TEDx Coaches

Rufaro Nyamuda

TEDx CapeTown 2019 The biggest untapped healthcare delivery system

Dr Rufaro Nyamuda wanted to share a powerful technology with her audience, but simply explaining it to them would not have created the desired impact.

The need to be audacious to tell a really important story

The true potency of this technology was made tangible by telling a story, bringing the application of the technology to life. To enhance the impact even further, a final touch was to add an audacious but fitting title. This captivated attention and piqued curiosity, ensuring that more viewers would be likely to watch Dr Nyamada’s brilliant presentation on the TEDx platform after the talk..

We thoroughly enjoyed working with this exceptionally talented and innovative young changemaker who is destined to continue her journey making the world a better and brighter place.

Ndoni Mcunu

TEDx CapeTown 2018 – What does it mean for society when women walk away from science?

Ndoni Mcuni is a powerhouse! A young black scientist who cares deeply about other women like her succeeding in this field. She formed an NPO, Black Women in Science, and in her talk posed the question, Why are black women not succeeding in this field of academia?

Breaking away from the anticipated narrative in order to blow your audience away

As so many women know, a challenge when we engage around topics of feminism and women’s rights can immediately cause disconnect with certain audience members. We assisted Ndoni by adding some extra touches to ensure that her very important message was listened to heard by everyone.

By beginning the talk with referencing unknown facts, as well as incorporating story telling elements and personal experiences, Ndoni succeeded in delivering a talk that ensured audience members were utterly captivated, hanging on her every word.

Tavonga Chauke

TEDxYouth 2017 – Culture, I respect you. Please respect me.

Tavonga is a young African feminist who wanted to share her profound insights into what it means to be a young African woman in the modern world, and wanted to speak to the challenges of balancing her lived experience with traditional African family and cultural values.

The art of deconstruction and stagecraft to make your message tangible

The design process involves an aspect of deconstruction, and we assisted Tavonga to shed some of her content as her exuberant enthusiasm regarding this topic meant the presentation would have contained too many ideas to encapsulate and add value to her core message.

We assisted Tavonga to make her abstract ideas tangible for her audience by referencing personal experience through story telling and examples. The final touches were applied by adding some stagecraft with the use of movement to demonstrate the contrasts when referenced.

The result? A truly inspirational delivery that connected to her target audience and ‘moved hearts and minds’.

Gill Grose

TEDxCapeTown 2019 – For the love of books

Gill is a volunteer librarian at an underprivileged primary school in Cape Town. Terrified as she was of public speaking, she felt compelled to share her experiences of using “couch surfers” to grow the library’s collection. Couch surfing refers to a community of travellers, who connect with hosts all over the world who offer them a free bed (or a couch!) for a few nights, in exchange for the enriching experience of meeting an international traveller.  Traditionally these travellers bring gifts from their countries to thank their hosts.

From stage fright to standing ovation

Faced with a school of poorly performing readers and no budget for books, Gill asked for her travellers to bring books instead. Within a few years, the learners in her school transformed from underperformers in reading assessments to being some of the top scorers in the country!

Gill’s main problem was incredible speech anxiety.  To assist her, we used visualisation tactics and power poses in addition to ensuring her talk had a clear structure so that she could easily regain her control if she accidently lost her place. Yes you can overcome speech anxiety and Gill held her own on one of the most challenging platforms for a public speaker, receiving a standing ovation to our delight!

Ronak Gopaldas

TEDx Cape Town 2016 –  Embracing Africa – Beyond the Binaries

At the time of this talk, Ronak Gopaldas was the acting Head of Country Risk at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) in Johannesburg, He managed a team of analysts who provide the firm with in-depth analysis of economic, political, security and operational dynamics across sub-Saharan Africa. Ronak is a regular commentator in the local and international press, and came to us with a vast amount of media experience.

The art of bringing your authentic self to the platform

Ronak’s experience did not however translate to “public speaking” experience, and although Ronak was superbly confident to engage a media interview, standing on a platform delivering a speech in front of a TEDx audience was a new experience.
We worked with Ronak to help him discover his unique public speaking style which to our delight emerged as highly animated and passionate with strong body language and vocal variety. This contrasted strongly with what we had witnessed in his television interviews to date.

We also spent time assisting Ronak to articulate his great idea worth sharing, and the end result was a masterful presentation sharing Ronak’s unique insights into economics of the African continent based on his extensive travels which only someone of his vast experience could have captured so eloquently.

Tate Mhunduru

TEDx Cape Town 2016 –  Telling stories in order to confront personal challenges

This exceptionally talented young man had such a wonderful story to tell. But standing in one spot telling it just wasn’t good enough.   Tate is a school teacher who teaches mathematics, but out of huge empathy for his students spotted an opportunity to bring maths to life with the innovative and fun use of music to teach his students, making particular use of a piano.

The power of the demonstration in motion

As it was a bit cumbersome to carry a piano on stage, we got Tate to bring his guitar instead, and the variety and motion made his presentation as colourful and fascinating as his topic, assisting him to captivate his audience and deliver his message with finesse!

Caitlyn Roux

TEDxYouth@CapeTown 2016 – Self-Love, be Intentional

Caitlyn Roux is a young student who wanted convey the importance of practicing self-love and acceptance. All too often we put ourselves second, when in fact we need to start with loving ourselves before we have enough to give to others.

Don’t let anything stop you from delivering a powerful presentation

Caitlyn was only in her early 20s and had never spoken in front of a large group of people before. As an inexperienced speaker, we coached Caitlyn to overcome her speech anxiety to engage with confidence whilst perfecting the technical aspects of her delivery using paralinguistics.  Caitlyn had a potent message to share, and with some final touches to assist her to craft her story she proved to the audience that you are never to young to deliver a truly powerful presentation!

Hanelle Fourie

TEDx CapeTown 2016 – Sign language dictionary for the deaf

Hanelle is a speaker who required little assistance from us. As an experienced speaker in the field of lexicography her confidence was superb and her natural speaking style was fantastic!

How a powerful analogy can add incredible colour to a presentation

The only thing that was missing was an interesting hook to add extra meaning to help her audience understand her content.  Our suggestion was to add an analogy, and Hannelle came up with a fabulous inclusion using a dolphin.  We won’t tell you more, but we suggest you watch the really professional and superb delivery that Hanelle delivered flawlessly!

Gabriella Geffen

TEDxCapeTown 2016 – If Our Deepest Drives Shape the World – How do we Reshape it?

Daughter of property magnet Lew Geffen, accomplished writer Gabriella Geffen began her journey with an intention to express her reflections in order to really connect with people in a deeper way.  She had many ideas about thoughts she wished to share, but needed assistance to fine tune ‘her great idea worth sharing’.

Refining a message to move an audience

Gabi was excited about the way her talk related to the theme of the 2016 event, “Here to listen”, but was initially unsure what path to take. With only 10 minutes allocated for her talk, she needed to be clear on her message and get it across as effectively as possible.  With a little guidance to assist her to articulate her message for the world, her talk went from being an unformed idea, to the opening talk of the event!

The Dagga Couple

TEDx CapeTown 2015 Ordinary Criminals

In our most controversial TEDx talk, we assisted two of South Africa’s top cannabis activists Jules Stobbs and Myrtle Clarke. The couple intended to educate their audience regarding the origins of cannabis prohibition as a legacy of an outdated apartheid law originating in South Africa.

The challenging skill of sharing the stage with a partner

As two experienced speakers accustomed to speaking as a couple, over the years Jules and Myrtle had developed some bad habits, with Jules overshadowing the more timid Myrtle who preferred to hide behind her notes whilst Jules dominated centre stage.

Our work involved helping Myrtle find her confidence and to balance the speaker relationship so that the interaction on stage became a natural relationship where the two speakers started to engage and have fun with one another. We are really proud of the transformation that took place.

In loving memory of Jules Stobbs who was tragically murdered on the 3rd of July 2020.