Talk

TED Fellows

Tom Rielly

TEDxSydney 2015 · 21 May 2015

As TED’s Fellows Director, Tom created and runs the international TED Fellows program, with 378 Fellows from 86 countries among other responsibilities. He is TED’s resident satirist, a role he’s played for many years. Rielly found his career passion in personal computing. He recognized early the incredible power of Macs and the Web, co-founding Yale’s Macintosh User Group in 1984, then working at SuperMac, Farallon and Voyager. Rielly is perhaps best known for being founder and CEO of PlanetOut, which was the largest digital home for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. He also co-founded the influential nonprofit Digital Queers. At TEDGlobal 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania, Tom met our youngest TED Fellow, Malawian windmill inventor William Kamkwamba, whom he’s subsequented mentored for the last 8 years. Kamkwamba recently graduated from Dartmouth College. With William he founded an NGO, Moving Windmills Project, that works on rural community economic development projects in Malawi.

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