TED is pleased to introduce our first group of 40 remarkable individuals joining us at TED2009 in Long Beach. You'll find artists, musicians, scientists, designers, inventors, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, writers, actors, NGO heads, activists, students, educators, architects and researchers. Click on each person's name to learn more about them, their work, and their Ideas Worth Spreading. Adrian Hong: Director of The Pegasus Project; founder and former Executive Director of Liberty in North Korea. Korea/U.S. Alexander MacDonald: NASA economist; Ph.D. student, Oxford. U.S./U.K./Canada Ana Gabela: Ornithologist studying human impacts on Galapagos; Avian Disease Coordinator, state of Hawaii. Galapagos/U.S. Andriankoto Ratozamanana: Cofounder of MEGASEEDS; reforestation activist. Madagascar Awa Marie Coll-Seck: Executive Director of Roll Back Malaria Partnership; former Health Minister of Senegal. Senegal Bola Olabisi: Founder of Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network; Nigeria/U.K. Bright Simons: Cofounder of mPedigree -- anti-pharmaceutical fraud technology solutions for Africa and India; Development analyst with multi-award winning think-tank. Ghana Colleen Flanigan: Fine artist -- metals sculptor who applied metallurgy techniques to coral reef reconstruction; armaturist for Henry Selick's 3D stop-motion feature film Coraline. U.S. Daniela Candillari: Pianist; Fulbright Scholar. Slovenia/U.S. Darius Weems: Duchene Muscular Dystrophy activist; subject of Logan Smalley's documentary Darius Goes West; rapper. U.S. Erik Hersman: Cofounder of Ushahidi.com -- a site providing online visualization of conflict areas; blogger for Afrigadget.com and White African; organizer, Maker Faire Africa. Kenya/ U.S. Esther K. Chae: Actor/playwright -- her one-woman show explores a North Korean spy and the attempts to unmask her; Yale Drama alum. U.S./Korea Faisal Chohan: Co-Founder of BrightSpyre.com -- leading jobs portal in Pakistan today that has set the foundation of internet business in Pakistan. Pakistan Gerry Douglas: Founder of Baobab Health -- an NGO creating eHealth systems to address health care crises in the developing world with particular emphasis on HIV care and treatment. Malawi/U.S. Jane Nordli: Musician; educator. U.S. Jen Brea: Writer and blogger; Ph.D. student at Harvard; writing a book on Chinese migrants in Africa and African migrants in China. U.S. Joshua Wanyama: Founder of Pamoja Media -- the first African online advertising network; founder of African Path -- an African Huffington Post. Kenya/U.S. Joy Sun: Global health activist; student, Stanford Business School. U.S. Juliana Machado Ferreira: Conservation geneticist using genetic markers to track and interdict illegal songbird trafficking; setting up Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in Brazil. Brazil Juliana Rotich: Cofounder of Ushahidi.com -- a site providing online visualization of conflict areas; blogger, Environmental Editor of GlobalVoices. Kenya/U.S. Juliette Lamontagne: Educator; Founder of youth art activism program; Curriculum consultant for innovation and school reform. U.S. Katrin Verclas: Mobile trends analyst and founder of Mobileactive.org -- a global network of people using mobile technology for social impact. U.S. Karen Baptiste: Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow researching the intersection between environmental psychology, environmental justice, and resource management; Fulbright Scholar. Trinidad/U.S. Kyra Gaunt: Ethnomusicologist; vocalist; author of The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-hop (2006). U.S. Logan Smalley: Duchene Muscular Dystrophy Advocate; documentary filmmaker, Darius Goes West. U.S.
Lucas Welch: Founder of Soliya -- an NGO promoting understanding between young leaders in the U.S. and the Muslim world. U.S. Mohammad Tauheed: Architect; Founder of ArchSociety.com -- an online community for architects. Bangladesh Oliver Hess: Codirector Materials and Applications, principal infranatural; creator of interactive public art projects and social/spatial experimentss. U.S. Patrick Awuah: Founder and President of Ashesi University. Ghana Philip Niles: MD/MBA student; AIDS activist with Volunteer Kenya; Consultant for the Flying Eye Hospital in Myanmar, Philippines, and Vietnam. U.S. Pragnya Alekal: Activist, environmental engineer; former X-Prize consultant for the developing world. India/U.S. Rommel Feria: Educator; Java, Mac and open source activist. Philippines Rye Barcott: Marine Corps Captain; Founder of Carolina for Kibera; Student, Harvard Busines School/Harvard Kennedy School. Kenya/U.S. Sara Mayhew: Mangaka (manga artist). Canada Sean Gourley: Physicist/military theorist; Rhodes Scholar. New Zealand Sheila Ochugboju: Operational Director of Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network; science educator. Nigeria/U.K. Sophal Ear: National Security professor, Naval Postgraduate School; Cambodia Scholar -his family escapted the Khmer Rouge and survived when his mother posed as Vietnamese, a story she recounted to him for the New York Times. U.S./Cambodia Taghi Amirani: Iranian physicist turned documentary filmmaker, has filmed the Taliban and NASA scientists; his most recent film, Red Lines and Deadlines, profiles Iran's reformist journalists for PBS. Iran/U.K. Tin Ho Chow: Design student, RISD; former Singaporean military officer; founder of a national humanitarian design conference. Singapore/U.S. Yatin Sethi: Design researcher for Ashoka-Youth Venture; Cofounder of Pankhudi Foundation which aims to benefit underprivileged children in India. India/U.S.