In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Luzira Maximum Security Prison
Luzira
Kampala, Kampala, 10000
Uganda

Adam Foss

District Attorney

By shifting his focus from incarceration to transforming lives, Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Adam Foss is reinventing the role of the criminal prosecutor and has become one of Boston’s leading voices for compassion in criminal justice. Recognizing that prosecutors have a unique opportunity to intervene in offender's lives, Foss co-founded the Roxbury CHOICE Program, a collaborative effort between defendants, the court, the probation department, and the D.A. to recast probation as a transformative experience rather than a punitive process.

Agnes Igoye

Human Trafficking Fighter

Agnes was 14 when she first came face to face with a human trafficker. The Lord’s resistance Army (LRA) raided her home in rural eastern Uganda. Ruthless, they demanded virgins and young girls. In a horrifying escape, she endured a treacherous long journey that ended in an internally displaced people’s camp. That experience gave Agnes determination to pursue an education and career to counter human trafficking. She studied forced migration at Oxford, counter trafficking as a Fulbright Hubert Humphrey fellow at University of Minnesota and MPA at Harvard Kennedy school. Agnes has built a rehabilitation center for survivors of human trafficking in Uganda, serves as Uganda’s Deputy National Coordinator for Prevention of Trafficking in Persons and heads Uganda Immigration Training Academy.

Jason Flom

Music Industry Executive

Jason Flom is the Founder and CEO of Lava Records and Lava Music Publishing. Flom previously served as Chairman and CEO at Atlantic Records, Virgin Records, and Capitol Music Group and is personally responsible for discovering superstars such as Katy Perry, Lorde, and Kid Rock. He is the founding board member of the Innocence Project and serves on the boards of several other criminal justice reform organizations including Families Against Mandatory Minimums, The Drug Policy Alliance, The Anti-Recidivism Coalition and NYU Prison Education Program. Jason Flom is the host of the hit podcast, Wrongful Conviction, which features interviews with men and women who have spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit.

Nighat Dad

Lawyer and Activist

Nighat Dad is a Pakistani lawyer and internet activist who runs the not-for-profit organisation Digital Rights Foundation. Dad has led campaigns to protect online freedom of speech in Pakistan as well as campaigns against legislation that gives the government broad powers of surveillance online, most notable one is the controversial Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2015.

Pascal Kakuru

Inmate

Pascal Kakuru remains in Luzira Upper Prison – Uganda’s only maximum security facility – and is due for release in 2019. Pascal’s commitment and hard work identified him as an ideal candidate for the University of London’s (UoL) International Programme. He became the African Prison Project’s (APP) first student to receive a Law Degree from UoL in September 2017. Pascal now supports others as a Graduate Assistant to the prison-based APP Law Degree Tutors as well as becoming Editor of the prison Law Journal.

Shane Taylor

Former Inmate

Shane Taylor was once one of the top six most dangerous inmates in Britain, until a rare trip out of his cell to the prison chaplaincy led him to turn his life around. Taylor found himself attending a prison Alpha course where he discovered and encountered God. Now a free man and a married dad-of-five, Taylor visits the institutions which held him, giving support to convicts and ex-offenders through the running of Alpha courses.

Susan Kigula

Death Penalty Fighter

Susan Kigula entered Luzira Women’s Prison at the age of 21, in 2000. After participating in African Prison Project’s (APP) Leadership Programme she took the opportunity to study Law, via the University of London (UoL) International Programme. Susan was the first female inmate to study and graduate with a Diploma in Common Law, followed by a Law Degree (LLB). In 2009 she led a death penalty petition, in the Ugandan Constitutional Court, with 417 other death row inmates, challenging mandatory death sentences, and as a result, mandatory death sentences were abolished in Uganda. Susan was released in 2016 and now works with APP as an ambassador.