#TEDxCT speaker profile: Hanelle Fourie

1. Give us some background about yourself and your career/initiative?

Fourie: I come from a multilingual background – my mom’s family is German – and have always loved learning and studying languages and how they work. As a lover of languages, I also developed a love of dictionaries early on, and as a child, I’d read dictionaries as if they were novels. After school, I studied languages and linguistics at university, and then did a Master’s degree in hypermedia for language learning (basically designing and developing language learning software for websites), and then did a PhD in lexicography. I have been working for the biggest Afrikaans monolingual comprehensive dictionary, the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (“Dictionary of the Afrikaans Language”) for the past ten years and it is both rewarding and challenging – we get to write up words that appear in no other dictionaries, but sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint the exact meaning(s) of a word.

2. Is this your first TEDx presentation and how are you feeling about it?

Fourie: Yes, it is my first time. Actually, I still can’t believe it’s really happening! I’m very excited and extremely grateful for the opportunity, and of course a bit nervous as well.

3. What is your interpretation of the theme Here/Hear to Listen?

Fourie: Being “here” means being present in the moment, and being open – paying attention – to whatever the moment brings, just as it is, without judging. This is mindfulness, something that has changed my life profoundly. In everyday life, it also means really “hearing” what somebody is communicating, instead of hearing what you think they’re saying. It’s not easy, and it takes a lot of practice, but the whole world will be transformed if we all learned how to do this!

4. How will your presentation relate to the theme?

Fourie: There is a big emphasis on the (audiological or physical) ability to hear, and when it is discovered, often in early childhood, that a person cannot hear, the “medicalised” or pathological point of view is usually prevalent. In other words, the inability to hear is strongly (and often exclusively) presented as something that needs to be “fixed”. I am here to challenge that way of thinking in a big way – we are the ones who have to fix our ways of thinking and doing.

5. What are you looking forward to the most about TEDxCapeTown this year?

Fourie: The sheer energy that can be felt in a room when a bunch of amazing people come together to share their ideas is simply electrifying! I will never cease to be amazed by how truly wonderful the people in this country are (#proudlysouthafrican). Events like this bring people together by sharing dreams, inspiration and creativity, which is something that our country is in great need of. We already have it, we just have to access it!

TEDxCapeTown 2016: Tech-enabled to go green and enhance audience experience

For the first time since 2011, TEDxCapeTown is committed to a more tech-enabled team and delivery of the event. Audience members can expect to experience a web-enabled application, implemented by Accenture South Africa, allowing them to view the programme of the day, listed speakers and their bios and directly engage via the TEDxCapeTown social channels in-app.

For the second consecutive year, Accenture South Africa has decided to partner with the largest TEDx event on the African continent, to demonstrate and share contributions to innovation. Accenture strongly identifies with the ethos of TEDx which exists to discuss ideas worth spreading.

“Accenture and TEDx believe passionately in the power of innovation to change attitudes, perceptions and behaviours. In South Africa, Accenture remains committed to playing a strategic role in supporting our clients and helping to drive sustainable economic growth,” says Suren Govender, managing director of Accenture Analytics, part of Accenture Digital. “Our focus at TEDx this year really is to listen to the ideas local TEDx folks have and assist by translating these ideas – from strategy to outcome – into meaningful and actionable results that could contribute to job creation and growing the economy.”