Heidi Forbes Öste is a Social Strategy Advisor and Trainer, and author of The Art of Social Strategy.  She has 20+ years’ experience consulting in both the public and private sectors on strategic use of new technologies, education technology, international marketing strategy, knowledge management and community building.

She is a  social entrepreneur with a passion for connecting people globally, and for building and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships.

Öste’s client list extends from global corporations in various industries to global humanitarian organizations and networks. She is one of the founding members of BOOST (Bolder Organizations Optimize Social Strategies).  

She actively lectures at Universities, runs workshops for women business owners in developing markets and advises leaders and corporations in the art of social strategy and social media strategy.  She provides keynotes at global conferences on how to use the new social tools more effectively and strategically, as well as the benefits of knowledge sharing.

Chrissie Lightfoot is a ‘prominent legal figure’ and a Top Ten Legal Tweeter (The Times). She is an entrepreneur turned solicitor (non-practising) turned entrepreneur and CEO of EntrepreneurLawyer Limited – a company which helps lawyers and entrepreneurs come together in a positive way.

She is a published author, a national award and prize winning researcher, a women’s enterprise ambassador, a mentor on behalf of The Prince's Trust Million Makers Corporate Challenge and ultimately a marketing, personal brand and sales educator helping entrepreneurs and lawyers of today become entrepreneurs and lawyers of tomorrow, today.

Chrissie is the author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU!

She has 20 years of business experience (including founder of her own companies) in the leisure, new media, management consulting and legal industries.

Susan notes: Sarah Kay is one of 15 amazing women on stage at #TED2011. We're working hard to get TED to work harder on gender parity. ADD YOUR VOICE HERE.

Sarah Kay (born June 19, 1988) is an American poet who grew up in New York City and began performing her poetry when she was only fourteen years old.

Even though she was often the youngest poet by a decade, Sarah made herself at home at the Bowery Poetry Club, one of New York's most famous Spoken Word venues.

In 2006, she joined the Bowery Poetry Club's Poetry Slam Team, NYC Urbana, and competed in the 2006 National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas.  That year, she was the youngest poet competing at Nationals.

Sarah was featured on the sixth season of the television series Russell Simmons presents HBO Def Poetry Jam, where she performed her poem "Hands."

Susan notes: Maya Beiser is one of 15 amazing women on stage at #TED2011. We're working hard to get TED to work harder on gender parity. ADD YOUR VOICE HERE.

Described by the The New Yorker as a “cello goddess” and by the Washington Post as “the diva of the cello,” Maya Beiser has captivated audiences worldwide with her virtuosity, eclectic repertoire, and relentless quest to redefine her instrument’s boundaries.

Over the past decade, she has created new repertoire for the cello, commissioning and performing many works written for her by today’s leading composers.

She has collaborated with composers Tan Dun, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen and Mark O’Connor among many others.

Maya is a featured performer on the world’s most prestigious stages, having appeared as soloist at the Sydney Opera House, New York City’s Lincoln Center, London’s Barbican and the World Expo in Nagoya, Japan.

Susan notes: Kathryn Shulz is one of 15 amazing women on stage at #TED2011. We're working hard to get TED to work harder on gender parity. ADD YOUR VOICE HERE.

Kathryn Schulz is a journalist, author, and public speaker with a credible (if not necessarily enviable) claim to being the world's leading wrongologist.

Her freelance writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, the Boston Globe, the "Freakonomics" blog of The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and the New York Times Book Review, among other publications.

She is the former editor of the online environmental magazine Grist, and a former reporter and editor for The Santiago Times, of Santiago, Chile, where she covered environmental, labor, and human rights issues.

She was a 2004 recipient of the Pew Fellowship in International Journalism (now the International Reporting Project), and has reported from throughout Central and South America, Japan, and, most recently, the Middle East.