TEDxJohannesburg Salon: The Care Economy

Early learning systems leader expanding access through collaboration and innovation | Grace Matlhape is CEO of SmartStart, a South African social franchise expanding access to quality early learning in underserved communities. When growth failed to reach enough children in the lowest income areas, SmartStart rethought its model, worked with other organisations as co-creators, and helped shape policy around the realities of local early learning programmes. Her work explores what changes when organisations measure success by reducing the size of a problem. This approach connects organisational strategy with collaboration and community needs, asking whether expanding a programme closes the gap in access for the children who are most likely to be excluded.

Professional executive, grief and palliative coach, advocate for humanity in healthcare | Melissa Williams-Platt is co-founder and trustee of The Footprints 4 Sam Trust, established in memory of her son Samuel. She holds a postgraduate diploma in palliative medicine and works across family-centred paediatric care, advocacy and support for healthcare professionals, as well as corporate wellness. Through Footprints 4 Sam, she runs support initiatives for children with serious illness, their families and the health professionals that support them. Her work has brought the human heart and family’s perspective into healthcare conversations, recognising the emotional and practical demands that accompany a child’s illness on both sides of the stethoscope. She focuses on how families and healthcare professionals can be supported, shifting medicine to be more compassionate, responsive and grounded.

Futurist, foresight strategist, speculative designer and founder of Protopia Futures | Monika Bielskyte is a foresight strategist, speculative designer and founder of Protopia Futures. Nike appointed her its first Futurist in Residence; she is an EY Luminary and Futurist Advisor to Climate Spring and the Inclusive AI Lab. She developed the Protopia World Stack, a science-informed methodology integrating Protopia Futures, Embodied Futures and Storyworld Design. Her expertise spans AI, spatial computing, XR, synthetic media, biological and cognitive frontiers, and the feedback loop between science fiction and technological development. Clients include Google, Microsoft, Nike, L’Oréal, BBC and Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther; she has lectured at CERN, the Royal Society and Rockefeller University.

Medical doctor, public hospital leader, patient advocate and healthcare lecturer | Dr Nthabiseng Makgana is a medical doctor and transformational healthcare leader with close to a decade of leadership experience. She serves as CEO of Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, the largest hospital in Africa and the third largest in the world. A strong systems leader and committed patient advocate, she drives organisational change through strategic oversight, accountability and patient-centred care. She holds an MBA in Healthcare Management and has been appointed as a Lecturer in Healthcare Leadership at Wits Business School, shaping future

Designer, strategist and futures researcher working across culture and social systems | Pumla Maswanganyi is a designer, strategist, researcher and speaker working at the intersection of design, culture, foresight and social systems. She is founding director of with another and primary author of the collaboratively developed African Life-Centric Design framework. Her work connects cultural knowledge, lived experience and imagination to shape products, services and systems, with attention to interdependence and whose perspectives inform design. She explores how African knowledge and practices can guide the futures we build, bringing overlooked relationships, responsibilities and aspirations into the process. Her approach asks how design can respond to the communities and environments that sustain everyday life.

Medical doctor and primary healthcare entrepreneur working across provider networks | Dr. Reinder Nauta is a medical doctor, co-founder and executive chairman of National Health Care Group. He previously founded CareCross Health and has worked across primary healthcare, managed care and provider networks in South Africa. His experience centres on the business models and relationships that shape access to everyday healthcare. His work offers a perspective on how services are organised, funded and delivered, and how those choices affect patients and healthcare professionals. At the intersection of medicine and enterprise, he brings practical experience to questions about affordability, continuity and the conditions needed to make primary healthcare accessible and financially sustainable.

Feminist economist, public finance researcher, specialist in gender-responsive budgeting | Thoko Madonko is Senior Project Lead at Ilifa Labantwana, having previously managed Wits’s Public Economy Project. Her work spans health financing, gender-responsive budgeting and fiscal accountability. Through research and public education, she examines how spending decisions affect public services and the unpaid care work households absorb. Her perspective connects the choices made in budgets with their consequences in everyday life, particularly for those who provide care. She brings attention to how public resources are allocated, whose needs allocations reflect, and what happens when families must compensate for gaps in provision, making care a question of economic policy and public responsibility.

Singer-songwriter, guitarist and composer working across music, film and theatre | Kozo Zwane is a Johannesburg-based singer-songwriter, guitarist and composer whose music draws on folk traditions, South African jazz and AmaZioni influences. Grounded in prayer, his sound combines poetic storytelling, layered vocals and guitar, exploring spirituality, love, longing and hope. His practice extends beyond live performance into film scores, theatre and fashion, including work for TheatreDuo and a showcase at SA Fashion Week. He has performed alongside Muneyi and Kujenga, collaborated with vocal ensemble Buyambo, and opened for Alice Phoebe Lou at the Baxter Theatre. His performances invite attentive listening and shared song, making space for vulnerability, reflection and human connection.