Ofentse Percy Mohloke

Activist, Designer, Filmmaker, Social entrepreneur, Writer/Editor

I spend an unhealthy amount of time asking questions that don't have easy answers. I'm fascinated by the conversations societies postpone, the assumptions we quietly inherit, and the uncomfortable truths that sit in plain sight until someone decides to name them. At university, that curiosity has taken me into science, technology, education, philosophy, design and public speaking. Outside the classroom, it has led me to build projects, organisations and communities centred around one belief: ideas deserve places where they can be challenged before they are accepted.

I'm endlessly curious about how people think. Not necessarily what they believe. But how they arrived there. I'm drawn to the intersection of psychology, education, philosophy, technology and design because they're all trying to answer the same question from different directions: Why do humans think the way they do? I love designing experiences that make people pause for a second longer than they expected. Sometimes that's a conversation. Sometimes it's a stage. Sometimes it's a single sentence on a black screen.

We often think progress comes from finding better answers. I think it comes from asking better questions. History rarely changes because someone had all the answers. It changes because someone was willing to ask the question everyone else had quietly agreed not to ask. Every generation inherits its own elephant in the room. Some ignore it. Some walk around it. A few choose to name it. Those are usually the people who change everything.

Business Analysis, Computer Science, Education, Mental Health, Youth Empowerment

Long before I organised a TEDx independent event, I was the person who watched TED Talks at 2 a.m. because one video somehow became twelve. I loved that complete strangers could spend eighteen minutes changing the way I saw the world. Eventually I realised something. TED is not really about speaking. It's about curiosity. It's about creating the kind of room where changing your mind is celebrated rather than feared. Leading TEDxUCT is my way of building more of those rooms.

Finding patterns in people. I love noticing connections between completely unrelated ideas, disciplines and conversations. A philosophy book reminds me of an algorithm. A psychology lecture becomes a branding concept. A scientific paper becomes a TED Talk. I think creativity isn't about having more ideas than everyone else. It's about seeing relationships that everyone else walked past