TEDxSydney GIS

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Hayley North

  Dr Hayley North is a leading neuroscientist investigating the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying mental illness, and uncovering the biological foundations of resilience, wellbeing and performance. As a research fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia and conjoint lecturer at University of NSW, her work bridges laboratory discovery with real-world impact. She is the founder of Understand Your Brain (www.understandyourbrain.com.au), where she delivers evidence-based keynotes and workplace programs that translate cutting-edge neuroscience into practical strategies for mental health, wellbeing, burnout prevention and high performance. Her work equips leaders and teams across law, finance, energy, government and education to navigate change, sustain wellbeing and thrive under pressure. A regular guest on Channel 7’s Sunrise and leading podcasts, Hayley is known for transforming complex brain science into clear, compelling insight. She challenges conventional thinking about resilience, reframing adaptability as a biological capacity wired into every human brain.

• Himal Pillay

  Himal Pillay is a speaker, founder and news reviewer known for his work on resilience, performance and leadership. He has delivered research-informed keynotes and workshops to more than 150,000 people globally, exploring how pressure, mindset and behaviour shape decision-making and long-term outcomes. With postgraduate qualifications in psychology, his work focuses on how individuals and teams perform in demanding environments and how psychological insight can be applied in practical, everyday settings. Himal is a regular contributor on live national television through ABC News Breakfast, where he examines major headlines through the lens of psychology and performance. He is the founder of Realign, an organisation dedicated to equipping individuals and teams with the tools and attitudes they need to keep going.

• Jennifer Jefferies

  Jennifer Jefferies is a naturopath, corporate speaker, and best-selling author who’s spent more than three decades helping women ditch burnout, regulate their nervous systems, and reclaim their energy and confidence. Her signature program – the Rise Strong Method – supports women in midlife and elderhood with practical, realistic habits that meet them where they are. She’s also the voice behind The Present Day Wise Woman and Healthy Life Hacks podcasts focused on amplifying the voices of seasoned, fierce, and wise women who refuse to shrink or stay silent, through small shifts that create lasting change, and the co-creator and facilitator of The Wise Woman Way, a community-led program reviving elder wisdom for modern life. Jen is known for cutting through wellness BS with science-backed insights and lived wisdom. Her audiences appreciate her humour, directness, and ability to speak to the real pressures of modern life. Whether she’s on stage, behind a mic, or coaching inside her community, she brings a deep respect for the wisdom women carry – and the power they reclaim when they stop trying to shrink or start over.

• Jessica Irwin

  Jessica Irwin brings a perspective on life that challenges assumptions and redefines possibility. Born with a high level of cerebral palsy, together with an equally high level of self-determination and raw talent, she has excelled in achieving her goal of establishing and operating a commercial business aptly named DARE2BU. Jessica strongly believes in the ability to learn from everyone you meet. Each of us has a unique skill set. ""If you sit down, watch and listen to someone, you will take away something that you might not have gained if you had never met"". Mentored by some of Australia’s leading creatives—including renowned photographer Ken Duncan—Jessica has built a respected career spanning landscape photography, red carpet events such as the ARIA Awards, and collaborations with music legend Steve Balbi. Driven by a passion to perform, Jessica partnered with biomedical engineer Dr Jordan Nguyen and Psykinetic to help develop Atmosphere, Australia’s first eye-controlled musical instrument, enabling her to perform live on stage. What has led from this is the creation of Psykinetic's eye-controlled device which allows people to communicate, perform music, control their home environments via their eye movements! She strongly believes that persistence is the key to achieving the impossible. Through the same relentless persistence, she has also mastered drawing—defying expectations of what her disability should allow. In 2019, Jessica underwent a hip replacement following unforeseen circumstances. During this time, she experienced firsthand the challenges faced by patients who are rendered non-verbal. Motivated to create change, together with Dr Bestic, senior anaesthetist, they deliver lectures to medical students on non-verbal communication in a hospital setting. This has led to numerous keynote presentations and a TEDx Talk, where Jessica continues to challenge perceptions of disability. Jessica lives by her favourite David Bowie quote: “I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.”

• Lorraine Finlay

  Lorraine Finlay is Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, where she works at the intersection of freedom, fairness and the fast‑changing realities shaping people’s lives – from modern slavery to the human impact of new technologies. Her career has taken her from courtrooms as a state prosecutor to classrooms as a law academic and into Southeast Asia, where she worked to protect trafficking victims as a Senior Human Trafficking Specialist. Together, these experiences have reinforced her commitment to ensuring that human rights are protected and reinforced in practice, not only articulated in principle. She brings this focus to her current role at the Australian Human Rights Commission, inspiring individuals to bring human rights off the page and into daily life, grounded in the simple truth of our shared humanity.

• Nayanka Zindzibel Ondili

  Nayanka Zindzibel is an architectural designer from Kenya currently living and working in Sydney. She has experience working in architecture, building compliance and construction scheduling. In 2023 during an emergency-responder training, her world of design intersected with the study of human anatomy, sparking curiosity on how designers can borrow from the self-sufficiency of the human body in order to better design the built environment, a theory that she is currently exploring and building on. In her free time, she writes poetry, journals, draws and is the persona behind “KAYALAND”, a universe of several creative interests.

• Nikolas & Harry Robinson

  Imagine giving your eight-year-old equal say in a real business. Nik and Harry are the father and son co-founders of Good Citizens Eyewear, now Australia’s most awarded eyewear brand. Their journey was not for the faint-hearted. 2,503 failures later, they found success, inventing a way to turn a discarded plastic bottle into a pair of eyewear frames made in Sydney. From a window at Selfridges London next to Prada, to a feature in Forbes USA, inclusion in the school curriculum and talking at the United Nations, they have built a brand that challenges how things are made and who gets to make them.

• Paul Fairweather

  Paul Fairweather is a retired architect, co-founder of the award-winning firm Fairweather Proberts Architects. Paul is now an artist, writer, speaker and co-host of The Common Creative podcast. Once described as equal parts zen and espresso, Paul is on a mission to reignite the creative spark that people have ignored, buried or inadvertently misplaced with bold ideas, brave stories, always with an artistic and visual twist. Paul's work, whether his art, words (spoken or written), tickles parts of people's brains that they didn't know they had. Paul is the author of the best seller Bold Brave and a bit Quirky - part memoir, part creativity manifesto, illustrated with his quirky watercolours. Paul is a Certified Speakiing Professional and member of Professional Speakers Australia.

• Vaimo'oi'a Astrid Ripley

  Vaimo’oi’a Ripley is an Olympic sailor, Pacific storyteller and development practitioner who challenges conventional ideas of what it takes to reach the world’s biggest stages. Representing Samoa at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as the country’s first female sailor, she qualified not through elite infrastructure or million-dollar backing, but through community support, ancestral ocean knowledge and relentless self-belief. Ripley works in international media development across the Pacific, supporting journalists and storytellers to strengthen climate and disaster reporting. Her work bridges traditional knowledge systems with contemporary communication, championing the idea that small island nations are not “vulnerable,” but visionary. Through her sailing campaign and professional work, she advocates for rethinking success beyond Western high-performance models – arguing that resilience, interdependence and cultural memory are powerful forms of infrastructure. Her TEDx talk explores how ancestral navigation, community backing and identity can propel individuals – and nations – to places they were told they didn’t belong.

• Vanessa Pirotta

  Vanessa is one of Australia’s most renowned wildlife scientists, pioneering innovative technologies to transform wildlife conservation across marine (whale snot drones) and terrestrial environments (AI to detect illegal wildlife trafficking). A globally recognised science communicator, she is driven by a passion for making science accessible, influential, and inclusive- earning recognition as one of the Australian Financial Review’s Top 100 Women of Influence and Science & Technology Australia’s Superstars of STEM. Her leadership has been honoured through major accolades including the NSW Premier’s Woman of Excellence and an Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science. Vanessa leads impactful, cross-generational research that empowers communities through wildlife, including the Tongan Whale Tourism Project in the Kingdom of Tonga and the creation of the Wild Sydney Harbour citizen science program collaborating with First Nations Gamay Rangers to unite Indigenous Knowledge with cutting-edge science. A celebrated author of acclaimed wildlife books for children and adults, a trusted media voice, and an invited MC for the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, Vanessa stands at the forefront of conservation, communication, and leadership—shaping how science is understood, valued, and used to protect our natural world.