TEDxBukit Bintang

Speakers

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

• Amy Blair

  Amy Blair is Founder-CEO of Batik Boutique, a B Corp Certified social enterprise taking Malaysian batik global while sustaining artisan livelihoods. From an artisan initiative, it became a globally recognised inclusive business with global brands and customers worldwide. Through modern design, responsible practice and Malaysian heritage craft, it preserves batik, creates dignified jobs for artisans, seamstresses and makers nationwide, and shows commercial success can grow with social impact. Amy led it to the ASEAN Inclusive Business Award for an equitable, scalable model benefiting low-income communities. She was named among Texas A&M University’s 12 Under 12 Alumni for exceptional career success and community impact. Advocating inclusive business, ethical entrepreneurship and cultural preservation, she believes business drives social change and champions thriving heritage crafts, prosperous artisan communities and purpose-driven companies as a standard for sustainable growth.

• Faisal Fadzil

  Mohamad Faisal Ahmad Fadzil co-founded Tanamera with his siblings, Fauziah and Faridah. The brand draws on traditional Malay wellness knowledge passed down by their late mother, Hajjah Siti Fatimah, especially her understanding of local herbs, natural remedies, postnatal care and traditional healing rituals. Faisal leads product development, formulation, manufacturing, branding, business strategy and international expansion. He has helped turn the family’s inherited knowledge into modern products and spa experiences meeting international quality standards. Today, Tanamera is an international award-winning Malaysian brand offering premium natural, vegan-certified and halal personal care products rooted in authentic Malay wellness rituals. With his siblings, Faisal continues growing the brand while preserving its cultural roots. He combines tradition, innovation and responsible manufacturing to bring Malaysia’s herbal heritage and the Malay art of wellness to a global audience.

• Gerard Bodeker

  Harvard-trained public health academic Gerry Bodeker researches integrative medicine and wellness. He taught medical sciences at Oxford University for two decades, is Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University, and advises business, governments and the UN on culturally themed wellness strategies. A member of Green Templeton College, Oxford, he is Founding Chair of the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) Mental Wellness Initiative and Co-Chair of its Microplastics Watch Initiative. He sits on editorial boards of international traditional and complementary medicine journals, has published widely, and is a Fellow of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). His wellness development work featured in Forbes, Travel & Leisure, South China Morning Post and Robb Report. He advised National Geographic Magazine, featured in BBC’s ‘In Pursuit of Wellness’, and was Senior Consultant to CNN’s ‘Chasing Life’ with Chief Medical Correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta.

• Juvita Tatan Wan

  Juvita Tatan Wan is Kenyah. She grew up between Long San, a small community deep in Sarawak’s upper Baram River, and the city. Before returning, she spent over a decade in corporate Kuala Lumpur across advertising, music and telco. She came home to fix something. In 2017, she and her father John Wan Usang co-founded The Tuyang Initiative in Miri, a social enterprise helping Borneo’s indigenous cultural practitioners earn sustainably from what they carry. Rather than keeping them in a hire-and-perform cycle, it connects them to larger projects, longer relationships and real livelihood or career pathways. Their Miri gallery and studio, alter/space, is where this work takes shape, supporting productions, practitioners and conversations behind it. After nearly two decades of seeing companies get East Malaysia half right, her talk What Visibility Misses looks beyond the performance lights at what remains in the dark: the struggles, people and potential that rarely make it into campaigns.

• Karen Abraham

  Karen Abraham is the Head of the Intellectual Property department of Messrs Shearn Delamore & Co. Her practice covers all aspects of Intellectual Property, Technology, Media & Telecommunications, Data Protection and Competition Law. She has more than 30 years of litigation experience in Intellectual Property matters, appearing in the Apex Courts in Malaysia. The Malaysian law journals bear testimony of how she has been instrumental in setting precedent in IP jurisprudence thereby establishing and evolving IP infrastructure in Malaysia over 3 decades. Karen regularly provides legal counsel on all allied IP rights and advises on compliance and regulatory matters relating to food and drugs, domain name disputes, licensing, franchising, merchandising, commercial sales contracts, sponsorship, advertising and entertainment, and media broadcasting laws. Karen is also experienced in all aspects of Information Technology (IT), e-commerce, and telecommunications related matters.

• Karl Fender

  Karl Fender is a co-founder of Fender Katsalidis Architects, the renowned architectural practice behind the designs of Kuala Lumpur's Merdeka 118, and Melbourne’s acclaimed residential buildings Eureka Tower and Australia 108. Highly regarded among his peers, Karl has served as both Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) National President 2010–11 and RAIA Victorian Chapter President 2008–10, and continues to contribute to architecture industry advisory committees, including design competitions and government design review panels. He was recognised with the Order of Australia Medal in 2017 'for service to architecture, and to professional institutions'.

• Mathew Ngau Jau

  Mathew Ngau Jau is a Kenyah Ngorek elder from Long Semiyang, Baram, and among the last community-recognised authorities on the Sape’, a hollowed-out lute once used in healing rites and communal celebration. At 74, he is known to his people as Keeper of the Kenyah Ngorek Songs and to Malaysia as a Living National Heritage. For over 30 years, Mathew has brought the Sape’ from Sarawak’s longhouses to stages across Europe, the US and Asia, including the Rainforest World Music Festival, Singapore International Festival of Arts and Shenzhen’s Tomorrow Festival. His real work remains teaching: patiently passing on the instrument, its songs and stories to anyone willing to sit and truly learn. An early student was Alena Murang, now among a growing generation of Borneo indigenous musicians carrying the Sape’ forward in their own way. Mathew returns to that handover: preservation not guarded and closed off, but possibly opened up, so connections form and his community’s voice finds new rooms.

• Mollie Rogers

  Mollie Rogers Jean De Dieu founded Emotional Inclusion®, a non-profit humanising the workforce. Over 20 years in people work, she heard countless accounts of work’s “perfect storm”. It led her to champion safe spaces where emotions are heard, recognised and addressed. Through Emotional Inclusion®, she promotes leadership requiring companies to value employees’ humanity and invest in tailored, emotionally inclusive medical and mental-health support. Her work draws on the latest research in positive and behavioural psychology, leadership development and organisational change. Her Emotional Inclusion® podcast, on iTunes and Spotify, hosts renowned global leaders advocating emotionally inclusive workplaces. She aims to challenge an archaic business status quo and build a healthier workforce mindset. A self-described citizen of the world, Mollie grew up in Africa, France and the US and has lived in Asia for 17 years: nine in Hong Kong and eight in Singapore, where she lives with family.

• Raven Kwok

  Rave Sun Kwok is Co-founder and Director of Earthlings Coffee, a Sarawak specialty coffee company known for its work with Sarawak Liberica and Coffea × libex, a newly confirmed coffee hybrid species. With over a decade in the industry, he has worked in sourcing, roasting, sensory evaluation, and professional education. He is a Coffee Quality Institute-certified Q-Grader and an Authorised Trainer with the Specialty Coffee Association. He also played a hands-on role in discovering Coffea × libex, collecting samples with co-founder Kenny Lee and delivering them to Kew botanist Dr Aaron Davis in London. The research was published in Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio). Through the Sarawak Liberica Refinement Project, Rave works with over 600 indigenous smallholder farmers, using his team’s Kampung Cupping methodology to bring their coffee to international quality standards. His work connects science and sourcing, advocating greater transparency and fairer recognition across the industry.

• Sarah Whyte

  Dr Sarah Whyte explores a hidden gap in emotional intelligence: most people have a limited emotional vocabulary, yet few realise that emotional language underpins many emotional intelligence skills. Drawing on her doctoral research and the wider science of emotion, she examines how words for feelings support self-awareness, emotional regulation, communication and connection. Her work centres on an idea: the limits of our emotional vocabulary become the limits of our emotional lives. Without words to accurately identify and differentiate feelings, we struggle to understand our experiences and respond intentionally. With a doctorate in emotional intelligence and a postgraduate certificate in counselling psychology, Sarah translates complex emotional science into practical insights that bridge research and real life. A former teacher with more than a decade working with organisations, she helps people expand their emotional vocabulary to better understand themselves and others.