Kopano Matlwa Mabaso and her friend Chrystelle Wedi are winners of the first ever Aspen Ideas Award. Their vision? To set up mobile, ultrasound scan clinics in remote and rural parts of low income settings on the African continent, and in that way, make lifesaving antenatal healthcare more easily accessible to pregnant women in those parts of the continent. Is their plan working? Yes and no, but mostly yes. After initially taking a well intentioned but perhaps ill-conceived approach in applying pre-conceived solutions to imagined problems, actual reality turned out to be less predictable. The deepest parts of Africa, it appears, are tough places to do work. Problems are more acute, and challenges steeper than what most professionals are conditioned to deal with. In this spellbinding TEDxJohannesburg 2015 talk, Kopano finds the words, and just the right pitch in showing that with a bit of humility, and a dose of self-correction, a wiser approach is possible.


Known to many as the author of award winning novels Coconut and Spilt Milt, Kopano Matlwa Mabaso is also a medical doctor, and a PhD candidate at Oxford University. A Rhodes scholar, Kopano fully appreciates the value of the gift of education—Transitions Foundation, the NGO that she co-founded, works to help disadvantaged scholars meet their educational needs. Latest in a string of impressive achievements is her Aspen Institute 2015 New Voices Fellowship, where her lifesaving antenatal care idea, called Ona-Mtoto-Wako, recently won the Aspen Ideas Award.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx