Hong Kong is an international economic powerhouse brimming with talent and capital, but how much of that has trickled down to local communities?
This was the question that weighed on Daniella Lopez’s mind when she acquired the licence for TEDxHongKong – which had been inactive since 2017 – in late 2025.
TEDx, founded in 2009 as an offshoot of the more formal TED talks, is a global non-profit network of independently organised events aimed at amplifying “locally driven” ideas through short, powerful presentations.
Lopez, an American who lived in Shanghai for five years before relocating to Hong Kong in 2016, is all too aware of how easy it is to get trapped in an echo chamber, even for worldly, cosmopolitan professionals.
“You’re in your silo,” she says of the exchange of knowledge between those in the same fields. “You’re a medical expert talking to another medical expert, or a tech person talking to another tech person.”
