The Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture Series invites prominent people to drive debate on significant social issues. The lecture series is an important event on the Nelson Mandela Foundation's calendar, and encourages people to enter into dialogue – often about difficult subjects – in order to address the challenges we face today.

This year, Barack Obama took to the podium a day before what would have been Nelson Mandela's 100th birthday. We as the born-free generation deliver our opinions.

Lesedi la Batho is a Christian faith based NGO that seeks to inspire, empower, motivate, engage and equip the youth and the community at large through sport, education, skills training and social enterprise development, community wellness and arts & culture. We talk to marketing manager Mary Lewis about how the NGO is empowering the community of Mabopane.

Spoken Sessions boss lady Puno Selesho joins us to talk about taking the reins of the NPO, and talks about the many other endeavors she's busy with. She also talks about her upcoming poem she's about to release. Additionally, she talks to us about moving to Sunnyside and how more people should step outside of their bubbles to experience the real Pretoria.

11 countries, 8 months. That's how many countries Christopher Baker and a team of like-minded missionaries visited. In a year-long mission to spread the Gospel, the Explore Every Nation Team traveled to India, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Philippines, Indonesia, Botswana, Windhoek and Mozambique. To get a clearer picture of what the exact aims of millennial missionaries are, we sit down with Christopher for a talk about why South African Christian churches are sending their members around the world.

We caught up with University of Pretoria alumnus, Dr Jeffrey Glosser, to break down the particulars of testicular and prostate cancer in men. The month of November has been renamed to 'Movember' to spread awareness and remove the stigmas associated with the illnesses. In our conversation, we talk what men should be looking out for, the best treatments, the misconceptions, the stigmas, and most importantly, the awareness of testicular and prostate cancer.

Tier One Gaming Live hosted it's first tournament in June of 2014, ever since then they have been building on that and establishing themselves amongst the awesome Community on Playstation 4. With the help of numerous people within the Community they have kept that ship sailing throughout the life of Battlefield 4 and beyond. They are now organizing tournaments for Battlefield 1 as well.

Tier One Gaming Live boasts 6 tournaments throughout the span of Battlefield 4 spanning over 30 teams, well over 700 players, thousands upon thousands of viewers, and countless epic moments. We talk to their coordinators to hear more about how South Africans are coming together to partake in their shared love of gaming online.

Tier One Gaming Live hosted it's first tournament in June of 2014, ever since then they have been building on that and establishing themselves amongst the awesome Community on Playstation 4. With the help of numerous people within the Community they have kept that ship sailing throughout the life of Battlefield 4 and beyond. They are now organizing tournaments for Battlefield 1 as well.

Tier One Gaming Live boasts 6 tournaments throughout the span of Battlefield 4 spanning over 30 teams, well over 700 players, thousands upon thousands of viewers, and countless epic moments. We talk to their coordinators to hear more about how South Africans are coming together to partake in their shared love of gaming online.

The mind-shifting short-talk phenomenon returns to Pretoria in November for a day of disruptive ideas and bold new voices challenging a business-savvy audience to reboot their thoughts and actions to meet the needs of the future.

The theme for this year’s event is "UNAPOLOGETIC".

This will be Pretoria's fifth TEDxPretoria - a localised offshoot of the hugely popular Technology, Education and Design (TED) series of talks which has become an international movement under the banner of "Ideas worth spreading". The talks, which are freely available online, are widely recognised as one of the world's most inspiring sources of fresh thinking on a wide range of cultural and scientific subjects.

TEDxPretoria 2017 takes place on 25 November 2017 at 012 Central, our new home. A funky-fresh upcoming space which inspires creativity and open-mindedness.

In contemplating South Africa's heritage, many times, we forget to consider the San people. People who have left us little clues of their culture and their heritage in rock paintings spread across South Africa. The Quintessential team recently returned from a trip in Underberg, Southern Drakensberg, where they observed San Rock Art. Dr Sam Challis is the Senior Researcher at the Rock Art Insititute based at the University of the Witwatersrand. We catch up with him to discuss why San Rock Art is an important part of South Africa's heritage.

Andi Wilson completed a BSc in Human Genetics in 2012, a BSc Honours in Genetics in 2013 and an MSc in Genetics in 2015, all at the University of Pretoria. She is enrolled for a PhD in Genetics at the same institution. She was nominated for an award the Department of Science and Technology's annual Women in Science Awards(WISA) in 2017.

Wilson has been the first author of two publications, and has contributed to another three. These articles have been on her work in understanding unisexual reproduction and self-fertility, as well as genome sequencing and assembly. She has also attended and presented at a number of national conferences, as well as at the 2017 Fungal Genetics Conference, held in America. In 2016, the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, based at the University of Pretoria, gave Wilson an award for Best MSc Student and a Mentorship Award.

In 2017, she spent two months at Pennsylvania State University on a research visit to develop a transformation protocol for the group of fungi she studies.