Lessons from TEDxTinHau Women 2026
TEDx TinHau Women 2026
On 2 October 2026, I spent the day at TEDxTinHau Women, Hong Kong’s longest-standing TEDx event dedicated to women, now in its 10th year. This year’s theme was Uncharted.
The name pays homage to Tin Hau, the Chinese goddess of the sea. It fits. The sea does not stay still, and neither did the ideas in that room. Thirteen speakers across the afternoon charted territory that was thought-provoking and, at points, confronting. A reality check, not a pep rally.
Here is what I am still sitting with.
1. The statistic does not get softer because we are used to it.
One in three women experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime, according to the World Health Organization. Let that sit for a moment. Not as a slide. As a life.
As a mom of two girls, I could not hear it as an abstract global figure. I heard it as a question about the future we are planting:
Will our daughters land on the “lucky” side of the stats?
Will they be safe taking a taxi by themselves at night?
Will their body define their ceiling before they have even entered the room?
We do not know. And not knowing is not the same as doing nothing.
2. Uncharted is not only a theme. It is the work.
The danger with women’s events is that they can become a beautiful pause, then Monday arrives and everything goes back to “normal”. The bias, the language, the barriers, the corridor jokes…
What I saw on that stage was the opposite move. Women who refused to get smaller. Ideas that did not ask permission to take up space. Trailblazers who are driving change and taking people along.
Each of them is creating her own movement to champion her own cause, whether it’s reducing sexual violence, promoting digital accessibility, or using sports as a confidence-builder.
3. We cannot write their story but we can lift the barriers.
I cannot script my daughters’ lives, and I should not try. What I can do, and what leaders can do inside organizations, is point at the elephants in the room and move them.
We can normalize high heels in the boardroom and muscular girls at the gym. We can teach girls, and the boys beside them, that taking up space is not an apology waiting to happen.
The same standard belongs at work. Equity is not a women’s-network sidebar. It is how you design meetings, promotions, feedback, safety, and voice. If the only place a woman is invited to be fully herself is one Friday in October, the system is still asking her to shrink the other 364 days.
4. Speaking up is a leadership skill, not a personality type.
The line I left with was simple: we can speak up when things are not okay.
That is not reserved for the person with the microphone. It is the colleague who names the joke that was not a joke. The manager who sponsors colleagues from under-represented groups. The parent who does not laugh off “boys will be boys.” The leader who measures belonging with the same seriousness as revenue.
Cheers to the incredible women who refused to get smaller that day, and every other day. They showed what great looks like on and off the stage. They reshaped the dictionary so the next girl does not have to shrink to fit it.
Bring this conversation into your organization
I spend a lot of my year on stages and in workshops with global teams on inclusive leadership, communication, and cultural agility. Rooms like TEDxTinHau Women are not a break from that work. They are the reason for it. They remind me what is at stake when a culture still treats women’s ambition as something that has to justify itself.
Hong Kong does not lack talent. It sometimes lacks rooms where women can be strategists, scientists, founders, athletes, and chairwomen without translating themselves first. A 10-year-old TEDx chapter, built by volunteers who believe ideas change everything, is one of those rooms. I am glad I was in it.
If you are planning a leadership offsite, an International Women’s Day program, or a session on gender equity and inclusive leadership, I would love to bring this same mix of reality check and practical tools to your team.
I work with global clients across Asia-Pacific on inclusive leadership, women’s equity, and bridging the gender gap. Email me at veronica@veronicallorcasmith.com and we can schedule a discovery call.
You can also see previous engagements in Public Appearances.