TEDxYouth@ISASOakridge 2012 Coming November 17th

TEDxYouth@ISASOakridge is hosted at The Oakridge School in Arlington, Texas. Middle and Upper School students from The Oakridge School, FW All Saints Episcopal, Greenhill School and Trinity Valley will be participating at this event. If you are interested in attending please contact Jason Kern at jmkern[at]theoakridgeschool[dot]org.

TEDxYouth@ISASOakridge is being organized in concert with fellow ISAS schools. Four other ISAS TEDxYouth Day events will be taking place in New Mexico, New Orleans, Austin as well as Houston.

Please check back at the beginning of November for a schedule as well as a list of talks and presenters.

Please check out last year's talks below.

Jordan Martin

Jordan is a sophomore at The Oakridge School. She has three brothers she loves. She enjoys playing sports and is very passionate about the topic of her talk.

Aditya Misra

Aditya has been attending Oakridge for the last six years, and is currently a senior. He enjoys music and plays the drums. He also enjoys sports, played tennis, has been on the power-lifting team since his freshman year, and is a captain of it this year. Aditya is uncertain about his interest for the years ahead, but excited for the next chapter in life. He looks forward to college and the years ahead, to see what it holds, and to make the best of the possibilities that the future holds.

Deron Molen

Deron is a senior at The Oakridge School and has attended there since 2007. He is an avid runner and loves running varsity cross country for the school. Deron aspires to major in communications and journalism as well as potentially run cross country in college. He loves sports and his dream job would be a position in the sports broadcasting field.

Kourtnei Fong-Kutchins

Kourtnei is currently in 8th grade. She has attended The Oakridge School since first grade. She enjoys basketball, cheer, volleyball, and track and field. Her other interests include math and Spanish.

Skylar Frazier

Skylar is currently in 8th grade. She has attended The Oakridge School for the past 10 years. Skylar enjoys playing field hockey, basketball and running track. She also loves math and English.

Hersh Trivedi

Hersh is a senior at The Oakridge School. He is immensely excited by all things medical, especially the research that goes into medical discoveries. And because of this, he wishes to study neuroscience in college and potentially become a doctor. Of course, his time this past summer at Rockefeller University prepared him to give this talk about addiction.

Garrison Roe and Neil Tapiavala

Garrison is a sophomore at TVS and has a passion for politics and public policy. He is a member of the drumline, tennis team, and a regular attendee of the Political Club. He also has extensive business interests that have led him to placing 4th in the UIL State Accounting contest in 2011 and becoming an international contestant for marketing in the DECA ICDC 2011 competition. Neil ia a sophomore at TVS. His primary interests are debate, soccer, and politics. His goal for this event is to educate others and educate himself on topics that are at hand through the TEDx event.

Parth Kalaria and Krishna Tiwari

Parth is a sophomore at Trinity Valley School. He enjoys playing tennis and is on the varsity team at Trinity Valley. In his free time, he enjoys playing chess, keeping up with current events, and traveling with his family. He is a founding member of the Trinity Valley Math and Debate Teams, and loves to compete frequently in both. Naturally, he loves interacting with people and hopes to pursue a career that centers on direct human interaction. Such an interest inspired his talk on the “Dedication Effect” which focuses around human interaction and the spread of knowledge from one to thousands in the future.Krishna is a sophomore at TVS. He plays football and soccer, and is a member of the debate and math teams.



Reflection
Our topic for TEDx Youth Day, the “Dedication Effect,” had been on the backburner of our minds for a while. We felt we needed to share our idea with others, but did not have a medium in which we could do so. After we heard about TEDx Youth Day, we felt it was a great opportunity to spread the “Dedication Effect.” We decided that it was important for the world to realize the importance of helping others and its positive effect. In addition, we felt that those who have dedicated their time to teach deserve recognition and should not be taken for granted. We liked that our piece was personal and seemed to connect with others. However, we felt that we could improve our presentation by adding information on how people can get involved and help others. Overall, we enjoyed sharing the “Dedication Effect” and look forward to presenting it in the future.

Annie Jacobs and Colleen Houston

Annie is a sophomore at Trinity Valley School. She plays club soccer and is an enthusiastic cross country runner. She has studied Spanish in Mexico for the past two summers and spent ten days in Costa Rica on an Outward Bound trip. She currently serves as sophomore class president and hopes to someday have a career involving international work and travel. Colleen is a junior at Trinity Valley. She is a member of the varsity cheer squad, as well as a member in Community Service Club, Sustainability Club, Home Ec Club, and Book Club. She hopes to study health sciences in college and pursue becoming a dietician.



Reflection

Working on my Ted talk was a true pleasure because I was acquiring new knowledge the entire way. The majority of my research and preparation for my talk "Solving the Hunger Gap" came from a book called "Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal" (by Tristam Stuart). This book was truly enlightening and gave me the information I needed for my presentation. It also touched me personally because it went into depth about the problems and consequences that arise from wasting food. Due to busy schedules, it was a little difficult to find time to rehearse the talk with my partner, Colleen, but in the end it all worked out! I would definelty like to do another Ted talk next year!! Annie Jacobs

Emily Hooper

Emily is a Senior at TVS. She has many interests including, writing, playing field hockey, traveling, and playing guitar. Emily was recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease and is active in raising awareness about the challenges of living a "gluten-free" lifestyle. Emily hopes to college in the northeast this upcoming year and study broadcast journalism and international communications.

Daniella Willis

Daniella will be our MC as well as a presenter. Daniella is a senior at The Oakridge School. She has been performing her poetry for several years including at TEDxKids @SMU to 350 middle school students.

Michael Johns

Michael is a junior at Trinity Valley School and enjoys running track and cross country. He serves as President of the Political Club and was a founding member of the Debate Team. His interest in Finance led him to seek an internship with a financial firm over the past two summers and he hopes to study Finance and Economics in college.






Reflection

The knowledge gained from understanding significant economic events is invaluable. The challenge, however, lies in ensuring that as many people as possible can understand and benefit from these events. My presentation was the culmination of research surrounding the singular goal of making the 2008 Financial Crisis easy to comprehend. TEDx challenged me to give a presentation that could be understood by someone with no financial background (like many Americans.) I learned to see a historical event from a different perspective, and this perspective allowed me to give a comprehensible presentation. The best TED Talks are the ones that have passion, and anyone wishing to create and present their own should do exactly that: find their passion and share it with the world. Mine is Finance. What is yours?

November 19th 9:00am - Noon

TEDxYouth@ISASOakridge (formerly TEDxYouth@Metroplex) is hosted at The Oakridge School in Arlington, Texas. Middle and Upper School students from The Oakridge School and Trinity Valley will be participating at this event. If you are interested in attending please contact Jason Kern at jmkern[at]theoakridgeschool[dot]org.

TEDxYouth@ISASOakridge is being organized in concert with fellow ISAS schools. Four other ISAS TEDxYouth Day events will be taking place in New Mexico, New Orleans, Austin as well as Houston.

Please check back at the beginning of November for a schedule as well as a list of talks and presenters.