TEDxYouth@BIS 2012 Event

The Organizing Team for TEDxYouth@BIS 2012

After long discussions about teaching, learning and life: Jeff Hoffart and Tosca Killoran decided that they held the same vision, passion and dedication for wanting to make a change in and to the world. They decided that to truly make changes they would need a broader audience than the children within their classrooms. Jeff joined Tosca to organize TEDxYouth@BIS 2012 in order to help provide a forum for their students global reach.

Tosca Killoran
Event Licensee & Organizer

Jeff Hoffart
MC & Organizer

Ann Martin
Video Editor

Janet Hannah
Design & Logo Visualization

Marina Gryaznova
PR Consultant

Laura Grant
Accountant

Nat Whitman
Drama & Voice Coach

Stephen Middlebrook
School Liaison

Tudor Tarlev
Blogger

Adam Bourret
Event Volunteer
(Now Organizes
TEDxYouth@WAB)

Karolyn Fox
Event Volunteer

Tara Mitchell
Social Media

Zeytun West
(Student)
Event Youth Organizer & Protégée

Jillian Priestley
Head Technician

Michael Roth
Event Photographer

Jo Tilton
Event Photographer

Lea Kuron
(Student)
Youth Organizer & Protégée

A Brief History of TEDxYouth@BIS

TEDxYouth@BIS 2012 Program

Official TEDx Event Profile for the TEDxYouth@BIS 2012 Event

In 2012, TEDxYouth@BIS explored how small ideas develop into forces of action. Inspired from the event we began to to ask, is a singular action enough? How can we span generations, and create change for more of the globe? How can our ideas have a greater impact and extend beyond the individual? How can we implement systems so our ideas grow into sustained action?

TEDxYouth@BIS 2012 featured a suite of short, carefully prepared talks by students and members of the learning community, as well as performances of music and art, all oriented towards describing how to create sustained action. TEDxYouth@BIS 2012 aimed to foster new learning, inspiration and action -- and of course, provoke conversations that will continue to stimulate the creation of ideas.

Laura Ruben - "Cooperative Games: Working to Include All"

Laura enjoys sports and nature, and through her interests, began to notice how children behaved in the environment around her. Slowly, she began realizing that the playground didn't give the rosy picture it should have. Instead of a safe and inclusive environment, she saw people that were shouting at each other, people taking revenge on others during games and people who refused to play by the rules! There were conflicts on the football fields, on the basketball courts, and throughout the playground. She wanted to make a change. She hopes that her talk will open your eyes to the real playground world and to solutions to help solve these problems.

Website: Inclusive Games

Kaitlyn Fox - "See, Say, Solve: A Conflict Resolution Program for Kids"

Kaitlyn lived in Michigan for 10 years until she moved to Germany. Now a Grade Five student at Bonn International School, she is interested in the topic of bullying and conflict resolution skills. She has explored different programs that address bullying and conflict resolution using peer support. She will talk about a program she is helping establish in her community. She wants to spread her ideas not only to Bonn International School, but also to schools around the world.

Website: Peace Helpers

Wajma Isaczai - "Making a Difference in Education: One Generation at a Time"

Wagma is an Afghan American, born in Omaha, Nebraska. She has spent the last 11 years of her life living in America, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and now in Germany. Through her talk, she will share how she has learned about the importance of Education through her family’s challenges in life.

Valeria Kukushkina - "Netiquette and E-Safety"

Valeria is interested in technology and has learned about the importance of being a safe digital citizen. She wants people to be aware of internet safety issues, so kids can network in a safe environment. Her talk focuses on Social safety in the cyber world. She is currently teaching kids about these issues using an iBook and a website that she created.

Website: Be Safe Online

Vincent Grebe - "Changing the German Public Education System"

Vincent Grebe is a native German. He is privileged to be a student at the International School in Bonn. The international community has inspired him to consider alternate educational systems and he feels that Germany can learn from other countries. Vincent discusses his ideas to improve the public education system in Germany.

Shivani Rajhansa - "Educating the Young: They are the Future"

One evening, Shivani Rajhansa learned about the Gujrat Riot, which was a riot between religions in India. As she became more aware of the conflict, a desire grew inside to make a change. Shivani longs for peace on earth, and will be talking about how kids are the key to a peaceful future.

Website: Peace Helpers

Monica Fearon - "Teaching Women's Rights through Children's Literature"

Monica is a young girl who understands that she has many rights as a female, that others do not share across the world. She wishes to educate others about gender discrimination, and what we, as a global community, can do about exclusion. Monica will read her children’s book entitled ‘The Right to Vote’, which has simple vocabulary, but sends out a big message for kids and adults. Our humanity depends on you to make a difference.

Website: Fight for a Right

Hannah Wiedemann - "Providing a "School in a Box" to those in Need"

Hannah is an 11 year old girl who has been inspired to learn more about Global poverty. She discusses our materialistic greed and how we take our “things” for granted and throw things in the trash when they’re ‘’totally yesterday’’. Hannah discusses alternatives for our “stuff” in her action to help others who may be less fortunate.

Website: End Poverty Now

Luisa Pires - "Reacting to Change"

Luísa was born and raised in Portugal. Her world is her culture and when she moved to Germany at the age of 15, she had to face new challenges as her life was turned upside down. English was not her first language and she had to adapt and learn a lot. Through these experiences she realized the importance of observation and to understand deeply new environments and different people around her. Understanding the importance of preserving her own identity in the midst of change, she realized that her identity also brought new ideas and influenced the environment and the people around her. She is positive and sure that a good change needs to be continuous and that anyone who is willing to trust themselves for their own good and for the good of others can make it happen.

Pierre Ezard - "Biodiversity: A Beekeeper's Story"

Pierre is a student at the International School of Bonn. He grew up in France until his family moved to Bonn in 2006. He is passionate of sports and to spend some of his free time with friends, playing the saxophone or reading. This year is the first time that he is participating in TEDxYouth@BIS event and he appreciates the fact that people are able to share their ideas around the world. His talk is about bees and their importance in our environment. He has an interest in bees and the role that they play in biodiversity.

Alejandro Perez-Lucerga - "Peace Helpers: Mediating Change"

Alejandro was born in Germany, but grew up in a Spanish family. Roughly 4 years ago, when he lived in America, he experienced being bullied. He decided that students need support and strategies to overcome this conflict and decided he was the one to help!

Website: Peace Helpers

Cameron McMillan - "Addressing Local Poverty"

Cameron was born in Australia, raised in Germany and England and has an English mother and a German father. Through traveling the globe and having a social worker as a mother, he's found that there are a lot of people, in particular children, who are deprived of many of the most basic wants. Through that he has come to a conclusion. Poverty is everywhere we just don't see it. This is most noticeable at a traditionally happy time, such as the Christmas holidays, a time which Cameron finds isn't as happy as it may seem. Through his research, Cameron has found that there are many children in and around Bonn, where he currently lives, that can’t afford to share the German tradition of getting Christmas presents, and for the last three years he has been trying to help rectify that.

Rahnya Taghi - "Can Inclusion Come Over to Play?"

Rahnya admits that her biggest interest is probably thinking...about things from popsicles to Roman metals. Ironically enough, one day, after trying to think of a good thing that would take her the rest of the day to think about, she stumbled across the complicated world of human physiology. In her personal inquiry into this field, she began to search using the keyword “stereotypes”. She soon discovered this world-wide dilemma and decided to share solutions on how to improve the situation.

Website: Inclusive Games

Divya Bilolikar - "Dreams Can Come True"

Divya is a 11 year old girl who loves to hear stories about her family. She was surprised when her grandma told her that many women are not so privileged to receive an education or get a job. Divya decided that teaching young females to be confident and to believe that they can do anything is a step towards gender equality.

Website: Fight for a Right

Nana Bruce-Amanquah - "Taking the First Step: From Local to Global"

Nana Bruce-Amanquah is an eighth grade student from Ghana. In 2009 she moved to Germany after living in Africa her entire life. One of the first things she noticed when she got to Bonn was how clean the city was compared to her hometown. However lately she has noticed that the cleanliness of her school's environment isn't as great as it could be. In her talk, she will be trying to convince students at her school to pitch in to keeping their school clean. When she grows up, she wants to have a job that has enough authority to enable her to change the waste systems in Ghana, but until then she thinks this TEDx event is the best way to start developing her ideas one step at a time.

Dhillon Welsh - "Creating Sustained Action through Leadership"

Dhillon Welsh is a 14-year old student attending Bonn International School. Dhillon is interested in talking about an extra-curricular group that he created and how it will continue if he leaves. When Dhillon joined BIS, he was interested in joining the school’s Blues Band. Unfortunately, there weren’t any spots available. So, he spearheaded the effort to create an alternative to the Blues Band, mostly consisting on Middle Schoolers rather than High Schoolers and open to all. Dhillon will speak with you today about how he has sustained this extra-curricular activity throughout Middle School and how he will help sustain it as he moves on to High School.

Kate Schlichte - "F.A.I.R.: Raising Awareness of Women's Rights through Song"

Kate Schlichte is a bilingual grade five student, who loves to sing in both English and German. In fact, singing inspires her in every walk of life, in how she thinks and how she acts. When she travelled to Abu Dhabi, she realized how women and men hold different status from one other. She noticed that women seemed to do exactly what the men told them to do. In order to take action and make a difference, she created a song to make you aware of what equality looks like for men and women. She chose this topic, because she believes she has the right to speak about what influences her in the world.

Website: Fight for a Right