By BBC News, January 16, 2016

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By Irish Examiner, January 16, 2016

The We Are Family Foundation brought TEDxTeen back to London for an encore performance at the IndigO2.

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By Susie Mesure, January 16, 2016

Ann Makosinski has won acclaim for her invention Teri Pengilley

Student Ann Makosinski, 18, tells Susie Mesure how screen time gets in the way of better things

Being told to put down their smartphone and live in the moment is nothing new to most teenagers. But how many teens are the ones doing the telling?

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By Kate Dwyer, January 17, 2016

Image credit: Getty

We’ve all seen a TED Talk at some point. In under 18 minutes, an expert talks about what he or she has learned over the years, and how audience members can apply that wisdom to their own lives. The TED movement has picked up so much momentum over the past decade that independently-sponsored TEDx events have begun to pop up all over the world. TEDxTeen is undoubtedly one of the biggest, offering young people a platform to exchange ideas and empower one another. This year, the conference was held in London, and over the course of seven hours, 10 speakers and five performers took the stage at indigO2 at The O2 arena to talk about their experiences and share advice.

Meltem Avcil, a former refugee at Yarl’s Wood detainee camp in the United Kingdom, reminded us that “you are part of this story.” Connor Grooms taught us how to learn anything in 30 days. Konstantin Avdienko talked about creating a device that harnesses water vapor from the air to provide clean drinking water to developing countries. Kash Gaines moved the audience with the stories behind his street dance videos, including one about a young man who performs on the corner where his brother was killed in a car accident. Since the first TEDxTeen eight years ago, the event has featured over 100 speakers, garnered over 14 million views, had viewers from 150 countries tune in live and most impressively, this year alone, the event generated 300 million Twitter impressions. Halfway through the event, it was the sixth most trending hashtag. But while there were a lot of great stories shared, inventor Ann Makosinski, model Mariah Idrissi, and research scientist Ciara Judge shared valuable pieces of career advice.

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By Josh Steimle, August 28, 2015

Image credit: Thiel Fellowship | Official Website

If you’re an entrepreneur under 30 years old and you’ve attended a few business conferences, you may have found them geared toward a different generation. Even if you’ve attended a conference that targets young entrepreneurs, perhaps it was run by a different age group and therefore came across as less than authentic.

Below are seven conferences that deliver the goods for young entrepreneurs, many of them managed entirely by young entrepreneurs.

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By Becky Chung, July 9, 2015

The speakers at TEDxTeen 2015 were all in their teens and early 20s. The group got pumped up to speak together before the event began. Photo: Courtesy of TEDxTeen

“If you’re a teen, you’ve been called apathetic, narcissistic and social-media obsessed,” said Taylor Trudon, the youth editor at Huffington Post. Standing tall in a crisp white blazer, the 25-year-old shared how she went from keeping a high school diary — decorated with stickers and magazine clippings of John Mayer and Uggs — to becoming the website’s curator of young voices.

The 400 bright-eyed teenagers listening to her in the Scholastic Auditorium in New York City didn’t quite fit the stereotype of Generation Z. Each of them had sacrificed a Saturday in May to attend TEDxTeen 2015 and listen to speakers like a high schooler who created fruit fly-inspired drones, a young artist who translates sound into 3D-printed sculptures and a 20-year-old mathematician who sold an algorithm that predicts wars to the US government.

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Read full article HERE:
www.wnct.com/2015/05/07/kinston-teens-invited-to-nyc-youth-empowerment-event

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No, really.

By Allison Wood, June, 2015

Allison Wood was selected to give a talk at TEDxTeen, a conference where young men and women spoke about their simple ideas that made a big impact. After her talk, Teen Vogue caught up with Allison, CEO and co-founder of REIFY, to learn about her company that aims to transform the way we experience music. Click to watch her talk above, then read her tips for how to get your own ideas out into the world. As told to Courtney Lindstrand.

My journey began when I started out as an intern working on this project that now has become a fully-fledged company called REIFY. We created software that allows you to take music, run it through the program, and produce a 3D sculpture inspired by the sound. We also developed a mobile app that can identify the sculpture and play back the music it was inspired by, along with visuals that create a multi-sensory experience. Seems complicated, but this demo sums it up nicely:

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Stick it to 'em.

By Caitlin Haacke, May, 2015

Caitlin Haacke was selected to give a talk at TEDxTeen, a conference where young men and women speak about their simple ideas that make a big impact. After her talk, Teen Vogue caught up with Caitlin, creator of Positive Post-It Day, to learn about how she used acts of kindness to combat bullying. Click to watch her talk above, then read her tips for spreading positivity below. As told to Courtney Lindstrand.

My TED talk was all about my journey towards making positivity "stick" in my community and around the world. I started out talking about my childhood and how the evolution of bullying really began. When I was a kid, bullying was really no more than simple playground words or a few slurs in the hallway, but then it unfortunately grew into the nasty cyberbullying that students deal with everyday.

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By Ben Nemtin, June 2, 2015

Note: Ben, Jonnie, Duncan and Dave started "The Buried Life" in their parents' garage in 2006. They made a list of "100 things to do before you die" and for every list item they accomplished, they helped a stranger do something on their list. Since then, they've crossed off "Make a TV Show (MTV)," "Write a No.1 NYT Bestselling Book," "Play Ball with Obama and have encouraged millions to believe that anyone can do anything.

After nine years my friends and I have made a habit of accomplishing our dreams. I wish I could say that there's something special about the four of us, but the truth is, there's not. Along the way people started asking us for advice on how to cross things off their list and we chuckled at the thought of ever dolling out advice. Years later, when we took a closer look at our failures and successes, we noticed some patterns. There seemed to be a method to our madness, we were tackling each and every list item the same way. For us, crossing off any bucket list item comes down to these six steps:

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Your words are more powerful than you think.

By Taylor Trudon, May, 2015

Taylor Trudon was selected to give a talk at TEDxTeen, a conference where young men and women spoke about their simple ideas that made a big impact. After her talk, Teen Vogue caught up with Taylor, a senior editor for The Huffington Post Young Voices, to learn how teens can use their voice to change the world. Click to watch her talk above, then read her tips for using your own voice below. As told to Courtney Lindstrand.

The theme of this year's TEDxTeen conference was "Simply Irresistible." I loved how it encompassed the idea of finding simple solutions to complex problems. As a journalist, when I think of what "simple" means, I think of words. We live in a social media-saturated world where we communicate in emojis and Vines and Snapchats, but at the end of the day, it all comes back to words. It's the most basic form of expression.

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It's all about the plastic.

By Lauren Singer, May, 2015

Lauren Singer was selected to give a talk at TEDxTeen, a conference where young men and women spoke about their simple ideas that made a big impact. After her talk, Teen Vogue caught up with Lauren on how she maintains her zero-waste lifestyle, fitting years' of trash into just one Mason jar. Click to watch her talk above, then read her tips for getting started below! As told to Phillip Picardi.

Everything for me started when I was a senior at NYU as an environmental studies major. There was a class I took where there was a girl using a ton of plastic—she'd bring dinner every night with a plastic bag, a plastic drink, plastic fork and knife, and a bag of chips. At the end, she would throw everything out. That was frustrating to me, because NYU has a comprehensive recycling system, so it pissed me off she was throwing all of that away. I would leave class feeling frustrated.

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By MTV, May 19, 2015

MTV News talked to the inspiring speakers and performers at the TEDxTeen conference on May 16, 2015 at the Scholastic Auditorium in New York City.

By Amira Polack (Youth Campaign Lead, SAP), May 21, 2015

What do war-predicting algorithms, sound-sculpted artwork, and obstacle-dodging drones all have in common?

Teens.

On May 16th, TEDxTeen, presented by the We Are Family Foundation and powered by SAP, rocked New York City’s Scholastic Auditorium. Themed “Simply Irresistible,” the day of TEDx talks featured today’s youngest innovators using simple ideas to tackle the world’s most complex issues.

Take Rebecca Dharmapalan, who at 16 took a camera through her hometown of Oakland to shine a light on the rampant, yet overlooked problem of child trafficking. Rebecca has won more than half a dozen film festival awards, bringing awareness to the fact that an estimated 100,000 children in the U.S. alone fall victim to sexual exploitation. Then there’s David Mace, who at 18 developed an algorithm to predict global atrocities, which he sold to the U.S. government. Today, David’s solution helps control more than $4 billion in international relief and improve more than 16 million lives each year.

Is your jaw still attached?

If not, the good news is that through the daylong series of TED-style talks, viewed live in 153 countries, more than a dozen young trailblazers like Rebecca and David unveiled the nuts and bolts behind making the world run better and improving people’s lives – in a big way. While diverse, many paths shared six common steps:

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By Courtney Lindstrand, May, 2015

photo: courtesy of tedxteen

Teen Vogue hit up the TEDxTeen conference this weekend and watched 14 incredibly inspiring young people take the stage to perform, discuss important issues, and ask the tough questions. For those not in the know, TEDx Talks are kind of like YouTube for motivational speeches. You only have to watch a couple of them before you find yourself ready to jump off your couch and make your mark on the world. And that's exactly how we felt after listening to the TEDxTeen speakers—click through for our favorite insights from the conference.

Get ready to be blown away.

It's time to cut down on clutter.

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By Jamie Primeau, May 18, 2015

On Saturday, May 12, young people came together to share "ideas worth spreading" at the TEDxTeen conference. -Jamie Primeau

Over the weekend, a few of the Choices editors returned to our office at Scholastic. Nope, we weren't here to get a head start on our September issue! Instead, we attended TEDxTeen—an independently organized TED event, where speakers come together to share ideas worth spreading. This year's theme? #SimplyIrresistible. In other words, all it takes is one simple, undeniable idea to create a big change.

During the course of the day, more than a dozen young people took the stage in the Scholastic Auditorium. There were musical performances, dance numbers, and inspiring speeches. While we wish we could recap it all, here are a few highlights of empowering lessons to apply to your own life—and to share with any teens you know!

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MONIQUE COLEMAN TO HOST TEDxTEEN 2015: SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE
SuChin Pak to host Online Global Audience

New York, NY (May 11, 2015) – “High School Musical’s” Monique Coleman will host TEDxTeen 2015, on Saturday, May 16, 2015 at Scholastic’s global world headquarters in New York City from 9:30am – 5:30pm (EDT). Legendary MTV correspondent, SuChin Pak, will join in to host the online global audience on TEDxTeen.com beginning at 10:15am (EDT).

TEDxTeen focuses the conversation on young people and their power to change the world. The theme of TEDxTeen 2015 is “Simply Irresistible”. The best ideas are often the most simple. Simple, yet complex. Simple, yet sophisticated. Simple, yet big, meaningful...inspirational. They are simply irresistible...to adopt, to join, to follow. We challenge everyone to find simply irresistible solutions to the complex issues we face everyday, just like our speakers. One simple idea can change everything.

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By Jonathan Blake, October 10, 2014

Erik Finnman, Trisha Pabu and James Anderson will be speaking at the TEDxTeen event at London's O2 arena

Young adults in the UK are less likely to start their own business than others around the world, a survey seen by Newsbeat claims.

The poll by O2's parent company Telefonica asked 6,700 people aged 18-30 about their career aspirations.

It suggests a fifth of those in the UK wanted to set up their own business compared to nearly a third in Latin America.

Of those surveyed, 13% said computer science was an important subject.

But there are some who are bucking the trend and becoming their own boss.

This weekend teenagers who've started their own companies will be trying to inspire others to do the same at TEDxTeen.

The event is being held outside the US for the first time and Newsbeat met some of the key speakers to find out the secrets to their success.

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By Tallia Storm, October 9, 2014

According to the Oxford English dictionary, the definition of "disruptor" is "one who breaks up, one who causes disruption." When we think of "Remarkable Disruptors," the theme of the inaugural TEDxTeen London event, (which I'm hosting on October 11), we are focusing on positivity, rather than the negativity of the word's original connotation.

Our thought pattern has been dealt a 360-degree curve ball to consider those who are daring to break up, those who are daring to be innovative and embrace change. I can tell you my #bighair -- and some might say persistent character -- has been pretty disruptive at times. I applaud this. In fact, I think this is one of the strongest theme's TEDxTeen has ever had. It almost sounds like a lyric from a hip hop artist, something that should be graffitied onto street walls, it's an exciting, creative and incredible teenage opportunity.

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By David Saddington, October 17, 2014

TEDxTeen brings Remarkable Disruptors to London

The inaugural TEDxTeen London on October 11th brought together a collection of young people to share their ideas at the indigO2. The conference highlighted the stories of those who dare to be innovative and who strive to make a change.

I was fortunate to be one of those speakers and my message addressed the disruptive potential of climate change. I have worked to shape the way we communicate climate change since 2005. Over this time I have shaped UK government policy by getting climate change on the national curriculum, fronted a media campaign that reached over 3 million people and set up my own environmental enterprise.

Since being personally affected by severe flooding in North Yorkshire, in the summer of 2005, I made it my mission to raise awareness and education around climate change. This was a time before climate change was big news; most people hadn't heard about it yet alone understood it.

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