TEDxTeen Proves That the Impossible is Possible

Wisdom seems to be the hardest thing to grasp when you're a teenager. Your curiosity about events and causes and movements begins to turn into a passion, but the only things you're formally taught are the seemingly-useless facts and tidbits you're fed by your parents, teachers, and other superiors in suits. The only way you're going to get the answers you're direly craving is to hunt them down yourself. Sounds impossible, right? Not necessarily.

For the young speakers and performers at this year's TEDxTeen conference, hosted by the We Are Family Foundation at the Scholastic headquarters in New York on March 31st, the impossible became possible with the help of perseverance, drive, and sheer dedication. Whether they had to fight off hardships and personal tragedies, or simply became inspired and acted upon their intuition, every single individual on stage had a story that tugged at the heartstrings of those in attendance and the thousands of others streaming the show worldwide.

Carrying the show in bright red pants (and at one point some bodacious kicks) was host Monique Coleman. The High School Musical alum was a flawless choice to MC the entire day, judging by her impressive resume filled with gigs such as the United Nations' first Youth Champion and getting her Oprah on as creator/executive producer of online talk show Gimme Mo. Filled with wisecracks and wise words of living, Coleman worked the stage and transfixed the audience with her wit and charm. The girl also doubled as motivational speaker when she opened up the conference. One quote of hers stuck out, in particular, because it pertained to not just the presenters of the day, but also to every person watching this year's TEDxTeen: "We cannot borrow or share another person's understanding – we must cultivate our own."

The first speaker of the day, 13 year-old Jacob Barnett, continued to drill that point into the audience's head. Cracking jokes left and right and frantically tossing his cue cards in the air, you wouldn't think that Barnett was extraordinary just by looking at him. When he began his talk, though, he blew everyone away with the struggles he's had to face to get to where he is now. Diagnosed with a form of autism at the age of two, doctors didn't think that Jacob would be capable of speaking, let alone learning the ways of the universe. "Some therapist is probably watching this and freaking out right now," he teased as he dove head-first into Newton's theory and his quest to becoming the youngest astrophysicist researcher ever.

Overcoming adversity was a major theme across the board when it came to the speakers' stories. Learning how to harness her inner kid and refusing to grow up helped Kristen Powers accept her mother's untimely death in the hands of Huntington's disease and give her the strength to go forth on a documentary chronicling her journey through her own possible diagnosis of the disorder. Meanwhile, Sujay Tyle was meant with roadblock after roadblock when it came to becoming the eco-hero he's always dreamed of becoming. Even though he managed to successfully convert waste to biofuel when he hit age 14, no company wanted to work with him because he was deemed "too young". Refusing to take no for an answer, he continued to send emails until he landed a spot working with "some of the smartest people [he's] met in his life" at sustainable company DuPont. Tyle's hard work and valiant emailing efforts eventually paid off – he's current VP of Business Development at social gaming company Scopely.

Halfway across the world, the hardships some of the speakers had to endure were a lot more dangerous. Youth activist and self-proclaimed Ambassador of Peace Mahmoud Jabari struggled with having his voice heard in a world filled with conflict, brutality, and gas bombs. Despite dealing with difficulties with the Israeli police force, he continues to use journalism tools to bring about change and action. "My message is this," Jabari begins to emphasize. "Let our voices speak and share our truth." For South African opera singer Mteto Maphoyi, not even his parents' deaths (his mother passed from HIV/AIDS) and near-death experience from being in a gang could stop his powerful voice or his dreams to sing in opera houses around the world. When he started recovering from a particularly bad fight that temporarily left him with no voice and permanently left a knife scar across his cheek, Maphoyi focused his energy on the power of singing. His gift has landed him at the prominent Black Tie Ensemble and is currently one of the stars in the documentary The Creators: South Africa.

Sometimes the problem of not knowing where your life is going to take you is the thing that you have to overcome. One of last year's most popular speakers, budding filmmaker Natalie Warne, ended up having her talk viewed over 440,000 times since it was first posted on TED.com last November. Since then, nothing significant has happened in her life. Well, minus that time when her car broke down while she was making the move to Los Angeles. Despite the mundaneness that she's been faced with, Warne's perfectly okay with that. "I'm not trying to top my life with one TED talk after another," she said. "I'm trying to live out my mission."

To wrap TEDxTeen up in a pretty red bow, Krystyn Lambert graced our presence with her presentation of exploring the magical side of the unknown. The flawlessly-dressed magician bedazzled the audience with her quirky comedy and somehow transforming an orange into a butterfly (seriously, how did she do that?!), all while pushing the boundaries of irrationality. "Magic is when the impossible is possible," Lambert said during her act. Does that make all the presenters magicians for jumping through hoops of the unknown and coming out unscathed and wiser? It's definitely a possibility.

Laughs were exchanged, tears were shed, and apathy was crushed once and for all by the end of 2012's TEDxTeen. Every single speaker and performer touched every viewer and audience member in a different kind of way, and might've even inspired them to act on their gut instincts and chase after their unanswered questions and passions. No need to feel left out of the festivities, though; all of the day's talks and presentations can be found on the TEDxTeen Talks page.

Check out our interviews with Mteto Maphoyi and Natalie Warne.

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http://www.differencesmag.com/community-service/leadership/375-tedxteen-proves-that-the-impossible-is-possible.html