On May 18, Abbey Park High School hosted its fourth annual TEDxYouth conference. The student-run event, licensed by TED, hosted and trained 10 student speakers from Oakville.
"We often miss the youth perspective, which is why I think our event is important," commented Caroline Huang, co-president of the conference. "This event is by youth for youth, which I think is really important."
The speakers were also competing for a chance to win one of three scholarships. Town Councillor Peter Longo, Abbey Park High School teacher Sheila Gabura, teachers candidate Stephanie Lam and school trustee Joanna Oliver were this year's judges.
This year's theme was "Reimagine: Same Photo, Different Lens." The goal was for speakers to relook at current problems and bring a different viewpoint to provide a potential solution. The speakers talked about a wide range of topics, including the impacts of social media on their lives, the issues of migrant workers, social identity and more.
The first speaker of the day was Cici Zhu, a Grade 11 student attending Abbey Park High School. Zhu spoke on the importance of having multiple viewpoints in the pursuit to create change in the STEM industry.
"I'm really passionate about my topic regarding STEM education as well as the importance of diversity within it," commented Zhu after her presentation. "TEDx especially is a really great opportunity to have teenagers and their voices heard."
Jayanth Iyer, another Grade 11 student attending Abbey Park High School, was the second speaker. Iyer spoke on the issues surrounding migrant workers. He talked about his own experience when he volunteered at a camp and the difference between blue and white-collar workers.
Next was Deborah Wan, a Grade 11 student attending Abbey Park High School. Wan spoke about losing yourself on social media and how it isn’t the user's fault because the apps are designed that way. She spoke of her own personal experience of being addicted to social media and the struggles she faced to overcome the addiction.
The fourth speaker of the day was Grade 11 student Meryana Al Mobayed from Abbey Park. Mobayed spoke on immigrant guilt and the struggles they face daily. She hopes that people can let go of any stereotypes they have about immigrants and inspire immigrants to take pride in themselves and their roots.
Kareena Saggar was the fifth speaker of the day. Saggar is a Grade 11 Abbey Park student. She spoke on social identity and how the next generation of immigrants lose their culture.
Saggar shared her experiences of being a child of an immigrant family and how she feels lost in her own heritage. Her goal was to provide solutions to help keep cultural diversity.
The sixth speaker of the day was Rida Salahuddin, attending Grade 11 at Iroquois Ridge High School. Salahuddin spoke about the issues of fast fashion in hopes that the audience will start to take action themselves.
She used examples of how companies trick us into buying things by using sales and different solutions we can do to get rid of our unused clothes safely.
Abbey Park Grade 9 student Shirley Yang was the seventh speaker. She spoke on the impact decision-making has on the way we understand not only ourselves but the people around us.
Next was David Lim, a Grade 11 student who also attends Abbey Park High School. Lim spoke on how artificial intelligence is affecting creativity.
To help prove his argument, the first paragraph of his talk was written by a chat ai called Chat GPT. Lim also used real-life examples of AI-generated images and some real-life stories of AI reusing someone's images with warped watermarks.
The ninth speaker of the day was Ruhaan Mahanta. Mahanta is a Grade 8 student who attends Maple Grove Public School. Mahanta spoke about positive disagreements and how disagreements or conflicts can still result in something constructive. He spoke about how he and his sister fought constantly and got nowhere until they both agreed that even though they aren’t agreeing, they could still see it from the other’s viewpoint.
"It was quite an exhilarating experience. It was very nerve-wracking," commented Mahanta when asked how he felt being a speaker.
The tenth and final speaker of the day was Julia Hong, a Grade 10 student who attends Abbey Park High School. Hong spoke about how the concept of luck ties into success and how to seize every opportunity to maximize your luck.
She also took it one step further and put her luck-maximizing techniques to the test for one week to bring personalized results to the talk. Hong’s goal was to bring a new perceptive to how luck is different depending on how it is viewed by society.
Three scholarship recipients :
- Julia Hong came in third place and received a $200 scholarship.
- Kareena Saggar was second and received a $300 scholarship.
- Rida Salahuddin was first who was awarded a $500 scholarship.