Theme: Innovation & Ideas

At this TEDxYouth gathering, people from the Lake Forest community and beyond will come together to share ideas, spark conversation and inspire students in Lake Forest and around the world. Our mission is simple: to promote ideas worth spreading and empower young people.

1285 N McKinley Road
Lake Forest, Illinois, 60045
United States

LFHS Human Rights Club

Estee Curry, Sandra Brzakala, and Kelsey Schmidt are juniors at Lake Forest High School. These girls are representatives of the LFHS Human Rights club run by students with the help of Ms. McKee. They enjoy trying to make a change for others in their everyday lives. Some ways the girls help out are by volunteering at organizations such as Feed My Starving Children and Beacon Place. The idea for their talk came from the basis of how social media can be used more effectively. The average teen spends about seven and a half hours consuming media daily. This includes watching television, listening to music, surfing the web, being on social networking sites, and playing video games. Their goal is to change the way people see human rights and will present different ways to raise awareness both on the local and global scale through mass media. ​

Ahmad Sadri

Sadri received his BA and MA degrees in Sociology from the University of Tehran and his PhD in the same field from the New School for Social Research in New York City. He is the author of “Max Weber's Sociology of Intellectuals” (Oxford University Press, 1992) that was chosen as Academic Book of the Year by Choice Magazine of the American Library Association. As a public intellectual Sadri has written more than one hundred and forty articles including regular editorial columns for Daily Star of Lebanon and Etemad-e Melli of Iran. He has written two books in Persian: "Reviving the Concept of Civilization," and “An Apocalypse soon.” Sadri's English translations include “Saddam City” (from Arabic) and “Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam” (from Persian.) His most recent work is an abridged translation of the “Epic of the Persian Kings” Shahnameh published in 2005. Ahmad Sadri has been a regular contributor on television and radio shows at BBC, CBC, NPR, VOA and WGN.

Allison Neumeister

As a teen, Allison dreamed of working in international development in Africa, but after graduating from college, she followed convention and pursued a career in business, then married and had children. Twenty-five years later, as her children left for college, she finally pursued her life’s ambition and began volunteering at a school in Bududa, Uganda. Since 2011, Allison has been traveling to rural Uganda, where she founded an NGO and partners with organizations that support the health, education and human rights of children. Her work in the field enables her to develop and sustain partnerships with community-based organizations. Through these partnerships, her team personally distributes aid to health clinics, schools and vulnerable children, while educating marginalized populations about human rights.

Bella Hill

Bella is a freshman at Lake Forest High School, and has lived in the area for two years. In an uncharacteristic bout of excellent judgement, she decided to take Environmental Geoscience as a class, along with Biology. Thus, she became inspired to give a TEDxLakeForestHighSchool Talk on the environment- and the effectiveness of our current attempts to fix it. Although she is very interested in the environment, she loves learning about philosophy, and how it has impacted the world throughout history. She is looking forward to giving her talk, and hopes that what she has to say will provide new insight on the problems that we are faced with today.

Cassidy Coughlin

Cassidy is a junior at Lake Forest high school. She looks forward to Latin and business incubator class during her school day. She has been apart of the Lake Forest tennis program for the past three years, and is excited to play her senior year as well. Along side tennis, she has played basketball and soccer for the high school and enjoys skiing. She aspires to work in the business field when she is older, specifically PR and Communications. She loves meeting new people and trying out new things, whether it be a sport, class, or activity.

Colin McDonnell

Colin McDonnell is a freshman at Lake Forest High School and has moved many times. He was born in Chicago, lived in Lake Forest for a short time, then moved to San Diego, California in kindergarten, and in 5th grade he moved to Texas. Finally, he ended up back in Lake Forest in 8th grade. He finds seeing new places very exciting and each place he lives and travels to enriches his knowledge of the world. His favorite class is English with Mr. Dewar, because he learns very interesting things from philosophy to different beliefs in religion. He looks forward to learning something new everyday in Mr. Dewar’s class because something insightful is always taught. He enjoys how his teacher dives deep into every subject and explains things in a very cool way. He has always been interested in philosophy and taking a class like Mr. Dewar’s has only deepened his liking of it.

Eleanor Thorn

Eleanor's parents were Christians from Iran and Iraq, and she was the first of their children born in the United States. She grew up on the north side of Chicago with her two older brothers and younger sister. Eleanor's parents passed away when she was a teenager, and because of that her siblings and her are very close. They were able to stay in the family home after the death of Eleanor's parents because of the immense support they received from their extended family. After working in a variety of vocations throughout her life, Eleanor became the bookkeeper for the Lake Forest Book Store in April 2012, and became the owner of the store in October 2013.

Helene Sudac

Helene’s love for nature and the environment that was developed early on in her childhood was enhanced when she took an environmental science course. For her senior year in high school, she was asked to pilot a new course that dealt with both environmental science and public policy. Throughout the year, she has worked closely with two teachers that have really shown her the true definition of “education outside of the classroom”. She has learned an immense amount of how one could influence politics regarding the environment through her research and phone interviews conducted with colleagues from Chicago’s Environmental Law and Policy Center as well as the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Advisor from the Illinois EPA. Helene finds that most importantly, this class taught her to not only find her voice, but to use it. She believes no voice is too small to make a difference or a change, and hopes to share that message with anyone willing to listen to her.

Hope Goldman

Growing up in Lake Forest, Hope recognized from an early age that her own prosperous and stable community was just a stone’s throw away from communities facing significant economic and social challenges. She became determined to devote as much of her time and attention as possible to addressing the needs of her neighbors. During her four years at Lake Forest High School, Hope has spent more than one thousand hours in the service of charitable organizations throughout Lake and Cook Counties. Each experience has brought Hope closer to the realization that, while charitable donations have an obvious intrinsic value, their positive effect is magnified when careful consideration is given to both the location and manner of their delivery.

Izzy Bianchini

At Lake Forest High School, Izzy participated in three sports a year in order to always have something to associate herself with. After doing this for two years, she had the realization that she was using her activities to identify herself to others. Izzy was trying to find her worth externally by what she did, and by trying to impress other people. Izzy’s life radically changed when she really started to pay attention to who she was. She focused on herself, physically and spiritually, in her new yoga practice, and transformed her reality by learning to truly love herself. When her worth began to come from inside she became happier, healthier, and overall a more open and loving person. Izzy now knows how crucial it is to connect with yourself, to love yourself. She hopes that she can express this sentiment to those in the Lake Forest community, where we can often fall into the trap of viewing people for what they do or have done instead of who they really are.

Jack Schuler

After receiving an engineering degree from Tufts and an M.B.A. from Stanford University, Jack was employed by Texas Instruments for eight years all of which were overseas in France, Germany (where he met his wife, Renate), and Japan. Afterward he moved to Lake Bluff and worked for Abbott Laboratories in the 70’s and 80’s – in various positions, the last three as President and Chief Operating Officer. In 1989 Schuler helped start two eventually successful healthcare companies - Ventana Medical Systems and Stericycle Inc. and continues to be involved in creating new healthcare companies. In 2000, Mr. Schuler and daughter Tanya Schuler Sharman (Lake Forest High School ‘86) launched the Schuler Scholar Program (SSP) to serve high achieving and motivated students who lack resources. The program received the 2014 Harvard Club Chicago Annual Award in recognition of the SSP’s meaningful contributions to the well-being of young people in the greater Chicago area.

Jenny McKendry

Jenny is a junior at Lake Forest High School and has lived in Lake Bluff her whole life. Jenny enjoys her English class and loves seeing her friends at school. She played on the frosh/soph tennis team her freshman year and has played soccer for the high school the past 3 years. Jenny loves to travel and spend time in warm places. Her dream destination for college is California and she wishes to go into environmental science. Jenny loves to laugh and always wants to have a good time.

Katy Wicks

Katy is a freshman at Lake Forest High School, and has always had a love of learning. She is involved in math team, science olympiad, and model U.N. She has always been an introvert which, despite making things like public speaking terrifying, also allowed her to become better at observing and listening. By doing this, she realized that, as a woman, she was not strictly forbidden to be ambitious, but there were small societal cues telling her that she was not a leader. Giving this talk has given her the opportunity to confront this topic and do something that she would never have thought she was capable of.

Kristin Mikrut

Art has always been a driving force in Kristin Mikrut's life. She immersed herself in art and photography classes at Lake Forest High School, earned a degree in Studio Art from Colorado College, studied art in Paris, and received a fellowship to work and create at RONGO and Global Gypsy Gallery in Karamea, New Zealand- a part of the Living in Peace Project. Upon her return from her art residency overseas, Kristin interned with the BOLT Residency- a part of the Chicago Artist Coalition. From those experiences, Kristin and her long time friend Cecilia Lanyon, started envisioning a business created around the concept of promoting original art's place in all aspects of everyday life. She and Cecilia wanted to make art accessible and useable in all sorts of ways, sharing the love and appreciation of art as a vital force of life and creative dialogue within their community and beyond.

Kyle Levin

Kyle is a freshman at Lake Forest High School. He became interested in pre-history in his World Civilizations Honors class. He found it interesting that two species of humans could exist at the same time. It led him to the question “What if Neanderthals lived today?” Kyle’s others interests include running on the LFHS cross country team and LFHS track team. He is on the Student Council, a representative on Model UN and a member of the Latin Club. He is currently serving as the CEO of his Business Entrepreneurship class. Kyle is a youth group leader at First Presbyterian Church of Lake Forest. When he isn’t at school, Kyle enjoys spending time with his brothers Grant and Andrew. He is active in the community working with not-for-profit organizations such as The Ragdale Foundation and Bernie’s Book Bank.

Maikal Yamauchi

Maikal is a junior at the high school and lives in Lake Forest. Her favorite class at school is environmental science and business. When she grows up she wants to be a dermatologist or do something in the business world. She loves to travel and if she could, she would spend her whole life at the beach. She also enjoys spending time with family and friends and exploring the outdoors. She has played tennis, basketball and lacrosse at the high school and is an active member of CROYA.

Matthew Dewar

Matthew earned his M.Ed. in health and wellness education and his doctorate in curriculum theory. His work, which he has presented at national education conferences, explores the philosophical commitments shaping educational research and curriculum. This question guides his work: What are the consequences of an educational system that decides in advance what possibilities an individual will have? The loss of well-being is the most significant consequence; it is driven by a diminished sense of ownership of who we are and what our lives can become. Alternatively, he proposes, authentic education opens an exploratory space where an individual may freely discover his or her own life possibilities. ​

Matthew Koch

Matthew’s experiences developing leaders in Scouting have inspired a singular, overarching, reverberating question – What transforms ordinary leaders into great leaders? Operating under the principle that leadership itself cannot be taught, and by drawing on his experiences in Scouting, medicine, music, faith, and the common denominator of all leaders, the human experience, Matthew tries to answer that question by showing that the greatest of leaders are not born or created instantly - rather, they are just ordinary people with ordinary skills.

Peter Hill

Peter is a junior at Lake Forest High School. Freshman year, he decided to take Art 1 on a whim. From this, his love and passion for art only grew. He loves it because everyone involved in art is passionate about what they're doing. It's a community where people actually want to learn. Everyday, he is able to see himself and his peers grow and get excited about their artistic journey. In art critiques, you are forced to speak up about what you think. There is no room for self-doubt, a fact that Peter struggled with. Through years of art critiques, he has finally grown out of his shell. Art taught him to speak up about what is important to him. It gave him the confidence to share what he thinks, which is why he chose to speak about queer representation in the media. A topic that is often ignored or swept under the rug, Peter hopes that his passion will inspire change, or at least make people think.

Ross Kugman

Ross Kugman graduated from Lake Forest High School in 2012. He attended Illinois State University majoring in Theatre with a focus in Acting. After studying there for two years Ross decided he needed an educational change. He wasn't getting the intense training he wanted. After auditioning for a few schools in New York and London he was accepted to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He studies there now pursuing his passion: acting.

Taylor Rappeport

Taylor was born and raised in Lake Forest and currently is a freshman at Lake Forest High School. She loves to travel and learn about other cultures. Her recent trip to Africa gave her great appreciation for the commonalities we all share no matter how different our physical environments and communities are. Taylor is a passionate student, has a love of learning and is fascinated by history and human behavior. Her topic of how history repeats itself through religious persecution is very important to her as her personal values are centered on freedom, respect, and equality.

Tim Haussermann

Tim is a freshman at Lake Forest High School. He is a violinist in the Concert Orchestra and a member of the Debate Team and Scholastic Bowl. He is on the road to becoming an Eagle Scout with Troop 48. Tim loves photography and cinematography. He has always enjoyed history and opportunities for public speaking. Since he was old enough to read, Tim preferred history to Harry Potter. It started with World War II aviation and grew into a love of civilizations past. When people think about history they often consider influential people but fail to recognize a common thread that ties them all together, disease. It seems as if on a yearly basis the news spends a month focusing on a different disease in some part of the world forgotten to most. Tim wanted to use TEDxLakeForestHighSchool as a forum and open people’s eyes to how influential diseases were in the past and how, despite all the lessons learned, diseases will never be simply history.

Tom Dickelman

The Rev. Dr. Thomas Dickelman is the founder and minister of the Community Church of Lake Forest & Lake Bluff. The independent congregation of 200+ families is known for their innovative ministry, which includes no bureaucracy, formal membership program, or traditional church buildings. During the summer, the Community Church holds all their services outdoors, including two “Worship on the Beach” services each Sunday morning on Sunrise Beach in Lake Bluff. Tom is also the founder and director of the Center for Innovative Ministry (CIM), which promotes the use of innovative tools and resources for ministry through programs like the “Innovative Scholar,” which helps ministers start new worshiping communities. In partnership with his congregation Tom founded KidsUganda, which has raised over $1.5 million in support of the Maranatha School and Orphanage, and sent over 70 people on short-term “Adventures in Service” trips to Uganda.