Theme: What Now?

We are living in an ever changing world. The landscape of our future looks musically innovative, technologically breathtaking, scientifically advanced, environmentally precarious and politically uncertain. As we strive towards a better future for ourselves and our children, it is time to ask ourselves 'What Now?'
On Saturday November 19th, 18 speakers from the United Nations International School, New York, will address each of these areas giving insights into what the future holds for us and the possibilities that lie ahead.

United Nations International School
24-50 FDR Drive
NEW YORK, New York, 10010
United States

Aaron Lee

Aaron’s talk will introduce his original, economical, and convenient idea to use technology in order to help blind and deaf people to gain more independence.  He will also make us aware of the existing technology that proves helpful to the blind and deaf.

Abby Oulton

Progressive Elementary school teacher Abby is one of the founders of play:ground in New York. Her passion for education has led her to research what it is to be a child in the 21st century, and how schools can use self directed learning to nurture and celebrate their passion and creativity.

Adil Zaidi

Adil is a 9-year-old fourth grader from UNIS Manhattan. After seeing how difficult it could be for new students to integrate in new schools, he came up with the idea to create a ‘buddy network’, a volunteer network run by kids.

Áine Rogers

Áine Rogers is a fourth grade student at UNIS Manhattan. Áine wants to make the world a better place and she believes that virtual reality could hold the key. Her talk will focus on how Virtual Reality can be used for education and compassion.

Aisha Hansen

Aisha Hansen is 9 years old and she is in 4th grade at UNIS Manhattan. Despite being only 9, Aisha has lived in many different countries so she has had to change schools many times. She has experienced different problems while changing schools and wanted to come up with a solution. Aisha’s school in 2nd grade put together a group for new students to talk about how everything was going and their feelings about their new school. Could she bring the same idea to her current school?

Ana Dokianos

Ana is 9 years old and is in the 4th grade at UNIS Manhattan. Ana is passionate about history and after watching the recent presidential elections, she wondered how people used to vote in ancient times. After researching the ‘Direct Democracy’ system used in Ancient Greece she realized that she could use this idea to give people a voice in schools. Ana set about creating HAVEN, an online forum for students to share ideas and experiences within her school’s community.

Andrew Park

5th grade student Andrew Park talks about the dangers of river pollution, what we have done to our rivers and how we have utilized them over the years. In his talk, Andrew will propose an idea for how river pollution can be halted with the use of water filters. He introduces a smaller "project" that children and adults alike can perform to create small changes to reduce river pollution. 

Ben Gorisek-Gazze

Ben Gorisek-Gazze is a nine year old fifth grader from UNIS. He will be speaking about his idea to help the homeless in New York City. In his talk, he suggests that many homeless people in New York could work as tour guides, something that they now do in Vienna, Austria, where Ben used to live.

Ciara Jackson

Ciara Jackson is a 4th grade student at UNIS Manhattan. Ciara is passionate about animals and the environment. After learning about the plight of dolphins getting caught up in fishing nets, she set about trying to find a solution to the problem.

Dylan Mak

Dylan is a 10 year old boy in the 5th grade at UNIS Manhattan. After seeing how sad his grandfather was when he was moved to a nursing home, Dylan looked into things that he could do to help. He realized that Virtual Reality could be a realistic option to help homebound people connect with their friends and family.

Elisa Elbarmi

Elisa Elbarmi, 9, is in grade 4 at UNIS Manhattan. This is her first time doing a TEDx talk. Elisa will speak about the importance of music for young people based on her personal experience as a violinist. She spends her summer breaks in Italy and Morocco, but Brooklyn, New York is her true home.

Emma Baltrusaitis

Emma is a 9 year old fourth grader who attends UNIS Manhattan. Emma believes that the internet is turning us into passive learners, with people using the internet more than they use other sources to find out information. This is creating a worrying dependence on the internet by the human race. Is the internet affecting people in a bad way?

Enzo Schulze

Enzo’s talk will explore ways for us to use a hobby to fund a charity.  He covers how to start a charity in four easy steps: types of hobbies, ideas about how to raise money, how to fund the charity in a secure way, and he also adds his own personal experience.

Keira Hanlon

Keira Hanlon is a 5th grade student at UNIS manhattan. She has a keen interest in how technology changes people's lives, and has researched the effects this could have on society in the future. Keira will be speaking about modern technology and asking the question, ‘Just how social is social media?’

Leo Makansi

Leo is a 10-year-old fourth grader from UNIS Manhattan. He will be speaking about gamifying kindness. He came up with an idea for a app that gets people to perform random acts of kindness.

Millie Vizinberg-Honor

Millie is a 10 year-old fifth grader at UNIS Manhattan. Millie joined UNIS in the fourth grade and prior to that she lived in a number of different countries. As Millie traveled around the world she saw how different countries acted towards gender and how women and men are treated differently. She wondered at the age of seven why people needed a gender, so today she will talk about gender in the past, present and future, and gender equality.

Morgan Jones

Morgan’s talk will consider kid-energy as the most valuable natural resource.  As a natural commodity, kid-energy may be used to provide companionship, to entertain, and to assist seniors in a better quality of life.

Sophia Pinzari

Sophia is a 10 year old student at UNIS Manhattan. After conducting research into World War II she came up with an idea to help people learn from our elders. She reasoned that you should ask older people for advice because they have been alive longer than us, and therefore have more experience to draw on. Listening to these people can help us understand what life was like for past generations and guide us all as we make important decisions about the future.

Tellem Bijleveld

Grade 5 Student

Tellem is a Grade 5 student at the United Nations International School, Queens, New York. Her talk will consider the benefit of sports in the lives of children.  She will examine types of sports, the benefit of team sports, and documented physical, emotional, social, and educational benefits of team sports.

Yoni Kallai

Yoni is 33 and spends lots of time playing. As a co-founder of play:ground, a unique junkyard playground on Governors Island he will talk about the oppression of young people and show how self directed play is a way to start working towards the liberation of young people.