Theme: I dream, therefore I am.

Dream has unique meanings to each and every one of us. Some want to circumnavigate the planet by a motorbike while some envision helping people in need by setting up a social enterprise. At the same time, dreams to some people do not have to be that extraordinary; stable job that provides enough income for the upbringing of family is good enough.

The trouble is, many of us live our lives not knowing what we truly want to do. Even if they somehow know what their dreams are, they are not very sure all the time. Worse, some feel their dreams are not worth a try because they are fantasies and cannot come true in reality.

With such complications that revolve around dreams, people often wonder what their dreams truly are. The title of this year’s TEDx AJC is therefore this: I dream, therefore I am. It is an adaptation from a famous quote from Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. It carries an ultimatum of dream as a process of self-actualization. We believe that understanding of dreams as self-discovery can indeed bring the best out of an individual.

Anderson Junior College Auditorium
4500 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6 Anderson Junior College
Singapore, 569843
Singapore

Ng Meixi

Meixi Ng is a social activist traveled around the world to invent a new pedagogy for social justice schools. The system she created is called tutoria, which is a system that encourages both interaction and education to take place at the same time. It is simply a peer-tutoring session with some other tactics to make it more effective but this idea has gone further as to be discussed during National Institute of Education conference as a possible new way of learning to be implemented in schools from Singapore. She would like to talk about complications around achieving a dream and how that relentless drive to pursue the dream can hurt the people around. Her message is to strike a suitable balance between the two.

Leong Gideon

Gideon Leong, the youngest executive life planner at Great Life Eastern Insurance Company, is an ex-AJCian who had to go through many obstacles of life, including having to see his father pass away at the age of seven. He is a prime example of living a Singapore Dream, who despite his dire backgrounds, managed to clinch a good career that assured him good life and a family. His messages are simple; dreams do not have to be extraordinary or awe-inspiring, and no matter what you pursue, your dreams will demand discipline and effort from you.

Hoang Anh Quynh

A 19-year-old Year 2 student at AJC, Quynh is just like any other students in AJC, except that she has an idea to share. MOE A*star Scholar and a deep thinker with many insightful thoughts, she wants to talk about dreams that go unheard and people who feel that they do not have any special talents. She will share her experience of her journey to become a writer or poet someday in future, with a message that the most probable reason why people feel nothing special about themselves is because they have not given it a try. She hopes to share her daily experiences, thereby drawing parallels with the audience to let them realize that there is nothing so much different between her and them.

Koh Seng Choon

Koh Seng Choon is a social entrepreneur who at the age of 51, gave up his stable job and even went through incurring a debt to found Dignity Kitchen, an organization that provides training facilities for the people with disabilities to become hawkers. His courage to pursue his altruistic dream is indeed inspiring. His message is this: When you dream, do so in a way that can help the people around you.

Tan Irwin Zephyr

Irwin Zephyr is a singer-song-writer who dreamed of becoming a musician when he was 15 years old. His pursuit of being a musician in Singapore is already inspiring, since music scenes in Singapore are undoubtedly dormant, with many of the talented going unheard and underdeveloped. His messages are in acronym: yolo – you only live once. You only live once and so do what defines you and what makes you happy. Irwin Zephyr therefore also carries our ultimatum that dream is a process of self-actualization and not anything else trivial than that like material success. He plans to end off his speech with a song entitled ‘The world in 150’, an encouraging song that challenges you to step out of your comfort zone and find the real ‘you’.