Theme: Transformations

Change can be unsettling and exciting in equal measures. Listen to local voices that offer creative responses to transformations in Ho Chi Minh City. Notice how international students reinvent the meaning of cultural identity and inter-generational misunderstandings. Watch teachers, students, environmentalists and medical practitioners investigate how we can change lives, including our own. Are you brave enough to choose your own future? Be transformed by the inaugural TEDxYouth@BISHCMC.

TEDxYouth@BISHCMC
British International School Secondary Campus, 246 Nguyen van Huong Street
Thao Dien
Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh, xxxx
Vietnam

Ana Samudio

BIS Student

Ana Samudio is a Panamanian expatriate and BIS student. Her talk focuses on the idea of learning to "unlearn". Being a member of the Global Goals Club, she has become particularly interested in the application of this idea on the attainability of sustainable development. In an international school with such a strong community group and partners, it is imperative in our spreading of awareness on the local global issues to remember and understand that our ideas can often be wrong. With this in mind, she hopes to share her ideas on the challenge our fear of change and "unlearning" pose to sustainability.

Bennett Jones

YEAR 11 BISHCMC STUDENT

Bennett Jones is a Canadian expatriate from a mixed-religion background. Besides his hometown of Toronto, Bennett lived in Shanghai for over three years and has been a student at BIS in Ho Chi Minh City since 2013. Partly as a result of his own experiences and background, Bennett is particularly interested in the role religion plays in the identity of his fellow expatriate youth in an international school setting, discussing ideas such as how religion acts in contribution as an anchor to the culture that expatriates leave behind. In preparation for his speech Bennett has sent out polls to his fellow peers to collectively assess the attitudes towards religion within his immediate school community.

Dan (aka Hibiya Line) Bi Mong

DJ (performer).

Hibiya Line is not Japanese. Behind that name hides Dan, a Swiss-Vietnamese guy who in 2006 began playing live acts mixing house and techno in his hometown of Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2013, he founded The Observatory, an underground club in HCMC, Vietnam that is naturally dedicated to the music he likes. A Hibiya Line set can be anything from a cosmic journey through the exoplanets of electronic rarities, an archaeological excavation of loft-locked disco gems, and anything in between. Whatever it is, his reputation for carefully blended sounds of powerful and mesmerizing obscurity is far-reaching. Arguably one of the true pioneers of underground dance music in Vietnam, his sound escapes the confines of genres and is designed for dancing with an element of anticipation and surprise.

Dr Rafi Kot

Internist, CEO & Founder of Family Medical Practice

Tel Aviv native Dr. Rafi Kot is the C.E.O. and founder of Family Medical Practice. He first opened the practice in 1994 after running a number of health care projects for remote minority groups in the Vietnamese north; his service today encompasses five clinics and a world-class emergency medical response system. He continues his charitable work, having led several missions to impoverished mountainous areas to supply distant village communities with supplies and essential treatments. Dr. Rafi’s TEDx talk focuses on the innovations that have allowed his medical service to respond to and challenge the prevailing medical environment of Vietnam through a consistent pursuit of advanced medical technologies. These include the adoption of international emergency protocols and groundbreaking efforts to perform complex medical evacuations.

Duc Huynh

YEAR 8 BISHCMC STUDENT

Raised in Ho Chi Minh city, Duc Huynh has experienced all the aspects of daily, modern city life in Vietnam. After joining BIS in 2014, he has established himself as a public speaker in being the proverbial mascot of the Global Goals Club. Duc cares not for how great the city is or will be, but instead for the serious, underlying current of issues of his home. Inspired from his childhood experiences of Ho Chi Minh’s ever increasing problem of pollution, Duc’s talk explores the origin, continuation and impact of the culmination of rubbish within his immediate environment - especially the intricacies of societal engines that powers this issue in developing countries. Duc has assessed a range of evidence in preparation for his talk, aiming to make an informed, updated statement on the issue of pollution: from the implications of plastic pollutions to why the population collectively hesitates to take action.

Pedro Roman

Teacher/Director

After completing his BA in Media in native Spain, Pedro moved to London, where he worked in a production company. He subsequently trained as a teacher and taught Spanish and French in a school in Essex. In September 2014, it was time for a change and Pedro moved to Vietnam to teach in an international school. Pedro has created several short films in his free time and after a few years in Vietnam he is ready to make a Vietnamese film. In his talk Pedro explains how he goes about this project.

Professor Jeremy Day

Head, CNS & HIV Infections Research Group.

Professor Jeremy Day lives in Ho Chi Minh City where he leads the Central Nervous System and HIV Infections Research Group at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit. The group’s interests include cryptococcal meningitis, talaromycosis, encephalitis, acute bacterial and tuberculous meningitis. Research focuses on large randomized controlled trials powered to survival, designed to inform physician decision making at the point of diagnosis. Intervention trials, conducted throughout Asia and Africa, drive a programme of basic science investigating the ecology, pathogenesis, immunology and drug susceptibility of the pathogens of interest. Jeremy studied medicine and political philosophy at Cambridge University in the UK, and completed specialist training in Infectious Diseases and General Internal Medicine in Edinburgh, London and Manchester in the United Kingdom, and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

Tue Minh Nguyen

YEAR 13 BISHCMC STUDENT

Tue Minh has a range of interests both academic and personal. She enjoys observing the world around her and always welcomes a vigorous debate on almost any topic. Her defining feature is her passionate love of learning. In Tue Minh's talk, she will be sharing personal thoughts from the perspective of a senior high school student, struggling to identify a clear future. She calls for the collective self reassessment on society’s perspective on future goals and choices, on why students force themselves into situations of academic scrutiny and tribulation. By drawing from her own experiences as a student in a competitive academic environment, she explores both the rational and the emotional sides of a student’s behaviour, drawing questions such as when will we be able to enjoy the supposed ‘future’ was born from our hardship.

Will McFarland

Economist specialised in climate change and agriculture.

Will is an economist working on climate change and agriculture, as well as the owner of a gym in Ho Chi Minh City. Originally from London, UK, he is currently based in Vietnam. He works throughout Asia to solve one of the world's most complex issues: how to prevent dangerous climate change while allowing 9 billion+ people to lead good lives. Will's talk focuses on agriculture transformations in Vietnam. He discusses how we can get out of the trap of producing rubbish 'things' in order to improve our quality of life.