Theme: The young people of Perth responding to unprecedented challenges with passion and originality.

Where young thinkers, innovators, entrepreneurs, campaigners and changemakers from Perth and WA come together to celebrate ideas worth spreading and strive for a better future. With nine remarkable speakers, performers, short films, interactive installations and the chance to meet over three hundred like-minded young people, TEDxYouth@Perth connects the local to the global.

State Theatre Centre of Western Australia
174 - 176 William Street
Perth, Western Australia, 6000
Australia

Alexander Karan

Technologist

Alexander is the co-founder, and Chief Technical Officer at ClimateClever, a startup helping schools, communities and businesses reduce their carbon footprint. A full-stack developer with over ten years of experience, he previously ran an app development agency managing various teams from design and marketing to web and native mobile app developers, both in Australia and abroad.

Cougar Morrison

Identity Superhero

Cougar is a drag artist, comedian and actor based in Perth, Western Australia. Recently starring as Tick in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert the Musical, they’re also the winner of the 2020 Entertainer of the Year Award and one of the stars of The Perth Cabaret Collective. Cougar’s alter-ego, Clint Strindberg, trained at the Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts as a classical vocalist.

Ebony McGuire

Actor, Writer, Emerging Leader

Ebony is a proud Noongar woman, the founder of Kalyakoorl Collective, an actor, writer, theatre maker and arts leader-in-the-making. After graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts’ Aboriginal Theatre Course in 2013, Ebony has represented the Noongar community in many projects, including Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company’s Noongar Shakespeare Project, and Perth Festival and Boomerang And Spear’s ground-breaking translation of Bruce Lee’s kung fu classic.

Melissa Cristina Márquez

Marine Biologist and Shark Expert

Melissa is a multi-hyphenate Latina in STEM and a PhD candidate at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. Through her Scholastic books (the Wild Survival series), TV presenting roles for the BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic and OceanX, and hosting the ConCiencia Azul Spanish podcast, Melissa is passionate about making the scientific industry more diverse and inclusive, including making all of her educational content bilingual. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and listed as one of InStyle’s BadAss Women for 2021, Melissa was recently aboard the OceanXplorer in the Atlantic Ocean as a scientific advisor/presenter.

Mohammed Khaiata

Digital Transformation Expert

Mohammed successfully leads digital transformation programs in business consultancy, systems implementation, ICT infrastructure, and organisational change management to deliver tangible results to multinational organisations. He holds a PhD in managing emerging technologies from the University of Western Australia.

Patrick Gunasekera

Interdisciplinary artist

Patrick is an award-winning writer, performer, dramatist and arts journalist based in Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar (Perth). His tender interdisciplinary works explore agency, strategy, and healing justice through the standpoints of oppressed communities, and have encouraged empowering cultural change in his local arts scenes. He is also a lived experience speaker and community consultant in the public sector, where his work builds capacity for empathy among health and community service providers.

Siobhan Sutton

School Strike Activist

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Sophie Stewart

Social Justice Campaigner

Since 2016 Sophie has been the first Campaign Manager for Social Reinvestment Western Australia, helping build a coalition of 29 non-profits and running a campaign to end mass incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. In 2020 she led law reform to end imprisonment for unpaid fines and worked alongside 11 communities to launch Western Australia’s first Justice Reinvestment site. Sophie founded Swim for Refugees in 2014, leading 40 volunteers each year to teach over 60 people from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds how to swim, creating a community that welcomes.

William Crohan

Doctor and Medical Researcher

William is a Surgical Registrar in Perth, Western Australia. He became interested in Ear, Nose and Throat medicine whilst practising medicine in remote indigenous communities in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. William has completed a Masters of Surgery at the University of Western Australia, and is about to commence his PhD.