Theme: Impact

TEDxYouth@RafflesInstitution (tedxri.com) is a TEDx conference, centred around the theme "Impact" and featuring students, staff, and distinguished alumni as speakers. It will be held virtually on 6 August 2022 afternoon, due to the COVID-19 situation. TEDxYouth@RafflesInstitution is also a CE01 project.

Virtual
Zoom
Singapore, Central Singapore
Singapore

Alex Li

Year 6 Student

Alex (22S03O) is a current Y6 student studying in Raffles Institution. Ever since his encounter with the periodic table in primary 4, Alex has since then strove to find out more about the wonders of this world through the lenses of Chemistry. Alex has taken part in a number of activities to this end, such as enrolling in the Raffles Academy for Chemistry, participating in the Chemistry Olympiad and obtaining a Silver Medal. He is especially passionate about Organic Chemistry, believing it has the potential to be part of many important applications in society. He is currently undertaking online research at Cambridge University for Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and at Princeton University for Polymer Synthesis.

Alvin Kuek

CEO & Co-Founder, Mind Stretcher Education Group

An ex-MOE RI Scholar, RJC Pre-U Scholar & a Kuok Foundation University Scholar, Alvin is the Co-Founder of the Mind Stretcher Education Group. He began his career at Arthur Andersen & Price Waterhouse before being headhunted to become the CFO of two tech firms, one of which eventually listed. In the past 16 years, Alvin has nurtured thousands of students (including two RI President’s Scholars). An animated speaker, Alvin is a familiar face at Mind Stretcher workshops & seminars. He has also given talks at various tertiary institutions and business organisations to share his extensive experience in education and entrepreneurship

Chua Kah Hwee

Youth Counselor

Kah Hwee was inspired into this work when she saw the hurts in young lives suffering from broken families. She wanted to give the children and youths an avenue to voice their thoughts and express their feelings. Switching careers from business development to counseling, she had been attending to young people for almost two decades. What sustained her in this demanding work was her playtime with her nieces and nephews, her conversations with her husband and plants, and her prayer time with God. Kah Hwee enjoys the interaction with young people and hopes to continue making a lasting positive impact on their lives!

Denyse Chan

Singapore National Fencer & Sport Excellence (spex) Scholar

Denyse is a Singapore National Fencer and an incoming undergraduate in Economics and Political Science at UC Berkeley. She graduated from RI in 2021 with 6 distinctions. In RI, she was a founding member of Project Perpective and published two children books targeted at correcting negative perceptions against migrant workers. A Team Singapore Fencer since 2016, Denyse is a recipient of the prestigious Sport Excellence Scholarship and won the Singapore Schools Sports Council Best Sportsgirl Award in 2020. Her achievements include winning Gold at the Asian Junior Championships in 2019 and at the SEA Games twice, in 2019 and 2022.

Eric Li

Geraldine Tan

Educator

Geraldine is a Biology teacher at Raffles Institution who is passionate about astronomy and affective education, and always thinking of ways to optimise and enhance pedagogical content knowledge. Outside the classroom, Geraldine spends time educating parents on the science of sleep, compassionate and respectful sleep routines, and sleep hygiene for infants to preschoolers. In 2016, she pioneered a Facebook parenting community to provide free resources and support on children’s sleep. Currently, she partners medical professionals and parenting experts to extend her work to the larger Singapore community.

Ilangovan Harishiga

Year 5 Student

Ilangovan Harishiga is a rather extroverted human who loves to talk to anyone and everyone. She has an ardent dedication towards dancing and writing, both of which she constantly works on and has attained awards for, over the course of her journey. She is also a voracious reader, reading everything from Fantasy to Non-Fiction! To add on, she likes the ability to weave words to possibly evoke a change in perspective in everyone near and far. Thus, she likes public speaking and has spoken to many audiences in both her mother tongue and in English.

Kahhow Lee

Educator and Founder of String (previously CareerContact)

Kahhow breaks (dance) at dawn, teaches by day and works on digital skills training and digital products by dusk. He is passionate about edtech and uplifting individuals in an age of disruption. His experiences led to him founding CareerContact, a GSV Top 200 Edtech Startup which enabled digital skills exposure and training of hundreds of youth across Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines through the COVID period in a pro-bono capacity. His parents run microenterprises and he have personally been invested in their digital transformation. He has built systems for inventory management, point of sale, marketing, scheduling and payments using no/low-code tools and believes that other youths can do the same. Digital skills education, centred on no/low-code, will profoundly empower businesses, teachers and students to build their own digital products. More people can then bring their ideas to life and partake in the rapid growth of the digital economy.

Kareena Shanice Kumar

Year 6 Student

I’m Kareena, a driven and focused individual passionate about economics and its intersections with international relations and public policy. A Y6 student taking the unconventional subject combination of PME Lit, I enjoy reading poetry, listening to R&B or watching the latest kdrama in my free time. I hope that through this conference, attendees are able to take away new viewpoints and ideas!

Kushagra Kesarwani

Year 4 Student

I’m Kush, a Year 4 RI student who’s been passionate about the sciences and engineering ever since I began watching youtube videos. I have always been interested in how things move. My interest led me to explore this topic at a deeper level through Raffles Academy and wrote multiple portfolio pieces. Among them, I took a deep dive in rocket engine design, rocket fuel, the systems behind our electrical grid and yes, the risks and rewards of hydrogen power in the field of aviation. I couldn’t be more excited to share my findings with you, this year at TEDxYouth@RafflesInstitution.

Prof. Alex Siow

Professor

Prof Alex Siow is Professor in the department of Information Systems and Analytics of the School of Computing, NUS since 2015. Alex started as a Structural Engineer in the HDB in 1981 and appointed the CIO in 1989. In 2003, he was SVP in StarHub, where he was Head, Business Markets and CIO. In 2012, he joined Accenture as a Managing Director. Alex is currently in a number of boards, including Tee International, Toffs Technologies, DART Consulting, Red Alpha, SUSS and THK-AMK Hospital. Alex’s book “Leading with IT: Lessons from Singapore’s first CIO” was published in Feb 2021.

Santusht Narula

Year 4 Student

Hi, I’m Santusht Narula - a student from Raffles Institution currently enrolled in year 4 with a strong interest in aviation, technology, and entrepreneurship. In school, I am part of the robotics and drama clubs - places in which I regularly get to learn and apply invaluable hard and soft skills. I have led my house as Director in Dramafeste 2022 and am a Peer Support Leader to the current year 1 batch of students. Outside of school, I love to watch F1 and cricket and am an avid cyclist.

Soon Kon Chun

Founder of Worksider

Chun Soon Kon founded Worksider to solve the Experience Paradox to help millions of students take their first step for successful life and career. Leveraging his past experiences in P&G, Amazon and BCG and his many other ventures, he has been helping over 20,000 students find the right internships in over 500 companies through Worksider. As a firm believer of using technology to help others and with his multicultural background of being a Korean who lived in Japan and Singapore, he hopes to scale his impact globally.

Teo Sui Leng

Year 6 Student

Sui Leng is currently a JC2 student at Raffles Institution and an alumnus of Raffles Girls’ School (RGS). Presently from Raffles Debaters, she previously served as the Vice-President of the RGS Robotics Club and the Founder of Project EmpowHER. Having embarked on her entrepreneurial journey at 15, she has since had opportunities to meet and network with various industry mentors and professionals and enjoys experimenting with ideas whilst learning about the world of entrepreneurship. In her spare time, she enjoys reading about politics and economics as well as learning about new technologies.

Theodoric Chew

Co-founder & CEO, Intellect

Theodoric Chew is the Co-founder & CEO of Intellect, Asia Pacific’s largest mental health company that provides technology-enabled mental healthcare for the world’s leading workforces. Today, Intellect serves over 3 million members globally, covering Asia’s largest employers. Intellect is backed by leading investors including Insignia Ventures Partners, Y Combinator, HOF Capital, Headline, East Ventures, MS&AD Ventures, XA Network and an extensive list of family offices, big tech executives & renowned angel investors.

Zu Lilian

Year 5 Student

Hello, I'm Lilian from 23S03P! A fun fact about me is that 3 years ago, my school was giving away its old library books and I shamelessly took 30... but as of today, I've only read half of them. My hobbies include crocheting and spending time with my friends! I genuinely hope that you will enjoy my talk — as teenagers growing up in today's digital age, I thought that my topic would offer a unique perspective on the way we choose to live our lives, thereby rendering it an interesting food for thought :)