Theme: And Against All Odds...

This year, EEB3's annual TEDx event will host fifteen inspiring speakers. These will include members of the school community and experts in various fields. They will discuss the theme: "And Against All Odds..." and, through their talks, shed light on some of the most pressing issues of our time. Through the diversity represented by the speakers, everyone will find something that interests them in the TEDxYouth@EEB3 programme. For better or for worse, humans have the potential to beat the odds. The main message of the event is that we should, therefore, seek out the unknown and defeat the odds to construct a better future.

European School of Brussels 3's Theater
Boulevard du Triomphe 135
Brussels, Bruxelles-Capitale, Région de (fr), Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest (nl), 1050
Belgium

Adam Borkovec

Student- European School of Brussels III

I have been experiencing hallucinations for over three years. I had a self-harm addiction. I have tried to kill myself, and I have been hospitalised. In my talk, I will be speaking of my experience going through delusions, various hospitals and the general journey of my mental health. I have learnt how to deal with living with a life full of difficulty. I know I am not alone in these struggles, and in my talk I want to address the reality of mental health issues

Anirudhh Ramesh

BSc Computer Science Student - EPFL

“I don’t think he’ll get elected, maybe he’ll do something else”. This was what older students said when they heard my ambitions as a 15-year old. But guess what, I was elected in the end. How did I beat expectations? In this talk, I will explain how I organised many successful projects and show why your age, experiences and failures should not stop you from your dreams. No matter what, there’s no downsides to starting that next project, and school is such an incredible environment for it. Yes, it’s the slogan of a big company, but it’s true. “Just do it”.

Dr. Kian Rahbarnia

Scientist at Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany

The world population is growing and, along with it, our appetite for energy. Over the last few decades, society has slowly understood that fossil fuels will not be able to fuel human progress forever and that their utilization has become a severe threat to nature and human life. Therefore, alternative energy sources, like renewable solar, wind or water power, have been explored and developed. However, their technical implementation remains complicated. The output of such sources won't be enough to provide for our ever-increasing energy needs. Since the 1950s, the concept of gaining energy from the fusion of light atoms has been explored and ever since developed to nowadays highly complex experimental machines to build commercial nuclear fusion power plants. The output of such power sources could fuel a substantial part of our future. In this talk, I like to guide you through recent developments and the latest research results in this fast-growing field.

Emiel Cockx

CEO - Genvision

Carbon offsets allow companies to reduce their carbon footprint by supporting projects that remove CO2 from the air. Carbon offsets are seen as highly controversial, as there is often a high uncertainty if those projects actually remove carbon. However, the science is clear - if we want to have a chance at all to fight climate change, we need carbon removal. How we can build a system that can be trusted? Technology might have the answer.

Fabrice Corriette

Teacher- European School of Brussels III

Seriez-vous prêt à apprendre autrement ? Pourrions-nous organiser et bâtir ensemble, professeurs et élèves, les compétences de tous ? Dans beaucoup d'écoles la façon d'apprendre est plus ou moins la même. Sans prétendre présenter une méthode miracle, l'exposé abordera quelques pistes pour innover en pédagogie. Pour se demander si finalement il fallait juste oser ?

Franciszek Kolinski

Student (S7) - European School Brussels III

I will be speaking about the events that make the odds of you being alive as yourself infinitely small and the tiny chances of me presenting this talk here in a European school in Belgium given my Polish background from a lower-class family. I will also talk about how life is a wonderful gift that everyone should seize when they can because of its uniqueness and rarity.

Jake Dundon

Student (S7) - European School Brussels III

Have you ever heard of the Soviet answer to Apollo? Most people don't know that the USSR didn't just drop out of the moon race, but actually tried, hard, to get there before the Americans. It's a wildly interesting story spanning decades of Soviet politics, featuring dysfunctional bureaucracy, explosions, gulags, bitter office rivalries and rapid unplanned lethal death, culminating in a spectacular failure representative of everything wrong with the Soviet regime. They had everything going for them: the US was late to the punch on the first satellite, the first man in space, the first woman in space, the first spacewalk, the first lunar probe - it looked like they had total space race victory effortlessly in the bag, years ahead of their American counterparts. So how did they manage to screw up their manned lunar program so badly people don't even remember it existed? The answer is an unlikely story of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, totally and utterly... against all odds.

Julia Caligaris

Student (S6) - European School Brussels III

What is the Western world's growing obsession with East-Asian culture? And is it really all about appreciation? This phenomenon, which can be traced back to the imperialist era, has taken a new, more contemporary form with the recent dominance of social media as well as representation in cinema, music or fashion. This talk will highlight how the phenotypical East-Asian look could be both stigmatized and valorized leading to identity becoming ambiguous for many in the context of today’s world.

Julia Wilkinson

Student (S7) - European School Brussels III

Humanity has had many moments in its history in which it has trumped against all odds. Most often when studying these moments in history we look at man versus man conflicts. In this talk Ruben Jensen and Julia Wilkinson will be looking closer at some of these moments in history, explaining what lead up to them, what happened and why these events show the capacity of the human spirit to endure through hardship.

Karen Northshield

Author & Terrorist Attack Survivor

Karen Northshield is a miracle survivor of the Brussels terrorist attacks of 22 March, 2016. During her talk, she will take you on an inspirational and thrilling journey through the most unexpected and unthinkable life challenging events. On March 22nd, 2016, she was at the Brussels' international airport to catch a flight when, in a split second, her life changed radically. She went from a prime athlete and Personal Trainer to a fatally injured victim of a deadly terrorist attack. In the blink of an eye, her life, body, dreams and carreer were shattered into pieces as she was blown away by the bomb. The doctors gave her zero chance of survival. She went from an improbable survival to a long reconstruction as medical teams put the pieces of her broken body back together. To this day, she has recovered beyond anyone's imagination as she continues to assemble the pieces of her puzzle under a new positive light.

Lara Coutinho

Teacher- European School of Brussels III

In the year that we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Pablo Picasso's death, I would like to take this opportunity to share some reflections on his legacy. I will share with you four life lessons I`ve learned from Picasso, on how to have a more prosperous life, being an artist or not.

Lilla Bartuszek

Founder and Managing Director, Center of Sustainable Communities

The current rate of urban growth is unprecedented. Rapid urbanization poses enormous challenges, including increasing air pollution, inadequate basic services and infrastructure, and unplanned urban sprawl, which make cities even more vulnerable.The localization of the SDGs includes both the examination of how local governments can support the implementation of the 2030 agenda through their grassroots action, as well as what kind of framework the SDGs can provide for local development policy. The Agenda 2030 of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is truly embedded at all levels of decision-making. However, if Member States are to get the most out of such an ambitious set of goals and targets, not only must there be a strong focus on international, European and regional cooperation between Member States, but also a role of the whole of public administration, including local authorities, should be emphasized in preparing decisions at national level.

Margaritis Schinas

Vice-President of the European Commision

Vice-President Schinas talks about how the European Union offers a lesson in hope. Using personal examples from his 35 year career in European politics, he shows how, against all odds, the European continent has continuously advanced in one direction: unity. Europe’s journey is living testament to the belief that despair and destruction will never be a match for hope.

Nathalie de la Calleja Orozco

Student (S7) - European School of Brussels III

In this talk, I will be sharing my personal story about living with an illness that has deeply affected my life : endometriosis. I will show you what my reality is and share my diagnosis journey through the lens of the ongoing misunderstanding and unprofessionalism I went through when dealing with medical professionals. Furthermore, I will share how I managed to push through my journey and persevere “against all odds”. My aim is to inform about this illness and make this invisible illness a little more visible. The audience will learn about the impact that endometriosis can have on one’s body and lifestyle by hearing my own experience. I want to help people see what most endometriosis patients endure and spread awareness on these issues. Ultimately, I hope to perhaps help someone as lost and confused as I was when my health started declining when they hear this talk.

Rajya Inapakutikala

Teacher- European School of Brussels III

In my TEDx talk, I will brief you through the history behind ChatGPT evolution; how is it different from the current search engines (ex:Google); what are its key features and who all can benefit from them; what are the current limitations of it; what impacts its usage could have on the students and teachers community; what could come next.

Ruben Jensen

Student (S7) - European School Brussels III

Humanity has had many moments in its history in which it has trumped against all odds. Most often when studying these moments in history we look at man versus man conflicts. In this talk Ruben Jensen and Julia Wilkinson will be looking closer at some of these moments in history, explaining what lead up to them, what happened and why these events show the capacity of the human spirit to endure through hardship.