Theme: Igniting Minds - Impacting Lives

TEDxIGBIS Youth is an event focused on sharing and amplifying our children and youth's dreams, ideas, innovations and actions. Throughout the event, we will hear from speakers ages 11-18, who will share their unique perspectives, novel ideas, solutions and designs to spark our curiosity, creativity, kindness and wonder of what our futures may look like if we let Gen Z and Gen Alpha - "take the wheel".

IGBIS Theatre
Jalan Sierramas Utama
5
Sungai Buloh, Selangor, 47000
Malaysia

Alia Shahid

Hello everyone! My name is Alia, and I’m a thirteen-year-old in grade 7. I’m from the Maldives and have been living in Malaysia since the age of six. In my free time, I enjoy engaging in literature, the arts, and psychology. Within school, the extracurricular activities I dabble in are M.U.N. where I debate, and I’ve recently joined the orchestra to improve my electric guitar skills. I am bilingual and can speak Dhivehi, and English, and am currently learning Chinese. I joined TEDx, as I’m rather extroverted, and love speaking about my passions, and found this a great opportunity to share one of my perspectives and reflections with others.

Artem Polovinkin

Hi, my name is Artem, I’m 14, a global citizen. I was born in the US, raised in Russia and currently live in Asia. From a young age, I had a chance to travel the world, experience different cultures and opinions. This has ignited my interest in history, geography, and social studies and brought me to MUN. When I am not working on my projects or homework I enjoy playing chess and music, mainly guitar. I also love baking (sadly I can’t give you my cookies)! Furthermore, I am very active in sports like swimming and volleyball. In all of my activities, I stumble from time to time, however, I believe that learning from mistakes is much better than blaming myself. I hope both you and I can learn something from my talk.

Claire Cleary

Hi there, I’m Claire, a 15-year-old student in grade 9. My number one passion is art. It’s the one hobby that I have managed to stick to for all these years, as it goes way beyond pencil and paper and it is something that unfortunately, a lot of us lose as we get older. Art has led me through my life and after learning more about its benefits I want to share some of those experiences and highlights with others so that they can benefit from them too, as it might inspire them to pursue art in their lives.

Constance Wong

Hello to whoever is reading this! My name is Constance and I am 11 years old, and I was born and raised in Malaysia. I’m currently in grade 5 and I was one of the “pioneer students” in my school as I have studied here for 9 years (since the school opened). In my free time, I enjoy drawing, reading, playing the violin or piano and playing sports. I decided to join TEDx because I think it will help me improve my public speaking skills and because I think it would be fun to educate other people about something they might not know a lot about, which is my family values!

Ghazi Kamarul

Hi, my name is Ghazi, I’m 15 and I’m from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I enjoy learning about science and exploring the universe that we live in. When people ask me what my hobbies are, I don’t really have an answer. As my family likes to say, my hobby is finding hobbies. I’m passionate about all things science. I am specifically interested in space, as I was intrigued to learn about its origin and significance to mankind. My keen interest in science gives me a deeper insight into many of the questions we have about life and makes us come up with even more interesting questions, which I do - daily.

Henry Ho

Hello there! I am Henry from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I love debating with myself, whenever I am free, on issues regarding philosophical, political and historical topics. I particularly like debating moral dilemmas, i.e. what is the right thing to do? I find doing this particularly engaging as I always end up with new perspectives from within. I have always loved and enjoyed reading the works of particularly controversial authors, like Nietzsche, as it exposes me to new perspectives I could use to debate with myself later. For leisure, I read good books, brew a nice cup of tea, and listen to relaxing baroque and classical music.

Khoi Phan

Hello everyone! My name is Khoi, 15, and I come from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I am always curious and I enjoy reading non-fiction books on the topics of economics, history, philosophy, and psychology. Occasionally, when feeling inspired, I spend several hours playing chess online. I am competitive and I never let anyone have an easy win against me. I am relatively talkative and I like meeting people from different backgrounds. I can speak Vietnamese, English, and a tiny bit of Spanish, and I aim to learn German in the future. Additionally, I have a great appreciation of the arts, especially cinema. My favourite director is Wes Anderson, from whom I have taken much influence on my work. My life philosophy is optimistic nihilism—nothing matters in this world, so why not?

Kimaya Navaratnam

Hi, my name is Kimaya, I'm 14. Something surprising and special you may find about me is that I'm an Indian classical dancer and a trumpet player. I love performing and hanging out with my friends. My favourite place I've been to so far is Australia. One of the things I am most curious about is the future, it seems too far away yet so close, so controllable, yet so out of our control. One thing I'm determined to do is to find a way to take control of my future and make it my own.

Nina Bian

Hello, my name is Nina, and I am 11. I was born in China and lived there for the first 5 years of my life, before moving to Malaysia. I enjoy dancing, as it is a way to explore what my body can do and express myself. I am fluent in both Chinese and English. I challenged myself to participate in TEDx to share my perspective and enhance my social skills since I often get nervous when I am on stage. Because I feel that way (shy or embarrassed on stage) I want to talk about it and hopefully, people can learn more about overcoming it, as will I.

Nina Laibuta

Hello! My name is Nina and I’m 11 years old. I have lived in Kenya (where I am originally from), Indonesia and Malaysia. I enjoy journaling because I am free to do what I want and like spending time with people I love and care about. I speak English, and Swahili and I am learning Chinese. I am interested in being a businesswoman when I grow up. I am in TEDx because I want more people to understand the importance of perseverance for a better future.

Nina Anna Dziobkowska

Hi, my name is Nina. I’m 14 years old and I’m in grade 8. I’m from Poland, but I moved to China at the age of 3 and then to Malaysia at the age of 10. In my free time, I enjoy reading books, debating in M.U.N., organising the most random things in my room, and taking walks. I speak Polish, English, and Chinese, and I’m currently learning French. A fun fact about me is that I come from a long line of Romani travellers. I’m passionate about mental health and social activism for gender equity and equality.

Pranav Malik

Hi, I am Pranav, currently a Grade 9 student. Some of my hobbies include sports, video games, cars, and travelling. I really enjoy having fun with family and friends through sports, though the pandemic influenced my access to playing sports. It was also due to covid that I started exploring the virtual world, which positive aspects of I will share in my TEDx Talk.

Russell Ooi

Hey! My name is Russell and I am a 17-year-old IB Diploma student in Malaysia. My passions are global issues and international politics which I explore and enjoy through Model UN and debate clubs, whilst my athletic interests lie in water polo. Aspiring to be a politician, I often delve into research rabbit holes and Dewan Rakyat's binge-watching sessions. I enjoy public speaking so I am really excited to be given the opportunity to share my thoughts and experience as a youth aspiring to be a politician.

Sarah Lee

Hi, I’m Sarah, a 17-year-old student who loves reading and enjoys staying up to date with the latest developments in the tech industry. I'm born and raised in Malaysia. Even though it has taken a while for me to muster enough confidence to step out of my comfort zone, I’m excited to take this opportunity to share my passion for tech with the world and some inspiring facts that you, the viewer, can take away from my TEDx Talk.

Suhaan Chhabra

Hello, my name is Suhaan and I am in grade 5. I was born in India. Since then I moved to the Philippines and now I live in Malaysia. I moved to Malaysia in 2016 and spent most of my life here. I enjoy playing the guitar and have also been invited to play for our school orchestra, which is rewarding as I feel special being asked to do it. I love Lego, for me, it is like whenever I'm bored I can start building Lego and I will get lost in it and keep on building for hours and hours. I can speak almost 4 languages English Hindi, and a little bit of Punjabi, I am learning Spanish, and I used to learn Chinese.

Suhani Chhabra

Hi, my name is Suhani, I am 14 years old. I am from India and love my culture, food and everything about it. I enjoy debating in MUN, exploring creative hobbies, learning the guitar and have recently started playing golf. I love breezy, rainy weather all day long, in which sometimes I sit and ponder and contemplate why the world is how it is and how in daily life, I repeatedly see how different my current generation is, compared to the last. I am fond of seeing different perspectives of the world and sharing my viewpoint with others to try to positively impact and better the future.

Téa Millward

Hello! My name is Téa and I am 11 years old. I was born in Turkey and moved to Malaysia when I was 2, and have lived here ever since. I love doing/playing sports, reading books and love to cook and bake. I speak 2 languages fluently English and Thai and I am learning Chinese. I have chosen to do TEDx because I think it will push me out of my comfort zone and help me raise awareness for the issue I care about.

Thesya Thiruchelvam

Hello TEDx Youth viewers, my name is Thesya and I am a 17-year-old student studying the IB Diploma Programme in Kuala Lumpur. I can speak Malay and English, and I’m currently learning Tamil, Spanish and Hindi. My hobbies are reading books, playing the piano and participating in Model UN, debating on global issues. Through my TED talk I hope to inspire future leaders, by sharing valuable lessons I’ve learned from the Model UN experiences. After all, the next generation are the leaders of tomorrow and it’s of the utmost importance that we support them on their journey.

TJ Thiruchelvam

Hello! I’m TJ, and I’m 15. I was born in Malaysia and have lived here all my life. When I’m not attempting to get a normal sleep schedule, I enjoy pursuing a multitude of hobbies, such as improving my skills in music, especially with the guitar and drums, improving my physical health, and being an active leader in my MUN club. I love challenging the status quo what is and asking myself, “Why is something the way it is?” I believe that an idea can change the world, but it needs to be put into action first. One of my favourite quotes and philosophies is, “If you spend your time chasing butterflies, they'll fly away. if you spend your time making a beautiful garden the butterflies will come to you, and if they don't come, then you still have that beautiful garden.”

Ying Yue Chang

Greetings, my name is Ying Yue and I’m 15. I’m in Grade 9 and I’m from Selangor, Malaysia. Many people say I’m a geek, from a whole family of nerds, and they’re not wrong, besides, I take it as a compliment! I like history and literature, I play the violin, and a little secret on my part: I really like K-pop and J-pop, for the awesome music and the awesome people. Additionally, I enjoy looking at different industries and companies and comparing their market share and value data on the stock market to find the most well-managed ones so I can invest my money in them. I’m still learning about how not to lose money, and I wish to share my knowledge with you all.

Zoja Dziobkowska

Hi my name is Zoja, I’m 11 and I am in grade 5. I am from Poland. My favourite place in the world is POLAND! My favourite animal is a dog, which is why I want to advocate for stray dogs. I was born in Warsaw, Poland and moved to China at 3 months old. When I was 6 I moved to Malaysia. I love the rain and the snow. In my free time, I enjoy gaming, painting/drawing, gymnastics, embroidery and speaking Polish.