“It is easy to see the world as humankind has known it to be, but it is not easy to see the mysteries caged by its locks, never built to be unveiled by an ordinary key.“
TED is a community stretching from the stardust in the milky way to the multiverse lightyears away; it is a beacon of hope – a pillar of change – a platform that lets us unveil the intricacies of the world, built on bringing the best out of us – shedding light on the world and discovering new perspectives!
TEDx is another extension of this principle, a force that has spread across the world to help every local community, every geographical area to be a part of this eye-opening journey. Modern itself has always embodied a spirit of soaring high, inculcating in students a culture of questioning, ideation, changing society’s norms and for that very purpose GMA launched the TEDx Youth Conference!
This year’s conference was the third in the series with the topic ” OFF THE GRID ” a fun play on Kanye West’s song! The aim was to inspire students to look out of the box, change the way society thinks, change the way we see the world – the obvious, and set off on a quest to find daunting global issues that no radar, no satellite has ever touched.
Since the day when this circular was sent, I used every nook and corner of my brain to find my eureka moment and write a spellbinding speech! A month later, VOILA! I was over the moon to find out I had been selected as the TEDx Speaker for Grade 8. But truth be told this was only the beginning of an adventurous trek to infinity and beyond!
With the in-depth feedback, we rebuilt our speeches brick by brick and spiced them up with ethos, pathos and logos. We enhanced our body language, stage movement, speech flow. but there was not a shortage of fun and laughter especially when we all fought for pizza! Infact, we used to sing random songs – choose our favourite snacks, play basketball and one time during practice everyone was even laughing at my utterly serious speech because I was using the teleprompter as my mic!
Finally, the day we had all been waiting for arrived – it was our time to shine! Our school supervisors, a medley of principals/vice-principals and enthusiastic students filled the auditorium; the lights dimmed till it was pitch black and then a scintillating light lit the centre stage. Our legs were tapping to the tunes in our heads, our hands fidgeting and the words of our speech crossing our minds like our answers during an exam. One by one we went, and applause filled the room! The speeches ranged from unconventional professions like acting, medical journeys like scoliosis, innovations in electricity, Mathematical beauty,
to mental health.
My speech was about our inner voice, the chatterbox that lives within us, a silent voice that we talk to without even saying a word, a voice that damages us in ways unknown yet we all just subdue it thinking it will forever belittle us. My goal was to show the world a new way to think about this voice.
I started my speech with a celebrity questionnaire, then quoted a ton of Marvel references alongside rhetorical questions and important notions like battles in our minds, pain as a catalyst for joy, and more. I was so relieved when I heard the laughter of the audience at my analogy of our mind as a big fat watermelon!
With a few more speakers the event ended and let us not forget the mouth-watering food prepared by the students of IB1!
In a nutshell, TEDx was truly a rollercoaster of emotions, the excitement would even be greater than driving a Formula1 car! I got to meet so many speakers- from seventh graders to graduates, every moment was filled with splotches of fun and laughter along with important learning. Though the pressure was on, we made jokes, played around, and were inspired by each other’s ideas. All in all, this experience was nothing short of mesmerizing and it was a terrific opportunity for us to inspire the future generations and bring about a positive change in the world through our ideas!
Vedanth Agarwal (9F)