TED Hosts TEDYouth Event for New York City High School Students

NEW YORK, Nov. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- TED, the nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, announces today the second annual TEDYouth, a day-long event for New York City high school students that includes live speakers, hands-on activities, demonstrations and an opportunity for young attendees and speakers to connect. TEDYouth will take place on Saturday, November 17, 2012, from 1-6pm, at the Times Center in Manhattan and will coincide with more than 100 self-organized TEDxYouthDay events occurring in 42 countries over a 24-hour period.

TEDxYouthDay is an annual series of TEDx events happening all around the world leading up to November 20 -- Universal Children's Day. TEDxYouthDay events take place November 17-18, 2012 and are planned by TEDx organizers worldwide, with the idea to inspire and engage youth. TEDx events are independently organized local events that bring together communities to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.

TEDYouth is free of charge for 400 New York City area high school students, who were selected to participate through an application process. The TEDYouth program consists of two speaker sessions and more than 20 scientists, designers, technologists, explorers, artists, and performers who will share short lessons on what they do best.

"We are excited to host our second annual TEDYouth event featuring an incredible line-up of speakers and performers," said Kelly Stoetzel, TED Content Director and TEDYouth Curator. "TED is committed to showcasing the most creative thinkers and inspiring ideas, and these high school students are an essential part of that dialogue."

TEDYouth 2012 speakers include:

• Maurice Ashley, an International Grandmaster of Chess — in fact, in 1999, he was the first African-American to win that title. He uses an old game created hundreds of years ago to build new strengths.
• Kelly Benoit-Bird, a marine biologist using sophisticated sound technology to explore how animals in the ocean find their food while trying to avoid being someone else's dinner.
• Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer-winning science writer and professor who's fascinated by the intersection of science and society. Her book The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York tells the tales of the perfect early-20th-century crime.
• Dee Breger takes photographs that provide an intimate glimpse of the beautiful and surprising microscopic structures of both familiar objects and exotic research samples.
• Mark Changizi, who aims to grasp the foundations underlying why we think, feel and see as we do. He was written extensively on why we see in color, have forward-facing eyes, and get fooled by illusions.
• Tom Chi, who develops projects pushing the limits of technology. Using rapid prototyping, he created the current version of Google Glass, an augmented-reality head-mounted display.
• David Fasanya and Gabriel Barralaga, young slam poets and members of the 2012 Urban Word Slam Team. Their work has been seen in various shows and performances throughout New York City.
• Bobak Ferdowsi, who served as Flight Director for the Mars Curiosity Rover mission (and became an Internet meme for his mohawk haircut).
• William Gurstelle, is a DIY expert who builds potato cannons, projectile shooters, fire tornados and PVC pipe speakers.
• Young Guru, one of the most important music producers of the past decade, having worked on 10 Jay-Z albums and countless more with other well-known artists. He's currently working on the future of sound.
• Olivier Guyon designs powerful telescopes that search for exoplanets -- earthlike planets that exist outside of our solar system.
• Constance Hale, whose books spring from a curiosity about English and a desire to understand how writing makes us laugh, well up with tears, or just say "ahhhh."
• Ayanna Howard, a roboticist whose research aims to answer the question: "Will robots ever be smarter than humans?"
• Clifford Johnson, a theoretical physicist attempting to find the answers to questions like: Why are we here? Where did we and the world come from? and What is the world made of?
• Katherine Kuchenbecker, who works on incorporating the sense of touch directly into virtual objects. Imagine being able to feel textures on your digital screens.  
• Anna Post, an etiquette expert who covers a range of topics including texting, dating and how to behave on Facebook.
• Rick Smolan, a photographer whose larger-than-life projects have captured the meaning of everyday moments. Right now, he's working on a project that explains how Big Data is reshaping our lives.
• Nina Tandon, a tissue engineer at Columbia University and a TED Fellow who studies ways to use electrical signals to grow artificial hearts and bones.
• Gaurav Tekriwal, who teaches Vedic Mathematics, a super-fast and fun way of solving large equations like 987 x 999 in less than 5 seconds.
• Jer Thorp, the data artist in residence at The New York Times. His work focuses on adding meaning and narrative to huge amounts of data as a way to help people take control of the information that surrounds them.
• Carl Zimmer, a popular science writer and blogger who has obsessions with the origins of human life, parasites, viruses and science tattoos.

In addition to the live events at the Times Center, TEDYouth will be available to the public and TEDx events across the globe via livestream and will be live translated in Spanish and Arabic. Forty-five youth reporters from 20 countries have been selected to live report news, reflections, quotes and impressions of TEDYouth and TEDxYouthDay via Twitter, Facebook, and other online media platforms.

For more information about TEDYouth, please visit www.ted.com/tedyouth. To watch TEDxYouthDay events from around the world, visit http://tedxyouthday.ted.com/.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place each spring in Long Beach, California, along with the TEDActive simulcast in Palm Springs; the annual TEDGlobal conference is held each summer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

TED's media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, the recently launched TED-Ed platform for students and educators, the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide, and TEDBooks, short e-books by speakers that elaborate on a single idea originally presented on TED's stage. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world, and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities. Follow TED on Twitter or on Facebook.

Contact: Melody Serafino, 1-646-833-0206, [email protected]

SOURCE TED