Theme: Our Turn

TEDxYouth@KC is pleased to present a provocative afternoon of Talks, Live Performances, Spoken word and Interactive Experiences. This year’s theme is OUR TURN — an exploration of what it means to be a part of shaping our collective future.

The Nelson Atkins Museum
4525 Oak St
Kansas City, Missouri, 64112
United States

Barclay Martin

Musician, traveler and humanitarian, Barclay Martin has forged a creative path which merges some of his life’s great passions to serve some of our world’s needs. Martin’s work led him to begin The Wash Project, a hand-washing initiative in Mali, West Africa through Medical Missions Foundation. Led by the community itself, The Wash Project provides entrepreneurial opportunities to local Malian women and brings health/sanitation programs to over 7,000 children. In his current role as the Channel Development Coordinator for Unbound, Martin draws from his career in music and lessons from years of walking with communities throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia, to build bridges and understanding between worlds.

Connor Nowalk

Connor Nowalk is an educator and an entrepreneur. He spent four years working as an urban high school math teacher, including two as a Teach For America corps member. He left teaching this year to found Echograde, an app to help teachers give feedback to their students. Connor has also worked for several education non-profits including a recruitment associate for the Literacy Lab and a communications manager for the Learning Club of KCK. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a native of Pittsburgh, PA.

Eli Wachs

Eli Wachs is a High School social entrepreneur who started High School HeroesX to provide high school students a platform to effect meaningful change in their communities through crowd-sourced innovation. It currently has seven challenges in development, from Philadelphia to Beijing, tackling issues such as low high school graduation rates, teen mental health, and food safety. Wachs was one of two high school students selected to attend the inaugural Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit, was one of the leaders of the first ever XPrize Teen Visioneering in 2015, and is the YSA Youth Ambassador for the state of Pennsylvania for 2015-2016. He has been featured on NBC, CBS, Huffington Post and Forbes, and was named one of Startup Grind's 5 high school entrepreneurs to look out for in 2016. He will be attending Stanford University next fall.

Gustavo Diaz

Gustavo is the Chief Iguana Hunter and Problem Solver at Young Entrepreneurs for Puerto Rico: A non-profit dedicated to connecting the world's brightest minds with the island's local talent. Currently he and his team are expanding to Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic to build a more interconnected Latin America for our era's millennial generation.

Jeremy Collins

Jeremy Collins is an accomplished artist, rock climber, and adventure filmmaker. He is founder of the brand Meridian Line and author of the award winning book DRAWN: The Art of Ascent.

Marie Divine

Marie Divine grew up in the Kansas City area. Marie is a recent graduate from Bishop Miege High School where she debated and participated in many service projects. Marie is a member of The Coterie Theatre Young Playwrights Roundtable where her work has been performed. Her passions include writing, acting, legal studies, backpacking, and activism for gender equality.

Rachel Attebery

Rachel Attebery worked in Oil & Gas Process Engineering with Black & Veatch from 2012 – 2015, and now works in the Office of the CTO as a Business Tech Analyst. Areas of focus include critical analysis of both new and existing technology and processes for improvement. She graduated with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla, MO. She lives in Overland Park, KS, with her husband Aaron and cat Tom. Favorite quote: “Magic is just science that hasn’t been explained yet” from Sherlock Holmes.

Tara & Aidan Sheahan

Tara co-founded Conscious Global Leadership (CGL) in 2010. A former elite athlete, Mom, sports marketing and TV exec, Tara got “sick to get well” from Lyme disease and discovered the mind/ body/spirit connection to healing. After recovering and at age 42, she trained and raced to qualify in the 2006 Winter Olympics in cross-country skiing, and was bit again, by a rattlesnake, on the eve of the trials. This inspired her to study Native American medicine and wisdom traditions, particularly the Lakota Sioux of South Dakota. She is a meditation expert, with 9 years of instructor training at One World Academy/Oneness University. Tara partnered with Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Rudy Tanzi on a global research study about the anti-aging and health benefits of meditation and a balanced lifestyle. She and son Aidan, a.k.a DJ Sunfeathr, Dr. Mark Testa, and Qualia Threads created Breathelab -- practices to entrain natural nasal breathing -- to make breath work and meditation accessible and fun.