Theme: Bold Moves

We are here today, in this moment on this planet, as a result of decisions that humans have made every year, month, day, hour, minute and second that have come before.

We have never been more connected, more innovative, or more resourceful. We have also never felt the weight of the present and future more than right now.

"There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in”. - Leonard Cohen.

Our generation is the light.

Our problems and issues don’t define us. Our bold moves do.

IndigO2 at the O2 Arena
Peninsula Square
London, London, City of, SE10 0DX
United Kingdom

NOESIS

Art Company

Shaadow Sefiroth & Kieran Lai members of Noesis, an art company founded by Shaadow Sefiroth. Noesis covers the mediums of dance, fashion, content creation, performance and battles. Noesis is more than a company, and more than a crew. It is culture, a lifestyle of the arts.

Abu Qader

CTO and Co-Founder at GliaLab

Abu Qader is an 18-year old visionary and entrepreneur with a passion for innovation in fields such as healthcare and computing. As a kid, his goal in life was to read the entire encyclopedia until he touched a computer, his world was then flipped. Abu went to Afghanistan when he was 14 and saw the issues that a poverished healthcare infrastructure brought to the country. When he came back to the states, he was inspired to begin building tools for the betterment of 3rd world countries. Beginning with breast cancer, Abu built an analytics platform that could detect and diagnose tumors in mammograms with superhuman accuracy. He later on cofounded GliaLab, an artificial intelligence company utilizing AI to build data driven healthcare solutions with a vision of bringing first world healthcare to third world countries. Abu was featured at Google I/O as well as becoming a Posse Scholar at Cornell University.

Amelia Halls

Artist

Amelia uses art as a positive way of coping with her mental health. She has become known online for her paintings, particularly the ones she does on her skin. Struggling with anxiety and depression, she began turning to art at the age of thirteen as a coping mechanism. Since then, she has developed a distinct style and love of colour. In January, she painted Van Gogh's “Cafe Terrace At Night” on her thigh to stop herself from self-harming. She posted a tweet about it, which quickly went viral. Amelia aims to spread positivity and hope to people struggling with mental illness, using art not only to help herself, but to also show it is possible to find a passion and something positive from the bad days. Amelia is not afraid to speak out about mental health, working to raise awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness. She is currently studying Archaeology at the University of Manchester, and serves as both a PASS Leader and Student Ambassador.

Claudia Vulliamy

Turned her Oxford rejection letter into art

Claudia gained widespread attention when she turned a rejection letter from Oxford University, where she had applied to study classics, into an expressive artwork. A tweet about the artwork went viral, shared more than 50,000 times by people who felt inspired by her courage and creativity in the face of a setback. She is passionate about art and philosophy, and is a strong believer in education for its own sake. At age 14, she wrote an opinion piece, which was published in the Independent, arguing that excessive homework was hindering children’s learning and stifling their creativity. Next year, Claudia will take up a place to study a foundation diploma in fine art at Central St Martins (University of the Arts London), before working towards a degree in classics at university.

Conor Begley

Founder of Quick Com

Conor is a 19-year-old inventor from Co. Louth, Ireland. He grew up watching his Aunt Fiona suffer from severe cerebral palsy. She was confined to a wheelchair, unable to speak and relied on eyebrow movements to communicate. Most physically challenged people have some type of system to communicate, but the systems are very basic and limited to the few who learn to use them. By the age of seventeen, through initiatives like Coder Dojo, Conor had learned a lot about Computer Science and Electronics. With this knowledge, combined with his aunt’s feedback and guidance, Conor created a platform to help his aunt improve her communication skills. This platform allows users to write and communicate sentences, enables users to read eBooks and gives users access to previously inaccessible technological devices. Conor’s intention is to create a higher level of independence for the platform users and not only increase the quality of life for them, but also for their caregivers.

Jake Davis

Head of Hacking at SPYSCAPE

Jake is Head of Hacking at SPYSCAPE - an edutainment company focused on spying and hacking. As a teenager, under the online alias "Topiary", Jake was involved in high profile hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec, which exploited corporations and governmental organisations for political reasons. Targets included the Westboro Baptist Church, The Sun newspaper, and government websites in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe, in support of protesters during the Arab Spring in 2011. Jake was arrested aged 18, was banned from the Internet for two years, and spent time in a Young Offender's Institute. He has been featured as a cyber security expert in many news outlets and programmes, including The Guardian, BBC Newsnight, Vice, Wired, Sky News, Esquire Magazine, and Fantastic Man magazine. Jake has also received bug bounties / Hall of Fame credits for disclosing vulnerabilities to Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and many more. Jake has a keen interest in blending hacking and art, and has worked with various theatre companies and venues, including The Royal Court and The Battersea Arts Centre as well as advising creatively on TV, film and radio. Jake's biggest passion, and the focus of his work at SPYSCAPE, is bringing the psychologies and nuances behind hacking and the wider internet community to a mainstream audience in a creative, unique way, with a view to raising awareness and knowledge around important cyber issues.

Jay Hulme

A Transgender Spoken Word Poet

Jay was a winner of SLAMbassadors, the UK’s biggest youth slam, in 2015. In 2016, he was a finalist in the Roundhouse Poetry Slam. As a performance poet, his work often reflects his experiences as a young, working class, transgender man. Jay recently contributed a selection of poems to an anthology for young people, created as a collaboration between Otter-Barry Books and Pop-Up Projects. The anthology will be used as part of an in-school literacy festival in 2018. Jay’s work can also be found published in other anthologies including “A Heartful of Fist”, published jointly by Out-Spoken Press and the Poetry Society, and in his two solo collections, “The Prospect of Wings” (2015) and “City Boys Should Not Feed Horses” (2016). Jay currently performs across the UK, in venues as diverse as theatres, pubs, and various flats and offices courtesy of Sofar Sounds. “Jay Hulme is undoubtedly someone to watch. His talent is raw, fresh and new - and very exciting.” - Anthony Stewart Head.

Lewis Hine

Founder of Friend Finder

Diagnosed with a brain tumor when he was just 17 months old, Lewis's life has consisted of many hospital visits and much time staring at four walls. After 13 brain surgeries, he still battles with drug-resistant epilepsy and Hydrocephalus, and has a mechanical pump in his brain that keeps him alive. The basic challenges of just staying alive, and the isolation and loneliness that came with a long-term illness, presented Lewis with not a problem, but a challenge. Starting locally, he created Friend Finder. He held groups to get people together and exchange details using Near Field Technology, and the wider Friend Finder World Online. He won BBC Radio 1 Teen Hero of the Year in 2016 for his work with Friend Finder. In March 2017, Lewis became a global phenomenon when he made a 90-second video about his life and Friend Finder. He posted the video online to tell the world that he exists, he does matter and that it’s okay to be different.

Lula Mebrahtu

MiMu Glove Performer

Sub-Saharan Eritrean by way of London, Lula is a creative enigma, who is carving out a career for herself as a multidisciplinary artist. This approach has led Lula to garner support and success across multiple fields as an actor, singer/songwriter/sound designer, presenter and a MiMu Glover. An unconventional thinker using technology as her enabler, Lula is breaking through “the norm” and liberating artistic expression as a sensory experience. As a vanguard, Lula’s personal project is an immersive live performance within an audio/visual installation that takes you on a journey of illegal migration. Using her voice to liberate truth and facilitate transcendence, Lula sings about a lived experience of the past, present and future. Her soulful tromba, which carries the weight of her heritage, enables intergalactic travel. With the support of cutting edge technology, MiMu Gloves, she makes levitation through sound waves possible.

Muzoon Rakan Almellehan

A Syrian refugee now living in the UK who has been coined the “Malala of Syria”

Muzoon Rakan Almellehan was born on 8/04/1998. She lived in the province of Daraa, Azraa city, studied in Syria and moved to Jordan to seek asylum. When she arrived at the Zaatari refugee camp, her main concern since arrived at the camp was the education. Since she joined the school, she started to form campaigns to encourage education, in cooperation with "Save the children" organisation. Her activities caught the attention of UNICEF, the UNHCR and 'Save the children' organization. UNICEF granted her a title of ambassador of education in Zaatari refugee camp.The media delegations came to broadcast her activities from everywhere to conduct interviews about what she was doing in the community. The UNICEF staff called her Malala of Syria; she was impressed by the name before seeing the person. Muzoon and her family were honored to meet Malala in person, who is considered a symbol of education, and sacrificed her life for the sake of education in the world.

Natalie Hampton

Founder of Anti-Bullying App, Sit With Us

Sixteen-year-old Natalie Hampton is a Los Angeles high school junior, anti-bullying activist, app developer and the CEO of a non-profit called Sit With Us, Inc. her to create the Sit With Us mobile app, which serves as a free lunch planning tool for middle and high school kids so that no one has to eat lunch alone. Kids can use the app’s features to coordinate lunches with their friends. They can also volunteer to be Sit With Us Ambassadors for their schools and post open lunch events on campus so that anyone looking for a table to join can find one. Natalie has spoken at conferences such as “Girls Can Do” (Washington D.C.) and Renaissance Weekend (Charleston), and spreads her message to schools by visiting in person or via Skype. Recently, she was an invited speaker at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as well as Say No Bullying’s annual festival.

Nilüfer Yanya

Artist

Growing up in the heart of London, 21-year-old Nilüfer Yanya’s exploration of music was immersive from the very start. After discovering classical piano at secondary school in Pimlico, it was a little later at Saturday music school that Nilüfer’s relationship with the electric guitar grew and was taught by Dave Okumu of The Invisible. “I had some great teachers and really got into the idea of writing my own songs, being in bands and playing the guitar,” says Nilüfer, “When I first started writing music, I listened to a lot of indie guitar bands such as the Pixies, The Cure and Bloc Party, but since then, my influences have widened and now include more soulful artists like Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley and Bill Withers.” The subject matter of songs is subservient to mood, beauty and feel. “I don't have a definitive process of writing, but normally I will come up with the main pattern, then the melody and the words follow,” Nilüfer explains.

Tyler Dunning

Climbed all 59 US national parks to use nature to heal

People often tell Tyler they’re jealous of his adventures—how he first left Belgrade; how he lived out of a van for months at a time; how he spent a summer in Israel as an archaeologist; and his ongoing goal to visit all the U.S. national parks. What people fail to recognize, however, is that these pursuits were always a means of distraction. At fourteen, Tyler first started noticing his clinical depression, an illness leaving him to ruminate on debilitating thoughts of meaninglessness and inadequacy. He turned to travel as a self-harm survival technique, always looking for the next distraction, yet suicidal ideation lingered. It wasn’t until Tyler started treating his mental illness as a gift that he began to understand the darker recesses of his own creativity. He put pen to page, no longer as a prisoner to the stigma of his affliction, but as a confessional essayist dragging hard emotional truths into the light of recognition.

Ziad Ahmed

A Youth Activist whose work has been commended by former President Barack Obama

Ziad is an 18-year-old rising freshman at Yale University from Princeton, New Jersey. He is an American-Muslim, Bangladeshi and a passionate social justice activist. In September of 2013, Ziad founded a teen organization redefy, which is committed to furthering equality. Redefy has grown immensely, with over 300 students internationally on the team, over 3,000 likes on Facebook and over 100,000 hits on redefy.org. Ziad’s work has been commended by President Barack Obama personally, MTV, Business Insider and other notable sources. As an entrepreneur, Ziad is also co-founder of JÜV Consulting Inc., which is a youth consulting firm. He serves as the CVO of the company, which has over 100 consultants working to transform the way that companies market to Generation Z. To date, he has given two TEDxTalks, written for publications such as Teen Vogue and the Huffington Post, been awarded for his efforts, and been featured on many major news outlets.

Zuhal Sultan

Founder of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq and an Activist using music as a unifier

Zuhal is an Iraqi pianist and activist. She founded the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq at the age of 17, creating a reconciling musical experience for mostly self-taught musicians of diverse ethnicities and religions from across the country, overcoming deep-rooted decades of conflict. The orchestra ran 5 successful years, performing in Iraq and Europe, and has touched the lives of hundreds of musicians, who have taken what they have learned and started their own musical projects in aid of their communities. Zuhal’s activism and musicianship has received global media coverage and recognition. The most notable of which is being named UNESCO’s Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue; British Council’a Global Changemaker; and Euphrates Institute Visionary of the Year 2015. In late 2016, and in response to the Syrian refugee crisis, she established the Key of RefuG Initiative, using a bespoke music-based programme to tackle PTSD symptoms in children aged 4 to 18 years old.