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).

Skyline High School
2552 N Maple Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48103
United States

Anusheh Chaudry

Anusheh Chaudry is a sophomore at Skyline High School. At school, she is involved in DECA as well as the Student Action Senate. She hopes to make an impact on the world, starting with the environment. She believes that if everyone changes a couple of things in their daily routines, we can collectively help to make Earth healthier so that future generations can enjoy it.

Atticus Dewey

Atticus is a junior at Community High School while also being a captain for the Skyline Swim and Dive team as well as the Skyline Water Polo team. He has been playing music for twelve years, writing music for eight, and has been head of a music group called Sonic Workshop for the past six years. With Sonic Workshop he helps create new ways to perform live music and ways for people learning music to play intuitively. He hopes to make a platform that is simple for both new musicians to perform well on while being able to have intricate details for experienced musicians.

Basra Keynan

Basra Keynan is 18 and a senior at Huron High School. Growing up moving around the world, Basra gained passion for writing and creating new things. In her free time she writes her own blog called the Three Bs where she covers content from student/lifestyle tips to editorial pieces. In school Basra engages in many different extracurriculars while also being a member of the first class of International Baccalaureate Diploma student graduating from Huron High School. With education standards rising so is the tax on students lives. Basra expresses unique ways to stay on top of the rising standards and pursue goals efficiently and with intention.

Cammi Tirico

Cammi is a junior at Community High and loves sport, music and writing. She is the captain of the Skyline women’s golf and basketball teams and is a counselor at Camp Al-Gon-Quian. In her free time, Cammi loves to listen to podcasts and take pictures. Cammi is the Editor-In-Chief of her school news magazine, The Communicator, and believes that journalism is under attack and that good journalists are more important now than ever. From national news networks down to high school publications, Cammi strongly believes the practice of journalism need to be encouraged and valued.

Candela Rodriguez

Candela Rodriguez is a 15-year-old sophomore at Skyline High School and an exchange student from Spain. She has always been passionate about justice and social activism, which is why she will be talking about the causes of mass immigration from Africa to Europe. Her goal is to inform people about the situations that immigrants have to deal with and get the audience to understand and empathize with them, as well as informing them of the reasons why they are forced to immigrate in the first place. In the future she looks forward to volunteer on the Spanish frontier with Africa to help with the immigrants’ social insertion. She is very excited to talk about this topic in her TEDx talk so others can understand this situation too and spread the word.

Casey Vigo

Casey Vigo is a 14-year-old eighth grader and has attended St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School since she was 4 years old. She feels that it is a very special place. She lives in Ann Arbor with her parents, two sisters, and two golden retrievers, Willie and Moe. Playing soccer is one of Casey’s passions. She currently plays for the Michigan Jags soccer team and is excited about playing high school soccer, next year, at Skyline. In her free time, Casey loves to hang out with her friends, family and cousins.

Claire Robinson

Claire Robinson is a junior at Pioneer High School. In addition to volunteering as a tutor at the Pioneer Writing Center and serving as the secretary for Pioneer Choir Council, she is a two-time member and the treasurer of Pioneer’s Ethics Bowl team, an original member of Washtenaw Youth Initiative, an actor in Pioneer Theater Guild, and a singer in the a capella group Loreleis. Claire loves English and political science and is interested in studying one of those subjects in the future. In her spare time, she likes reading, hiking, and writing poetry. She has personally seen the anxiety and pressure that high schoolers face, and she hopes to open more people’s minds to it.

Clara Núñez-Regueiro

Clara Núñez-­Regueiro is an 18 year old senior at Pioneer High School. Next year, she will be attending the University of Michigan as an intended political science major. She operates on the notion that it is every single person’s civic duty and categorical imperative to be involved in politics, which is why she is speaking about politics today. She hopes that her TEDx talk today will inspire each audience member to become more politically active and informed, and remind people that at the core of politics there should be compassion for one’s community.

Cody Wallinga

Cody Wallinga is currently a senior in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program at Huron High School. During his high school career, Cody discovered his love of philosophy and individual identity. This eventually led to interest in expressing his own ideas through art, writing and now, a TEDx talk. Cody hopes that his speech will not only bring awareness to young high schoolers’ stressors, but also hopefully construct a new mindset surrounding creating self-identity.

Emma Davis-Rodak

Emma Davis-Rodak is a senior at Skyline High School. She is a member of the Planned Parenthood Peer Education program and enjoys educating her peers on topics related to sexual health and allyship to the LGBTQ+ community. Her talk discusses proper support for children from non-nuclear families and the dangers of disregarding experiences simply because they are common. Emma intends to study political science and hopes to graduate law school and become a lawyer, focusing specifically on providing free and low cost legal work to those in need.

Evelynne Crumm

Evelynne is a Junior at Skyline High School. She plays Women’s Golf and Women’s Soccer for Skyline as well as in her free time. One of her main hobbies is photography. Sometimes, Evelynne takes pictures at Skyline sports events, especially at Football and Men’s Soccer games. She also loves to read almost any book she can get her hands on in her free time. She has two dogs that she loves to play with and spend time with.

Gemma Poulson

Gemma Poulsen is a junior at Skyline High School. She enjoys traveling and spending time with her friends, family, and pets. She is interested in languages, computer sciences, and engineering.

Iman Hathaway

Iman Hathaway is a junior at Skyline High School. Participating in a wide range of musical classes and groups, she has been a part of the Skyline Band, Full Orchestra, and Drumline for three years and plans to continue as a senior. Despite learning in a diverse environment, Iman has come to recognize that she doesn’t fit into a specific group which has lead her to share her experiences in a talk on the social and racial issues that persistently create boundaries and unfortunately still impact her fellow students in 2019.

Isabelle Crumm

Isabelle Crumm is currently finishing her senior year at Skyline High School. She was a former member of the Skyline Varsity Football Team and continues to excel in her athletic career as a participant in the Skyline Varsity soccer team. Isabelle's TEDx talk discusses the unique experiences brought by the three categories of personality types: extrovert, introvert, and ambivert. Isabelle is considering taking a gap year to get a more comprehensive cultural education in Spain, and returning to the United States the next year to study Industrial Product Design at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Karpu Palanniapan

Karpagam Palaniappan is a junior at Skyline High School. She enjoys making quilled art and was selected to participate in the Ann Arbor Kids Art Fair. She is the co-president of Science Olympiad. She is passionate about the environment. She wants to educate people about the effects of their actions and little things they can do differently that will, in turn, make Earth cleaner and safer for future generations. She is interested in pursuing a career in engineering to work with renewable resources.

Kenichi Lobbezzoo

Growing up in Ann Arbor, Kenichi learned the virtue of hard work from his dad, an automobile engineer, and the importance of a good education from his mom, a professor. He played the piano and cello, ran track and cross country, and participated in debate and quiz bowl. Kenichi aspires to work in law or government, and hopes to help people every step of the way. Kenichi and Robert’s TEDx talk includes many ways of how we are polarized politically and how we can change that.

Luke Jordan

Luke Jordan is a caring outgoing 12-year-old boy in seventh grade. He loves to swim and to travel. Luke’s talk is about how kids can make a change in the world and their communities. Luke has lived in Japan and has been to many countries. Luke can’t wait to do a TEDx talk.

Madeline Gupta

Madeline is a sophomore at Pioneer High School. In her free time, she enjoys being part of Ballet Chelsea’s performance company and assisting with their Adaptive Dance Program. She also enjoys her work as the Director of Communications on a nonprofit board to increase literacy of children in the Washtenaw community. She is a member of the St. Sault Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Being a Native American woman has given her a passion for advocating for her fellow tribe members.

Maya Todd

Maya Todd is a junior at Pioneer High School. Maya is founder and president of "We Can" club that helps students get involved with community support activities. A varsity volleyball and hockey player, Maya instructs elementary students on genetics for Science Olympiad and is an assistant coach for Tappan Middle School volleyball. In the selective Ross Business School program MREACH, Maya is training to be an entrepreneur. She has studied Spanish and French for four years and loves traveling, having recently spent five months living in Sydney, Australia. Her TEDx talk explores the nature and influence of social media on an adolescent's sense of identity.

Natasha Aisha

Natasha Aisha is a senior at Huron High School. She is 17 years old and is an exchange student from Indonesia who is always interested in learning different cultures. She is passionate about public speaking, cross-culture understanding, as well as social issues all around the world. She will be talking about her personal experience of being bullied when she was a freshman in her natural school in Indonesia, as well as the hardships of being a Muslim woman in her home community. Her goal is to motivate and encourage as many people as possible to achieve their dreams without doubt and fear.

Nathan Hadjiyski

Nathan Hadjiyski is a 10th grader at Pioneer High School. He has been interested in science from young age and his passion for it continues to grow. He is trying to benefit society with his cancer research, and he hopes it could ultimately help patients get a more accurate diagnosis and as a result more adequate treatment. Nathan Hadjiyski’s presentation is about his experience with Deep Learning and Tensor Flow applied to kidney cancer diagnosis.

Noor Elshaikh

Noor is a sophomore at Pioneer High School, she enjoys photography as an expression of art and she enjoys watching movies as a way to relax. She participates in indoor track and loves conversing with people. Her unique experiences led to her passion for human individuality focusing on those coming of age. In her talk, she hopes to explore the different values that play a part in identity such as abilities and talents.

Phillip Crumm

Phillip Crumm is a freshman at Skyline High School. He plays tennis and lacrosse for Skyline. He enjoys weight-lifting, water skiing, and playing with his two dogs outside. He watches a ton of movies, swims and finds fun new projects to work on when he’s bored. If he could live anywhere in the world, he would in Iceland up north where he can watch the Northern Lights.

Phoebe Yi

Phoebe Yi is 17 and a junior at Huron High School. In her spare time, she enjoys hanging out with friends, watching film analysis videos, and listening to the news on NPR. Phoebe enjoys doing multiple extracurricular activities and plays on the school varsity tennis team. She has felt that many times that her positions in said activities are not due to her own hard work but factors outside of her control. Through communicating with many of her peers and finding that many of them felt the same, Phoebe was compelled to deliver a TEDx Talk.

Robert Yang

Robert loves to swim and is proud to be apart of Pioneer Men’s Swim and Dive. In his free time, he loves to formulate economic policy and eat. His family, coaches, teachers and his teammates helped him realize what dedication is needed to make something better. His go-to snack is Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, something his family and coaches have urged him not to eat. While also trying to eat healthier, Robert hopes to go on and serve the American people, as a private citizen or a public servant.

Shyam Pandey

My name is Shyam Pandey. My hobbies are: reading, playing the violin, and playing sports. I love playing basketball, cross country, and tennis. During my free time I read books about science, history, and philosophy. Also, I enjoy participating in community engagement activities. I hope that my TEDx Talk will inspire others to volunteer in their communities. Furthermore, I want to become a better public speaker and leader through this TEDx Talk.

Stacie Warner

Stacie is a junior at Skyline High School and a member of Skyline DECA, Black Student Union, National Honor Society, and Skyline Volleyball. Stacie enjoys sketching and painting, and her favorite TV show is Bojack Horseman. In the future, she hopes to travel the world and experience the different cultures and experiences it offers. In the meantime, she want to dedicate her time to spreading awareness about how certain school policies and practices promote mass incarceration within the Black community.

Thomas Ongena

Thomas Ongena is a funny and kind 12-year-old boy in seventh grade. He loves to play soccer and hang out with his friends. Thomas’ talk is about how kids can make a change for the better. Thomas loves science about the human body and Social Studies. He is excited for the TEDx talk experience.

Tilly Musser

Tilly is a Junior at Huron High School, where she’s a cheerleader for both football and basketball season. She started the Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention club at Huron, which is another passion of hers. She believes that sexual assault should be less taboo topic for teenagers, as it’s sadly so common in high school. In her free time, she loves to eat cookie dough and read Harry Potter.

Zoha Khan

Zoha Khan is an eleventh grader at Washtenaw International High School. She loves to read, speaking out on important issues, and spend time with her younger sisters. Being the eldest of three, she has always had a large amount of responsibility at home, which has actually allowed her to grow and become the person she is. She is passionate about understanding different experiences and promoting acceptance. She is excited to speak at this year’s TEDxYouth@AnnArbor about how conversation and discussion are crucial to understanding one another.