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).

Escuela Americana
Calle y Colonia La Mascota, Final Calle 3
San Salvador, San Salvador, 0000
El Salvador

Andrea Poma

Highschool Student

Andrea Poma is a senior at Escuela Americana. She is the captain of the varsity soccer team, executive vice president, and founder of a nonprofit organization called Diseña Tu Meta. In the fall, Andrea will be attending Georgetown University where she plans to double major in Management, Leadership, and Innovation and Positive Psychology and minor in Public Health. She is an advocate for women empowerment and strongly believes it can solve many of the world’s most challenging problems, while also presenting an opportunity for economic growth and social harmony.

Baylee Lindell

Educator

Baylee Lindell is a high school social studies teacher at Escuela Americana in El Salvador. She is also the school's sponsor of the HeForShe club and is involved with Model United Nations. An avid traveler and wannabe blogger, Baylee spends her free time reading, writing, and planning trips. One of the greatest passions in her life is advocating for mental health awareness and programs in schools, especially for secondary students. She believes that teenagers are capable of doing incredible things to change the world and that education must do a better job of fostering that potential.

Christiana Walker

Middle School Student

Christiana Walker is a twelve-year-old student who loves helping others and enjoys making people smile. She enjoys going to museums and has especially like the Smithsonian Museum and the Lincoln Memorial. She is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a place she holds dearly and where she enjoys its different climates. She cherishes blossoms in the spring, the cool air during the fall and the different colored leaves, the cold weather and the snowflakes in winter, and the hot weather and the pure green grass and trees, playing with her friends in the sun all day. She wants to transmit her happy soul to those around her, which is why she spends time doing charity and believes it is an important activity to engage in.

Daniel Borst

Educator

Daniel Borst is a high school math teacher blessed with a wonderful wife and two lovely children. In his spare time, he pursues an interest in applying logic to situations that people--young and old--confront as they make their way through life. As a result, he gives "life lessons" (his students' words) about failure, friendship, maturity, relationships . . . , even super heroes! One of his convictions is that logic and math have a central role to play in the world, and he believes that the consistent use of logic is one of the cornerstones to society's advancing towards the goal of living together in peace. He often thinks the following: "The universe is a pretty big place, but there is only location in the universe where humans can currently be found: Earth. We need to see ourselves as one human family, because we are the only human family we have."

Dr. Polly Parker

General Director

Dr. Polly Parker is an educational leader who believes that students deserve the best possible opportunities in our classrooms. She believes that students should have a voice in their schools, be pushed to think, create, demonstrate empathy, give back and develop ideas to prepare them for Universities and jobs that do not even exist today. She believes that those of us who work at and attend private schools have tremendous opportunities to help others and give back at a global level and we must use our privilege to lift others up.

Gabriela Quiros

Peace-builder

Gabriela is a 26 year old multifaceted business school graduate and Knowledge Management Officer with a demonstrated history working in the international development industry and with extensive experience in social impact initiatives. She is a strong believer and promoter of corporate social innovation through the maximization of environmental, social and economic impact. Born a leader, she is the current vice-curator of the Global Shapers Community - San Salvador Hub, founder of various social impact and peace-building efforts (Operación Paz), and a 2019 One Young World Peace Ambassador. In her pursuit to contribute to her country’s development, she seeks projects, experiences and opportunities that will drive more sustainable impact through the redefinition of peace-building and the re-engineering of corporate, developmental, and operational processes.

Jacob Byers

Educator

Jacob Byers is a physics, chemistry and AP environmental science teacher at Escuela Americana. He has lived in 7 different countries and now finds himself staying warm on the beaches of El Salvador. He is also a certified divemaster and tries to go diving every bit of free time he gets. He has taken his passion of teaching and learned to appreciate every day by breaking out of the traditional system of education. He believes teachers inadvertently cause themselves and their students recurring problems and changing the way we think about our classrooms will allow us to enjoy our daily life more and our students to be more successful.

Mariana López

Middle School Student

Mariana López is a seventh grade student at Escuela Americana who will be talking about laziness and how to combat it. She wants to talk about this because she sees actual day to day circumstances that might be affecting many people and their futures, and wants to motivate people to change that. She believes that everyone chooses how they want their futures to be like and should take everyday actions to pursue it and choose the right path. She gives examples of things you can encounter daily and how to deal with them.

Paulina Zamora

Pole Artist & Athlete

Nina fué gimnasta toda su infancia, graves lesiones la obligaron a dejar su deporte. Estudió artes plásticas en Paris, en donde vivió por 4 años, y donde conoció su segunda pasión, el pole fitness, deporte que continuó perfeccionando preparándose por años en Nueva York, y en Buenos Aires, formándose también en danza contemporánea. Compite y destaca internacionalmente como atleta de pole. Es pionera de dicho deporte en El salvador, pues abrió la primer academia en el 2013. Conoció el fitness coreográfico en el año 2019, y es la actual medallista de oro en los Juegos Panamericanos Lima 2019.

Rodrigo López

Artist

Rodrigo graduated in 1999 from Escuela Americana and later studied theater and fine arts at Carroll University, public relations and marketing at Loyola University and had a wonderful internship experience in Disney World, Orlando Florida. He grew passionate about presentations and continuously questioned himself why most presentations he attended were poorly designed and boring. Combining his knowledge from books, videos, seminars, art design techniques, theater exercises, a unique customer centric experience at Disney, and a series of workshops at Duarte Communications, he went on to do presentation consulting for top company executives. Rodrigo is now a full-time artist but is still passionate about presentation. He strongly believes that ideas need to be delivered correctly in order for any audience to spread that same idea like a brush fire. He strives hard to communicate to people that a well-designed and well delivered presentation is truly an extremely powerful tool.