Theme: Transformed

TEDxYouth@PHUHS is part of the larger TED mission to uplift ideas worth spreading. We work to elevate voices in the local community and inspire relevant solutions to real-world problems. Through life-changing experiences, the arts, technology, and more, we can inspire transformation in our own daily lives.

PHU Auditorium
1900 Omaha Street
Palm Harbor, Florida, 34683
United States

Amy Guo

University of Florida Student

Amy Guo is currently an undergraduate Psychology major on the pre-medical track at the University of Florida. She currently serves as the internal vice president of the Asian American Student Union, a student-organization at the university, and finds her passion in advocating and educating on APIDA issues. Her experience as an Asian American has shaped who she is today and her devotion in advocacy for marginalized communities.

Ben Reber

Data Engineer

Ben is a Senior Data Engineer at Deloitte working in the Government and Public Services Sector. As a USF alumnus, as well as a former member of the USF Herd of Thunder Marching Band Ben, graduated in 2018 with a degree in Information Systems as well as a Degree in Communication. Since graduation, he has lived in Bentonville Arkansas working for Walmart headquarters as well as Chicago in a leadership development program. Currently, he resides in Tampa with his wife, two cats, two german shepherds, and his foster animals. As a transgender man, Ben is sharing with us the story of his transformation with the challenges he has faced both personally and professionally as well as the benefits of living authentically.

LaKendria Robinson

Founder and CEO of The Orenda Collective LLC

LaKendria is the Founder + CEO of The Orenda Collective, a social impact strategy firm that creates groundbreaking diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in Tampa Bay. For more than a decade, LaKendria has worked and volunteered for organizations that support minority communities build sustainable lives. LaKendria led diversity initiatives for the Tampa Bay Super Bowl LV Super Bowl Host Committee and the Tampa Bay Chamber. She was named a 2020 Forty under Forty recipient for the Business Observer and a 2019 Forty Under 40 recipient by the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives for her meaningful involvement in the advancement of the Tampa Bay community. LaKendria resides in Tampa with her husband William, daughter, Skylar and son, Eli.

Lucas Fonseca

High School Student

Lucas Fonseca is a Junior in Palm Harbor University High School’s International Baccalaureate Program (IB). Having grown up always looking for another adventure, he loves to seek out new challenges in hopes of learning new skills. He hopes that through the power of speech he can inspire people to become truly happy as the best version of themselves.

Salima Hemani

Educator

Salima is a USF grad with a Bachelor's in emotionally handicapped education and a double Master's in fearing exceptionalities and educational leadership. She has been an educator for the past 27 years. She currently works as a behavior specialist at San Jose Elementary School, working primarily with autistic children, but she has experience working with children in middle school and high school as well. Her leadership position within her mosque allows her to further her passion for working with teenagers and women empowerment. She loves spending time with her family, walking with her two dogs, and reading.

Sam(ira) Obeid

Indian. Educator. Warrior. Poet. Queer.

Sam(ira) Obeid is the Founder/CEO of Samira Obeid LLC, a performance and education endeavor that uses poetry, theory and experience to engage people in conversations around humanity and resistance. Formerly, Sam served as Program Director of Community Tampa Bay, a non-profit organization whose vision is a community free from all forms of discrimination. While at Community Tampa Bay, Sam found her calling in life - working to remove barriers so young humans can lead through truth and power, not tomorrow but today. Her skillset lies in creating curriculum that challenges every binary, structure, system and power; managing a team through a culture of circular leadership; and using her lived experience to explore conversations around collective accountability that centers action over empathy. In her personal life, Sam loves to hike with her canine offspring, Sherlock. She takes every opportunity to travel, cook and train in hand-to-hand combat.

Scott Bradley

Educator

Scott Bradley has been a teacher of literature and film in Palm Harbor University High School’s International Baccalaureate Program for over twenty years. He is an alumnus of Florida State University and the University of South Florida and was a graphic designer in a past life. A scholar of all storytelling forms, he is fascinated by the concept of the archetype: the connections and patterns that we instinctively weave into our tales. His current non-literary hobbies include cooking, pyrography, and talking about himself in the third person.