TEDxYouth@7thStreet

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Brandon Wiley

  Brandon Wiley is the Director of Asia Society's International Studies Schools Network, a design-driven network of 34 public and charter schools, located in seven states, focused on nurturing students to be globally competent and college-ready. He coordinates the efforts of a team of coaches and consultants who provide support and professional development to these schools. His role involves strategic planning with district and school leaders, implementation of the ISSN model and the Graduation Performance System (GPS).

• Ramesh Srinivasan

  Ramesh Srinivasan, Assistant Professor at UCLA in Design and Media/Information Studies, studies and participates in projects focused on how new media technologies impact political revolutions, economic development and poverty reduction, and the future of cultural heritage. Recent public outreach has built on his response in the New to Malcolm Gladwell’s writings critiquing the power of social media in impacting revolutionary movements. He has collaborated with non-literate tribal populations in India to study how literacy emerges through uses of technology, and traditional Native American communities to study how non-Western understandings of the world can introduce new ways of looking at the future of the Internet. His work has impacted contemporary understandings of media studies, anthropology and sociology, design, and economic and political development studies. He holds an engineering degree from Stanford, a Masters degree from the MIT Media Lab, and a Doctorate from Harvard University.

• Kristina von Hoffmann

  Kristina von Hoffmann brings her passion for communication, environmental stewardship, and performance to the ACE Educator team in Southern California. While in college, Kristina went abroad to Madagascar where she conducted environmental field studies and researched and wrote a report about national biofuel development for the World Wildlife Fund. Post-graduation, she served as the Events & Outreach Associate for Inside Out Community Arts, a non-profit that provides free after school arts programs for at-risk youth in LA. This experience gave Kristina the tools she needed to make the jump from local arts advocate to Senior Educator for the Alliance for Climate Education in Southern California.

• Purag Moumdjian

  Purag Moumdjian is a fourteen year old student at Aveson Global Leadership Academy. Throughout his academic career, he has taught a preliminary web design course, has started his own web design company, and has channeled his support for the goals of ISSN and Aveson through his participation in the growth of the school. He will be speaking about the role of social networking in the learning process, focusing on the communication of ideas. He has had the opportunity to explore social networking beyond its function in today’s youth and will present his thoughts on utilizing it in schools today.

• Nick Pings

  Nicholas Pings is a sixteen year old junior at Aveson Global Leadership Academy. He will be graduating early this June and attending Alfred University in August. He has represented Aveson on a national level in an ISSN-sponsored student exchange in New York City. He is the student body president. He will be discussing his take on individualized education and its ability to bring students to their utmost potential. He believes that this concept can be globalized in order to offer a fulfilling educational experience in less fortunate areas where one may not be available.

• Joe Provisor

  Joe Provisor, M.A, LMFT, holds two Masters Degrees in English and Clinical Psychology, is licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist, and has been a public school teacher for over twenty years. He has practiced Council with public school students since 1986, uses the process in his therapeutic practice, and has been a Council Trainer for The Ojai Foundation since 1994, providing trainings for educators, therapists, and business people nationally and internationally. He currently serves as Director of the Ojai Foundation's Council in Schools (CIS) Program and is the Program Expert for Council Practitioners Center (CPC) established in 2006 in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Office of Curriculum, Instruction, and School Support (OCISS). Joe has been responsible for integrating Council practice into more than 40 LAUSD schools in the past three years. Joe is the author of numerous curricular and training materials for language arts instruction and for the Council process, including An Introduction to Council for Educators: Training Manual. He has also designed Council-based curriculum that is in wide use in LAUSD with continuation high school students and students identified as at-risk for dropping out. Joe has trained and supervised teachers (K to post-secondary), administrators, counselors, therapists, and business people to build community and to integrate systemic community building practices into curriculum and institutions.

• Paul Schrade

  Paul Schrade dropped out of Yale University in 1947 got a factory job and became a union and community organizer in Los Angeles. He was elected UAW Local 887 president in 1951 and led a 54-day strike of 16,000 North American Aviation skilled workers to win pay and benefits equal to higher paid autoworkers in their union. He worked as AA to UAW President Walter Reuther for four years in Detroit. He joined Robert Kennedy at the 1960 Democratic Convention and helped resolve two rebellions of union presidents and the Michigan Governor's delegation protesting LBJ as John Kennedy's VP choice forming a strong bond with Robert Kennedy. He initiated organization of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee in 1965 prior to the first rebellion against police abuse. In 1965 he joined the Peace Movement and was also active in the Civil Rights Movement marching with Martin Luther King in DC, LA and Selma. He worked with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to support the farm workers grape strike in 1965. He helped bring Robert Kennedy to Delano in 1966 who joined the farm workers struggle. In 1968 Chavez, Huerta and he joined Robert Kennedy's run for the US presidency. Kennedy's victory in the California Primary ended in tragedy with his fatal shooting. To carry on the Robert Kennedy legacy of peace, justice and human rights he helped organize the RF K-12 Community Task Force to demolish the dilapidated and abandoned Ambassador Hotel. They won all new schools for the 4000 students in the neighborhood being forced bussed or attending overcrowded schools.

• James Erum

  James is a senior at the Ambassador School of Global Leadership. His ambition in life is to find a purpose in it. He feels that life is like water, you don’t know which way it’s going to go, but all you can do is try to keep afloat. He likes to think. His short-term goal is to serve his country by joining the United States Marine Corps. His long-term goal is to make a name for himself and his family. He doesn’t want to be just another sheep in the flock; he wants to be the shepherd. By being a student at ASGL he has taken the first step in Leadership.

• Christine Lenches-Hinkel

  Christine Lenches-Hinkel is an Environmental Planning professional by trade with a Master of Science degree in Forestry from the University of Montana. She has 11 years of combined graduate and professional experience and knowledge in the environmental and natural resources related field working primarily on environmental compliance projects governed under the California Environmental Quality Act and National Environmental Policy Act. In January 2008, she launched her own consulting practice and eco-retail business known as Waste Less Living that specializes in zero-waste event planning, organics recovery and composting services. Since its inception, the company has expanded its consulting services to the school and commercial sector offering specialized environmental education on the subject of solid waste and composting. Ms. Lenches-Hinkel’s main objective for Waste Less Living is to reduce one’s environmental impact through waste avoidance, source reduction and composting over landfilling. She is committed to bringing her environmental expertise and problem solving skills to the home, schools, churches and office in an attempt to respond to our escalating environmental crisis.

• Janelli Vallin

  Janelli Vallin is a seventeen-year-old junior at Vaughn International Studies Academy (V.I.S.A.) who considers V.I.S.A. her second home. She is not afraid of chasing after her goals, and 99.9% of the time you will find her in a position of leadership. She is an expert at delegating responsibility and creatively managing to accomplish tasks. Her life is a canvas upon which life's strokes of the brush are painting her personality. Janelli makes an impact on her campus and her community through performing arts, HOPE (V.I.S.A.'s environmental club), and Gay Straight Alliance.