For TEDxYouth@TampaBay 2011, we challenged youth from Tampa Bay and beyond to celebrate their passions! We’ll look at individuals who parlay their love of life, art, music, literature, community service and more, into their life’s purpose and work. And we’ll be asking you , “What do you love?! ” Our TEDxYouth@TampaBay 2011 line up was spectacular, from our on-stage host to our fantastic presenters. Check it out!
Kellie Lightbourn – Our 2011 TEDxYouth@TampaBay Stage Host
Kellie Lightbourn is many things – a television personality, attorney and sought-after motivational speaker, with a Juris Doctorate and Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, as well as the 2009/10 Mrs. Florida, 2011 Mrs. North America and Mrs. Galaxy International 2012. The host of “Consumer Update” on ABC Action News, Kellie appears nationally on Lifetime Television’s “Designing Spaces” and has been featured on shows like E! Entertainment, Maury, Animal Planet and EXTRA. She’s also a busy philanthropist, who founded the National Humane Society and Teen Edge, which provides life defining success strategies to youth, urging young people to not just survive but to thrive. Armed with the right tools and a “Live with Power” attitude, Teen Edge empowers youth with the message that they can be who they want to be.
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Elizabeth Ann Baker
Elizabeth Ann Baker has studied piano with Dr. Luis Sanchez, Carolyn McGovern, Eileen Mattioli, Andrew McCardle, and Jeff Donovick. She studied Classical Guitar Performance with Edward Lugo and Mark Switzer at Florida Southern College. In addition, she studied music theory with Rita Fandrich at Florida Southern College as well as with Dr. Vernon Taranto and Jeff Donovick at Saint Petersburg College. Miss Baker has performed in master classes on classical guitar for Jason Vieaux and Dr. Stephen Robinson. Drawing influences from everyday events and personal experience, Baker uses her compositions as a means of expressing a myriad of emotions and ideals. She currently performs around the state and country in a solo electronic project (also as a duo with live drums by Paul Proco) under the pseudonym Suitcases of Sound.
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Lyndsey Collins
Lyndsey Collins is a suma cum laude graduate of Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School. She also attended Cornell University’s summer program in 2010 in an intensive three week Psychology course and is currently a sophomore at University of South Florida Saint Petersburg as a political science major. While in high school, Lindsey accrued over 8,800 volunteer hours through Southeastern Guide Dogs, Community Tampa Bay, Girl Scouts, and Osceola Middle School. Lyndsey participated in The “American Youth: Inspiring Leadership and Civic Participation” Program which included discussion in which she provided a youth voice and perspective for the group as a member of the International Council of the Tampa Bay Region host committee welcoming professionals from Kazakhstan, part of the US State Department International Visitor Leadership Program. Lyndsey was also the president of the Gibbs high school GSA (Gay/Straight Alliance) and focused on inclusion for all members of the campus.
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Rachel Hatcherian
Rachel Hatcherian was first introduced to music by her father and grandmother. Her father was a drummer who played in New York in the 70’s and 80’s, and her grandmother was a cellist and pianist who began to teach Rachel piano at a young age. When she began at St. Petersburg College, she found her love for audio engineering via her professor Mark Matthews. Her main influences are Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell, and Imogen Heap. Now finishing up her degree in Music Industry/Recording Arts, she spends her time recording in her home studio and playing at local coffee café’s in downtown St. Petersburg with her faithful guitar, Leo.
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Cesar Hernandez
Cesar Hernandez, a former USF Student Body President and Trustee , was born and raised in Brooklyn NY, the first generation born in the U.S from Guatemalan Immigrants. He is currently pursuing his double Bachelor’s Degree in Bio-Medical Science and Political Science. Cesar has a long history of civic engagement, representing the U.S. at the Education Without Borders World , where he was ranked #1 in the world in policy on his research on immigration. Cesar also holds the unofficial record for longest political speech ever. He spoke for 24 hours straight surpassing the previous record of 9 hours held by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Cesar is the CEO and founder of the Seraph Foundation, Chief Operating Officer for Trendsetter Clothing Company, Executive team for the Haiti Recovery and Development Company and the former President of the USF chapter of Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity Inc. He is the recipient of 2009 Overall Chapter President of the Year, Outstanding Student Leader of the Year, 2009 Florida Undergraduate Brother of the Year, 2009 USF Hispanic Heritage Leader Honor, 2009 Leadership Legacy Award. He is a proud Alumnus of the Hesselbein Global Academy and is dedicated to multiplying the light throughout the world. Ceasar’s talk was lost due to a technical problem, but we hope to share his words here soon.
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Blake O’Connor
Inspired by his involvement in the 2009 Bezos Scholars Program and Lawton Chiles Leadership Corps, Blake launched the “I Feel the Need to Read” literacy project which puts books in the hands of underprivileged second grade students from Title I schools and educates community members about literacy and related issues. At the start of the 2011-2012 school year, “I Feel the Need to Read” is in its third year and has expanded to over three high schools, helping over one thousand second grade students in Hillsborough County Title I schools collectively. Blake’s literacy efforts have earned him national recognition in publications such as PARADE Magazine, the Huffington Post, and Edutopia.org. A graduate of Freedom High School in Tampa, Blake currently attends the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he’s a member of Education Center of the Roosevelt Institute, a national student-run policy think-tank, and interns at the Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy in Chapel Hill, where he assists in researching the Common Core State Standards.
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Jacob Rice
15 year old Jacob Rice found Shoe Giver of Tampa (SGOT) in 2006 when he was just 10 years old, after learning that children in his community didn’t have properly fitting shoes, and that many had never owned a new pair of shoes. He was looking for something to do that could make a difference, and this seemed like a very basic way to make a big impact. Jacob believed that if children had new shoes that fit correctly, and were comfortable, they would gain more pride,and confidence. Since then, Jacob has distributed over 1300 pairs of shoes to young people locally and internationally. Jacob’s message is a simple one, but also an powerful one in the most basic humanitarian sense: “Every child deserves a new pair of shoes“.
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Devante Robinson
Devante Robinson was a recent graduate of Hillsborough High School, when he spoke at our event. While in high school, he was Student Government vice president, a member of the National Honor Society, Key Club and Jr. ROTC for 4 years, and graduated with a 4.75 GPA. Cadet Major Robinson, a Battalion Executive Officer, is now attending Hillsborough Community College where he is double majoring in medicine and psychology. He is the first of his 11 siblings to attend college and is studying to be a doctor. Devante has been a Big Brother Big Sister “Big” for the last year, and caught TEDxYouth@TampaBay’s attention when he conducted a fundraiser for BBBS and almost single-handedly raised over $800 for the organization. Devante accumulated 226 hours of community service while in high school and came to TEDxYouth@TampaBay 2011 to share his passion for giving back, for being an active and involved citizen and for refusing to achieve anything less than his full potential.
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Matthew Temmer
Matthew , was 14, and a freshman in the International Baccalaureate program at Land O Lakes High School, when he spoke at TEDxYouth@TampaBay 2011. A formerly shy student, Mathew found his voice in art, and found that other young people were grateful for an opportunity to be heard, too. Matthew, who enjoys spending time with his family, visiting theme parks, and acting, shared his voice in the hope that other youth will be heard, too.
While his talk was lost due to a technical error, Matthew graciously shared the written text of his talk with TEDxYouth@TampaBay, which can be read in its entirety here.
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Megan Winkelman
Megan Winkelman is a Stanford University student majoring in Human Biology with a concentration in Neurobiology, and pursuing an honors thesis in Feminist Studies. Megan is the founder and CEO of Stanford-based start-up Project Not Alone, a social venture that designs interactive mental health education applications for tablets and implements these modules in Bay Area free clinics. Megan also designed and directed two community health research studies, the first on postpartum depression with the Berkeley Department of Public Health and the second on the efficacy of interactive health education in Schuman Liles Oakland and Fremont clinic locations. Megan has received the Dalai Lama Fellowship, the Chappell Lougee Award and the Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity Community Internship Fellowship. She has presented at the 2010 Stanford Medical School Community Health Symposium, the 2010 and 2011 Stanford Medical School Medicine and the Muse Symposia, and co-authored the presentation “Using Text-Messaging to Combat Chronic Disease in Free Clinics” at the 2011 Medicine 2.0 Conference. She has been published in Hektoen International: A Journal of Medical Humanities, Stanford Global Health Journal, and Cell2Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog. She has upcoming articles in the Yale Journal of Humanities in Medicine, Problematics: Undergraduate Anthropology Journal, and the Princeton Journal of Bioethics. In her free time , Megan enjoys serving as a peer counselor at the Bridge Peer Counseling Center, Stanford’s only 24/7 mental health peer resource center.
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Written by Alex Harris (LX), artist in residence at the Royal Theater Boys & Girls Club of St. Petersburg, and performed solo by one of the students, Let’s Get Together is a musical tribute to area police officers killed in the line of duty, and a plea to citizens everywhere to work together to end violence in every community.
