TEDxSacredHeartSchoolsAtherton Event Held Online

View the video recordings and photo album from the event
Throughout the 2019-20 school year, Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton (SHS) was planning its inaugural TEDxSacredHeartSchoolsAtherton event slated for April, when the COVID-19 crisis emerged, halting any possibility of hosting a live event. The SHS planning group of the technology department, teachers, and high school students led by SHS Director of Technology Joy Lopez pivoted to an online event format, using the TEDx guidelines, to plan a shortened, recorded event featuring three SHP senior speakers.

Along the theme of “Humanness – Citizens of the Earth,” the moderator, Lauren-Elize Roque (SHP '20) and three presenters, Dylan Huey, Alan Kagiri, and Finn O'Kelly, were filmed on the event stage at the SHS Performing Arts Center for an online audience. View the recordings of each talk at the links below, and view the TEDxSacredHeartSchoolsAtherton photo album from the event. 
 

Dylan Huey, SHP ‘20
 
 
“Social media is a strong force that can be utilized to address critical problems in our society (particularly for my generation), including bullying and mental illness. As a society, we need to be more welcoming to the idea of this new, growing medium of communication—social media. We have to recognize there are negative outcomes of social media, but there are also plenty of
constructive outcomes of social media,” says Huey.
 
Dylan Huey will be attending USC studying business. He loves making music (both EDM and pop), live-streaming on social media, and playing tennis. You can find out more about Dylan (aka Rodinflash) on his website: www.rodinflash.com
 
 
 
“Our humanity comes from our ability to see each other for our complexity and uniqueness, which includes the cultural and lingual traditions that accompany this. However, the challenges our world faces today, including food insecurity, hostilities within the international realm, and environmental degradation, can be sourced from this increasing tendency towards a monoculture, especially a Western-inspired one, and with this a gradual loss of a native understanding that has stressed regional and international human interactions,” says Kagiri.
 
Alan Kagiri will be attending the University of Chicago in the fall with hopes of pursuing a double major in Computer Science and International Relations, along with possibly learning Arabic. At Sacred Heart he enjoyed debating, advocacy work, dancing, sampling farm food, attending social events, and being challenged intellectually by his peers, teachers, and mentors.
 
 
Finn O'Kelly, SHP ‘20
 
 
“Toxic runoff not only affects the community of 35 million surfers in the world, myself included, but also leads to marine ecological degradation and Kelp deforestation. Regardless of whether you are a surfer or not, we are all affected by the ecological degradation of our oceans, and we need to make significant changes in our behavior, awareness, and environmental policy,” says O’Kelly.
 
Finn O’Kelly is an avid surfer and environmentalist. Besides doing this talk, he built a solar-powered GoKart, coastal discharge runoff filter, and created, edited, filmed, and starred in an environmental surf film. Next year, he will be attending UC Santa Barbara to major in Environmental Studies with a focus on marine ecosystems and renewable energy. Finn loves the Earth, and feels blessed that he is embarking on a journey to protect it.

SHS plans to host a live TEDx event on campus in the spring of 2021.
 
 
About TEDx, x = independently organized event
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, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. 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.)

About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 30 years ago, TED has grown to support its mission with multiple initiatives. The two annual TED Conferences invite the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes or less. Many of these talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sal Khan and Daniel Kahneman.

The annual TED Conference takes place each spring in Vancouver, British Columbia. TED's media initiatives include TED.com, where new TED Talks are posted daily; TED Translators, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as translations from volunteers worldwide; the educational initiative TED-Ed. TED has established The Audacious Project that takes a collaborative approach to funding ideas with the potential to create change at thrilling scale; TEDx, which supports individuals or groups in hosting local, self- organized TED-style events around the world, and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.
 
Follow TED on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TEDTalks, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TED or Instagram at https://instagram.com/ted.
 
 
 
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Founded by the Society of the Sacred Heart, SHS is a Catholic, independent, co-ed day school for students in preschool through grade 12