Aiming to bring Sioux Falls youth to the stage and offer a platform for public speaking, TEDxYouth@SiouxFalls will be held at JHS this March. 

The event, TEDxYouth, is simply an opportunity for Sioux Falls teenagers to showcase their talents and interests by giving their own TED talks, performed in front of a live audience. Applying for the event required submitting an idea that was new and engaging and a short TED-like example video of the applicant explaining the idea. 15 performers will be selected, who will move on to receive coaching and speaking lessons. All of this will come together to create one night of TED talks by Sioux Falls high school students. 

“TEDxYouth Sioux Falls is an event where we are going to highlight the speaking abilities of Sioux Falls high school students. It’s going to be run just like a TEDx event (it basically is); March 24 we’re going to have 15 students (high school students from Sioux Falls) present their TED talks at Jefferson High School,” said English teacher and TEDxYouth ambassador Meghan Anderson-Finch. 

TEDxYouth offers an opportunity for young people to be heard on a platform well-known; after the event, the TED talks given by the 15 students will be posted to the TED YouTube channel. 

“[The goal of TEDxYouth] is to have people tell their stories, share their stories, encourage freedom of speech, encourage people to be heard, help guide students who want to do storytelling as a craft… and make them better at it,” said Anderson-Finch. 

Not only will participating students gain experience through the TED organization, but they will be coached by staff members of the SFSD. 

“[Students] will learn how to write. If they are selected in the initial application process they will have a coach from somewhere in the district who will help them craft and write their TEDx speech and they will be able to grow as speakers,” said Anderson-Finch. 

TEDxYouth is, in principle, a chance for young people to channel their passions and pass them along to an audience. 

“It’s a really cool opportunity for people to share things about themselves that people don’t already know or to show off their talent about a certain topic… part of their story that we don’t know,” said Anderson-Finch.