Scientists, musicians, innovators, activists — all between the ages 8-16 years. These amazingwunderkinds have lived their tender years with a purpose and have left no stone unturned toclimb their way to be featured as a TEDEd speaker. The passion and drive in their captivatingtalks was evidence that they were sharing about something they’ve experienced in lifeincredibly worth sharing. It’s no surprise that TED’s slogan would represent just that, callingtheirslogan:“Real Life Incredibles”
All dressed in smart casuals, with a spring in their steps, we were greeted by 13 achieverstalking big achievements from saving the planet to compassion for animals; from musicalaffirmations to revolutionary 21st century innovations; all with innocent smiles but big dreamstwinkling in theireyes.
Ahana, 8-year-old ‘Artivist’ studying at Hiranandani Upscale School is spreading awarenessabout saving Honey bees. She recently put up an installation at Marina mall and were coveredby alotofleading magazines.
Daksh, 9-year-old origamist is making over 3000 bookmarks to sell and raise money to build alibraryina village.
Naren, a 10-year-old studying at Mahindra World School has collected more than 25,000 seedsand nurturing them and contributing to man-made forests. Naren promotes seed sustainability.He conveys that seeds are not a waste to be thrown away but used to make our environmentbetter.
Lauhith the 12-year-old dogboy of Chennai has been feeding 36 street dogs every day duringlockdown.He is also a dog bloggerand adog rescuer.
Aditya Prasad, a 12-year-old studying at Sishya Adyar, presented the pains of carrying 3,000pages of books every day to school, and his revolutionary idea of revamping the school bookssystem to info-graphically created individual lesson packs and a school diary to track schoolwork,habits and goals.
Rohit Krishna, 12-year-old technology enthusiast, when travelling by train saw a fellowpassenger lose his luggage and how that prompted him to find a solution of fitting luggage withsensors and alarms and gradually improvised to connect it to a smartphone, thereby preventingthousands oftrain thefts happening daily.
Rabin, a 12-year-old studying at JS Global School and science enthusiast spoke about his howhe got fascinated towards science and how he changed my failed projects to successfulprojects.
Sai Hari, the 13-year-old cricket enthusiast spoke about his journey from breaking light bulbs athome to winning several man of the matches, and how passion with perseverance is thewinning formulae.
Vriksha, a 14-year-old author, studying at DPS PanvelMumbai, spoke with great flair on herauthoringand poetrywriting journey and keptheraudience captivated.
Chandana, a 16-year-old State Parade participant and stand-up comedian spoke on howdreams can come true if one has the courage to pursue it, and different outcomes achieved byapproaching the same situation with the stress of what could go wrong against excitement ofwhatcould go right.
Aaryan, a 9-year-old from Malaysia spoke about making affirmations interesting for kids byadding musicto them.
Mihit,a 14-year-old fromMumbai is creating anapp thathelps local vendorsand hawkers.
Maanya, a 12-year-old is making amazing science experiments. He aims to become aninventor.
The stage is set for these young Real-Life Incredibles to go out and make a positive impact inthe world inspiring both young and old alike. Their mentor and facilitator, India’s first theatrebased life coach John Pradeep JL Comes with a decade of experience in working with childrenand parents.He is on themission ofcreating the world’s largestcommunity ofyoung achievers.
He uses theatre based methodologies to coach children with fun and energy. John has trainedover 10,000 children and adults on leadership, socio-emotional skills, finding their passion etc.He teaches through puppetry, shadow theatre, clowning, mime, plays etc., which makes hiscurriculum all the more engaging. His most recent achievement was speaker at a world book ofrecords event.
With Coaching as his core strength, he currently is the Academic Dean of Evam’s Happy Cow,a theatre based education movement for children functioning across South India and seniortrainer of Training Sideways, India’s No.1 Art-Based Behavioral Training Company. Johnbelieves, “Enabling parents to coach their own children is the most effective way of coachingchildrenand shaping the next-gen”
