Good evening everyone. My name is Samantha. I'm 19 and I'm in 11th grade.You might think that this girl is a little old for her grade level. Well, today I want to start with my own story first. When I was 14, I was diagnosed with depressive disorder.By the time I was an innocent little girl who struggled with interpersonal relationships and schoolworks, I was disappointed. I was overwhelmed. Finally, I locked myself up in my room and I refused to go to school.By the time I got the diagnosis, my feeling was ...

In this deeply personal talk, game designer Markus Utomo shares how a medical diagnosis and spiraling anxiety disorder left him lost in fear, and how play brought him back to life. But this isn’t just his story. It’s ours. Drawing on powerful studies Markus makes a bold claim: We’re facing a collective anxiety disorder; as individuals, as schools, as a society. The root cause? Fear-based learning, broken education systems, and an overload of information without meaning. His solution? Play. If fear is the vi ...

Laughter swirls around me, loud and echoing, but I can barely hear it over the sound of the pounding in my chest. My heart is racing, a wild drum slamming against my ribs with a sound so loud I wonder if anyone else can actually hear it. My face is burning, but my hands are ice cold.My fingers are tingling as if they don't even belong to me anymore. The ground beneath me is unsteady. Feels like the floor is tilting, but also like the whole world is threatening to tip me over.I scanned the room for an escape ...