The other speakers in the break room gave me some pressure. They said, "Thomas, you're the first one. You have to break the ice." I said, "Come on, guys. I'm German. How should I do it?" So, let's start this with acknowledging the great speakers today and the organizers with a big round of applause. Quick question.Who here has a mother. Oh, all of you. It turns out teachers always say there are no stupid questions, but they might be wrong.Surprise, surprise. I also have a mother and my mother lives in Germa ...

So, I have this friend. Her name is Manda. When she was 11 years old, she decided to go to the Pride Parade in Oslo, which is a city in Norway, with her aunt. On her way there, she sees a group of protesters. Two men call out to her asking, "Do you support SID. " As soon as those two men found out that Gander was a part of the LGBTQ plus community through being a lesbian, they immediately turned to her aunt and started screaming at her, saying that she was such a bad parent for raising Manda in that way. An ...

My feet were blistering from the harsh rubber of my new school shoes. My ponytail was tied so tight that I could feel the sweat pricking on my scalp. And I had the biggest smile I could muster blastered across my face.And all I wanted was to belong somewhere. My entire life I've been trying to answer the question, where are you from. Strap in.My dad was born in Brazil to Italian and Scottish parents. My mother was born in London to Pakistani parents. I was born in Scotland.And I've only recently found out t ...

Hi everyone. So I have a simple question for you guys to start off my speech. Have you ever looked at your life and felt like everyone else got instructions in their life except you.like somehow other people know what they want, where they going, what they're doing, and you're just trying your best not to fall behind from all of it. And I think many of us are felt that way more often than we admit because we're growing up in a time where everything moves fast, opinions, trends, expectations, and as we know, ...

You cannot design a future you do not understand. This talk takes the audience on a vivid journey into Ekiti’s origins, myths, migrations, and defining moments. Through storytelling rather than textbooks, the speaker reveals how history shapes identity, confidence, and collective direction. The audience is invited to see the past not as nostalgia, but as foundation. This is a reminder that progress without memory is fragile, and that knowing where we come from clarifies where we can go. Osadola Oluwaseun Sa ...

So before I start my speech, I would like all of you to think about the phrase. What do you think about it. It's a very common Vietnamese phrase that every Vietnamese people have like born with is to show your best and hide the rest.In the west, we also have a warning. Don't wash your dirty laundry in public. Different sayings, same meaning.It's both of it reflects a very crucial yet brutal social rules to just show your most perfect image. To just show your most beautiful and perfect self even though it's ...

Alhamdulillah. First of all, thank you for coming tonight to listen to the different speakers. My emphasis will be how to be confirmed, how to confirm yourself and stick to your identity, culture and ethics.But at the same time, how to engage with outside world critically. First of all, let us talk about one thing is that why young people they drift aside sometimes in this contemporary era. Maybe never happened in the past as much as we can get it now.Well, despite the fact that they have better opportuniti ...

Let me begin with something uncomfortable. Most of us assume that we know who we are until one day the certainty begins to melt away silently. Not because we failed, not because our values have disappeared, but because the versions of ourselves that we relied on no longer fits into the world we're standing in.This moment is deeply unsettling and we're rarely ever thought on how to interpret it. We're thought of identity as something fragile, something delicate that needs to be protected from disruption. Tha ...

What’s in a name? More than we think, and definitely more than our brains can hold onto. In this witty, thoughtful talk, Prithvi Daharwal explores names, why we struggle with them so often and what those small everyday moments reveal about memory, identity and human connection. From ancient history to a few of his own most awkward introductions, he takes us on a journey, showing how names can be the invisible, often less-thought-about threads that tie us all together so beautifully. Prithvi is a Materials S ...

When people talk about diversity, they often imagine a room filled with different cultures, different languages, and different nationalities. But I've come to realize that diversity begins long before we enter that room. It begins within us.Let me take you to the night before I left Japan to start university. I was sitting alone in my room staring at a halfback suitcase on the floor. It was almost midnight and the only light in the room was the glow of my phone.That soft blue light that makes everything fee ...