This year’s TEDxYouthDay theme was “Dream Big…Then Do It!” For the past month, youth from around the world have been sharing their big ideas for a better world. Here, some selections from the TEDxYouthDay Photo Campaign, for which young people completed the sentence, “A dream that I commit to making real is…” The breadth, depth, and creativity of these answers have astonished us — like the answer above from Instagram user shenjustshen – and we can’t wait to see what these dreamers will accomplish.

Also from Instagram user shenjustshen, a TEDxYouthDay participant writes that her dream is “to show the world that there is no such thing as perfection in art.”

A participant from TEDxYouth@DiscoveryCollege says he hopes to be the first man on Mars and Pluto.

TEDxYouthDay Reporter Serena Chao shares her dream, to stay true to herself.

A TEDxParkCityDaySchool team member shares his dream, “Finding a enjoyable and successful job.”

Instagram user sritahereje says she commits to the “spread of creative messages.”

A participant of TEDxYouth@DiscoveryCollege shares her dream: “To prove everyone wrong.”

TEDxYouthDay Reporter Jahbari Wallace aims high with his dream, filling in the sentence with the words “doing the right thing in every situation.”

A TEDxParkCityDaySchool team members share her dream “to help stop starvation.”

Find more photos from the TEDxYouthDay Photo Campaign on Flickr and Instagram.  

From Instagram user nandaptavares.

TEDxYouthDay 2012 saw 100 TEDx events for kids and young people hosted on November 17th and 18th in 42 countries. 26 of these events livestreamed on the TEDxYouthDay website. It was a day of connections, teamwork and lots of ideas worth spreading. Young people shared their experiences via Twitter  — including our 122 TEDxYouthDay Reporters from 40 countries:

5 hours,4 speakers,1 sensorial module,performers and an enthusiastic audience have made this possible! #TEDxYouthDay @tedxsantodomingo

— Sarah Miranda (@Sarah_Miranda) November 17, 2012

“What we can make is limited by the tools we have, but what we can think is limitless” -Ben Wynne #TEDxYouth #TEDxYSD12

— TEDxYouthSanDiego (@TEDxYouthSD) November 18, 2012

Helping host #TEDxYouth day in #NelsonBC. The energy is vibrant. #whatyouthneedtothrive @tedxsdhschool

— Tara Smedbol (@bikebol) November 17, 2012

“You already are what you are going to be. That teacher, that president that whatever it is. It’s in you.” Yadira De La Riva #TEDxYouth

— TEDxYouth@TheSchool (@TEDxYTheSchool) November 17, 2012

#TEDxYouth@Khartoum it made me feel today that we actually still have a hope to make our country better for us and for the next generation.

— ✿ Mathaba ✿ (@soobzlicious) November 17, 2012

Full house at #TEDxYouthDoha. You can feel the excitement in the air! 2nd session starting now #tunein our livestream! twitter.com/anapaucortes/s…

— Ana Cortes (@anapaucortes) November 17, 2012

On Instagram, kids from  around the world shared images and moments from their local TEDxYouth event:

A TEDxYouth@Tallin attendee shares her dream that she commits to making real (in Estonian!)

Musicians from TEDxYouth@Tokyo shared by Instagram user MossyMoss007

A presenter at TEDxYouth@FortWorth being interviewed. From Instagram user uprightgumby.

A sign at TEDxYouth@SanDiego, from Instagram user KellyOrange.

Speaker Deysi Melgar wears a dress made of balloons at TEDxYouth@BeaconStreet. Posted by IamJoonLee.

Keep an eye on the TEDx blog for more stories from TEDxYouthDay >>>

We’ll be updating the TEDxTalks website with videos from TEDxYouthDay events soon >>>

Kelly Stoetzel and Rives with special guest hosts at TEDYouth 2012, November 17, 2012 in New York, NY. Photo: Ryan Lash

TEDYouth took place on November 17th, 2012 at the TimesCenter in New York. 25 speakers took the stage, igniting ideas in the minds of an audience of 400 New York high school students. Some highlights:

Rick Smolan, photographer and data evangelist
Rick Smolan’s larger-than-life photographs capture deeper meaning in everyday moments. (Watch his TED Talk.) Right now, he’s exploring how Big Data is reshaping our lives. Everything we do generates data — who we call, what we buy, what we tweet. In his talk, Smolan gives a brief tour of the ways this vast data allows us to get new views of our world — from a crowdsourcing app that allows for better earthquake prediction, to stunning imagery of pizza delivery in New York City on a Friday night, to Smolan’s own Data Detectives project which gives a way for teens to compare themselves to others around the world.

Jer Thorp, data artist
A data artist in residence at The New York Times, Jer Thorp takes big data and makes it understandable in beautiful visualizations. (Watch his TED Talk.) He’s created a visualization of people saying “Good morning” on Twitter, and of others tweeting “just landed” as they travel. In this talk, he introduces us to Cascade, The New York Times‘ initiative to visually chart the way people talk about their articles. “We are data-making machines,” said Thorp. “Big data can solve big problems.”

Jer Thorp at TEDYouth 2012, November 17, 2012 in New York, NY. Photo: Ryan Lash

Ayanna Howard, roboticist
How can we have robots on Mars and in war zones, but not yet have robots in our homes? The answer: because they aren’t smart enough yet. In this talk, Howard explains that she was surprised to find that her work involved learning about child development and watching monkeys — all in service of making robots that can mirror motions, learn muscle memory and, most importantly, interact with humans. Making a special appearance in her talk: Pleo, the robot dinosaur, who has her own TED Talk.

Tom Chi, technologist
Tom Chi runs Google X, which he calls the “department of science fiction” of the Internet giant. In this talk, he describes Google Glass, a head-mounted display — sort of like a pair of glasses — that can overlay digital experiences while a person interacts in the real world. While this technology sounds highly complex, he shares that making the first prototype took just a single day and that the hardest challenge was making them light and wearable..

Young Guru, music producer
Young Guru has worked with Jay-Z on 10 albums, not to mention other well-known artists. On the TEDYouth stage, Young Guru turned his eye to piracy. “What does piracy have to do with hip hop music?” he asks. “Hip hop is based off using other people’s music to make new music.” In this talk, he makes a case that what’s now considered piracy is actually the pushing forward of culture. He says: “All pirates are doing is remixing something else, so let’s not attack the pirate — let’s figure out how to make a better remix.”

Bobak Ferdowsi, Flight Director for the Mars Curiosity Rover mission (pictured below)
Not only did Bobak help land the Curiosity Rover on Mars, he became an Internet meme for his mohawk haircut. He reviews the extraordinary technology and techniques they used to land an SUV sized rover — overcoming such obstacles as the chance that the thrusters used on landing would blow a hole in the planet that the rover could never climb out of. (Watch NASA’s video on the “7 minutes of terror,” the time it took the rover to land.)

Kelly Benoit-Bird, Marine Biologist
Kelly uses sophisticated sound technology to explore how animals in the ocean find their food while trying to avoid being someone else’s dinner. It turns out that there is very little food in the ocean — in the 400 seat TEDYouth auditorium there would be the equivalent of one tub of movie popcorn. But it’s even more complicated than that — animals do best when food is clumped, so regions with large amounts of food for seals, say, might not support large populations if the food is spread out instead of clumping. Using advanced sonar, she’s found remarkable patterns in the way animals find their food. (Watch also: This TED-Ed lesson on the secret life of plankton.)

Maurice Ashley, Chess Grandmaster
Maurice is an International Grandmaster of Chess — in fact, in 1999, he was the first African-American to win that title. There is a myth that grandmasters can see 15 moves ahead. The truth is that in the first four moves there are 318,000,000 ways to play. So he and other grandmasters use a variety of techniques to look ahead. One is called “Retrograde Analysis,” a way of looking at what had happened before to figure out what will happen in the future. For example, a good way to proofread is to read an essay backward, to avoid the fact that our brain will fill in errors when we know what to expect. He uses this techniques in many other areas to solve problems, with great effect. Finally, is youth wasted on the young? Well, “If you can see the endgame, your youth will not be wasted on you.”

For the full least of speakers, visit the TEDYouth website >>

For more highlights from TEDYouth, visit the TED blog >>

Some talks will be released on TED.com, so stay tuned!

Here at TEDx we’re super excited for next month’s TEDxYouthDay!

Not only are 100 events taking place all over the world over the weekend ofNovember 17-18—including in Tokyo, New York, Berlin, Nairobi, Cairo, and Amsterdam—but many of them are being organized by youth, for youth. How awesome is that?

This year, the TEDxYouthDay theme is “Dream Big… Then Do It!” and though we already know that so many young people across the planet are doing amazing things to make the world a better place, we can’t wait to hear the great ideas that will come out of these events.

So, leading up to TEDxYouthDay weekend, we have a challenge. We’re asking people to take pictures of themselves completing the sentence, “A dream of mine that I commit to making real is…”

If you take a picture of yourself holding the TEDxYouthDay sign and telling the world what your big dream is for tomorrow, you could wind up on the official TEDxYouthDay site, or on this blog!

How to do it: to make things easy, we’ve made a sign. Here’s a small preview:

What you do: Download the real sign here, print it out, write your answer, and take a picture of yourself holding your sign.

Then what? Upload your picture to Flickr, Instagram, or post it on your Tumblr. Tag your picture with #TEDxYouthDay, so we can find it, and if it’s awesome, we’ll add it to our posts.

Are you dreaming big? Let us know!

This year marks the third anniversary of TEDxYouthDay, a series of TEDx events designed to empower and inspire youth and kids worldwide, coinciding with Universal Children’s Day in late November.

TEDxYouthDay events vary widely in size, format, and theme, but share a common vision: inspiring curiosity, igniting new ideas, and empowering leaders in the youth of today. This year, TEDxYouthDay will take place on a weekend—from Saturday, November 17 to Sunday, November 18, 2012.

Nearly 100 TEDxYouthDay events will take place during the weekend, including events in Tokyo, Baghdad, London, Venice, Belgrade, and New York. This year’s theme is “Dream big…then do it!” and youth around the world will sure to be sharing their big ideas for a better world.

At TEDxYouth@SanDiego in California, organizer Sonia Rhodes looks forward to an event that will have an impact on local youth, an impact she hopes will echo worldwide. “The importance of lighting a spark of possibility for our youth resonated for me immediately,” she said. “I believe that through the power of ideas and the belief that anything is possible, the young people of San Diego and the world [can] create the future we’re hoping for.”

This year, the TEDxYouth@SanDiego team has opened up 50 spaces on the team for youth members, and these youth team members are doing everything from creating video invitations to potential speakers, to creating the event website. 

In The Netherlands, TEDxYouthDay events have created a country-wide bond. “Some of our team members are young (between ages 17 and 23),” said organizer ofTEDxYouth@Brabantlaan Marielle Hornstra, “and two of them have spoken at other TEDx events in The Netherlands.

“There is so much energy in our team,” she said. “It is exciting to be part of it.”

In Dubai, TEDxYouth@Dubai has evolved from 4 years of the city’s standard TEDx event. “We are inviting 10 students, representing 50 to 60 schools in Dubai,” organizers said, “hoping to [encourage] them to have their own Youth event next year.”

The unfolding story of TEDxYouthDay will be documented by designated Youth Day Event Reporters: volunteers from countries across the globe, committed to reporting on Youth Day stories, from behind-the-scenes action at events to impressions of the big day.

These stories will be spread across the web, with coverage on the TEDxYouthDay website, Facebook, Twitter, and on Tumblr— allowing youth in communities from all over to learn from one another, and leaders of the future to gain from this outpouring of new ideas and worldwide calls to action.

Coinciding with these events will be TEDYouth—a day-long event for high school students filled with live speakers, hands-on activities, demonstrations, and an opportunity for the youth attendees and speakers to connect. Held annually in New York City, TEDYouth will also be broadcasted live online for viewers worldwide.

With so many youth worldwide coming together to celebrate the passion, ideas, and drive of their generation and others soon to come, visions of the future they will create TEDxYouthDay is sure to be a day marked by visions of the future they will create

For more information on TEDxYouthDay and to see a complete list of TEDxYouthDay events, visit the TEDxYouthDay website here.

Follow TEDxYouthDay on Twitter.
Like TEDxYouthDay on Facebook.

Charlotte Caklin, TEDxYouth@Bath organizer. TEDxYouth@Bath is part ofTEDxYouthDay 2012, alongside their neighbors TEDxYouth@Hackney and TEDxYouth@Croydon in the UK. All will be joining almost 100 TEDx events worldwide during this year’s TEDxYouthDay, many of which will be livestreaming here: http://tedxyouthday.ted.com/