TED2016 Rose to Their Feet for a 10 Year Old Indian Girl
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siliconindia | Thursday, 18 February 2016, 05:49 Hrs
BENGALURU: Ishita Katyal, a 10 year old schoolgirl from Pune, became the youngest Indian speaker at the TED2016 (Technology, Entertainment, Design), conference that was mostly attended by world’s top brainiacs. She was the opening speaker at the first session of the meet, which included eminent personalities from various walks of life such as AR Rahman, entrepreneur Riccardo Sabatini, inventor Astro Teller, and writer Shonda Rhimes, reports TOI.
Ishita remained unperturbed all throughout her 4- minute speech in which she enthralled everyone with her topic “what do you want to be now”. The event featured the top executives from Google, Tesla, Apple and Uber; instead she schooled everyone on an important message. “Instead of asking children what they want to do when they grow up, you should ask them what they want to be right now,” she said. “We can do a lot in this moment, in the present. The problem is our world has many forces working against the dreams of children.”
She added that adults implant the sense of fear into the innocent mind of children, who are born without any fear or prejudice. Children around the world, she said, now suffer from fear–of hunger, of war, and of rising costs of education. “My dream for the future is that people think 10 times before raising school fees, a hundred times before going to war with another country, a thousand times before wasting food and water, and ten thousand times before letting their child’s childhood go away,” she says. “I hope you adults can look after the world long enough to give us our chance.
Ishita reminded the audience that children too can make a difference and age is just a mere number. As soon as she finished her speech, the crowd rose to their feet with a huge applause and surrounded her to take selfies. Apart from being an exceptional orator, Ishita is also the author of ‘Simran’s Diary’, an insightful book about an eight year old girl looking to fulfill her dreams. She even organized a TEDx talk at her school, Vibgyor High in Balewadi, last year.
Ishita's mother, Nancy Katyal was quoted saying to The Indian Express, "She is very clear about what she wants. She didn’t hesitate for even a second. The whole trip was sponsored by TEDx. At the main event, when she stood on the stage to speak, I felt nervous because she was the youngest and had to speak without holding any paper in her hand. But she spoke well."
