Adora Svitak | |
|---|---|
 Svitak for the Wikimedia Foundation, 2019. | |
| Born | October 15, 1997 Springfield, Oregon, U.S. |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA) |
| Occupations |
|
| Website | adorasvitak |
Adora Svitak (born October 15, 1997) is an American writer, public speaker, former child prodigy, [1] and activist. She did work for the Wikimedia Foundation as a communications associate. [2]
Svitak was born in Springfield, Oregon. [3] Her mother, Joyce, was a Chinese immigrant [4] who grew up during the Cultural Revolution. [1] Her father, John, studied physics and worked as a software engineer. [1] She got her first computer at age 6 [5] and began to write short stories on it.
Svitak's February 2010 TED Talk, "What Adults Can Learn From Kids," has received over 6.3 million views to date on TED.com. [6]
In 2015, Svitak addressed the National School Boards Association in an "Un-General" session and followed up with an extended session on encouragement of writing and reading that is relevant to students.[ citation needed ]
From 2010 to 2013, Adora organized the annual TEDx (x = independently organized TED event) conference TEDxRedmond with an all-youth planning committee. [14] The conference took place at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, WA. Over 700 people attended the inaugural conference in September 2010. [15] Svitak said in a Microsoft interview that she hopes TEDxRedmond attendees are empowered by participating, adding, "I would love to see kids taking up issues that were important to them, whether it's something that needs fixing at their school, or an environmental program that they'd like to start. I want them to see it's OK to take action. As a kid, your voice is important. Use it." [16]
Svitak's first full-length novel, Yang in Disguise, which she began working on in 2006, [17] was published on March 14, 2011 ( ISBN 978-1460979976). She also served as a spokesperson for Verizon Reads campaign for literacy [18] and edited a novella, The Pickpocket Princess. [19] Her second book, Dancing Fingers, which her older sister Adrianna, who is a musician, helped write [1] was published on April 30, 2008 ( ISBN 978-1888045567).
Svitak was a Verizon Foundation Literacy Champion from 2005 to 2009. In that capacity, she appeared on behalf of Verizon's foundation alongside James Earl Jones at the National Center for Family Literacy convention in Orlando, Florida and at the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Conference (formerly the National Education Computing Conference). [28] During the summer of 2012 Svitak wrote scripts for, and appeared in, Google's "Teach Teachers Tech" videos, modelled after their "Teach Parents Tech" videos, which promoted digital tools for use in education. [29] Svitak has publicly espoused feminist values in her Girls' State of the Union address at the National Press Club and a 2014 speech at the Orange County Girls' Conference at UC Irvine. [30] An article in Forbes about Svitak was titled "Is this 15-year-old Feminist a New Kind of Gloria Steinem in the Making?". [31] Svitak was quoted in a subsequent Forbes article commenting on the controversy around Sports Illustrated magazine using Barbie as a cover girl; Svitak felt that Barbie "...encourages an unrealistic expectation of beauty grounded in narrow ideals – whiteness, thinness, a lack of hair and an abundance of breast tissue – instead of kindness, smarts, self-confidence, or athleticism". [32]
In 2011, the National Education Association Foundation awarded Svitak with their Award for Outstanding Service to Public Education. [33] The Huffington Post included her on their "18 under 18 Most Amazing Young People of the Year" list of 2012. [34] In her junior year of high school, Svitak was named a Redmond Rotary Club Student of the Month. [35] Her "Girls' State of the Union" video, submitted to a Women's Media Center contest, took first place; subsequently, she spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. [36] In 2013, Svitak was named a Three Dot Dash Global Teen Leader by the New York City-based We Are Family Foundation for her work organizing TEDxRedmond and raising awareness for the United Nations World Food Programme. As a Global Teen Leader, she participated in a week-long leadership summit in New York City in March 2013. [37]
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
TED Conferences, LLC is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". It was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in February 1984 as a technology conference, in which Mickey Schulhof gave a demo of the compact disc that was invented in October 1982. Its main conference has been held annually since 1990. It covers almost all topics—from science to business to global issues—in more than 100 languages.
Redmond High School (RHS) is a four-year public high school located in Redmond, Washington, United States. It is one of four high schools in the Lake Washington School District (LWSD). Opened in 1964, Redmond High School is the second oldest high school in the Lake Washington School District. Redmond Middle School, Timberline Middle School, and Evergreen Middle School feed into Redmond High School.
Danah boyd is an American technology and social media scholar. She is a partner researcher at Microsoft Research, the founder of Data & Society Research Institute, and a distinguished visiting professor at Georgetown University.
Tavi Gevinson is an American actress, writer, and magazine editor. At age twelve, she came to public attention for her fashion blog Style Rookie. By 15, she had shifted her focus to pop culture and feminist discussion. Gevinson began acting in 2013, and later starred in the HBO Max series Gossip Girl (2021–2023).
Esra'a Al Shafei is a Bahraini civil rights activist, blogger, and the founder and executive director of Majal and its related projects, including CrowdVoice.org. Al Shafei is a senior TED Fellow, an Echoing Green fellow, and has been referred to by CNN reporter George Webster as "An outspoken defender of free speech". She has been featured in Fast Company magazine as one of the "100 Most Creative People in Business." In 2011, The Daily Beast listed Al Shafei as one of the 17 bravest bloggers worldwide. She is also a promoter of music as a means of social change, and founded Mideast Tunes, which is currently the largest platform for underground musicians in the Middle East and North Africa.
Marita Cheng is the founder of Robogals. She was named the 2012 Young Australian of the Year. She is the founder and current CEO of Aubot, a start-up robotics company. She co-founded Aipoly, an app to assist blind people to recognise objects using their mobile phones. She was named as one of the World's Top 50 women in Technology by Forbes in 2018 and was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2016. On 9 June 2019, Cheng was appointed a member of the Order of Australia for significant service to science and technology, particularly to robotics.
Microsoft Build is an annual conference event held by Microsoft, aimed at software engineers and web developers using Windows, Microsoft Azure and other Microsoft technologies. First held in 2011, it serves as a successor for Microsoft's previous developer events, the Professional Developers Conference and MIX. The attendee price was (US)$2,195 in 2016, up from $2,095 in 2015. It sold out quickly, within one minute of the registration site opening in 2016.
The Cybersmile Foundation is an international nonprofit organization committed to tackling all forms of cyberbullying and digital abuse. They promote kindness, diversity, and inclusion through professional support services, education programs, awareness campaigns and corporate partnerships.
Param Jaggi is an American inventor and the CEO of Hatch Technologies. Previously, he was founder and CEO of EcoViate. He is known for building Algae Mobile, a device that converts carbon dioxide emitted from a car into oxygen. Jaggi was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in 2011 and 2012.
Uche Pedro is a Nigerian entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of BellaNaija, a media tech brand known for entertainment and lifestyle content. Under her leadership, BellaNaija's social footprint has grown through its collective brands - BellaNaija.com, BellaNaija Weddings and BellaNaija Style - to be the largest on the African continent with more than 200 million impressions each month.
K. Visalini is an Indian prodigy who is purported to have an officially tested IQ of 225. Visalini also holds several other records including the youngest person to receive CCNA certification and youngest person to receive EXIN cloud computing certification. She has been the chief guest and keynote speaker at many conferences, including TEDxNITKSurakthal.
Linda Liukas is a Finnish children's book author, illustrator and an instructor for beginner programmers. In 2014, her Hello Ruby coding book for children raised $380,000 on Kickstarter becoming the platform's most highly funded children's book.
Zuriel Elise Oduwole is an American education advocate and film maker best known for her works on the advocacy for the education of girls in Africa. Her advocacy has since made her in the summer of 2013 at the age of 10, the youngest person to be profiled by Forbes. In November 2014, at age 12, Zuriel became the world's youngest filmmaker to have a self-produced and self-edited work screened, after her film showed in two movie chains, and then went on to show in Ghana, England, South Africa, and Japan.
Jes M. Baker is an American writer, photographer, and activist, best known for being part of the body positive movement. She blogs as The Militant Baker. Her writing focuses on self-image, and topics range from body hair to rape culture. Baker founded the Body Love Conference, which held regional conferences in Arizona in 2014 and 2015.
Hannah Alper is a Canadian activist, blogger, and journalist who was active in those fields before her teens.
Haile Thomas is a Jamaican-American international speaker, youth health activist, vegan food and lifestyle influencer, the youngest Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach in the United States, and the founder/CEO of the nonprofit HAPPY
Ruby Karp is an American writer and comedian.
Anushka Naiknaware, pronounced [əˈnʊʂkaː naːi:kanəʋərɛː] is an Indian-American inventor, scientist and speaker. She is known for being the youngest person to win the Google Science Fair Award in 2016. Born in Portland, Naiknaware created a Chitosan and Carbon Nanoparticle Based Biocompatible Sensor for Wound Management smart bandage that alerts doctors when it needs to be changed.
Alexis Lewis is an American inventor, repeat science fair winner and public speaker. She is best known for her advocacy for invention education and her humanitarian inventions. She is known to have given talks at the White House, Smithsonian, SXSW, National Maker Faire, the 2018 Social Innovation Summit, and at TEDx events. Lewis also gained repeat standing as a finalist or winner in national and international science and invention fairs, including the 2012 Broadcom MASTERS Challenge. In the course of the Spark!Lab Invent It Challenge, Lewis won pro-bono patent counsel, and holds a patent on the "Rescue Travois", granted 2015 and has one pending, on the "Emergency Mask Pod".
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
