The Hewitt School’s seventh annual TEDxYouth event was as inspirational, moving, and joyful as one might expect it to be. Starting at 10 AM, everyone was mingling and discussing the speakers they were about to hear, enjoying the breakfast and coffee that was available, and appreciating the amazing work that the TEDxYouth staff did in putting everything together. Soon enough, the crowd entered the theater to hear the speakers begin.

Hosting the event was mathematics teacher, Ms. Brennan, who began the day with a touching and thought-provoking speech about feminism and the TEDxYouth theme of, “What Now?” She discussed the topic and her stance on it, ending with the idea that there are two types of people in the world: the type of person who will open the door for you when you ask them to, and the type of person who will hold the door open for you without being asked. Throughout the day, Ms. Brennan’s light, funny, and encouraging words helped bring the whole event to life.

Ms. Brennan kicking off the event Credit: TEDxYouth@Hewitt instagram
Ms. Brennan kicking off the TEDxYouth event
Credit: TEDxYouth@Hewitt instagram

Although all of the speakers who attended to TEDxYouth event were both intriguing and inspiring, the speakers who stood out the most were the ones who spoke about feminism and how women have the same potential, and should be held to the same standards as men.

One of the speakers who spoke on this issue was, Anthony Onesto, the founder of Ella’s Adventures LLC, worked in coding and tried to even out the ratio of women and men in his company. Onesto worked in coding and in his company, only 10 of the 800 coders were women, causing him to look more into these ratios throughout all careers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). He then, with inspiration from his daughter Ella, created the comic, Ella’s Adventures. This comic is based on Ella and in every comic, something would go wrong with technology and instead of calling a boy to fix it, they would call Ella. Onesto really believes that a woman can do anything a man can do and inforced the idea that “if you can see it, you can be it.”

Anthony Onesto and his daughter, Ella Credit: TEDxYouth@Hewitt Instagram
Anthony Onesto and his daughter, Ella
Credit: TEDxYouth@Hewitt Instagram

This aspect of the importance of female empowerment increasing the number of women in male dominated fields was extended in the speech by Danielle Kaymbe,  a business leader and social impact advisor, who spoke about feminism and girl power, and the speech of the co-founders and co-chief executive officers of Werk, Annie Dean and Anna Auerbach. These women touched base on how women are not treated fairly in what they referred to as the “werkforce.” They created Werk to empower women to create the careers they deserve while living the lives they want to live. Dean said that, “flexibility keeps women in the workforce advancing them to a leadership position.” The workforce is changing and by promoting the power of women really reinforces how “flexibility is the future of feminism.”

Credit: TEDxYouth@Hewitt Instagram
Credit: TEDxYouth@Hewitt Instagram

The last person to address the topic of feminism was Katie Hnida, a football player and motivational speaker, who spoke about how she discovered her passion for football. Hnida told the audience that she found her talent for football at the age of fourteen, leading her to not only try out, but make her high school football team. She was featured in magazines, such as People Magazine, and got into her dream college, Colorado State, to play football. Colorado State turned out to be a nightmare for Hnida for various reasons such as messing up at her very first college football game, not being accepted by her male teammates, and getting raped by another one of her teammates. As a result of her sexual assault, Hnida fell into a depression. She spoke about finding her “inner self” once she left Colorado State and transferred to the University of New Mexico, where she felt at home. At her new college, she reminisced on how “the 100 sweaty guys on my team were like my brothers, we did everything together, they had my back.” Currently after making history are the first woman to play in college football, Hnida speaks out against violence and is a motivational speaker.

Throughout the day, Hewitt students and faculty members were enlightened by the achievements of the various successful speakers who were able to demonstrate the power breaking conventions and challenging gender norms.

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