Thank you to the curators of TEDxLPCUWC Youth for inviting me to speak at their TEDx event at Li Po Chun United World College yesterday! The event was filmed for broadcast by TED in the coming months. The best thing about doing a TEDx is meeting and listening to the other speakers interpret the same theme in their own unique way. The theme for this one was A Fractal of Perspectives, which meant the first thing I had to do was google ‘fractal’ and the second thing I had to do was google ‘how to use fractal in a sentence’. The speech kind of wrote itself from there.

I am so grateful to have had this experience that was inspiring, uplifting and often hilarious! Congratulations to all the organisers and volunteers who did such an incredible job and thanks to the amazing audience! This included my pal Philippe who had travelled all the way from DB to tell me “You only had to remember one thing: to stand in the big red box and you managed to screw that up!” I have never managed to stay in the box my entire life so this was apt.

Special thanks to the wonderful Joanna Jayalakshman Mohan for coming to the Women in Publishing Society‘s launch of Imprint 22 at the Hong Kong Int Lit Fest, which kickstarted my TEDx interlude, and for bringing it to a fitting conclusion with the following conversation:

Me: Hey, we should meet up for a drink some time!

Her: Sure, that would be great as soon as I turn 18!

Me: 😮

(If you want people to guess you’re underage, here’s a tip: don’t use words like ‘fractal’! I had just assumed they were young-looking PhD students!)

So, that’s how my first TEDx ended. Not with champagne but with the creeping realisation I had been caught corrupting a minor.

https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/56987