Subscribe on iTunes! Subscribe on Google Play Podcast RSS Feed   Leadership Prep School in Frisco will host its second TEDxYouth event on April 24, 2021, and we got to chat with one of the cool kids who is planning to deliver her first-ever TED Talk! (We’re guessing there will be more of these in her future…) LPS teachers Loralea Ray and Tony Curtis, along with fifth grade student Shania Nagpal, joined The Frisco Podcast to share the fun facts about TEDxYouth. We talk about the school’s application process, the rehearsals, and the soon-to-be-famous kids who have some impressive topics planned. Listen and be inspired, Frisco! Details as to how you can watch 2021 TEDxYouth Frisco are within… Enjoy this episode. SHOW NOTES: [01:26] How does a school apply to host a TEDx event? [02:38] Last year’s inaugural TEDx event in Feb 2020, the speakers and topics [05:11] The speaker selection process for the 2021 event [07:25] How it works this year, live audience and YouTube [08:34] Student Shania shares about her TEDx aspirations [09:38] Getting ready for TEDx – choosing a topic, rehearsals, and having fun! [11:56] 2021 Speaker topics [12:50] What students are learning from the experience LINKS & RESOURCES: Leadership Prep School on Lifestyle Frisco | Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn Connect with Lifestyle Frisco on:  YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn Transcript Machine-generated. Welcome to the Frisco Podcast. I’m your host, Nicole Barron. And today I have the privilege of chatting with Leadership Prep School in Frisco. If you’re not familiar LPS, as we like to call them, is a highly regarded charter school, um, in West Frisco. And they are on a mission to inspire students, to learn, grow, and lead for a lifetime. They have a lot of incredible programs and curriculum that do exactly that. One of those we get to chat about today. It’s a very, very impressive- Leadership Prep will be hosting their second TEDx event. And I have, um, two teachers and a student who have a lot to share with us about it. And you’re definitely going to want to, um, watch the live event when it happens online. So let’s just dive in and find out all about it. Welcome to my guests. We have Loralea Ray, who is a teacher at Leadership Prep. We have Tony Curtis, also a teacher at Leadership Prep. And we have Shania Nagpal, a fifth grade student, which is very special that we have her here today because she’s going to tell you all about what she plans to share at TEDx. Welcome. Hi, thank you so much for having us. You are very welcome. It’s our pleasure. So let me just back up at the beginning and just say it cannot be easy. We hear about TEDx all the time. It’s a very big deal. It’s all over the country, the world. How does a school in Frisco, Texas get to host a TEDx? It can’t be easy. Are there a lot of rules requirements? How did this happen? Uh, yeah, definitely a lot of rules and requirements. Uh, last year was our first year. And, uh, it really just starTED with a brainstorm, uh, about how some of us were doing little mini, uh, sort of fake TED talks in our classroom. You know, just, just to kind of make the presentations seem more fun. And just one day I thought, “wait a second, why are we doing fake TED talks? Let’s do a real one?” And so we just went to TED.com and we looked up the requirements and submitted an application. And really within 30 days they approved the application and we were in, Oh my goodness. Well, they must’ve been impressed because I, again, there’s there must receive a lot of applications really, but it’s special when there are students involved. That’s that changes everything. How all of we adults think we have a million great things to say, but when it’s kids, that’s better. I want to know what they have- Shania’s nodding your head. I can see that. And you can ask. Right. Um, okay. So last year was the first one and it was right before the COVID craziness hit. Right. So you were able to have a live event at that time, is that correct? Yes. Okay. So how many students were involved in that and how old were they? Tell me a little bit about that event. Uh, I, I believe we had 11 speakers ranging from second grade through 12th grade and, um, and really the ones that stole the show tended to be the, the younger ones. Really. How cool. What kinds of things did they talk about? Do you remember? I don’t mean to put you on the spot. It was like a year and a million things ago. Yeah. Younger ones. Um, well, the TED Talks themselves were about, um, overcoming hardships, which you don’t think of a second grader having to overcome that much, but it was, it was really inspiring talks, for sure. Having to just overcome, you know, negative thinking, uh, bullying, how to find that spark within yourself, but they are. Our theme last year was “evolve.” So all of the talks had a little something to do with how, um, you know, the evolution from one, one place to another or something like that. Um, so they ranged anywhere from talking about, you know, positivity and trying to make sure that you kind of know your worth too. Um, our oldest, one of our seniors, um, he talked about how to change and reform the voting that was happening at that time, which actually became such a hot topic while we, you know, we’re in a lockdown this last presidential election, it was, it was really cool because everything that he talked about really came to fruition with like this real-life event that was happening on all of our, um, whenever we …