Theme: Resilience

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Poudre High School Auditorium
201 South Impala Drive
Fort Collins, Colorado, 80521
United States

Brooklyn Hartman

Student

Brooklyn Hartman is 16 years old and a junior at Poudre High School. She has decided to take her painful and abusive past and turn it into a powerful thing. She is both a victim and a survivor of sexual abuse. She has lived in Colorado her entire life and has grown up in Wellington, CO. She aspires to be a Dentist as well as share her story and experiences to be a comfort to others as well as bring to light the struggles of life after being abused. Her family is her everything and she is passionate in all aspects of her life. Brooklyn is all about overcoming the everyday struggles of life and finding positivity in even the darkest of the dark. She plans on attending CSU to get her Master’s degree and then venture out of state to get her Doctorate of Dental Surgery.

Emily Fox-Million

Student

Emily Fox-Million is 18 and a senior at Fort Collins High School. She is committed to making consistent and positive change in her local community and spends much of her time active in more than ten clubs at school. Emily is a former student athlete, having played 3 very different sports for 13 years. She is now, though, busier than ever as a student body president and editor-in-chief for her school newspaper. She holds 6 state titles, and one national title in competitive feature, opinion writing, and photojournalism. Emily plans to go to school to pursue journalism and actively live by her mentor’s words: “Be a voice for the voiceless.”

Isa Fontana

TEDxMountainAve Emcee, Student

Isa Fontana is a current senior at Poudre High School. She was born in Guangxi, China, adopted, and moved to the states in 2005. She was a competitive gymnast for 12 years and has since made aspirations to become a computer engineer. She has taken up many skills such as carpentry, coding, engineering, and more. Isa is a language enthusiast as well and speaks English, Mandarin, and some Spanish. As she takes on a Computer Engineering major next year, her goal is to inspire young women and minorities in STEM to diversify and take their skills worldwide. Although Isa has a wide variety of hobbies, her biggest ones now are making music and dancing. Ultimately, she strives to lead with gratitude and selflessness to leave a strong lasting impression on the world.

Josh Weissman

Educator

Josh Weissman has been teaching technology education at Poudre High School in Fort Collins, CO since 2004. Growing up in New York, he spent his childhood "messing about in boats". This eventually led to a rewarding career in the U.S. Merchant Marine Service, where he served for eleven years. Josh has enjoyed working in a variety of engineering and construction fields. A wandering career has carried him and his wife from the West Coast, Alaska, and Eastern Canada to the South Pacific and Africa, finally settling in Colorado. After beginning college at the University of Michigan, where he studied Mechanical Engineering and competed on the wrestling team, Josh completed his studies and received his teaching credentials from Colorado State. When not helping students design and build super-amazingly cool stuff, Josh enjoys coaching the Poudre wrestling team, competing in ultra-distance endurance events, hiking, biking and backpacking with his beautiful wife in the western mountains.

Nina Vendhan

Entrepreneur

Nina Vendhan is a Colorado native. She graduated summa cum laude with highest honors from Harvard University with a degree in economics and mathematics. She currently works as a venture capital investor. Outside of work, she serves on the Advisory Council for the Women & Girls of Color Fund by the Women's Foundation of Colorado where she gets to apply her investing experience to philanthropic investments. She also enjoys being a board member of YouthRoots and is passionate about breaking poverty cycles and alleviating inequality through education. In her free time, Nina enjoys skiing and hiking.

Reece MacKinney

Student

Reece MacKinney is a senior at Poudre High School, spending his whole life in Fort Collins. Growing up surrounded by different models of masculinity, his passions lie with how to define what masculinity is, and what it isn’t. He explores these passions through mentorship and restorative justice programs in his school and community, which promote emotional honesty. His work in these fields has inspired a love for developmental psychology, which he will study next fall at Duke University. However, it is his experiences in Fort Collins that he has learned the most from. Reece hopes to create comfortable spaces in his communities where vulnerability isn’t just tolerated, but accepted.