“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is the age old question every child has to face when guests visit their home. Like every other kid in an average Indian household, Ishita Katyal too faced such questions; but she could not wait long to become something in life; rather she wanted to make an instant impact. Her dream came true this Children’s Day when she became the youngest Indian to deliver a talk at TED Youth Conference in New York. Ishita, a student of Vibgyor High School, delivered her speech titled “What do you want to be now”, challenging the system which thinks that children are too small to make any difference in the community. Her four-minute speech received huge applause from the crowd.
Ishita’s journey with TEDx began when she visited an event organised by TEDx Pune, founded in the year 2013. She enjoyed the event thoroughly and just after the event she took initiative to ask the organisers whether she could be a part of the team. The response from the organisers were positive; but she had to pass two rounds of Skype interview conducted by Global TEDx volunteers. She cracked both the rounds in order to be the youngest organizers of TEDx Youth events in Asia-Pacific region. As a youth organizer, she was successful in organizing the first round of TEDx in her school on 7th February. When the opportunity to visit New York came, she grabbed it without hesitating for a second. She is very clear about what she wants. The whole trip was sponsored by TEDx. At the main event when she stood on stage she was nervous since she was the youngest contestant and had to speak without holding a paper; but everything went fine as she started to deliver her speech. After her speech was over she received huge applause from the crowd.
Ishita had also written a book titled “Simran’s Diary” when she was eight year old. The protagonist of the story, Simran too was eight-year old, looking to fulfil her dream while completing an adventurous journey.
Source: http://goo.gl/kA1HMt
