Dominique van Werkhoven

Christian, Event planner

Oxford University Law with French law graduate, I have worked in different European countries over the past 6 years and as an Event Organizer for the past 4 years. In the last 4 years I have also been in a team responsible for organizing seminars and workshops for 3,000+ teachers from all over Europe - as part of the role we have to recruit people who are willing to volunteer for a week (TeenStreet is non for profit) and to share knowledge, skills, research, experience with the teenagers who attend. Where possible we always seek to link the workshops/seminars to the theme of the overall event. This is a part of my summer (although planning is all year round!) that I really enjoy - putting together a programme of 200 seminars and seeing/hearing young people being challenged and motivated by what they hear/see/do!

I am really passionate about seeing young people live out their gifts, talents and interests. Seeing them grow, achieve, learn, make valuable and unique contributions!

Let's move away from exam based educational system!

I was very curious about a TEDxYouth event as I had never attended one before and I thoroughly enjoyed it! It was great to see the young people engaged and responding to the different talks and perfomances through the evening and certainly great to be inspired myself! I felt well welcomed and had a good view of all that was happened. One of my favourite talks was a surfboarder who turned his passion for surfing into a company developing surfboards from sustainable materials and the wider impact it has had in creating awareness. It was also fascinating to listen to one of the performers use his mouth to create and reproduce sounds and eventually a whole song! Since discovering TED and TEDx, I see the talks everywhere and recommend them to others! Great ideas, stories, thoughts and skills/talents!