Carmen Ovies

Educator/Teacher, Lawyer, Social entrepreneur, Student, World traveler

My name is Carmen, I’m 24 years old and I’m from Asturias (Spain). Two years ago I finished a degree in Law at Universidad de Oviedo and, as I’m passionate about Economy, I’m currently studying Administration and Business Management in English. I’m really interested in education matters, I enjoy teaching and I want kids to learn the importance of speaking languages, so that is why I turned myself into an English teacher in my free time.

I love finding new and inspiring TED Talks and I like to identify the key idea in each talk to spread it among my acquaintances. I am passionate about education and I like to learn new things every day. I love travelling and one of my mottos is “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer”.

I think that education is a necessary and basic good for everybody. That is why I strongly believe in the power of projects led by young people. Devoting effort and time to improve other people in any sense is also a sure path towards improving ourselves.

My first TED experience was some years ago when I was still at high school. I was preparing myself for an English test with the help of a teacher and he suggested to listen to a TED Talk in order to practise my listening skills. I would never have imagined that I was going to enjoy this task so much. As days went by, I asked my teacher to suggest me more talks. My first TED talk was “Do schools kill creativity?” given by one of the most inspiring people for me: Sir Ken Robinson. Thanks to him I saw how schools underestimate creative people and I decided that I wanted to be the change we need in our own educational system.

Teaching. Since I heard Sir Ken Robinson talking about education I try to change the view of this “powerful weapon” from the inside of the system, organising events such as TEDx and involving myself in educational projects