Umut Çatak

Brainstormer, Student

Umut Çatak is a 10th-grade student at Özel Sanko Okulları in Gaziantep, Turkey — a curious mind driven by a genuine passion for literature, technology, and the arts. At just 16, Umut is the visionary behind TEDxSanko, an initiative to bring the power of ideas to his school and city. Believing that young people have just as much to contribute to global conversations as anyone else, Umut is determined to prove that meaningful change can start in a classroom. Whether diving into a novel, exploring a new technology, or losing himself in music, Umut approaches everything with the same energy: an insatiable need to understand, create, and connect.

Literature, language, technology, music, the intersection of art and science, and the belief that a single idea — shared at the right moment — can change everything.

Young people are not the leaders of tomorrow — they are the leaders of right now. The world's most urgent problems will not wait for today's youth to grow up, and neither should we. When we give young people real platforms, real responsibilities, and real trust, they rise to meet the moment every single time. TEDxSanko is proof of that.

It started with a single TED Talk watched late one night — and a feeling I couldn't shake: why isn't anyone talking about these ideas in Gaziantep? I am a 10th grader, not a professional event organizer. But I realized that the only thing standing between my city and a TEDx event was someone willing to take the first step. So I did. TEDxSanko is my answer to every young person who has ever felt like their voice doesn't matter yet. It does. Mine does. And so does yours.

Seeing connections between things that seem completely unrelated — a piece of music and a scientific concept, a line of poetry and a technological breakthrough. That ability to think across disciplines is exactly what led me to organize TEDxSanko in the first place.