I'm 15, and where am I from?

Good question.

I'm German, American, Persian

but I was born in Switzerland, moved to Slovakia

and now I'm currently living in Italy.

So, to answer the question

I simply consider myself a world citizen.

Today I would like to share with you

a question that has been on my mind for a long time.

Who is writing the future?

This past summer I attended

a youth conference in Washington DC.

The subject of the conference was

the role of youth in today's society.

I really didn't know what to expect from this conference

I did have my own opinions of what youth can achieve.

But what I experienced at this conference

just totally changed my mindset and views

on what youth can actually do and have the power to do.

This wasn't a conference of lectures talk talk talk listen listen.

It was more of an opportunity for youth to come together

to discuss and to create plans of social actions

and immediately implementing them.

And what I found amazing was

how the arts were really stressed

and how they were integrated

in practically every activity we did.

I vividly remember

I was walking down the hallway

and I saw a bunch of youth starting to jam out

and they started to drum spontaneously

and then a bunch of other youth started to improvise

and sang along to their rhythm while others started to dance

and in no time we were all involved in one way or another.

It was just amazing seeing the different creative expressions

and diverse ways that we had.

But above all if I had to choose one thing

that I loved most about the conference

were the people.

It was from them that

I just gained so much knowledge, inspiration, and skills.

And what I really loved about the conference

was how my friends and I, we had a common vision

a unified vision

to effect positive and lasting change

the kind of change that starts with the self

spreads to the family and community

and finally engulfs the entire globe.

By the end of the conference I could visualize

the potential of the world that we live in

a world characterized by collaboration, not competition

by justice, not corruption and by love, not hatred.

So why were all these conferences held for youth?

What makes youth so special?

The world that we live in today obviously has many problems.

I think we can all agree on that.

and we need to remember that these problems

were not caused by youth.

They were rather caused by the action

or should I say inaction of the older generations.

And yet ironically it is us youth that have to take the responsibility

to first stop these problems from growing further

and second to find solutions

to remedy the damages that they have a ready done.

So what I also would like to stress is

what really blows my mind, is that I was only one

out of the seven hundred youth at that event

and that I only attended one conference

out of the 114 youth conferences.

Some of these conferences were held in places I've never heard of

such as Antananarivo

or Kadugannawa. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right.

So back to what I was saying...

How are we going to get to these solutions?

Us youth have to solve these problems that were caused by the older generations.

Well, global issues require global solutions

and global solutions require global thinking and guess what?

The past generations have been shaped by local, national

or at best regional level thinking.

They considered something solved

as long as it was in someone else's backyard.

Let's shift the nuclear waste to another country.

Problem solved. But this was the thinking of the past.

Today we live in a generation where we have our cell phones,

laptops, technology just surrounding us.

I'm sure some of you in the audience

have checked your phone at least once while I was talking.

And that's because we are globally connected.

Who understands this global connectivity the best? It is youth.

We youth are globally connected all the time

and we are the global thinkers of the future.

We can solve these problems that weren't caused by us

and the world challenges.

Now having said all this I would like to tell you a story.

This past summer I went to Baltimore where I go often

and a bunch of us youth

we decided to do a service project for our community.

What we really wanted to do, we decided to choose,

we chose this run-down neighborhood of Baltimore

which has a high rate of drug abuse and what we wanted to do is

we wanted to take the piece of land in their community

and change it into a community garden.

And our main focus was to involve the children of that time.

And that's exactly what we did.

We started this project and these kids would come every Saturday and Sunday

and they were just so excited with big smiles on their faces.

They were ready to get their hands dirty and plant seeds.

They were super excited for this, because it wasn't just a garden for anyone.

It was their garden. It was their community garden.

And it was amazing.

So what was great, it was a great success

because not only did they learn the importance of gardening

they also learned the importance of working together as a community.

The harvest time was coming closer and closer

and the excitement of these kids was just rising and increasing

and it was just uncontrollable. It was amazing.

But a week before the harvest day something unexpected happened.

The city workers had mowed down our entire community garden by accident

along with like the rest of the land.

I really didn't know how they could do that

because we had watermelons and sunflowers growing

but somehow they did manage to mow down the entire thing.

Us and the kids, we were just so devastated.

What were we going to do? All our work was just basically wasted.

What were we supposed to do?

Well, I'll tell you what we did.

We put down our shovels and hoses

and we reached for our cell phones instead and we started calling everyone we knew.

We started emailing our friends. We started calling our colleagues

and we started texting our family members and told them about this garden

and told them what had happened.

And the news was just spreading everywhere

that even the local TV station of Baltimore decided to air a segment on it.

They came to the demolished guarden. They interviewed the kids

and it was an amazing experience.

So what had happened, so many people heard about it that one day they all came

this large group came and gathered on the garden grounds

and we all together ensured the continuation of this project

and we started replanting the garden.

One of the people that came to this event

was the deputy mayor, which I found amazing

because not only did he apologize for the mistake, he himself

rolled up his sleeves and started replanting the garden.

He's a better gardener than myself.

So what had started as a small initiative by a small group of youth

had scaled up into a large community project.

It was a great experience, an example of showing you

how much youth and we can achieve as long as we keep believing

and as long as our power and energy is put into good use.

So at the same time I would like to stress

that society needs to reevaluate its perception of youth.

Society considers the youth as materialistic,

lazy, solely fun-seeking and irresponsible.

And yes, we can be that sometimes,

but that's because society stresses and encourages this.

Through the film industry, music industry and the media at large

we see the stereotypical image of the youth.

We need to fundamentally change that image.

We need to fundamentally change our estimation of youth,

because the youth are the global thinkers of our future

and they can solve the world's challenges.

So to conclude I would like to revisit the question in the title:

Who's writing our future?

I think by now we can all agree and confidently answer

that the future, its shape, its quality,

its potentials and promises

lie in the power of youth.

And today's youth --

I would like to send you a message.

Please, youth of today, and future youth,

like children that are going to become youth, please remember,

value the energy that rests inside of you,

because its amazing and it can be used for such good things.

But you have to be aware, because it can also cause a lot of damages.

And to the adults, I would like to say,

the next time when you see a youth,

please look again, but with different eyes,

because that youth standing in front of you

is potentially the light of the world.

Thank you