Description

Since the age of four, Adora has been exploring what she can do with the written word: everything from championing literacy and youth voice to working with the UNÍs World Food Programme to raise awareness about world hunger. Hoping to instill her love of writing in others, she taught her first class at a local elementary school the year her first book, Flying Fingers, debuted; since then, she has spoken at hundreds of schools, classrooms and conferences around the world. In 2010, she delivered the speech ñWhat Adults Can Learn from Kidsî at TED. The speech received over 3.3 million views on TED.com alone, and has been translated into over 40 different languages. That same year, Adora started organizing TEDxRedmond, a youth conference attracting over 700 attendees each year. Over the course of years of speaking, her audiences have included teachers, CEOs, entrepreneurs, artists, students, and delegates at the United Nations Economic and Social CouncilÍs Youth Forum.

Pacific Standard Magazine described Adora as one of the ñ30 Top Thinkers Under 30,î going on to call her ñan activist for feminism, liberal politics, and youth-oriented causes [ƒ] pretty far up the road to becoming intellectual royalty.î She has written widely, including pieces for Mashable, the Huffington Post, and Berkeley Political Review as well as contributions to poetry anthologies. Excerpts from her speeches and blog posts have been included in writing textbooks around the world. She is a 2011 recipient of the National Education Association FoundationÍs Award for Outstanding Service to Public Education, an honor previously bestowed on luminaries ranging from Bill Clinton to Billie Jean King. Adora is currently a freshman at UC Berkeley, where she is majoring in Political Science.