What place do you want to have in the world? |Camila Agone | TEDxSãoPaulo

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.

Camila is a young and committed young woman who learned very young to love science.

Young enterpreneur, student of engineering at the Universidade Federal do ABC, and former student of a public school, as a high school student Camila won a prize from the Secretary of Education of the State of Sao Paulo, thanks to a project about the healing power of a native Brazilian plant, the 'embaúba.'

What place do you want
to have in the world?

Have you ever asked yourself
this question?

At some point in high school,
my history professor,

who was also teaching on life project,
asked me this question,

"What's the place you want
to occupy in the world?"

I didn't know the answer.

I couldn't imagine that thinking about it

could disclose such possibilities
of growth and future.

I come from a very poor family,

most of them coming from Rondônia,
where they worked in the fields.

And, when I was around one,
they came to São Paulo.

In spite of all the difficulties
my family faced everyday,

they always insisted
in giving me the best.

and they've always given me
all the support I needed.

I have to thank them for everything.

Near my house,

there was a school where I started
my primary school classes.

That school was considered
the worst school of my area.

Most professors were not reliable,

classes were canceled,
and there was general disinterest.

Of course, I wasn't remotely motivated.

When time came to go
to the secondary school,

A new school appeared,
next to the other one,

a full-time school called Jardim Riviera.

I've always liked studying,

but most of my friends
were still in the old school.

So I wondered: should I go or not?

And then there was my mother,
who wanted me heaps to go,

saying that I had to make a change.

I changed school,
and, consequently, my life changed.

The new school was public too,
but it was far better.

And, from the very beginning,
I felt welcome in the extreme.

There I came across a project
called 'Protagonismo Juvenil',

that is a project in which young students
with academic distinction

have the opportunity
to influence other youth

and those youth disseminate
what they've learnt in their own schools.

During my secondary school years,

I ended up being
one of the main representatives

of São Paulo State
in terms of juvenile protagonism.

Now, that project woke my proactive side.

And as in the school there were
also elective courses,

the possibility to choose what I wanted

made me decide to attend a course
called Pre-Induction Science Program.

Among the possible projects,

working with plants was
one of the most reachable.

So, I walked to a park near my house

and there I bumped into
a huge tree called 'embaúba'

that, according to conventional wisdom,
had catheterizing properties.

The embaúba is an endemic tree of Brazil.

Everybody knows it,
it's a plant that has many properties.

Even people of my family knew it.

Surfing the Internet,

I saw that the hypothesis

of the catheterizing property
was coming true.

But there was nothing scientific about it.

How come? Such an important
tree and nothing scientific about it?

It was exactly what I needed
to start my project.

After the starting idea, I thought
about the best way to use the plant.

So I made tea, juice, balm, soap,
I even made recycled paper with it.

I was running out of ideas.

The tea had still an acceptable taste,
but, in big quantities,

it has hallucinogenic potential.

Don't try this at home!

(Laughter)

The juice had a horrible taste,
so no one would try it out.

But, ladies, they say
it's good for weight loss.

The balm, I tested it,
gave results for sure,

and I saw that there was a chance
of developing a wonderful project.

Since I didn't have a laboratory
where to develop my research,

I had to look for partnerships.

I found partnerships
with some universities,

among them, UNIFESP;

they helped me
to develop my project better.

I did the specie identification,
the pharmacological properties mapping,

I did a battery of tests.

And, at last, I proved
embaúba was catheterizing.

I won many prizes,
I also published a scientific article.

Today, many students
of that school do research,

and my project is an example
for many of them.

I am really proud of this.

With all that encouragement
to do research,

I lived the secondary school years
wishing to attend Pharmacy.

I, who came from
the worst school of my area,

passed all the entrance exams I did.

Did I choose Pharmacy? No.

I stopped, meditated, and decided

Engineering was something more related
to what I wanted for my future.

Today I'm 18, I'm coursing my second year,

and I want to graduate
in Energy Engineering.

Because I can't stand to know a country
with a territorial extension like this,

with such climatic diversities

is still using thermoelectric energy,
in good weather periods.

And at the same time, it has so little
matrix energetics diversification.

Even now, I don't have the answer
for that initial question.

But, thanks to my education, I discovered
that my strongest will is growing up

and making life better
for the people around me.

In my life, there have been
two kinds of schools.

But this has never demotivated
nor stopped me.

So, today I want to serve as inspiration
for as many youth as possible,

just like other people inspired me
during my entire life.

I want youth to believe in their talent

and in their hard work.

I wish they looked for their dreams
and changed their lives and the world.

People should never ever say
that someone's dreams are rubbish.

It would be a pity
if everyone believed this.

You are as big as your dream.

It doesn't matter where you came from,
where you were born.

If you have a dream and move mountains
to achieve what you want,

believe me, things will happen.

Do you know Alice in Wonderland?

Do you remember the cat?

"Which way you ought to go
depends on where you want to get to."

So, the question is this:
what's your dream?

And what's the place
you want to have in the world?

Thank you very much.

(Applause)