Australia’s Youth Representative to the United Nations, Satara Uthayakumaran, is among the speakers at TEDxCanberra’s 2025 flagship event, The People’s Blueprint. Photo: TEDxCanberra.
“The future isn’t handed to us – it’s something we co-create.”
It’s the idea at the heart of TEDxCanberra 2025, the flagship event returning this October with the theme The People’s Blueprint.
More than a showcase of ideas, this year’s gathering is an invitation to imagine, question and design a future drafted not by the few, but by many minds.
One belongs to Satara Uthayakumaran — Australia’s Youth Representative to the United Nations for 2025 and an advocate dedicated to legal and social reform.
At just 22, Satara has carved out a role as a bridge between communities often unheard and the policymakers who shape their lives.
Her TEDx talk asks a deceptively simple but radical question: what would future Canberra look like if all people were truly heard?
For Satara, it begins with recognising that not everyone communicates the same way.
Having travelled over the past year to remote destinations across the country, listening and speaking to more than 5000 young people, she has found a wealth of insight — but also a pressing need to rethink how society listens.
“I’ve sat with young people in detention who express themselves through art, with people with disability who use music therapy to explore their voices, and closed Aboriginal communities where storytelling is a powerful form of communication,” she says.
“We think Australia’s decisions must be informed by people in Parliament, but in my experience, unheard youths — from those out on Country to those in refugee centres — have important contributions to make, if we can learn to hear them.”
Satara, who will take those voices with her when she addresses the UN in October, says bridging the gap between the unheard and those in power is a critical step in building The People’s Blueprint.
“It’s about how we can listen to each other even though we’re all communicating differently. That there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Only then will we see The People’s Blueprint playing out effectively in our country,” she says.
“I would love for policymakers to sit with teenagers making artwork in detention centres, or to visit the Tiwi Islands where young people tell stories through the ancient traditions of their ancestors.
“Those voices are valuable and must be counted.”
In a time where change is guaranteed, but direction unknown and political divisions, climate challenges, technological upheavals and social inequality have created a future that often feels unstable, The People’s Blueprint asks the question: What happens if, instead of waiting for leaders, corporations or institutions to map the way forward, we draw the plans together?
Across one electric day in the capital, audiences will hear from thought leaders, change makers, creators and advocates who are reshaping how progress happens.
These are not voices calling from ivory towers, but individuals with ideas forged in community, practice and lived experience, here to challenge systems, disrupt assumptions and put forward new ways of working together.
TEDxCanberra 2025: The People’s Blueprint takes place on Saturday, 18 October, at The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA). Event registration includes access to all sessions, Innovation Alley, lunch, afternoon tea and networking drinks.
