Speakers at Ted Talks event at Birla Public School have highlighted the importance of human potential and the need for self-realisation to achieve the impossible as well as to bring about changes in the world.

Speaking on self-belief and the need to treat every child as unique, Dr Eric Cooper, founder and president, National Urban Alliance, said: “I believe in the capacity of each person. I believe that every individual has certain unique capabilities.”

He gave a personal narrative to highlight his childhood journey as well as the struggles during his university education to reach his goals. He said that people should identify intelligence as the ability for the human beings to distinguish between the right and the wrong and the known and the unknown.

Cooper said that belief is the basis for human existence. “Belief immediately animates hope. Two primary components of belief are hope and expectation. Hope is the waking dream.”

He recalled the struggle of the Afro-Americans in the US for their civil rights and how the movement was built upon the belief that it would be realised one day.

He said that every child brings in a lot of hope for humanity. “We are the future for our children and they are the future for us. When we are hugging a child, we are expressing and sharing the trust in the child which should give a lot of courage and hope for the child.”

Dr Wyatt Hume, executive director, Education, Training and Development, Research and Development Division, Qatar Foundation, said human potential can be unlocked to achieve the impossible deeds.

Citing Qatar as an example, he said: “The changes that have taken place in the country in the last 10-15 years are amazing feats. They are the visions that have come from visionaries. It also proves that unlocking the human potential can work out miracles.”

Nicole Van Hattem, a raw health coach, in her talk recommended five major tips to be practised to lead a healthy and fit life. Describing her own professional life and how it contributed to an unhealthy body for her, she remarked that five things that can be done between 9am and 5pm a day can change the life of a person immensely.

Hattem said those in a nutshell “move more, chew more, kick the can, breath more and take life lightly.” She added: “We need to move more, especially during our working time; make sure that the food that we eat is properly chewed and eaten; stop drinking the canned soft drinks; breath more and properly and treat life with a light heart and all these would take away the stress in a person which can lead to a healthy life.”

Tareq Halawa, a mobile app designer and an intern at Microsoft, spoke how his dream of becoming a speaker was realised through the development of several mobile applications.