 It really started when I was seven years old and I published my first book, Flying Fingers. I began going to schools to talk to young people about reading and writing. But I would say that one of the first times I truly realized how much I cared was when a friend said, I really hate books. That kind of just shattered my world. And so I decided with all the headstrong and naivety of that age that I would want to change things. I think that my passion really grew out of an early love for something and simply wanting other people to have their voices heard. From a very young age, one of the reasons that people were willing to take me seriously was because I always backed up what I said. I had read variously and so that enabled me to really make my voice heard. And I think that when young people are heard on wider scales then we can really see a lot of new ideas and a lot of the qualities we generally associate with young people. Naivety and impulsiveness can actually turn out to be strength. Reading and writing helps give us voice for our ideas. Systems won't change unless we hear voices that are very radically different from the ones we already have present. And what a seven-year-old kid has to say about an issue is going to be very drastically different from the viewpoint of a 37-year-old who has seen the ins and outs and is maybe a little bit cynical about what can and can't be done. Who's to say that certain types of irrational thinking aren't exactly what the world needs? Since I wrote my book I've been engaged in a lot of different causes. I went to Sri Lanka in 2010 with the World Food Program as a youth representative. Raising awareness about their efforts to end world hunger so I had the chance to actually visit schools where kids were receiving meals. That to me was an incredibly striking experience because up until that point I'd really only spent most of my time around other kids who came from fairly privileged backgrounds. I guess we think of these issues as so far away and so seeing hunger really face-to-face made me think about what I could do to help spread the message. And so I organized a conference after speaking at TED which brought more young people to speak on stage about the issues that they cared about. There's never just one simple answer. When we dare to dream amazing things happen.