Matthew Zheng Quitoriano is a talented youth leader. His talk talks about how teen voices are the missing piece. There's a reason why government solutions fail - especially in education. It's because adults need to listen to young people, step aside sometimes, and let the voices of students shine. Their voice will illuminate the path forward when adults are willing.https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-quitoriano/ Matthew Quitoriano (he/him) is a first-generation American and a current student at San Diego High School. He is a leader in his community, founding his school's mock trial club, and a founding member of the school newspaper and garden club. He formerly served two terms on the San Diego Unified school board representing nearly 100,000 students. , improving students’ civic engagement, and mental health, and creating the long-term vision of the second-largest school district in California. Matthew now works for Welfie, a startup building health equity tools to help mental health workers dismantle systemic prejudice. He works with Rhizome, Project Superbloom, and the Working Families Party to create collective power with young people and get youth civically engaged in untraditional ways. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx