Name, age: Adora Svitak, 13

School and Neighborhood: Adora attends both Redmond High School and online school via the Washington Virtual Academy. She lives on Education Hill in Redmond.

Accomplishments: A gifted and prodigious youngster, Adora has published books, appeared on "Good Morning America," taught writing classes, received a National Education Association Foundation Award for service to public education, and is an accomplished public speaker, having given a speech at TED’s 2010 conference in Long Beach, Calif.

Adora has most recently been working on putting together her second youth-centric TED conference in Redmond. Last year’s inaugural TEDxRedmond conference drew approximately 700 attendees. 

Key to awesomeness: Adora says that she began writing at the age of 4, an experience she remembers as being quite memorable.

“I was really excited about it,” Adora said.

She had great ideas and began putting short stories together. Then, we she was 6, she got a laptop and was off to the races. When she was seven she wrote Flying Fingers, a book that combines fiction with writing tips. She later wrote a collection of poetry and writing tips with her sister, Adrianna.

Adora’s two books are a reflection of her love of writing and reading.

“To me, literacy really opens up many doors,” Adora said.

Adora challenged herself to read and write at a level above what was expected of someone her age, a strategy she believes worked well for her.

“It allowed me to learn a lot further than I thought I could have,” she said.

For Adora, reading has been an inspirational adventure, and she hopes to inspire others with her own works.

“I want my characters to be good role models,” Adora said.

Another area in which Adora is trying to inspire and expand people’s minds is through TED, a non-profit organization that tries to share ideas about technology, design and culture through global conferences.

“I’ve been a fan of TED.com for a long time,” Adora said.

Adora noticed that TED didn’t seem to have people her age in mind, though, and reached out to try and help them connect with a younger audience. When an invitation came to speak at the 2010 conference in Long Beach, Adora was ecstatic.

“I basically jumped for it,” she said.

That experience lead to Adora putting together her own conference last year, which was a huge success.

This year’s conference, TEDxRedmond, will be held on Sept. 10 at the Microsoft Conference Center.

Adora does find time to do some of the things average kids like to do. She likes drawing, traveling, going to museums, riding her bike and hiking.

Looking to the future, Adora has given thought to pursuing a career as a journalist or a fiction writer.

“If I could write the next Harry Potter, I’d definitely be happy,” she said.

Editor's note: You can keep up with Adora on her Huffington Post blog, via Twitter, or on her website.