Don't forget to tell us what you think
It's nearly the end of the Festival and we'd love to hear what you think! Complete this survey to share your opinions. There are no right or wrong answers, everything you tell us will help us to make improvements for next year. Thank you!
Can't see the survey? Click on this link:
https://economistfoundation.typeform.com/to/Yw8PCcrU
Comments (38)
I just want to thank you for the wonderful and the incredible experience! I really enjoyed and had fun learning more information! I truly enjoyed the competition; it was a wonderful and exciting experience. I would like to extend my sincere gratidude to the organizers and teachers for their great efforts. This competition has been an enjoyable and valuable experience in every way, providing us with the opportunity to develop our skills and learn in a spirit of challenge and positive competition. I thoroughly enjoyed participating and feel proud to be a part from this amazing experience.
The best thing I liked is discussing some parts with another students from different parts in the world. If possible, I suggest adding more subjects in the next competition, as well as allowing more opportunities to write comments. This would engage more actively and share our opinions and experiences more freely. Once again, thank you for this excellent organization, and I look forward to participating next year.
Thanks for your time and effort.
I agree with you because Topical Talk has been an amazing and exciting program, it helped us gain skills like Creativity, Problem Solving, Listening and Speaking. These topics helped me to improve in my problem-solving the most and for all the experts, I thank you guys for sharing your time and effort with us to help us learn something that can be helpful and meaningful in a lot of ways, thank you for the challenges, surveys, topics and expert challenges. Something I learnt during all these talks and debates is that Topical Talk is not about just announcing winners, everybody are winners. Topical Talk is for us to learn new skills and increase in our education so that we can become smarter and make a difference in the world. Topical Talk gave me the courage to speak in front of a crowd and to listen very well. Thank you once again Topical Talk, I hope next year will be a better experience.
With lots of battles and wars Ukraine and Russia still have ongoing conflict. Because of this it has endangered the lives of many civilians including the soldiers in war. Not much less could be said about Russia since there's no freedom of speech and less doctors since they're leaving the country. In my opinion Russia should give all the land back from Ukraine and have some sort of freedom of speech for everyone to feel good there and for everyone to express their thoughts. The reason I said Russia should give back all the land that it took from Ukraine is because geographically Russia has the biggest amount of land mass out of any countries in the world.
In addition to my responses , I would like to say thank you to the economist foundation for introducing a wonderful festival allowing kids globally to participate. It is a way of informing kids about things that are happening around the world, educating them about it and allowing them in expressing their views and giving solutions to world problems.
I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to express my profound gratitude for the incredible support and guidance you have provided me through The Economist Foundation. Your dedication to fostering knowledge and critical thinking has been instrumental in broadening my horizons and deepening my understanding of subjects I previously knew little about.
Through your resources and programs, I have gained invaluable insights and developed skills that have significantly enriched my personal and academic journey. The Economist Foundation's commitment to education and empowerment is truly commendable, and I feel privileged to have benefited from your efforts.
Thank you once again for your unwavering support and for making a meaningful impact on my life. I look forward to continuing to learn and grow with the foundation's assistance.
Warm regards,
Contemplative_tamarillo
I would like to thank the Economist Foundation because the topical talk festival gave the students a chance to express their opinions and point of views. This foundation helped me to gain a lot of information and vocabularies. This improved my level in English a lot. I have some tips to be solved in 2026 in the next festival. Firstly, some comments are written in AI, and they are approved with stars. For example, there was a comment that had a sign that is not even found in the laptop or mobile phone. I searched for this sign, and I found that it is only used by AI systems. Surprisingly, this comment was approved with 3 stars. At the same day I wrote a comment with my own idea, and it was deleted because you said that it was written by AI. Secondly, I want the one who approves my comment say why do not I take stars and explain to me the point. Thirdly, I cannot express how do students that work by their ideas work hard but others that use AI do not work or gain anything from this foundation so give the hard workers stars and expel the AI users. By the way, you can read all my comments. I wrote 58 comments without AI, and I only have 22 stars.
To conclude, I hope that you stop these problems and reward the hard workers.
THANK YOU.
I really loved the Topical Talk Festival. It deepened my understanding of what is happening in the world and what many people are facing all around the globe. It also helped me in my creativity, listening, speaking, and problem solving skills. It also helped me hear other people's view, and perspective from other countries around the globe. It has also given me and my friends a lot of information and fun.
Some of the improvements that can be done includes adding more topics to the discussions which will help us know more information and also increase our knowledge about what is happening in the globe. Another thing is that many people's comment were rejected because it was written by AI while it was not, this reduces the moral of the students, I feel there must be a better way to find out if a student really used AI or not.
Again I want to thank you for bringing this festival to us as it has helped us in many ways like improving my vocabularies, making me carry out more research and making me have debates on some topics with my siblings at home. Thank you.
The Economist Education Foundation initiative is highly beneficial for students. It provides us with a platform to express our opinions, helping to develope analytical and critical thinking skills. Additionally, it allows us to explore and contribute ideas toward solving global issues. I believe such a platform plays a crucial role in preparing students for the future by enhancing their skills and confidence.
I would like to thank team Topical Talk for giving us,the students such a single grand platform to share our viewpoints and interact with each other.
All the topics were special in their own senses,from technological advancements(A.I), to geo political agendas about Rusia Ukraine and Elon Musk's influence and social topic like women's position and gender inequality all were differentand thought provoking.
The topic about Syrian crisis gave me new insight about humanity and value of life.
The discussions and comments widened my area of thinking and broadened my horizon of knowledge.
This has been a really good experience and I would do it again if I had the chance.
Topical Talk is an amazing platform that helps children discuss their beliefs on different topics. I just wanted to discuss what I put on the survey and see if anyone else agrees with me. My favourite topic was AI and Sustainability because as children we will shape the future and it is up to us what to do with new technology coming out soon. It makes me feel more in control because I can do something about this situation as an adult- it will become more frequent then. Topical Talk could improve by having more discussions based on the topics so children can have a variety of different conversations where they can express their opinion. I also had quite a thought-through and creative idea; I think there should be more stars to be rated like from 1-10 so everyone can get at least 1 star but it depends on how good the comment is. Therefore, there will be more variety of stars so the best person could end up getting one star and others could get ten. It will really change the game because the leaderboard would be fairer as it could get switched around a lot.
Thank you so much Topical Talk for this incredible experience! It has been amazing so far and extremely beneficial for children like me!
A big thank you to all the people who made this possible for us children and teenagers. I really enjoyed reading comments and comment to comments from others and their other opinions. In some ways I also changed my mind and expanded my knowledge. Thank you for that! I also learned how to express my thoughts and opinions without overthinking it all the time.
What I also really enjoyed, was the life lesson we all had. It was so incredible that we all could talk (comment) in the same time to exchange our opinions. This was very well organised!
A great idea were these videos from the different experts. I mostly liked the personal experiences from the persons who talked about the war in the Ukraine.
All in all I can just say that I just had positive experiences with the Topical Talk Festival. I would enjoy being part of the Festival 2026!
Thank you for your effort, time and power you put in this Projekt!
I would like to thank the Economist Foundation for this wonderful Festival. You created a place, where young people can discuss topics that are relevant in the world today. But what is separating you from others who also might be able to do this,is the objectivity and the quality of the discussions.
We are given the opportunity to learn critical thinking and objective argumentation, which is really rare nowadays, in a protected environment. And especially for this I would like to say a big Thank You to the entire moderation. You did a great job! In the entirety of the festival, I have not experienced one sensible comment or insults being published.
If possible, I would add a few more discussions regarding one topic or more topics, as some of these have become very saturated once we had a lesson regarding a topic. I don't know what the schedule really is, but I think that, if possible, unlocking the comments on a topic in its lesson week or just a few days prior and not one week before it would really help. This would help to encourage more students to participate as many in my class felt left behind because of the massive amount of comments on a topic we had just done in a lesson.
Thank You, Topical Talk Team once again for this amazing festival.
I would just like to tell Topical Talk thank you for helping me be more creative. I also enjoy how you brought real-world topics and made them easy to understand. Not only that, I enjoyed how you let us interact with other people from around the world and let our voices be heard. Can't wait for next year! Thank you and love to you all at Topical Talk.
I think the festival was fun, but I think it needs more questions and more topics on AI and sustainability because I want to learn more about AI and sustainability. It is interesting to me because I use it a lot. I use Siri and Google.
I think that Topical Talk is good because I like the topics on Elon Musk and One Small Step for Women. I like learning about the motherhood penalty and women and men stereotypes. For Elon Musk, I like learning about Elon Musk's money and power.
Also I think we should get a new topic about the two astronauts stuck in space because I would like to learn more about them. I think they are interesting.
Also I would like to do Festival again because I would like to see different topics and ideas. This is why I would like to do Topical Talk again.
Thank you topical talks for the great experience. I enjoyed doing different topics. It was all really exciting. I also really enjoyed doing posts. It was all a great experience. I enjoyed all of it. This survey really helped me think more about topics and how I can improve them. I want to extend all of my gratitude to the organizers of the economist foundation and my teachers for helping me with this Topical Talk study. I hope that there will be some more topics and more festivals for next year in 2026. My favorite topic was Elon Musk because we had lots of information on the topic. The topics that have lots of information can help me understand the topic more. A thing I like about the Economist Foundation is that it allows kids all around the world to get information on different topics. Another thing I like is that it gives us the opportunity to interact with kids around the globe. In conclusion, it was really fun being a part of the Topical Talks kid community. Thank you for your time and cooperation.
Thank you for taking part and for your kind comment!
I liked how after we do the lessons we could do two or one posts. That would help me better understand the lessons and what we learned about. Right now, my favorite lesson so far is AI and Sustainability. AI and Sustainability is my favorite because AI and learning about Ai is just fun to me. One Small Step for Women is my least favorite because it is just not fair to me that space suits are only made for men and not women. When women wear a space suit it is blg on them, and for men it is the perfect size. Boys always say girls and women belong in the kitchen, but some women and girls can work as a police officer . That is why one small step for women is my least fave. Next year , I would love to be in festival again. Also I hope to keep doing festival. Next year I also hope to talk to more people around the earth.
I enjoyed doing Topical Talks. It has been very fun and interesting. My favorite thing about Topical Talks is how good the topics are , they're fun to learn about and talk about. Also Topical Talks is a great educational foundation. it helped me learn about Elon Musk, Syria, AI and Sustainability, and a lot more amazing topics. Lastly Topical Talks has as fun and educational. It had amazing topics and the people are very nice it was super fun to do.
The topical talk festival 2025 has had a big impact on me and my school's learning for example the topical talk festival has helped my classmates and learn about the history and challenges faced by some people and their country.
Topical talk/The Economist Foundation has had a great impact on a lot of children's education and learning around the world, this could not have happened without the help of the sponsors of this great program, the experts and even the people who read our comments. Thank you.
I like Topical Talks. Every time I finish typing I have a smile on my face because I am hoping I get a star. Another reason I like Topical Talks is because I can see my school on the leader board, and I think that's pretty cool. Finally, one of my favorite things to do is hang out with my teacher and learning things. My favorite part was learning about Elon Musk. I learned he was the person that changed the Twitter name to X and he made other companies like Tesla and Pay Pal and others. He is trying to make mars livable.
I agree because Economist Foundation has been informative and has inspired me positively, it has also taught me a lot of different topics like AI and sustainability, stereotypes and biases against women. It has also taught me the benefit of listening and through the different topics I have developed the following skills:
1. Problem Solving
2. Creativity
3. Speaking
I thank God for Topical Talk because it has developed me with different skills that I need, It also taught me how to be attentive during classes and lessons, it has passed different information that I need to know to become a leader and has also taught me on how to limit my use of AI. It has also made a great impact on our lives because it has given us different ideas that could help us progress with our education and our future desires.
Thank You!!!
I really enjoyed Topical Talks. They had so many activities for me to do. I learned some many things that I've never learned before. I had so much fun learning about AI, Elon, Syria, and One Small Step for Women. I loved the fact we can communicate with others and hear others' opinions. Thank you so much for the effort that you guys put in to Topical Talks.
I think that Topical Talks was very helpful for me in so many ways. For example : topical talks has informed me with so many things I never knew about, like did you know that Elon Musk made PayPal? Topical Talks also helped me solve problems better by the way Topical Talk has made me think when writing/typing my responses and all of the lessons I have done in my class. I think that overall Topical Talks was a wonderful platform to expand my knowledge not only about the things going on around the world but also about how AI is harming the planet in many ways , it has also helped me by expanding my creativity and speaking skills.
I just want to thank you for the amazing and awesome experience from Topical Talks. I really enjoyed the topics that the Topical Talk members have had a lot of topics to talk about. The comments and opinions are really engaging. For example, The Elon Musk topic is very satisfying because I did not know he owned SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter a.k.a X. He is also the richest man in the world and he also has 153.7 million followers. He also plans to make Mars liveable with natural resources on Mars. Lastly, I want to say Topical Talks is a fun and educational platform.
I think in the next festival they need to add more topics such as the war between Palestine and Israel. I have had a great experience in learning more information and having fun on topical talks. I also become more creative with my words when I use topical talks. topical talks is a very fun place to learn about new things going on in the world. I learned about the syrian civil war and Elon musk's power. What did you learn in topical talks?
In my opinion, this was wonderful and magnificent. It was the best experience that I ever had! I really had fun on Topical Talk. The first day we learned about Topical Talk it was really fun. I learned so much information about Elon Musk, One Small Step for Women, AI and Sustainability, and Syria: A Turning Point. Those were the best things that I learned. I really like this Festival. We even had a video call with Topical Talk that was really fun to do. We learned so much stuff about Topical Talk.
The first time i joined the lesson in my school, the thought that came to my mind was are some of these words not too big for my age? I said I think that the Topical Talk Festival should use words that everyone can understand and include topics that we can easily learn and understand. As the class progressed and I saw how some of the words and lessons were broken down and explained to us, I just came to love this new way of learning and talking about the news. Over the past few weeks, I have to say that I have learned new words and the topics have broadened my knowledge. I love and enjoy discussing the different topics with my classmates. Thank you Economist Foundation for helping us learn new things.
I would like to thank The Economist and the Topical Talk team for providing such an incredible opportunity for school students. In our regular classrooms, we learn subjects like physics, chemistry, and math, but Topical Talk classroom takes learning beyond textbooks. It makes us think about the future of the world, sharpens our debating skills, and educates us on global issues happening right now.
I see Topical Talk like an exciting video game where instead of fighting to survive and earn points, we engage in discussions with international students, share new ideas, and earn stars. It’s a fun and meaningful way to learn, and I truly appreciate being part of this experience!
This Festival has been an eye-opening journey for me , and I’m so grateful that I got an opportunity to be part of it! The discussions on AI, global conflicts,impact of women and influential figures like Elon Musk challenged my thinking and helped me look at these topics from new perspectives. It wasn’t just about learning—it was about questioning, debating, and shaping ideas with students from around the world.
What made this experience truly special was the ability to connect with different viewpoints. I would love to see even more interactive elements next time, like live discussions or collaborative projects where participants, from all around the world can work together on solutions to real-world issues.
A big thank you to the organizers for making this an engaging and inspiring space. This Festival has sparked curiosity and critical thinking, and I’m excited to see how it evolves in the future. Also I would be more than happy to be a part of it in the future.
I think the topics 'Syria' and the war between Russia and 'Ukraine' (three years on) link because both is about wars that have or has happened.Wars that could harm the world,and the country that the wars occurs in.The topic about Russia and Ukraine war:three years on is about soldiers in war,how they rule more lands,how they could reclaim back their land from 34 years ago while the topic about Syria is talking about the civil 'WAR' and how they could get their countries a better place like how they are nowadays. They both talk about the war and how it gets better in the days.
I want to thank my school and teachers for choosing me for this wonderful experience it was amazing I loved so much.i like how we got to learn so many new things and having our own opinion on something like the gender equality i liked that lesson.Women not getting paid fairly for having children ,or not being able to put on maternity leave because it doesn't pay well.But thank you so much
I would like to say this was a very fun and interesting program, I would like to send my regards to the teachers and the organizers for making this program happen. I had a lot of fun competing against the other students in different states, getting able to read there responses how they feel and how they support their claim with there own information from their own states. I'm glad that I got to participate in this festival this year I'd say this program was a success. To be able to hear in different states about how they feel and giving us students a chance to state how we feel about the world wide problems going on our different and responses for the solutions to these problems and how they are important, it helped me not only learn but gave me some other tips I could use in my writing.
Through this program I was given a bunch of insights and tips all across the world from different states about the topics we wrote about. For the workers who worked hard to create this masterpiece they deserve a reward for their efforts and time they spent creating this website and hosting this festival.
In Conclusion:
Sending my regards and love from Georgia, Once again I thank you for letting me experience this festival and I'm looking forward to participating next year and we should have more programs like these.
I really like this Festival Because we get to talk about stuff that most people don't talk about.People can have an opinion and what they think about whatever topic they are doing.Most people are unable to talk about most topics in person as in Elon musk,Gender inequality and Gender equality.
topical talk is the best! it's so easy to understand and it's very educational I would definitely recommend it for anyone who's interested.
Glad you enjoyed it! :)
Topical Talk's kids build essential thing and to communication skills, and to teach children to use theses for engaging with other kids around the whole world from different countries and states, this website provides kids with lesson that type about currenting issues that are happening right now in the present. They have a topic about Russia and Ukraine: Why cant they get along with each other, Elon Musk: Does he have way too much power, Gender: Why can't Women get the same treatment as men, and etc. If topical talk wasn't a website for kids like me type and write thing that are the truth, I would be doing this right now, Thank you, Topical Talks for making a website like this for us children around the world to get this chance.
Thank you so much to the Topical Talk team and The Economist Educational Foundation for hosting this incredible festival! My experience has been truly enriching, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to develop my problem-solving, creative and critical thinking, and listening skills.
This festival has not only broadened my knowledge on various topics but also introduced me to new perspectives and ideas. I appreciate the platform to engage with others, share thoughts, and learn from each other.
Special thanks to my school, Shri Natesan Vidyasala, India, for supporting me throughout this journey. I hope to participate in more festivals like this in the future and continue to grow as a critical thinker and global citizen.
Once again, thank you for this wonderful experience!
This is such a nice questionaire.
I enjoy it here thanks!
First I express my sincere gratitude and thanks to the economist foundation, for the great topical talk festival 2025. This topical talk is a global platform, which unlocked the potential of hundreds of students to express their skills. I personally developed my essential skills like problem solving, listening, leadership skills and critical thinking skills which I not only used in the festival, but, also in my life. I strongly say that, this topical talk and the economic foundation is transforming normal school students to great global leaders by giving information about, what is happening in the world and encourage students to share their experiences, solutions and perspectives. The lessons in the festival were so interesting and interactive. I am extremely happy to be a part of this topical talk fest. This topical talk fest, transformed this ordinary days into extraordinary days of learning. Now, I am extremely excited to the next topical talk festival. No words to express my thanks to topical talk for providing such wonderful opportunity. The words are endless to describe the greatfulness of this topical talk festival 2025.
Once again, thank you!
Thanks for being a part of the festival frank_blueberry. I'm happy to hear you enjoyed it!
This experience was very interesting and I learned many things. All the topics were very attractive and interesting to me and I enjoyed this way of learning and improving my English. The fact that our teachers dedicated classes to the festival is really important, because in this classes we learned new things and also talked with our patterns not only improving our knowledge, but what is the real objective of this experience, improving our English. I loved reading the opinions of students of all around the world and discussing with them. Also, I think that the leaderboards are a very thoughtful aspect of the festival as this wakes up our competitive side and motivates us to write more comments and sharing our opinions.