TEDxYouth@CEHS is returning Friday, Dec. 7.

The biennial event launched at Cape Elizabeth High School in 2012 features inspirational speakers, and is reserved for seniors and juniors as well as invited guests.

“This is something for juniors and seniors, something to look forward to in their (high school) experience,” Principal Jeff Shedd told members of the school board at their meeting Nov. 13.

The daylong event in the high school auditorium showcases a variety of speakers, some alumni, some from the community and some from far away. The last, Shedd said, is always a student speaker whose identity remains a secret until the last 1:30 p.m. time slot.

Many past presentations are on YouTube, including a 2014 presentation from Hunter Kent that has nearly 800,000 views, and a 2012 presentation from Piper Otterbein with approximately 400,000 views.

“It’s really, really professionally done,” Shedd said. “All the speakers work with the professional speech coach in Portland, if they haven’t previously delivered a TED talk, and that includes the student speakers.”

Based on the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) program, TEDx events are locally organized, designed to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.

An experiment to live-stream the event outside the school network and to underclassmen within the school will not be repeated this year, Shedd said. It will be recorded however and will be available on YouTube and other social media.

The 2018 event is the sixth held at the school, the first in Maine to hold a TEDx event.