A 12-year-old girl is set to address a global conference as she stands up to make a speech to an audience of more than 850 people from 40 different countries – about Blackawton Bees.

Amy O'Toole, who lives in Blackawton, will be talking to hundreds of people who have shelled out £5,000 a head to hear her.

She will be following in the footsteps of some of the world's heavyweights such as Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, ex-US President Bill Clinton and the current US President's wife Michelle Obama, when she makes her speech in Edinburgh next Tuesday at the TEDGlobal conference.

Amy will be among 50 speakers talking about technology, entertainment and design at the four-day conference at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

Amy was among two dozen Blackawton Primary School pupils who took part in a science experiment inspired by art and science lab scientist Beau Lotto which led to the publication of the first ever peer-reviewed scientific paper written by schoolchildren, called Blackawton Bees.

Beau Lotto is also among the line up of speakers which also includes comedienne and mental health campaigner Ruby Wax.

Amy, who is now a pupil at Kingsbridge Community College, has been involved with Beau Lotto and the work she and her school friends carried out, over the last two years.

She has been involved in demonstrations at the Science Museum in London on several occasions and last week she was with the scientist speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

Amy lives with mum Karen and financial adviser dad Phillip.

Dad was one of the Blackawton quiz team which recently took on the BBC2 TV Egghead quiz team in a clash which is due to be screened later this year.

Karen said that Amy and her family had to meet with Bruno Guissani, European director of TED and curator of the TEDGlobal Conference in London, so that he could ascertain whether she could be involved in the conference which is usually an adults- only event.

'We are being flown to Scotland by TEDGlobal and Beau and Amy will be speaking on June 26 in a session titled Building Blocks,' said Karen.

She added: 'Amy's involvement stems from her participation in the Bee Project.

'Beau has been such an inspiration and has completely changed Amy's perspective on science.

'She would now like a career as a neuro-scientist and definitely sees her future following a science path.

'She has been nurtured by Beau and we are very grateful to him for giving our daughter this fabulous opportunity.'

All the speakers at the international conference are listed on its website – including Amy which describes her as a student and says: 'Amy O'Toole is a 12-year-old pupil who participated in a science experiment inspired by Beau Lotto's participative science.

'One program Lotto led, called "i, scientist", inspired a science experiment by a group of 26 primary school pupils in Blackawton, Devon, UK, which included Amy. She was never interested in science before this project, but intends now to study the human mind and body.

'The project led to the publication of the first ever peer-reviewed scientific paper written by schoolchildren (Blackawton Bees, Royal Society's Biology Letters, December 2010). It starts, "Once upon a time...".'