WEBVTT

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Have you ever experienced
a moment in your life

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that was so painful and confusing,

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that all you wanted to do

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was learn as much as you could
to make sense of it all?

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When I was 13, a close family friend
who was like an uncle to me

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passed away from pancreatic cancer.

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When the disease hit so close to home,

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I knew I needed to learn more.

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So I went online to find answers.

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Using the Internet, I found a variety
of statistics on pancreatic cancer,

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and what I had found shocked me.

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Over 85 percent of all pancreatic cancers
are diagnosed late,

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when someone has less
than a two percent chance of survival.

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Why are we so bad at detecting
pancreatic cancer?

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The reason?

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Today's current "modern" medicine
is a 60-year-old technique.

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That's older than my dad.

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(Laughter)

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But also, it's extremely expensive,
costing 800 dollars per test,

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and it's grossly inaccurate, missing
30 percent of all pancreatic cancers.

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Your doctor would have to be ridiculously
suspicious that you have the cancer

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in order to give you this test.

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Learning this, I knew there
had to be a better way.

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So, I set up scientific criteria

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as to what a sensor
would have to look like

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in order to effectively
diagnose pancreatic cancer.

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The sensor would have to be:

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inexpensive, rapid, simple, sensitive,

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selective, and minimally invasive.

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Now, there's a reason why this test
hasn't been updated in over six decades.

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And that's because when
we're looking for pancreatic cancer,

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we're looking at your bloodstream,

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which is already abundant in all these
tons and tons of protein,

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and you're looking for this miniscule
difference in this tiny amount of protein.

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Just this one protein.

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That's next to impossible.

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However, undeterred
due to my teenage optimism --

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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I went online to a teenager's
two best friends, Google and Wikipedia.

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I got everything for my homework
from those two sources.

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(Laughter)

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And what I had found was an article

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that listed a database
of over 8,000 different proteins

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that are found when you have
pancreatic cancer.

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So, I decided to go
and make it my new mission

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to go through all these proteins,

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and see which ones could serve
as a bio-marker for pancreatic cancer.

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And to make it a bit simpler for myself,

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I decided to map out
scientific criteria, and here it is.

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Essentially, first, the protein would have
to be found in all pancreatic cancers,

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at high levels in the bloodstream,

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in the earliest stages,
but also only in cancer.

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And so I'm just plugging and chugging
through this gargantuan task,

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and finally, on the 4,000th try,

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when I'm close to losing my sanity,

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I find the protein.

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And the name of the protein
I'd located was called mesothelin,

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and it's just your ordinary,
run-of-the-mill type protein,

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unless, of course, you have
pancreatic, ovarian or lung cancer,

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in which case it's found at these
very high levels in your bloodstream.

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But also, the key is that it's found
in the earliest stages of the disease,

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when someone has close
to 100 percent chance of survival.

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So now that I'd found
a reliable protein I could detect,

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I then shifted my focus
to actually detecting that protein,

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and thus, pancreatic cancer.

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Now, my breakthrough
came in a very unlikely place,

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possibly the most unlikely
place for innovation --

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my high school biology class,
the absolute stifler of innovation.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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And I had snuck in this article
on these things called carbon nanotubes,

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and that's just a long,
thin pipe of carbon

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that's an atom thick, and one
50,000th the diameter of your hair.

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And despite their extremely small sizes,

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they have these incredible properties.

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They're kind of like the superheroes
of material science.

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And while I was sneakily reading this
article under my desk in my biology class,

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we were supposed to be paying attention
to these other kind of cool molecules,

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called antibodies.

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And these are pretty cool
because they only react

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with one specific protein,

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but they're not nearly
as interesting as carbon nanotubes.

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And so then, I was sitting in class,
and suddenly it hit me:

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I could combine what I was
reading about, carbon nanotubes,

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with what I was supposed to be
thinking about, antibodies.

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Essentially, I could weave
a bunch of these antibodies

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into a network of carbon nanotubes,

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such that you have a network
that only reacts with one protein,

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but also, due to the properties
of these nanotubes,

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it will change its electrical properties,

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based on the amount of protein present.

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However, there's a catch.

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These networks of carbon
nanotubes are extremely flimsy.

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And since they're so delicate,
they need to be supported.

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So that's why I chose to use paper.

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Making a cancer sensor
out of paper is about as simple

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as making chocolate chip
cookies, which I love.

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(Laughs)

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You start with some water,
pour in some nanotubes,

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add antibodies, mix it up,
take some paper, dip it, dry it,

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and you can detect cancer.

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(Applause)

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Then, suddenly, a thought occurred

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that kind of put a blemish
on my amazing plan here.

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I can't really do cancer research
on my kitchen countertop.

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My mom wouldn't really like that.

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So instead, I decided to go for a lab.

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So I typed up a budget, a materials list,
a timeline, and a procedure,

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and I emailed it
to 200 different professors

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at Johns Hopkins University
and the National Institutes of Health --

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essentially, anyone that had anything
to do with pancreatic cancer.

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I sat back waiting for these
positive emails to be pouring in,

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saying, "You're a genius!
You're going to save us all!"

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And --

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(Laughter)

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Then reality took hold,
and over the course of a month,

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I got 199 rejections
out of those 200 emails.

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One professor even went
through my entire procedure,

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painstakingly -- I'm not really
sure where he got all this time --

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and he went through and said
why each and every step

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was like the worst mistake
I could ever make.

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Clearly, the professors did not have
as high of an opinion of my work as I did.

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However, there is a silver lining.

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One professor said, "Maybe I might
be able to help you, kid."

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So, I went in that direction.

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(Laughter)

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As you can never say no to a kid.

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And so then, three months later,

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I finally nailed down
a harsh deadline with this guy,

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and I get into his lab, I get
all excited, and then I sit down,

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I start opening my mouth and talking,

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and five seconds later,
he calls in another Ph.D.

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Ph.D.s just flock into this little room,

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and they're just firing
these questions at me,

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and by the end, I kind of felt
like I was in a clown car.

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There were 20 Ph.D.s,
plus me and the professor

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crammed into this tiny office space,

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with them firing these
rapid-fire questions at me,

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trying to sink my procedure.

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How unlikely is that? I mean, pshhh.

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(Laughter)

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However, subjecting myself
to that interrogation --

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I answered all their questions,
and I guessed on quite a few

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but I got them right --

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and I finally landed
the lab space I needed.

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But it was shortly afterwards that
I discovered my once brilliant procedure

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had something like a million holes in it,

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and over the course of seven months,

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I painstakingly filled
each and every one of those holes.

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The result?

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One small paper sensor that costs
three cents and takes five minutes to run.

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This makes it 168 times faster,

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over 26,000 times less expensive,

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and over 400 times more sensitive
than our current standard

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for pancreatic cancer detection.

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(Applause)

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One of the best parts
of the sensor, though,

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is that it has close
to 100 percent accuracy,

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and can detect the cancer
in the earliest stages,

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when someone has close
to 100 percent chance of survival.

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And so in the next two to five years,

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this sensor could potentially lift
the pancreatic cancer survival rates

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from a dismal 5.5 percent
to close to 100 percent,

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and it would do similar
for ovarian and lung cancer.

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But it wouldn't stop there.

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By switching out that antibody,

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you can look at a different protein,
thus, a different disease --

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potentially any disease
in the entire world.

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So that ranges from heart disease,
to malaria, HIV, AIDS,

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as well as other forms
of cancer -- anything.

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And so, hopefully one day,

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we can all have that one extra uncle,

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that one mother, that one brother, sister,

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we can have that one more
family member to love.

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And that our hearts will be rid
of that one disease burden

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that comes from pancreatic,
ovarian and lung cancer,

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and potentially any disease.

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But through the Internet,
anything is possible.

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Theories can be shared,

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and you don't have to be
a professor with multiple degrees

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to have your ideas valued.

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It's a neutral space, where
what you look like, age or gender --

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it doesn't matter.

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It's just your ideas that count.

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For me, it's all about looking
at the Internet in an entirely new way,

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to realize that there's so much more to it

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than just posting duck-face
pictures of yourself online.

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(Laughter)

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You could be changing the world.

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So if a 15 year-old who didn't even know
what a pancreas was

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could find a new way
to detect pancreatic cancer --

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just imagine what you could do.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)