1
00:00:09,990 --> 00:00:14,979
(Applause)

2
00:00:15,995 --> 00:00:18,790
How's everybody doing?

3
00:00:18,790 --> 00:00:21,340
Are you as nervous as me?

4
00:00:21,340 --> 00:00:23,107
Probably not.

5
00:00:23,107 --> 00:00:24,934
So today I'm going to
talk to you about

6
00:00:24,934 --> 00:00:27,501
how to be a technology
innovator without

7
00:00:27,501 --> 00:00:30,471
an engineering degree or Asperger's.

8
00:00:33,461 --> 00:00:35,991
If you look at something
from one angle long enough

9
00:00:35,991 --> 00:00:40,177
it becomes very difficult to see it 
from a different perspective.

10
00:00:40,177 --> 00:00:42,933
Check out this picture.
This is a burr.

11
00:00:42,933 --> 00:00:44,909
It's one of those prickly
plants that gets stuck to

12
00:00:44,909 --> 00:00:47,782
your clothes when
you're walking outside.

13
00:00:47,782 --> 00:00:53,276
But what if you could look at
the burr and think of Velcro?

14
00:00:53,276 --> 00:00:57,867
The burr was the inspiration
for the creation of Velcro.

15
00:00:57,867 --> 00:01:00,461
I try to think like this whenever
I learn about a new technology,

16
00:01:00,461 --> 00:01:03,331
or about how anything
in the world works.

17
00:01:03,331 --> 00:01:04,615
How can one thing,

18
00:01:04,615 --> 00:01:08,402
one technology be applied
to something else in the world?

19
00:01:08,402 --> 00:01:10,815
An example is a while back 
I learned about a new

20
00:01:10,815 --> 00:01:12,627
waterproof film for electronics.

21
00:01:12,627 --> 00:01:14,676
And I applied this exercise.

22
00:01:14,676 --> 00:01:18,653
Where else in the world
might a waterproof film be useful?

23
00:01:18,928 --> 00:01:23,405
Then I realized, if you could stick
a waterproof film into shampoo,

24
00:01:23,405 --> 00:01:25,528
you could eliminate umbrellas.

25
00:01:25,528 --> 00:01:29,679
Now, I have no idea if
this is scientifically plausible

26
00:01:29,679 --> 00:01:34,478
but it seems like a cool idea
and it's worth exploring, right?

27
00:01:34,478 --> 00:01:38,074
If you open your mind you can
come up with really creative ideas

28
00:01:38,074 --> 00:01:41,299
by connecting objects and
technologies that on the surface

29
00:01:41,299 --> 00:01:45,354
seemingly have nothing
to do with each other.

30
00:01:45,354 --> 00:01:48,586
Here's another example.
This is the Breathe Right nasal strip.

31
00:01:48,586 --> 00:01:52,119
This was created by a
Disney Imagineer, not a doctor.

32
00:01:52,119 --> 00:01:55,110
And one night he went to sleep
and his nose was stuffy

33
00:01:55,110 --> 00:01:59,176
and he realized that if you
lift the skin on your nose

34
00:01:59,176 --> 00:02:01,093
you can breath clearly.

35
00:02:01,093 --> 00:02:02,986
And so he invented 
a strip that does just that

36
00:02:02,986 --> 00:02:07,889
and the result is 
a multimillion-dollar product.

37
00:02:07,889 --> 00:02:10,888
Space elevators, 
energy derived from water,

38
00:02:10,888 --> 00:02:15,121
food that is synthesized from
boxes of carbon and oxygen.

39
00:02:15,121 --> 00:02:16,713
These kind of all seem like crazy ideas,

40
00:02:16,713 --> 00:02:20,753
but maybe these ideas just
haven't been fully explored yet.

41
00:02:22,083 --> 00:02:24,485
We live in a world where
we are divided by skill set

42
00:02:24,485 --> 00:02:26,690
according to our
educational backgrounds

43
00:02:26,690 --> 00:02:30,108
and the letters next to
our names like PhD and MD.

44
00:02:30,108 --> 00:02:32,686
These people are considered
the experts in their fields.

45
00:02:32,686 --> 00:02:35,343
And so naturally one would
assume that the people

46
00:02:35,343 --> 00:02:37,314
that know the most about their fields

47
00:02:37,314 --> 00:02:39,783
will be the innovators
within their fields.

48
00:02:39,783 --> 00:02:41,763
And often times they are.

49
00:02:41,763 --> 00:02:45,972
But these people are also hindered
sometimes because they know too much.

50
00:02:45,972 --> 00:02:47,802
They've been trained
to think in a certain way

51
00:02:47,802 --> 00:02:50,082
and so their knowledge
and expertise in a field

52
00:02:50,082 --> 00:02:52,578
is thus narrowly tied
to their own experiences

53
00:02:52,578 --> 00:02:54,302
and to what they've been taught.

54
00:02:54,302 --> 00:02:57,019
And in this way people are
sometimes trained to think

55
00:02:57,019 --> 00:02:59,357
inside of the box.

56
00:02:59,357 --> 00:03:02,291
Experts often look at problems
from the same viewpoint

57
00:03:02,291 --> 00:03:04,169
that it becomes
almost impossible for them

58
00:03:04,169 --> 00:03:07,217
to see it from
a different perspective.

59
00:03:07,217 --> 00:03:09,682
And in fact it creates
a cognitive dissonance or

60
00:03:09,682 --> 00:03:12,277
a discomfort in all of us 
when we're forced

61
00:03:12,277 --> 00:03:15,734
to view things in a way
in which we are not used to.

62
00:03:15,734 --> 00:03:18,395
So in other words,
by virtue of having perspective,

63
00:03:18,395 --> 00:03:20,226
we lack perspective.

64
00:03:20,226 --> 00:03:22,667
And this phenomenon greatly hinders

65
00:03:22,667 --> 00:03:26,548
technological innovation and creativity.

66
00:03:26,548 --> 00:03:28,987
And so it's no coincidence
that most great discoveries

67
00:03:28,987 --> 00:03:31,637
were made by people
early in their careers.

68
00:03:31,637 --> 00:03:34,117
It's no coincidence that
most Nobel Prize winners

69
00:03:34,117 --> 00:03:36,095
came up with their 
groundbreaking research

70
00:03:36,095 --> 00:03:37,970
during or soon after their graduate studies.

71
00:03:37,970 --> 00:03:41,254
And yet these people are
often not awarded their big prizes

72
00:03:41,254 --> 00:03:43,577
until decades after their research.

73
00:03:43,577 --> 00:03:47,517
Until the implications of 
their research are in common use.

74
00:03:47,517 --> 00:03:50,888
So I propose that it's the people
who don't look at new fields

75
00:03:50,888 --> 00:03:54,652
with a jaded eye, who are not
tied to five, ten, twenty years

76
00:03:54,652 --> 00:03:57,280
of training who are able
to come in and look at a problem

77
00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:00,019
from an entirely fresh perspective.

78
00:04:00,019 --> 00:04:02,352
They can come in with
a fresh way of looking at problems

79
00:04:02,352 --> 00:04:04,281
departing from the traditional approaches

80
00:04:04,281 --> 00:04:07,212
that have been followed by the experts.

81
00:04:07,212 --> 00:04:09,597
And without constraints
of an ingrained framework

82
00:04:09,597 --> 00:04:12,656
they can look at problems
without decades of prejudice,

83
00:04:12,656 --> 00:04:15,166
and be able to come
up with big connections

84
00:04:15,166 --> 00:04:17,781
between objects and
technologies that seemingly

85
00:04:17,781 --> 00:04:21,309
have nothing to do with each other.

86
00:04:21,309 --> 00:04:23,681
So last October while I was
an undergraduate at Penn

87
00:04:23,681 --> 00:04:26,296
I came up with a way
to wirelessly transmit power

88
00:04:26,296 --> 00:04:28,846
through the air in just two days.

89
00:04:28,846 --> 00:04:30,817
Just by thinking about
the problem differently

90
00:04:30,817 --> 00:04:33,168
and by asking a lot of questions.

91
00:04:33,168 --> 00:04:37,357
I was not an engineer
and I did not have Asperger's.

92
00:04:37,357 --> 00:04:39,796
My experience has shown me
that there is a lot

93
00:04:39,796 --> 00:04:41,955
of creativity in this world
that is not being harnessed

94
00:04:41,955 --> 00:04:45,239
because people don't have
the right letters next to their names.

95
00:04:45,239 --> 00:04:47,655
And because people are
too afraid to push forward

96
00:04:47,655 --> 00:04:53,131
their ideas that can't possibly work
because they thought of it.

97
00:04:53,131 --> 00:04:57,575
When I looked at my wireless laptop
with a 15-foot wire

98
00:04:57,575 --> 00:04:59,623
dangling from its power socket

99
00:04:59,623 --> 00:05:02,518
I wondered
how can I get rid of that cord?

100
00:05:02,518 --> 00:05:04,551
How could I beam
energy to my computer

101
00:05:04,551 --> 00:05:06,844
so that I didn't have to
plug it in to charge it?

102
00:05:06,844 --> 00:05:10,519
How could I make
charging more like Wi-Fi?

103
00:05:10,519 --> 00:05:12,172
I began by thinking about objects

104
00:05:12,172 --> 00:05:14,234
that beamed energy through the air.

105
00:05:14,234 --> 00:05:15,980
I asked really simple questions.

106
00:05:15,980 --> 00:05:18,064
Things that people in this room
probably already know.

107
00:05:18,064 --> 00:05:19,883
Like,
how do remote controls work?

108
00:05:19,883 --> 00:05:22,834
How do lasers work?
How does Wi-Fi work?

109
00:05:22,834 --> 00:05:24,857
I googled the wireless
power landscape

110
00:05:24,857 --> 00:05:27,369
and realized that there were
a few viable solutions.

111
00:05:27,369 --> 00:05:29,249
But each solution had
its own set of problems

112
00:05:29,249 --> 00:05:33,863
that would get in the way
of its commercialization.

113
00:05:33,863 --> 00:05:36,193
So I realized that you
could beam the entire

114
00:05:36,193 --> 00:05:38,381
electromagnetic spectrum,
which is basically everything

115
00:05:38,381 --> 00:05:41,064
from radio waves to gamma waves.

116
00:05:41,064 --> 00:05:43,264
But the right half of the spectrum
was too dangerous to beam.

117
00:05:43,264 --> 00:05:45,695
You know, you wouldn't want
X-rays whizzing through your body

118
00:05:45,695 --> 00:05:47,498
just to be able to charge your cell phone.

119
00:05:47,498 --> 00:05:50,293
And the left half of the spectrum
was either too inefficient

120
00:05:50,293 --> 00:05:53,194
or too tightly regulated by the government.

121
00:05:53,194 --> 00:05:56,194
So I had to approach the problem creatively.

122
00:05:56,194 --> 00:05:58,703
I looked into harnessing
the energy from vibrations

123
00:05:58,703 --> 00:06:03,150
that constantly surround us like 
the road bumps you feel in your car.

124
00:06:03,150 --> 00:06:06,720
But how could my electronic devices 
harness this energy?

125
00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:09,927
I knew that no one would want to stick 
a shaker to the back of their phone

126
00:06:09,927 --> 00:06:13,667
or stick bulky energy
harvesting plates in their shoes.

127
00:06:13,667 --> 00:06:19,233
So I had to figure out a way
to send vibrations through the air.

128
00:06:20,207 --> 00:06:22,766
And then I realized sound does that.

129
00:06:22,766 --> 00:06:25,599
Sound travels through the air
by vibrating air particles

130
00:06:25,599 --> 00:06:28,375
and because sound is a form of energy,

131
00:06:28,375 --> 00:06:31,526
you can harness
the vibrational energy of sound.

132
00:06:31,526 --> 00:06:33,192
So I started doing research on ultrasound

133
00:06:33,192 --> 00:06:36,744
because it was too high in frequency
for you to be able to hear it.

134
00:06:36,744 --> 00:06:38,532
And in my research 
I learned that ultrasound

135
00:06:38,532 --> 00:06:42,120
was used to create acoustic weapons.

136
00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:44,810
So I figured that if there was
enough energy from ultrasound

137
00:06:44,810 --> 00:06:50,372
to create a bomb, you could probably
charge your cell phone with it.

138
00:06:50,372 --> 00:06:53,072
So how does a Paleobiology major at Penn

139
00:06:53,072 --> 00:06:56,885
learn how to convert
ultrasound into electricity?

140
00:06:56,885 --> 00:07:00,463
Well, I literally just googled it.
And I found a --


141
00:07:00,463 --> 00:07:05,781
(Laughter) (Applause)

142
00:07:05,781 --> 00:07:08,671
And I found a material that did just that.

143
00:07:08,671 --> 00:07:10,747
So this is less than 48 hours after

144
00:07:10,747 --> 00:07:13,963
the original idea 
of creating wireless power.

145
00:07:13,963 --> 00:07:17,748
Ultrasonic wireless power.
It seemed like an awesome idea,

146
00:07:17,748 --> 00:07:22,527
but I figured that if I thought of it
there was no way it could work.

147
00:07:22,527 --> 00:07:24,852
Why hadn't somebody else 
thought of it before?

148
00:07:24,852 --> 00:07:28,499
Why hadn't the ultrasound expert
thought of it before?

149
00:07:28,499 --> 00:07:31,685
I didn't know enough about the technology
to determine if it could work or not.

150
00:07:31,685 --> 00:07:34,711
And I was a little hesitant
to tell any real engineers about it.

151
00:07:34,711 --> 00:07:37,244
Because honestly, I thought
they would laugh at me.

152
00:07:37,244 --> 00:07:39,783
I thought they would think I was stupid.

153
00:07:39,783 --> 00:07:41,522
But about a week or so later I decided

154
00:07:41,522 --> 00:07:43,889
to tell my physics professor
about the idea.

155
00:07:43,889 --> 00:07:46,240
And when I did, 
he told me that it wouldn't work.

156
00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:48,298
That there was no way 
that I could get enough energy

157
00:07:48,298 --> 00:07:51,489
out of ultrasound to be able
to charge a cell phone.

158
00:07:51,489 --> 00:07:57,302
I was crushed, but I kept thinking
about that acoustic bomb.

159
00:07:57,984 --> 00:08:00,060
I knew that I needed to do more research,

160
00:08:00,060 --> 00:08:04,924
so I read paper after paper on ultrasound
and I devised the basic system.

161
00:08:04,924 --> 00:08:07,631
I tried to teach myself
as much as I possibly could.

162
00:08:07,631 --> 00:08:09,467
I was reading
"Electrical Engineering For Dummies"

163
00:08:09,467 --> 00:08:14,691
and begging professors to teach me
extra concepts after class.

164
00:08:14,691 --> 00:08:17,202
And as outlandish as it sounds,
I decided to submit the idea

165
00:08:17,202 --> 00:08:19,752
to the Penn Invention Competition.

166
00:08:19,752 --> 00:08:23,416
I ordered a few ultrasonic
transmitters and receivers online.

167
00:08:23,416 --> 00:08:25,678
And got an electrical engineering student

168
00:08:25,678 --> 00:08:28,438
to help me wire a few things together.

169
00:08:28,438 --> 00:08:32,436
We were able to prove that you could beam

170
00:08:32,436 --> 00:08:36,250
a tiny amount of power over about an inch.

171
00:08:36,250 --> 00:08:39,220
This was enough to keep me going.

172
00:08:39,220 --> 00:08:41,732
We won the student invention competition.

173
00:08:41,732 --> 00:08:45,117
And a few days later,
I was told that Walt Mossberg,

174
00:08:45,117 --> 00:08:47,902
the senior technology columnist
for the Wall Street Journal

175
00:08:47,902 --> 00:08:50,817
wanted to speak to us.

176
00:08:50,817 --> 00:08:55,022
This was crazy. (Laughter)

177
00:08:55,022 --> 00:08:58,400
He told us that if we could build 
a real prototype of this technology

178
00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:01,204
we could demo it 
at his annual tech conference.

179
00:09:01,204 --> 00:09:04,070
Now, at the time I didn't know
much about Walt or his D conference.

180
00:09:04,070 --> 00:09:07,504
But I soon learned that this was 
the premier tech conference of the year.

181
00:09:07,504 --> 00:09:10,985
That this was where
Steve Jobs debated Bill Gates.

182
00:09:10,985 --> 00:09:13,080
I knew I needed to get to this conference.

183
00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:16,829
But I had absolutely no idea
if I could really build it.

184
00:09:16,829 --> 00:09:20,606
I had one month.
The race was on.

185
00:09:20,606 --> 00:09:22,700
So to make this thing work,
I had to scale it up

186
00:09:22,700 --> 00:09:26,641
from basically what was a tiny little toy
to a decent sized prototype.

187
00:09:26,641 --> 00:09:29,017
Now remember, I was
the idea person, you know.

188
00:09:29,017 --> 00:09:31,427
I could tell you about the science 
and how it works,

189
00:09:31,427 --> 00:09:34,613
but I had absolutely no idea
how to wire anything together.

190
00:09:34,613 --> 00:09:37,209
So I found an engineer in Indiana
and I begged him

191
00:09:37,209 --> 00:09:39,800
to help me build this prototype.

192
00:09:39,800 --> 00:09:42,691
I simplified the design
using off the shelf parts.

193
00:09:42,691 --> 00:09:46,639
And we worked together day and night
for two straight weeks over the phone

194
00:09:46,639 --> 00:09:50,546
building this prototype and we finished
it just two days before the conference.

195
00:09:50,546 --> 00:09:52,463
And I got it working only 10 minutes

196
00:09:52,463 --> 00:09:56,280
before I had to demo it for the first time.
(Laughter)

197
00:09:56,280 --> 00:09:59,007
Talk about anxiety.

198
00:09:59,007 --> 00:10:01,922
But it worked and that was so cool.

199
00:10:01,922 --> 00:10:04,934
We beamed energy over three feet 
and at about thirty times

200
00:10:04,934 --> 00:10:07,152
the amount of power that we got out

201
00:10:07,152 --> 00:10:10,350
from the initial proof of concept model.

202
00:10:10,350 --> 00:10:12,959
The conference was an enormous success.

203
00:10:12,959 --> 00:10:15,964
But it surprisingly spurred 
a lot of anger and criticism

204
00:10:15,964 --> 00:10:18,248
from real engineers.

205
00:10:18,248 --> 00:10:21,093
(Laughter)

206
00:10:21,093 --> 00:10:24,173
They told me that it could
never work on a larger scale,

207
00:10:24,173 --> 00:10:26,175
there was no way you could actually

208
00:10:26,175 --> 00:10:27,783
use ultrasound to charge a cell phone,

209
00:10:27,783 --> 00:10:30,745
that what I was trying to do was impossible.

210
00:10:30,745 --> 00:10:33,299
But I also knew 
that no one could really determine

211
00:10:33,299 --> 00:10:35,494
if the technology could work or not.

212
00:10:35,494 --> 00:10:37,749
Because the technology didn't exist yet.

213
00:10:37,749 --> 00:10:40,168
And what I had shown there on the D stage

214
00:10:40,168 --> 00:10:41,710
was using off the shelf parts.

215
00:10:41,710 --> 00:10:44,597
We hadn't even tried to push it further.

216
00:10:44,597 --> 00:10:46,285
And I kept hearing the same story about

217
00:10:46,285 --> 00:10:48,071
how one person would say
something was impossible,

218
00:10:48,071 --> 00:10:50,485
then somebody else would figure it out.

219
00:10:50,485 --> 00:10:53,405
But despite my optimism, 
I still felt insecure

220
00:10:53,405 --> 00:10:56,263
because so many people
were trying to knock me down.

221
00:10:56,263 --> 00:10:58,643
So I flew around the country
talking to the top professors

222
00:10:58,643 --> 00:11:00,688
in acoustic research.

223
00:11:00,688 --> 00:11:03,664
And I was happy to find that 
most of them thought it could work.

224
00:11:03,664 --> 00:11:06,319
But with a few questions.

225
00:11:06,319 --> 00:11:09,095
And probably the biggest
nagging question was:

226
00:11:09,095 --> 00:11:14,540
If this thing could work,
why hadn't it been done before?

227
00:11:14,540 --> 00:11:16,814
And it also seemed that
for every positive opinion I got

228
00:11:16,814 --> 00:11:18,894
there was another negative one.

229
00:11:18,894 --> 00:11:21,741
I couldn't believe how
there were such different

230
00:11:21,741 --> 00:11:25,400
opinions by experts in the same field.

231
00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:29,970
But despite my frustration, this was
a very important lesson for me to learn.

232
00:11:29,970 --> 00:11:32,241
This taught me to be skeptical of experts,

233
00:11:32,241 --> 00:11:36,499
that expertise represented
a narrow way of looking at things,

234
00:11:36,499 --> 00:11:39,531
and that experts knew what they knew 
based on their own prior studies.

235
00:11:39,531 --> 00:11:42,923
And since ultrasonic
wireless power didn't exist yet,

236
00:11:42,923 --> 00:11:44,462
no one had prior studies with it.

237
00:11:44,462 --> 00:11:49,239
So no one could really determine
if this could work on a larger scale.

238
00:11:49,239 --> 00:11:51,854
And nobody really 
fully understood the problem.

239
00:11:51,854 --> 00:11:56,138
And so no one could
accurately answer my questions.

240
00:11:56,148 --> 00:11:58,506
I realized that it was up to me to solve it.

241
00:11:58,506 --> 00:12:00,281
And this was a very daunting prospect

242
00:12:00,281 --> 00:12:03,774
considering my scientific background
was at the undergraduate level.

243
00:12:03,774 --> 00:12:07,655
And my engineering was largely self-taught.

244
00:12:07,655 --> 00:12:12,889
So asking seven people the same
question and averaging the answer

245
00:12:12,889 --> 00:12:15,778
was a very inefficient way about doing things,

246
00:12:15,778 --> 00:12:18,582
but it did push the concept forward.

247
00:12:18,582 --> 00:12:20,998
And the further that I dug 
into the technology

248
00:12:20,998 --> 00:12:24,592
and the theory behind it

249
00:12:24,592 --> 00:12:28,011
the more complex
the technological hurdles became.

250
00:12:28,011 --> 00:12:30,580
And with each new hurdle
another engineer would tell me:

251
00:12:30,580 --> 00:12:32,882
It's not going to work.

252
00:12:32,882 --> 00:12:36,099
But because I already learned
to not trust one person's opinion

253
00:12:36,099 --> 00:12:38,870
I became immune to the naysayers.

254
00:12:38,870 --> 00:12:42,057
For each technological hurdle
deemed insurmountable by the experts

255
00:12:42,057 --> 00:12:44,744
I would spend just a few hours
thinking about the problem

256
00:12:44,744 --> 00:12:46,894
from a variety of approaches.

257
00:12:46,894 --> 00:12:51,317
As Steve Jobs said,
I had to think differently.

258
00:12:51,317 --> 00:12:55,615
So I found solutions based on
the acoustics of musical instruments,

259
00:12:55,615 --> 00:12:58,674
based on other technologies
and from basic research,

260
00:12:58,674 --> 00:13:03,065
such as -- from authoritative
sources such as Wikipedia.

261
00:13:03,608 --> 00:13:06,726
And when I would present
my progress to the engineers

262
00:13:06,726 --> 00:13:10,460
they'd say,
"Yeah, that could work."

263
00:13:10,460 --> 00:13:12,607
So I was able solve problems

264
00:13:12,607 --> 00:13:14,431
when the PhD experts couldn't

265
00:13:14,431 --> 00:13:18,057
with just a few hours of really simple research.

266
00:13:18,057 --> 00:13:20,977
Every single argument over
why the technology couldn't work

267
00:13:20,977 --> 00:13:23,363
has been indisputably wrong.

268
00:13:23,363 --> 00:13:25,762
And for every objection that's been raised

269
00:13:25,762 --> 00:13:28,350
I've found solutions.

270
00:13:28,350 --> 00:13:31,020
This was another very important
lesson for me to learn.

271
00:13:31,020 --> 00:13:33,465
Engineers are inherently
linear thinkers

272
00:13:33,465 --> 00:13:37,255
and tend to take a very binary approach 
to solving problems.

273
00:13:37,255 --> 00:13:41,879
When faced with a problem they think:
Can this work, or can this not work?

274
00:13:41,879 --> 00:13:44,937
But I would think,
How can I make this work?

275
00:13:44,937 --> 00:13:47,209
As a non-expert 
I had an advantage because

276
00:13:47,209 --> 00:13:48,950
I could look at a problem
from different angles

277
00:13:48,950 --> 00:13:51,636
because I just didn't know it was possible.

278
00:13:51,636 --> 00:13:54,201
Being naive is sometimes a good thing.

279
00:13:54,201 --> 00:13:58,387
Because without constraints
the world is truly your oyster.

280
00:13:58,387 --> 00:14:02,576
Now this is not to say that experts 
aren't necessary, that is entirely false.

281
00:14:02,576 --> 00:14:06,898
Experts are extremely critical
in carrying scientific visions forward

282
00:14:06,898 --> 00:14:10,282
and driving ideas to reality.

283
00:14:10,282 --> 00:14:13,344
And now eight months later
I have four of the top

284
00:14:13,344 --> 00:14:17,443
ultrasonic engineers in the world
working for me, or working with me.

285
00:14:17,443 --> 00:14:19,757
(Laughter)

286
00:14:19,757 --> 00:14:24,529
And developing my prototype
according to my design.

287
00:14:24,529 --> 00:14:26,966
It's going to work and
it's going to be awesome.

288
00:14:26,966 --> 00:14:28,867
And I can't wait
to give the middle finger and smile

289
00:14:28,867 --> 00:14:31,533
to all the engineers
that criticized the crap out of me.

290
00:14:31,533 --> 00:14:35,033
(Applause)

291
00:14:38,987 --> 00:14:41,513
My experience also made me wonder

292
00:14:41,513 --> 00:14:44,283
how many game changing,
brilliant ideas out there

293
00:14:44,283 --> 00:14:48,393
thought of by laypeople, teenagers,
store clerks, paleobiologists

294
00:14:48,393 --> 00:14:50,783
have been squashed by experts that said:

295
00:14:50,783 --> 00:14:52,410
"That can't work."

296
00:14:52,410 --> 00:14:53,900
I know that if I weren't
as stubborn as I am

297
00:14:53,900 --> 00:14:56,356
I would have chucked this
entire idea eight months ago.

298
00:14:56,356 --> 00:15:00,403
Because I was told that
my idea was impossible.

299
00:15:00,403 --> 00:15:03,471
But by thinking differently,
by thinking outside the box,

300
00:15:03,471 --> 00:15:08,031
by thinking around corners
you can outthink the top thinkers.

301
00:15:08,031 --> 00:15:10,962
They say that the most
revolutionary ideas in the world

302
00:15:10,962 --> 00:15:15,449
were considered crazy up until the point
that they became revolutionary.

303
00:15:15,449 --> 00:15:17,820
The world was flat.

304
00:15:17,820 --> 00:15:20,121
The Earth was at the center of the Universe.

305
00:15:20,121 --> 00:15:25,183
Electricity could never be tamed
and ultrasound can't charge your iPhone.

306
00:15:25,183 --> 00:15:28,302
But that was then and this is the future.

307
00:15:28,302 --> 00:15:30,675
So dream out loud. Ask questions.

308
00:15:30,675 --> 00:15:33,258
Take risks. Never give up.

309
00:15:33,258 --> 00:15:35,050
Keep pushing and believe in yourself

310
00:15:35,050 --> 00:15:37,002
even when no one else does.

311
00:15:37,002 --> 00:15:38,315
Thank you.

312
00:15:38,315 --> 00:15:40,919
(Applause)