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So, I'm going to start off with kind of the buzzkill a little bit.

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Forty-two million people

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were displaced by natural disasters in 2010.

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Now, there was nothing particularly special about 2010,

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because, on average, 31 and a half million people

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are displaced by natural disasters every single year.

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Now, usually when people hear statistics or stats like that,

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you start thinking about places like Haiti or other kind of

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exotic or maybe even impoverished areas, but it happens

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right here in the United States every single year.

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Last year alone, 99 federally declared disasters

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were on file with FEMA,

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from Joplin, Missouri, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama,

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to the Central Texas wildfires that just happened recently.

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Now, how does the most powerful country in the world

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handle these displaced people?

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They cram them onto cots, put all your personal belongings

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in a plastic garbage bag, stick it underneath,

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and put you on the floor of an entire sports arena,

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or a gymnasium.

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So obviously there's a massive housing gap,

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and this really upset me, because academia tells you

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after a major disaster, there's typically about

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an 18-month time frame to -- we kinda recover,

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start the recovery process,

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but what most people don't realize is that on average

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it takes 45 to 60 days or more

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for the infamous FEMA trailers to even begin to show up.

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Before that time, people are left to their own devices.

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So I became obsessed with trying to figure out a way

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to actually fill this gap.

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This actually became my creative obsession.

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I put aside all my freelance work after hours and started

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just focusing particularly on this problem.

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So I started sketching.

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Two days after Katrina, I started sketching and sketching

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and trying to brainstorm up ideas or solutions for this,

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and as things started to congeal or ideas started to form,

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I started sketching digitally on the computer,

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but it was an obsession, so I couldn't just stop there.

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I started experimenting, making models,

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talking to experts in the field, taking their feedback,

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and refining, and I kept on refining and refining

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for nights and weekends for over five years.

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Now, my obsession ended up driving me to create

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full-size prototypes in my own backyard — (Laughter) —

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and actually spending my own personal savings on

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everything from tooling to patents

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and a variety of other costs,

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but in the end I ended up with this modular housing system

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that can react to any situation or disaster.

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It can be put up in any environment,

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from an asphalt parking lot to pastures or fields,

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because it doesn't require any special setup

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or specialty tools.

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Now, at the foundation and kind of the core

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of this whole system is the Exo Housing Unit,

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which is just the individual shelter module.

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And though it's light, light enough that you can actually

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lift it by hand and move it around,

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and it actually sleeps four people.

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And you can arrange these things as kind of more

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for encampments and more of a city grid type layout,

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or you can circle the wagons, essentially,

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and form these circular pods out of them,

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which give you this semi-private communal area

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for people to actually spill out into so they're not actually

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trapped inside these units.

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Now this fundamentally changes

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the way we respond to disasters,

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because gone are the horrid conditions

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inside a sports arena or a gymnasium, where people

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are crammed on these cots inside.

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Now we have instant neighborhoods outside.

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So the Exo is designed to be simply, basically

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like a coffee cup. They can actually stack together

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so we get extremely efficient transportation

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and storage out of them.

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In fact, 15 Exos can fit on a single semi truck by itself.

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This means the Exo can actually be transported and set up

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faster than any other housing option available today.

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But I'm obsessive, so I couldn't just stop there,

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so I actually started modifying the bunks where you could

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actually slide out the bunks and slide in desks or shelving,

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so the same unit can now be used

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for an office or storage location.

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The doors can actually swap out, so you can actually put on

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a rigid panel with a window unit in it for climate control,

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or a connector module that would allow you to actually

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connect multiple units together, which gives you

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larger and kind of compartmentalized living spaces,

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so now this same kit of parts, this same unit

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can actually serve as a living room, bedroom or bathroom,

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or an office, a living space and secure storage.

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Sounds like a great idea, but how do you make it real?

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So the first idea I had, initially, was just

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to go the federal and state governments and go,

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"Here, take it, for free."

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But I was quickly told that, "Boy, our government

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doesn't really work like that." (Laughter)

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Okay. Okay. So maybe I would start a nonprofit

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to kind of help consult and get this idea going

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along with the government, but then I was told,

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"Son, our government looks to private sector

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for things like this."

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Okay. So maybe I would take this whole idea and go

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to private corporations that would have this mutually shared

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benefit to it, but I was quickly told by some corporations

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that my personal passion project was not a brand fit

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because they didn't want their logos stamped

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across the ghettos of Haiti.

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Now, I wasn't just obsessed. I was outraged. (Laughter.)

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So I decided, kind of told myself,

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"Oh yeah? Watch this. I'll do it myself." (Laughter)

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Now, this quickly, my day job sent me to work out of

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our Milan office for a few months, so I was like,

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what will I do? So I actually scheduled sleep on my calendar,

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and spent the 8-hour time difference on conference calls

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with material suppliers, manufacturers and potential customers.

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And we found through this whole process, we found

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this great little manufacturer in Virginia,

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and if his body language is any indication,

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that's the owner — (Laughter) — of what it's like

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for a manufacturer to work directly with a designer,

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you've got to see what happens here. (Laughter)

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But G.S. Industries was fantastic.

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They actually built three prototypes for us by hand.

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So now we have prototypes that can show that four people

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can actually sleep securely and much more comfortably

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than a tent could ever provide.

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And they actually shipped them here to Texas for us.

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Now, a funny thing started happening.

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Other people started to believe in what we were doing,

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and actually offered us hangar space, donated hangar

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space to us. And then the Georgetown Airport Authority

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was bent over backwards to help us with anything we needed.

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So now we had a hangar space to work in,

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and prototypes to demo with.

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So in one year, we've negotiated manufacturing agreements,

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been awarded one patent, filed our second patent,

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talked to multiple people, demoed this to FEMA

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and its consultants to rave reviews,

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and then started talking to some other people who requested

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information, this little group called the United Nations.

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And on top of that, now we have

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a whole plethora of other individuals that have come up

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and started to talk to us from doing it for mining camps,

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mobile youth hostels, right down to the World Cup

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and the Olympics.

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So, in closing, on this whole thing here

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is hopefully very soon we will not have to

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respond to these painful phone calls that we get

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after disasters where we don't really have anything

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to sell or give you yet.

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Hopefully very soon we will be there,

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because we are destined,

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obsessed with making it real.

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Thank you. (Applause)