-
I'll never forget the sound
-
of laughing with my friends.
-
I'll never forget the sound
-
of my mother's voice
right before I fell asleep.
-
And I'll never forget
the comforting sound of water
-
trickling down a stream.
-
Imagine my fear, pure fear,
-
when, at the age of 10,
-
I was told I was going to lose my hearing.
-
And over the next five years,
-
it progressed until I was classified
as profoundly deaf.
-
But I believe that losing my hearing
-
was one of the greatest gifts
I've ever received.
-
You see, I get to experience
the world in a unique way.
-
And I believe that
these unique experiences
-
that people with disabilities have
-
is what's going to help us
make and design a better world
-
for everyone -- both for people
with and without disabilities.
-
I used to be a disability rights lawyer,
-
and I spent a lot of my time
focused on enforcing the law,
-
ensuring that accommodations were made.
-
And then I had to quickly
learn international policy,
-
because I was asked to work
on the UN Commission
-
that protects people with disabilities.
-
As the leader of the NGO there,
-
I spent most of my energy
trying to convince people
-
about the capabilities
of people with disabilities.
-
But somewhere along the way,
-
and after many career transitions
-
that my parents weren't so happy about --
-
(Laughter)
-
I stumbled upon a solution
-
that I believe may be
an even more powerful tool
-
to solve some of the world's
greatest problems,
-
disability or not.
-
And that tool is called design thinking.
-
Design thinking is a process
for innovation and problem solving.
-
There are five steps.
-
The first is defining the problem
-
and understanding its constraints.
-
The second is observing people
in real-life situations
-
and empathizing with them.
-
Third, throwing out hundreds of ideas --
the more the better,
-
the wilder the better.
-
Fourth, prototyping:
gathering whatever you can,
-
whatever you can find,
-
to mimic your solution, to test it
-
and to refine it.
-
And finally, implementation:
-
ensuring that the solution
you came up with is sustainable.
-
Warren Berger says that design thinking
teaches us to look sideways,
-
to reframe, to refine, to experiment
-
and, probably most importantly,
-
ask those stupid questions.
-
Design thinkers believe
that everyone is creative.
-
They believe in bringing people
from multiple disciplines together,
-
because they want to share
multiple perspectives
-
and bring them together
and ultimately merge them
-
to form something new.
-
Design thinking is such a successful
and versatile tool
-
that it has been applied
in almost every industry.
-
I saw the potential that it had
for the issues I faced,
-
so I decided to go back to school
-
and get my master's in social design.
-
This looks at how to use design
to create positive change in the world.
-
While I was there,
-
I fell in love with woodworking.
-
But what I quickly realized
-
was that I was missing out on something.
-
As you're working with a tool,
-
right before it's about
to kick back at you --
-
which means the piece or the tool
jumps back at you --
-
it makes a sound.
-
And I couldn't hear this sound.
-
So I decided,
-
why not try and solve it?
-
My solution was a pair of safety glasses
-
that were engineered
to visually alert the user
-
to pitch changes in the tool,
-
before the human ear could pick it up.
-
Why hadn't tool designers
thought of this before?
-
(Laughter)
-
Two reasons: one, I was a beginner.
-
I wasn't weighed down by expertise
or conventional wisdom.
-
The second is, I was deaf.
-
My unique experience of the world
helped inform my solution.
-
And as I went on, I kept running into
more and more solutions
-
that were originally made
for people with disabilities,
-
and that ended up being picked up,
-
embraced and loved by the mainstream,
-
disability or not.
-
This is an OXO potato peeler.
-
It was originally designed
for people with arthritis,
-
but it was so comfortable,
everybody loved it.
-
Text messaging: that was originally
designed for people who are deaf.
-
And as you know,
everybody loves that, too.
-
(Laughter)
-
I started thinking:
-
What if we changed our mindset?
-
What if we started designing
for disability first --
-
not the norm?
-
As you see, when we design
for disability first,
-
we often stumble upon
solutions that are not only inclusive,
-
but also are often better
than when we design for the norm.
-
And this excites me,
-
because this means that the energy
it takes to accommodate someone
-
with a disability
-
can be leveraged, molded and played with
-
as a force for creativity and innovation.
-
This moves us from the mindset
of trying to change the hearts
-
and the deficiency mindset of tolerance,
-
to becoming an alchemist,
-
the type of magician that this world
so desperately needs
-
to solve some of its greatest problems.
-
Now, I also believe
-
that people with disabilities
have great potential to be designers
-
within this design-thinking process.
-
Without knowing it, from a very early age,
-
I've been a design thinker,
fine-tuning my skills.
-
Design thinkers are, by nature,
problem solvers.
-
So imagine listening to a conversation
-
and only understanding
50 percent of what is said.
-
You can't ask them to repeat
every single word.
-
They would just get frustrated with you.
-
So without even realizing it,
-
my solution was to take
the muffled sound I heard,
-
that was the beat,
-
and turn it into a rhythm
and place it with the lips I read.
-
Years later, someone commented
that my writing had a rhythm to it.
-
Well, this is because I experience
conversations as rhythms.
-
I also became really,
really good at failing.
-
(Laughter)
-
Quite literally.
-
My first semester in Spanish, I got a D.
-
But what I learned
was that when I picked myself up
-
and changed a few things around,
-
eventually, I succeeded.
-
Similarly, design thinking
encourages people to fail
-
and fail often,
-
because eventually, you will succeed.
-
Very few great innovations in this world
-
have come from someone succeeding
on the first try.
-
I also experienced this lesson in sports.
-
I'll never forget my coach
saying to my mom,
-
"If she just didn't have her hearing loss,
-
she would be on the national team."
-
But what my coach, and what I
didn't even know at the time,
-
was that my hearing loss
actually helped me excel at sports.
-
You see, when you lose your hearing,
not only do you adapt your behavior,
-
but you also adapt your physical senses.
-
One example of this
-
is that my visual
attention span increased.
-
Imagine a soccer player,
coming down the left flank.
-
Imagine being goalkeeper, like I was,
-
and the ball is coming
down the left flank.
-
A person with normal hearing
would have the visual perspective of this.
-
I had the benefit of a spectrum this wide.
-
So I picked up the players over here,
-
that were moving about
and coming down the field.
-
And I picked them up quicker,
so that if the ball was passed,
-
I could reposition myself
and be ready for that shot.
-
So as you can see,
-
I've been a design thinker
for nearly all my life.
-
My observation skills have been honed
so that I pick up on things
-
that others would never pick up on.
-
My constant need to adapt
has made me a great ideator
-
and problem solver.
-
And I've often had to do this
within limitations and constraints.
-
This is something that designers
also have to deal with frequently.
-
My work most recently took me to Haiti.
-
Design thinkers often seek out
extreme situations,
-
because that often informs
some of their best designs.
-
And Haiti -- it was like a perfect storm.
-
I lived and worked
with 300 deaf individuals,
-
that were relocated
after the 2010 earthquake.
-
But five and a half years later,
-
there still was no electricity;
-
there still was no safe drinking water;
-
there were still no job opportunities;
-
there was still rampant crime,
and it went unpunished.
-
International aid organizations
came one by one.
-
But they came
-
with pre-determined solutions.
-
They didn't come ready
to observe and to adapt
-
based on the community's needs.
-
One organization gave them
goats and chickens.
-
But they didn't realize
-
that there was so much hunger
in that community,
-
that when the deaf went to sleep
at night and couldn't hear,
-
people broke into their yards
and their homes
-
and stole these chickens and goats,
-
and eventually they were all gone.
-
Now, if that organization
had taken the time
-
to observe deaf people,
to observe the community,
-
they would have realized their problem
-
and perhaps they would have
come up with a solution,
-
something like a solar light,
-
lighting up a secure pen
to put them in at night
-
to ensure their safety.
-
You don't have to be a design thinker
-
to insert the ideas
I've shared with you today.
-
You are creative.
-
You are a designer --
-
everyone is.
-
Let people like me help you.
-
Let people with disabilities
help you look sideways,
-
and in the process,
-
solve some of the greatest problems.
-
That's it. Thank you.
-
(Applause)