Transcriber: Trang Phạm Reviewer: Michael Nystrom
Good morning, everyone.
(Audience) Good morning.
My name’s Hussam Al Dajjah giving you a speech.
So first, let’s begin.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine.
Imagine you’re sitting on a chair.
A comfortable chair.
Imagine you’re enjoying a meal,
perhaps having a cup of coffee,
and you’re soaring through space at speeds of over 3,000 kilometers an hour.
And then you hear your pilot say,
“Attention all passengers: We’re about to land at the moon.”
You look out your window, and you see this mesmerizing view of the moon.
You might tell yourself this idea is crazy,
impossible, absurd.
That’s exactly what they told the Wright brothers
right before they innovated what we now call the airplane.
First, let’s define innovation.
Innovation is a new product, idea, or method.
But how do we innovate best?
If we look at the Wright Brothers,
their story of innovation started when they were very young.
The father brought home a helicopter powered with rubber bands, a toy.
When the Wright brothers first saw it fly, they were mesmerized, shocked.
How could this toy fly?
It’s made out of small components,
very simple components, and powered by rubber bands.
So that got the Wright brothers thinking.
If this toy can fly
and they looked around, if birds can fly effortlessly,
can humans fly?
People told the Wright brothers that they were crazy,
that this was impossible.
But was their idea crazy, or was their idea innovative?
So, let’s look at how to innovate best.
The first component is belief.
Belief is very important to innovation
because without belief, you cannot be innovative.
Because belief is the water and innovation is the seed.
If you water your innovation with belief, it will grow and someday be a tree,
and you’ll bear its fruits of success.
So, the Wright brothers got building.
They thought, how can we make something fly,
carry a human being, and soar to the sky?
So they took inspiration from a bird.
A bird has two wings and a tail.
So they got building.
They built the first plane.
And in December 1903,
the Wright brothers made history by making the first human flight.
It lasted for 12 seconds.
The Wright brothers went again and tried.
Their second plane lasted 13 seconds in the air,
and their last and third flight lasted a total of 59 seconds
and spanned over 260 meters.
Which brings us to today,
the longest flight being 18 hours and a half
and spanning over 1.5 billion meters from New York all the way to Singapore.
But how is this possible?
How do we go from 59 seconds to almost a full day?
What all innovators did throughout history and what the Wright brothers did
was learn and use the design thinking technique.
The design thinking technique comprises of five factors:
to empathize, ideate, prototype, test, and define.
And the design thinking technique optimizes creativity,
and creativity leads to innovation.
So the most effective way to innovate
is through using the design thinking technique.
Now, many people thought it must have been exhausting
for the Wright brothers to always design, and prototype, and test planes.
But when you do what you love, time flies.
(Laughter)
I guess I stuck the landing on that joke.
(Laughter)
But what is the importance of innovation?
Why is innovation important to us?
I’m here in front of you, giving a speech about how to be innovative,
what is innovation,
but why is it important?
Well, innovation is the core of human developments and advancements.
Throughout all of history,
humans were able to develop and grow and learn because of innovation.
Bringing something that doesn’t exist into existence.
So,
innovation is the application of creativity,
and creativity is there.
And creativity stems from the need to solve problems.
So, whenever you have a problem,
you need to become creative in order to solve it.
So look around you.
Or even look broader, look at the whole world.
What are problems that we all face that need solving that are crucial?
Well, we have climate change.
We have global hunger, natural disasters,
epidemics, pandemics, diseases.
Well, the solution to all of these problems is innovation.
And there has never been a more innovative time than now.
So my message to all of you is go out,
be innovative,
become the next Wright brother or sister.
And hopefully, the next time we meet, we’ll be having coffee at the moon.
Thank you.
(Applause)