Transcriber: Elisa Santos Reviewer: Zsuzsa Viola
Every day, when we wake up, we have a choice.
We can focus on what's right with our lives,
or we can focus on what's wrong with our lives.
I believe focusing on what's right with our lives
rather than focusing on what's wrong with our lives
is the best way to fix what's wrong with our lives.
And how do I know this?
Well, actually, I don't.
(Laughter)
In the next few minutes,
I'm going to show you how focusing on what's right with the world
is the best way to fix what's wrong with the world.
This is my niece.
Her name is Helena.
I remember when she wanted to start walking.
She was trying so hard, falling down and getting up,
doing that again and again.
She was even smiling when falling down
until she could finally walk after many falls.
So, that was the end of my speech.
Thank you.
(Applause)
If you recall, all of us had a similar experience in our childhood.
This means we all learn to try hard, not give up
until we could be successful.
As a kid, we were all focusing on the opportunity and not obstacles.
But unfortunately, as we grow older,
we shift our focus to obstacles and not opportunities.
This results in being pessimistic instead of being optimistic.
This is me when I was younger.
As you can see, I love to be happy like everybody else.
I also like to see everybody else is happy.
So, we're all happy together.
That's cool, right?
(Laughter)
Trust me,
sometimes, a sad moment plays a significant role in shaping your future.
Basically, a moment can change everything,
as it was for me.
A few years ago,
my grandmother went to hospital because of chest pain and vomiting.
They told her it's food poisoning, and she was sent home.
A few weeks later, she got a heart attack at my cousin's birthday and suddenly died.
This tragedy got me thinking why there was no way to detect her disease
in an earlier phase
and what if I could save her life.
So, together with my brother Max,
we started looking at the topic of heart disease
and how we can use technology to detect that before it gets late.
Trust me, I had no idea what heart disease was at the time,
and I guarantee you, my brother didn't have any idea either.
We were just newly graduated engineers
who were optimistic to solve any problem with engineering.
The very first surprising fact is
that heart disease is number one killer all around the world.
Every year, more than 17 million people die just because of that,
which is more than any other disease category.
Just to understand how big the number is, anytime I'm clapping -
(Clap, clap)
one person dies from heart disease somewhere in the world.
This is very sad.
But it's a fact.
But the problem is not the disease itself;
it's the late detection of the disease that kills most of the people.
So, basically, many people don't know they're sick until it's too late.
The system today is more of a sick-care than healthcare.
This means you act only when you get sick.
So, if we can shift our thinking, we can change the equation.
Therefore, we started the project
with the ambition of tackling one of the greatest challenges in healthcare:
I mean, finding a way to detect heart disease in an earlier phase
even if the patient doesn't have any symptoms.
We also defined a vision:
we want to save at least one million lives each year.
As an engineer, I learned that each system consists of different elements
that are working together.
If one element doesn't work properly, it affects the related parameters.
Now, if you take this approach to our body, which is also a system,
a disease means one body element doesn't work properly.
So, if we look at the related parameters and correlate them correctly,
we can detect the problem when the disease starts to develop.
One fact about heart disease is that it is considered as a complex disease,
like cancers.
This means it takes years for the disease to develop,
and it's not happening overnight.
For example, it's not like getting a cold that you feel that immediately.
Unfortunately, in many cases, the patient doesn't even feel that
until the disease is at a late stage.
Now, back to our work.
Your heart has different main coronary arteries
both on the right and on the left side.
These arteries help transport blood into and out of your heart.
When plaque builds up, it narrows your coronary arteries.
This results in decreasing blood flow into your heart.
Eventually, the decreased blood flow may cause chest pain, shortness of breath
or other coronary artery disease, signs, and symptoms.
A full blockage may lead to a heart attack.
So, what happens today when you have a symptom?
You go to doctors.
They examine you, take a blood test, ECG,
and when they want to do more investigation,
they send you for angiography operation, which is very expensive and invasive.
But it turns out that in many cases
angiography is not necessary when used for screening.
We observed that a lot of data is generated even before angiography.
We thought we can use these data
to generate intelligent insight about patients' heart,
so we developed a unique artificial intelligence algorithm to do that.
We created a system called "Heartstrings,"
tested in hospital with several hundred patients
and got promising results.
The interesting fact about Heartstrings is that it is based on machine learning,
which means the more people use it, the smarter it becomes.
So, we did more tests with several hundred additional patients.
We achieved amazing results showing that by using Heartstrings
doctors are able to make a much faster, cheaper, and more accurate decision
which saves patients' life.
Today, after years of working,
I'm proud that Heartstrings received several recognitions
and reached hundreds of thousands of hearts.
This shows focusing on what's right with our lives
rather than focusing on what's wrong with our lives
is the best way to make an impact.
So, we thought of starting an organization
with the vision to impact at least one billion lives.
At Hippogriff, we're working with impactful innovations
that increase the quality of life on our planet.
But if you ask us what we do best and what makes us happy the most,
it's just helping the others,
using optimism to make our mark on the world.
We're going to travel through the world,
we're going to bring our vision wherever we go,
and we're going to help people all over this planet.
We're doing what we like, and we like what we do.
Life is a journey.
You each have your own journey, but we all share the same planet.
Let's focus on what's right with the world.
Be good to each other, love yourself,
love each other, and enjoy our life together.
Thank you.
(Applause)