growing up in a country like Malaysia
it's almost impossible not to encounter
a new language every now and then to me
personally I prefer to speak English as
my daily mode of communication but it's
different in Malaysia in primary school
I feel basta Malaysia more than any
other language in high school I tell
Mandarin phrases being thrown into
sentences every now and then and even in
university I hear my friends speak Tamil
all the time so this mixture of
languages isn't something that's really
new to me
that's what I thought until I started
work in 2019 my colleagues would
constantly speak in Mandarin even in the
meetings I was in and to be fair I'm
completely fine with people speaking in
their preferred language for as long as
everyone in that conversation understand
what's going on but this wasn't the case
during the first meeting itself I said
guys could you please speak in English
and they were like oh yeah sure sorry
sorry they apologized and then he
started speaking English and that was
great but then three minutes later they
started speaking English and
incorporating membrane words into it but
at that point it was still fine because
I could understand what they were saying
but then ten minutes later were back to
square one where they keep speaking
Mandarin all the way again so I realized
this process just kept going on and on
and on and it was repetitive realizing
that this was going nowhere I said to
myself it's time for me to approach this
in a different way
all this while I've been trying to get
the environment to adapt to me but this
time I'm going to change and try to
adapt into the environment instead so
tonight I got home I listed out possible
ways for me to curb this issue so of
course one of the most obvious solutions
was for me to learn Mandarin but to be
fair it's almost impossible it's a no-go
option considering that Mandarin takes
extremely long to learn and I'm only
going to be with this company for about
a year so until the project ends so that
was out of the window the second option
was for me to record the entire meeting
and then have a friend Fred later come
and translate and I explained entire
meeting to me but this would also be
extremely unfair to my friend it
extremely time-consuming and I would
only know what was going on in the
meeting after the meeting was over so
that was also out of the window I was
running out of options I just kept
remembering and telling myself how cool
would it be if I had superpowers that
will enable me to learn and understand
almost any language and then it hit me I
remember watching the Google i/o summit
and how they introduced the Google
clicks earlier but for those who don't
know what the Google picks earlier but
are they are pal earphones that enables
you to translate any language in real
time to your preferred language and I
told myself this is it
this is the solution to one of my
problems but of course I spoke too soon
because at that point of time the pixel
bots were retaining for 700 ring-ring it
and I didn't have that much money to
throw around so even if I did I probably
wouldn't have bought it because it's too
expensive so I told myself there's only
two options from here
it's either number one I out all my
money and spend it on the Google dicks
earlier but and be broke for the rest of
the month or I build it myself see
here's the thing ever since I was young
I've always been fascinated with
technology but unfortunately technology
comes with a very very hefty price a
price I couldn't afford back then when
people are carrying PSPs as their game
consoles
I was only carrying those 8 big games
when people had phones that we support
whatsapp I still carried a phone that
could only support SMS but it's this
exact same mentality that I was raised
in built a mindset in me that said if I
can't buy it then it's ok I'm gonna
build it myself so then I got home and I
started my work I drew an architecture
diagram of how I make that entire system
work and I research the Google API key
so once I was done with that I
researched the FCC website to get what
data and what details of the hardware
and components I'm gonna be using once I
got that sorted out I got a Google API
key and I searched more in details about
how the code and how the code base
underlying it works once that 2 were
done
I searched our voice synthesis API and
since my system was web-based I had to
get one that was webpage
as well so I settled for Responsive
Royster GS which is a JavaScript API
once everything worked I worked on the
UI I made a web interface and I made it
look nice and then once I was done and
it was perfected roughly into my own
toilet method I told myself why stop
here why do the same thing that the
company is already doing so I took it a
step further I added my own features I
added a real-time transcript writer that
could write every single thing that was
said in the conversation regardless of
how many people were in the conversation
aside from that I also added a keyword
identifier so that I could tell what the
topic was about in that conversation and
learn more about that topic so after I
was done doing his entire thing I
decided to post it on Twitter as a
thread because it's what I normally do
with all the rest of my inventions and I
thought it was going to be extremely
normal but I was wrong this time it was
extremely different they've got over
10,000 retweets and news outlets and
media companies came to cover it and it
was extremely unbelievable and
unexpected but I realized throughout
this whole thing one common thing was
people asked me wow how did you get such
great problem solving skills oh wow I
wish I had such great problem-solving
skills as well but here's the thing
problem-solving skills are not something
you have to be born with it's a mindset
and a mentality you don't have to be a
genius to be a great problem solver
essentially there are only five steps to
problem solving number one knowing what
the problem actually is number two
determining the limitations and the
boundaries number three determining what
the actual goal is number four listing
out all possible ways to attain the
goals and number five executing it and I
think the best way to walk you through
this is to tell you the start time of
how I want an engineering competition
despite having any background in
engineering so if you are an engineering
student you're most probably familiar
with the concept of robot cars I think
if I'm not mistaken it's used as an
introduction or an assignment to
engineering so one of my friends had the
same battlebot robot car concept where
the car
we'll have to race in a lane of four
against each other and the best part is
there are no rules
meaning the car can toss your car in the
air it can burn your car two fumes it
can beat the life out of your car with a
hammer and there's not a single thing
you can do about it so it was about a
week more till the competition began and
my friend had some issue with his coding
so he called me so I went and helped him
and when I went to the engineering lab I
saw a ton of other robots and at that
very moment I knew my friends 30 by 30
cm robot stood no chance against
everyone else's two-foot robot so I
decided to help him let's analyze the
scenario really quickly let's determine
what the problem actually is so we have
two problems here
number one our robot is incapable of
fighting it is practically useless it
can run to the finish line but it can't
defend itself itself if any attack come
towards its way so that's all the
question the second problem is that
everyone else had a better robot than us
so from here we know there's two
solutions
number one we either build a better
robot and bring it up to everyone's
level or number two we bring everyone's
robots down to our level step to know
what the limitations and boundaries are
so I asked my friend are you sure there
are no rules and he said yes his lecture
said the robots can be as brutal as they
want for as long as they don't hurt any
human of course there were requirements
as well such as the robots have to have
a minimum of four beings or more the
robots have to be controled by Wi-Fi
chips but that aside now that we know
what our limitations and boundaries are
we can start formulating solutions and
making sure that it doesn't exceed the
scope of what we are allowed to do step
3
make sure you know what the actual goal
is so if it isn't obvious the goal here
is to win that's true but there's many
ways you can see it so always try to
look at it from all angles in this case
I would suggest we always break the goal
down to its core before you ask yourself
how do I win
ask yourself what concept you
a win for instance when I asked my
friends what is the goal they said it's
to build the toughest most strongest
robot and to be fair that's a fair goal
to me but that's not the answer I'm
looking for because here's why even if
you had the toughest most strongest
robot you're not necessarily going to
secure win
what if midway through the race your
robots motor fails or what if another
team strategy is to emphasize more and
speed rather than strength then in both
scenarios you would have already lost
which is why I said break the goal down
to its core so when I asked myself what
the goal was it is so simple it's to
make sure that my robot was the first to
cross the finish line whether or not it
gets beaten or torn apart along the way
it doesn't matter because for as long as
my robot is the first to cross the
finish line then it has already secured
a winner step 4
list all possible ways to attain this
goal I think a great way to do this is
to get every component and aspect
involved in the scenario and see what
roles they play in each of the situation
so for this instance we have the
racetrack
we have the race car we have the remote
controllers that are controlling the
race cars and we have the people that
are controlling the remotes so let's
look at each aspect what if we wanted to
manipulate the racetrack for instance we
could have our robot or oil all over the
racetrack but that would only be
successful under the assumption that our
robot doesn't get affected by it as well
so that's a risk we have to take let's
put that aside second what if he focused
on the robot car itself well that's what
everyone is already focusing on and with
a week's left there's nothing much we
can actually do so let's put that aside
what if we focus on the people
controlling the controllers well unless
I'm Professor X and I have the ability
to manipulate people's minds into doing
what I want to do then of course we'd
win but the chances of that happening is
zero so then the perfect solution hit me
why try so hard like every other team in
attempting to kill each other's robots
when I could just kill all the remotes
stay because the concept is simple no
robot would be able to function without
its remote so I got to work in the next
three days I added an IOT chip onto the
board of the car and the robot ah and
then I wrote a script I don't do that
dictation script that would cut all
Wi-Fi networks that are connected to
each other from what I select so the
script will only execute when I ask you
to execute step 5
execution I remember on the day of the
competition itself when we walked in
everyone was laughing at our robot and I
don't blame them it came with zero
attack or defense mechanism so they were
laughing and a lot of people say they
wanted to go against our robot first
because that would secure them away we
easy win and I'll give you that but I
can still remember the moment the bell
rang indicating the start of the race
with four lanes three lanes were
swerving and people are fighting each
other and then there was our robot there
was super small moving like a snare and
while everyone was hitting each other
and fighting each other we were just
moving along the straight-line path and
when one of the teams were half way
towards the finish line I executed a
script I picked out the three teams that
the three other teams that I wanted to
do Dendi Kate and in less than seconds
the only robot moving in their Lane was
mine so in that very moment everyone was
hitting their tablets people are moving
their remotes asking why is it not
working so if you're wondering how it
works it's very simple what I did was I
exploited a flaw in the 802.11 protocol
this allows me to send frames of data to
an from an unauthorized device like mine
and the best part about this is that
regardless of how many people and how
many times you try to connect back to
that Wi-Fi you won't be able to so
everyone just stood there watching the
robot helplessly stay in their lanes
while hours hours room was moving
forward so of course at the end of the
day we want race people were extremely
upset they said that it was unfair but
to be fair it's a competition and just
like every other attack from every other
robot our attacks came from our robot as
well not a single rule
violent it so there you have it
many people ask how do you get such good
problem-solving skills and to be honest
a lot of people think problem-solving is
more of a theoretical approach but
that's actually wrong it's way way far
from that problem solving as I said is a
mindset and it's easier said than done
but there are many ways for you to train
your problem-solving skills you could do
puzzles like Rubik's cubes or you could
do competitive programming and if you
want to be better at strategy and
execution I would suggest you play chess
essentially I do my best to make sure
I'm updated with today's industry of
Technology I challenge myself every now
and then to build something new for
instance I built an augmented reality
workspace that functions just from my
phone and a card I built my own version
of Google home that controls and
automates my entire house
I even hacked the components in AM IV
and turned it into somewhat of a Tesla
so all these kind of projects while
they're a great way for me to spend my
time and to sharpen my software and
hardware skills there's also a message
I've been trying to send out to the
younger generation of Malaysians
and it's a very simple message you can
be a billion-dollar tech company you can
have a ton of resources an abundance of
employees working for you
Hector's of office space but even then a
boy in a room could still build what you
are capable of building with less than a
quarter of the resources that you have
and it's a very very simple message I
hope people take into account I realized
a lot of people within a my age the
reason they don't start something is
because they don't know where to start
but thanks to the internet that's no
longer a problem you can learn almost
anything you have an issue in your code
search it up on Stack Overflow you don't
know how something works search it up on
Google you've got websites like
Skillshare code Academy tutorials point
all of which are free and can help you
learn almost any skill you want so it's
no longer an excuse because learning is
not an overnight process it's a
recursive process of trial and error so
yeah I hope to see more students build
technologies which are in power or not
better than
all these tech giants so now let's just
take a very very small step back and
wonder from the very beginning what if I
had spent that seven hundred and get on
those earphones that's it that would be
the end of the story the end of my bank
account the start of my life in leaving
the streets because my mother would have
slapped me for spending 700 and
earphones but no instead I decided to
build it myself I spent way less money
and every single thing built was
tailored and customized myself and
that's the best part about it that's the
best part about inventing things in
general you spend way less you learn way
more and every single thing you build is
tailored to you and one of the biggest
perks is that even if it breaks and even
if one of your inventions shatters it
doesn't matter you don't have to worry
about warranties because now you can
just build a better one for yourself all
over again my name is Roshan makan and
I'll end my speech here and here
[Applause]