at 15 Jack andraka found a new way to
detect pancreatic cancer his way was a
hundred and fifty times faster 25,000
times cheaper and up to 50 percent more
accurate than the methods currently used
in most hospitals in New York 20
year-old john mayer started a company
called fresco news closed the 1.6
million dollar round to funding and has
made 25 hires all in less than 12 months
and all while saving major media
companies time and money and delivering
important information to the general
public I mean when he was 17 Conrad
Farnsworth developed a nuclear fusion
reactor in his garage for less than five
thousand dollars who wears in the 1940s
it took the work of three governments
seven years 130,000 people and twenty
six billion dollars by today's standards
to create the first atomic bomb well at
least people had fancy PhDs or any
college degrees yet at all they didn't
have billions of dollars in funding when
they started nor had they had
traditional career paths they simply
identified problems worth solving found
the people resources and know-how needed
to develop solutions and create
opportunities for themselves to make a
positive impact all these examples do
however point to one important
historical fact never before have young
people had this much power positioning
and potential to change the world since
2012 and had the absolute pleasure of
studying and interviewing hundreds of
Millennials just like Jack John and
Conrad who are breaking down barriers
and making a positive impact it's been a
mission of mine both personally and
professionally to locate these
individuals discover what has made them
so successful and to share those
insights with as many people and
corporations as possible there are three
things and almost everyone I've
connected with housing common three
things that all of us can learn from in
order to achieve the same kind of
exponential and expedite success that
they've had they all harness the power
of our fully connected world embrace an
entrepreneurial mindset
collaborate at mass scale we live in a
world today where information that used
to be powered through word of mouth
stories former classrooms and on-the-job
training has now become instantly
available to anyone with enough interest
in a given subject Millennials
especially have never known a world
without this on-demand access and as a
result have always been able to
recognize filter through and learn more
about anything that we are really
passionate about take Canadian activist
Brittany McMillan as an example while
she was on tumblr in high school shirred
about the stories of LGBTQ youth who
committed suicide after facing
homophobic bullying in order to prevent
more young people from taking their
lives in the future she started an
online movement called spirit day and
after sharing this movement via most of
the major social media platforms the Gay
and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
noticed her efforts and joined forces in
order to educate as many members of the
public as possible about this issue in
fact today is the sixth annual
anniversary of spirit day so if you go
online you'll see all the major tweets
and this example shows us perhaps the
most beautiful result of our
hyper-connected world which is our
ability to collaborate with each other
in ways that were previously
unimaginable collaboration has always
been an important element of success
what makes many Millennials unique is
their willingness to seek partnerships
advice and community on a more global
scale we're seeing a world in which
ambitious young entrepreneurs all
influential and fearless in their own
right or thinking less about
outperforming their competition and
instead are thinking more about out
collaborating their competition by
partnering with those who share similar
intentions and visions about solving a
specific problem personally after both
successfully starting my first few
businesses at 15 and 16 and then
spectacularly failing at each of them I
realized that I could get a lot farther
my work by connecting with a community
of young entrepreneurs taking on similar
projects and challenges as I was did
this mean I had to give up my unique
identity or that my skill sets and
strengths will become less valuable if I
involved others in my work of course not
with this in mind over the last few
years I have created a community where
people
just like us could share career
opportunities in council with one
another meet hundreds of like-minded
peers and pass along invites to top
events and programs the environment of
collaboration that we've fostered has
allowed us to solve problems faster
together than if we worked on them by
ourselves and really any organization
collaborate as we do at mass scale in
order to enhance the speed and magnitude
which is possible to innovate but
ultimately living in a globally
connected world and having the ability
to collaborate with one another doesn't
mean anything unless we act
entrepreneurially on our ideas but it
doesn't necessarily mean that you have
to start a business in fact ninety
percent of Millennials leave that
entrepreneurship is a mindset rather
than simply the role of business
ownership which may explain why many
young people have taken upon themselves
to solve big problems rather than
relying on traditional methods or
institutions whether it means raising
lots of money to build a successful
company organizing a nonprofit to fight
for a worthy cause we're leading science
research that may one day eradicate a
disease entrepreneurship seems to be one
of the best ways to achieve exponential
impact in a world of increasing
unpredictability someone who exemplifies
this fact is my friend Lew Wagner who
started kids against animal cruelty at
just 14 in order to rescue abused
animals from high kill shelters what
began with just 42 volunteers in a
simple Facebook group has grown to over
20,000 members in more than 15 state
chapters and each day his organization
works to save hundreds of animals find
new homes for abused pets and meet with
local governments to pass new animal
rights laws Lew and his volunteers see
opportunities to do good and act
entrepreneurial e to solve problems when
they find them it's been humbling for me
over the last few years to learn from
people like Lou it's been inspiring to
see so many people who have been able to
change the world at a young age but
really I'm here to share with you an
even bigger idea a more exciting trend
which is that every city
one of us has the same power and the
same potential that these young people
have in order to positively influence
those around us the stories I've chosen
to share with you today and I hope you
choose to share with others remind us of
an important and timeless message which
is that our problems won't solve
themselves that our ability to innovate
is greater than ever before we all have
power now that only governments
corporations and the super wealthy had
just a few generations prior and using
the tools strategies and mindsets of
young people changing the world today
not only can we all experience personal
success in record time but together we
could solve exponential each Allen geing
problems faster than ever before so
there's only a few questions from me
that remain one what problems are you
going to solve to who are you going to
solve them with and three when are we
going to get started thank you