Translator: Naoko Fujii Reviewer: Reiko Bovee
90% of the brain power on our planet is frantically working
to solve the problems of the wealthiest 10%.
Think about it.
Most of the brilliant minds you know
are probably figuring out algorithms to increase online sales,
rather than working on solving the problems for the other 90%.
Why?
Because in the face of so much adversity,
lack of water, sanitation, education, income,
most of us feel paralyzed, feel helpless;
we truly don't believe that we have the power
to influence lasting change in this world.
But what if ordinary people,
people like you and I did have that power,
what would you do?
Would you seed rain clouds to avert the water crisis on our planet?
Or would you use artificial intelligence
to educate the 1.3 billion children who cannot go to school?
Or how about capturing the power of the Sun from suborbital space
and beaming it back down to Earth to feed our growing energy needs?
And how would you do all this quickly, affordably,
and ensure that it reaches the people who need it the most?
But wait a minute. I see some skeptical looks in the audience.
You guys don't think all this is possible, right?
You think this is just big grandiose talk.
Well, I'm here today to convince you that this is possible;
this is not just empty talk.
I believe that you and I are capable of world change, radical world change.
But we need a little grease to get our wheels in motion,
a little bit of incentive.
And this incentive that I am talking about
is often a potent mixture of passion, drive, and money.
Let me explain.
But first, let's have a quick show of hands.
How many of you have ever flown on an airplane?
All of you. Great.
And how many of you have ever used
the GPS on your phone or a compass to find a location?
Almost all of you. Great.
And how many of you have ever opened a can of food?
Good.
But even a hundred years ago, some of these seemed completely improbable.
And yet it happened, didn't it?
It happened because some ordinary person was often incentivized
to provide a groundbreaking solution.
220 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte put out a prize
for 15,000 francs for the first person
who could safely package, preserve, and transport food during wartime.
Nicolas Appert, a common candy maker,
came up with a revolutionary technology called canning
that we all use today and that is how food gets in your jars and cans.
And 300 years ago,
the British Navy put out a 20,000 pound prize
for the first person to be able to measure longitude at sea.
John Harrison,
an ordinary self-educated carpenter and clock maker, astounded the Navy
and came up with this invention
of the marine chronometer that measured longitude
and enabled for the last three centuries
all the innovations in GPS and navigation that we cannot do without today.
And less than 100 years ago,
Charles Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris
motivated by a 25,000 dollar prize
promised to the first successful transatlantic pilot.
Did you know that Lindbergh was a complete underdog in this race?
He had only had his pilot's license for two years
before he made that momentous flight, a flight that opened up
a multibillion dollar commercial aviation industry
that touches all of our lives today.
These are the stories that inspired us at XPRIZE
and made us believe in the power of ordinary people
to do extraordinary things.
At XPRIZE, we design and launch large scale, audacious competitions
to find breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.
Throughout prizes we call out to innovators across the planet
and we can ask them to come and solve the problems that we have at hand
because we believe that the day before something is a breakthrough,
it is still a crazy idea.
In 2004, a few such crazies across 26 international teams
responded to our challenge, a 10 million dollar challenge
for private space flight to open up for commercialization,
for exploration, and for science: space, mankind's last frontier.
And that year, the winner, SpaceShip One took off
from a dusty airfield in the Mojave Desert
and climbed into suborbital space, carrying with it, one ordinary passenger,
kicking off a multibillion dollar private space industry
that today has players like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX,
who are competing with NASA and Israel, and governments around the world.
XPRIZE is now bringing its radical innovation engine to India
to create exponential breakthroughs for the other 90%,
tackling the issues in water scarcity, malnutrition, energy storage.
Why India?
Because India provides the perfect testing ground for us
with its entrepreneurial spirit,
and the potential to test social problems at massive scale.
But India is already competing
in two of our biggest challenges that we have right now.
One, to build in land a rover on the Moon.
And the other, to create a hand-held device
that non-invasively diagnoses up to 18 diseases.
Both these challenges are in their final stages of judging,
and among the finalists are two daring teams from India.
Team Dhanvantari from Chennai
whose ridiculously affordable device is going to change global health care.
The device is small enough to fit in the palm of my hand,
and yet powerful enough to diagnose diseases for an entire village.
And then, there is team Indus, the group of self-declared lunatics,
the group of marketing and business guys
who knew nothing about the Moon when they signed up for the challenge,
but they did know how to build a successful business in Bangalore
and hired the brightest engineers to fulfill their dream
of putting the Indian flag back again on the Moon.
The most inspirational part of all of this
is that the teams never do this just for the money,
but they do this for the opportunity to be the first in a new industry,
and in an industry that'd truly transform mankind.
With the determination to shake up the status quo,
and a little bit of money,
they are always just ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
So let's shake up this 90:10 ratio
and reach out, lasso the future, and pull it into now.
Today, I am calling out to all of you
to fire up your imagination, to start your creative engines
and tell me, if you could change the world today,
what would you prize?
Would you create a prize to 3D printer organs for transplant?
Or would you create a prize to grow food in the sky
to feed the impending nine billion mouths on our planet?
Or would you create an army of nanobots that can course through our blood stream
searching and destroying cancer cells, thereby saving millions of lives?
Well, today I am listening to you,
so get ready to answer my question,
take out your phones and tell me:
in this vast universe of possibilities,
what do you prize?
(Applause)