[Applause]
every single one of us here every single
one of us here can change the world in
three seconds that's right
three seconds and it begins with the
decision that you and I make every
single day a decision that is often
confusing rushed and almost always
unintuitive
I want everyone here to think about the
last time that you walked up with that
Starbucks cup that had a lid in his
sleeve maybe a lick a little bit of
liquid inside of it and you walked up to
a bin that looked like this what were
you feeling what was going through your
mind did you feel a little bit
subconscious did it make you feel a
little bit stupid
or did you completely ignore it I know a
lot of people walk up to that bin and
they look left and right and contaminate
the bin and that three second decision
is where this all began
when we walk up to that bin what
actually happens is that we get this
decision wrong about 70% of the time so
we only get it right
about 30% let's really think about that
70% of the time imagine you're taking a
flight from here to San Francisco and
70% of the time you might end up in New
York Tokyo or Chittagong Bangladesh and
so when we contaminate by taking the
wrong decision buildings have no choice
other than sending it to landfill and
this is where a lot of misconceptions
begin a lot of us actually are convinced
and believe that recycling doesn't
really work I've tried my best but the
city just dumps it into landfills so why
am I doing this but what actually
happens is we get it right only 30% of
the time and recycling facilities cannot
take that amount of contamination
because it jams up their machinery
causing millions of dollars of damage
when you look at the problem on a global
level
it gets even scarier the World Bank
estimated in 2011 that 98% 98% of
whatever you and I generate end up in
landfills oceans or we burn it all of
those materials that we've put in so
much effort in extracting out of our
fragile finite earth we end up burning
it or dumping it in these lentils
for the longest time we've also sent
that waste and we've brush it under the
rug and we shipped it to willing
importers like China that have really
helped cocoon us from these harsh
realities of our waste but they've had
enough they've imposed bans and they're
shutting their doors they don't want it
anymore and following China Philippines
Vietnam Indonesia Malaysia in every
other country that we used to send our
ways to doesn't want it anymore we here
in North America Europe and other
countries are really forced to rethink
the way that we've been recycling and we
simply cannot half-ass this anymore
for a very long time we've also believed
that somehow somewhere our waste
provides them with an income this is
what I'd like to call rock bottom
humanity
we've negated entire communities to
mountains upon mountains of trash
exposing them to toxic chemicals open
syringes and various viruses and
diseases just so that we could get rid
of our waste I also let you in on
another dirty secret
most of these waste management these
recycling companies are not in the
business of recycling our trash they are
in the business of hauling our trash
from one location to another getting
paid once and then dumping it into
landfills that most of the times they
own themselves to getting paid twice for
one single piece of waste and so when we
got into this field of garbology
it's an actual fuel gauge what we saw
was that buildings really didn't know
how good they were doing because the
only data they actually had was from
these waste management companies and
that really got us thinking that we
measure every single thing we measure
electricity so that we could save it we
measure water so that we could conserve
it
heck in this day and age we measure our
footsteps
so that we could live a healthier life
but why not trash
there's no sensor or way to measure
trash and how do we expect to reduce
something that we don't measure oh there
is one process though it's very
technologically advanced so I need you
to bear with me as I explain the the
most advanced process to measure waste
by buildings it's by digging through
trash they hire people to come into the
building tear garbage bags apart and
then they write a report and once this
post-mortem report is submitted
sustainability experts get together to
figure out mainly one thing why couldn't
you and I get that three second decision
correctly
and so what we really understood was
that this entire process takes a very
long time the building's measure this
waste so that they could draft out
proposals change bins labels just so
that we can make that decision correctly
but this year-long process by the time
it's done the brands have changed their
packaging cities have introduced three
new regulations and what could once
belong in that blue bin now belongs
completely somewhere else and so we
really asked herself how could we
measure waste efficiently but at the
same time let people know that
dynamically as the rules change as the
markets change so that it doesn't end up
in landfills and so most of you are as
as we you know whenever we go to a new
city my team and I were a bit crazy
we're a bit weird you know you guys
notice the architecture the landmark but
when we walk up we go to a new city we
notice the garbage bins that's what we
love and so we notice the symbol is how
hard did it take somebody to actually
sort trash out and so it wasn't long
before with our robotics background we
tried to tackle and create a solution
for this and that's exactly what we did
we said you know what people don't get
this right let's throw them out of the
loop let's automate this entire process
and that's exactly what we did
so we built a bin that you could walk up
and you throw your item and it puts it
into the right bin when we said let's
take that even further
that was a good clap
but it's gonna get better so we took
that idea we said let's apply that to
recycling facilities so that we could
sort out the entire city's waste and
then we said that same concept could be
applied to clean up our oceans but then
it sort of struck us that these are not
sustainable solutions it's a bandaid
upon a much much deeper problem at the
source and so rather than handing
somebody the fish we really knew that we
have to teach people how to fish and so
what we created is called Oscar Oscar is
an AI that sits right behind a garbage
bin using AI it sees what you have in
your hand and it makes that decision
very very intuitive so if you have a
Starbucks cup it'll ask you to separate
it and sort it out until you do it you
get it right Oscar gives you a reward
so really this is the first time anybody
is being incentivized to recycle
correctly if you put it into the wrong
bin I hope you don't because this Oscar
does get grouchy so it will it will
shout at you and so we took this entire
Oscar experience and we went to
universities and we wanted to see how
would people react when we proposed this
new behavior change and what we saw was
phenomenal what we saw was students were
willing to steal a trash from you in
order to get their reward
you're probably also wondering how does
this this AI actually work this Oscar
how does it see what I have in my hand
and so it sees the world similarly to us
but Oscar kind of focuses on garbage a
little bit more than us that's what it
lives and breeds on every single day it
learns similar to how you teach a child
or you teach a puppy a new trick you if
it's done the right thing you give it a
reward that's what we do we show it
millions of times what a coffee cup
could look like if it gets it wrong then
we get a chance to Grouch at it and it
learns similar to how we learn and by
placing Oscar at malls universities
airports in San Francisco Calgary
Toronto Vancouver what we've seen is
that 30% where you and I were that has
gone to 91%
91% is unheard of and what that actually
means is that one Oscar just one Oscar
every single year is going to be
eliminating about 20 cars worth of
emissions one Oscar 20 cars and our plan
in the next five years is to provide
200,000 Oscars which will enable and
eliminate emissions from 4 million cars
every single year
[Applause]
that is the power of Education and
nudging people at the source now as I
wrap up my my trash talk here I really
want to go back to those those three
seconds those three seconds will help
eliminate and divert this waste away
from landfills oceans and third world
countries those three seconds will
eliminate emissions from 4 million cars
those 3 seconds can alter lives of
children that are forced to work in
these landfills those 3 seconds
you know what I would really really
appreciate if everybody could do me a
big favor and stand up and rise with me
here
and we're gonna count down from three to
one ready three that's all it takes
thank you
[Applause]
you