Transcriber: Michael Queener Reviewer: David DeRuwe
We come from many different places,
but one thing we all have in common is that we have all played games
while growing up.
Games are a natural mirror of the world of the social humans
by way of mimicking real social scenarios,
developing new skills,
satisfying our curiosity,
and making friends -
and all while having fun.
As a teenager,
I grew up behind the Iron Curtain in socialist Bulgaria,
and each night after school, I'd lie on my bedroom floor,
plowing through books on philosophy and religion.
I was trying to make sense of the world and to find the meaning of life.
An influential figure in my life introduced me to a new way of thinking
through books on Eastern philosophy,
which were not easily available at the time.
It was he who introduced me to the game of Go,
a humble board with 361 intersections and black and white stones.
In the late 1980s, the Iron Curtain fell,
forging a new sense of connectedness with the rest of the world,
together with the ability to travel and to search for the meaning of life.
I pursued traveling, and I decided to be a global citizen
together with that sense of freedom that swept across Eastern Europe.
I lived in Wellington, Dubai, Moscow, Seoul, Sydney, Prague, Sofia,
and everywhere I went, there was a local Go club,
mirroring the global sense of connectedness,
as if the latitude and the longitude of the globe were reflected
on the micro-grid of the Go board.
While on the personal level it was relatively easy
to relate the game of Go to my own experience,
it wasn't until I started to search into the origin and history of the game
when I began to uncover the reasons
why Go is so applicable to real-life scenarios,
and why it has sustained its undisputed place in the world today.
To do so, however,
I first had to address my own ignorance
of the deeply embedded traditions in the East.
And I will explain why.
Go was invented in China 40 centuries ago,
and its original purpose was to teach strategic thinking.
This is evident from the translation of the word in China, "wei qi,"
"surround" and "board" -
or literally, "the surrounding" or the "encircling game."
Regarded as a highly elitist game in the empire, Go's original purpose
was not only to teach strategic thinking, but to mimic concepts of real life -
so much so that Go was and still is known as the universal game.
I will give you three examples:
First, a central concept within Go is creating web-like connections
or the opportunities for those connections to occur
where a threat presents to the group.
This is vital for their survival.
Go players refer to groups as living or dead,
depending on the local situation.
What makes a group alive is not the number of physical stones on the board.
Size does not matter.
What matters is the space within the groups that makes it alive.
Think about the space within as the shared value that we share now
with social connections that sustain those groups,
rather than the number or the size of our social connections.
Within the framework of Go logic, humans are social creatures,
seeking to form meaningful connections with others for their own survival
and for the survival of the group.
We are stronger together, and what matters in life is that we get along
despite our differences in age, religion, political views, or race.
Secondly, Go is a way of communication, a conversation by hands.
It's a powerful tool to communicate different ways of thinking.
It's essential in reaching compromises while dividing the space
based on mutual respect and understanding.
Since the Go board offers an immense number of opportunities
to play with its 361 intersections,
controlling the entire space -
it's impossible.
And this challenges the traditional Western perspective
to strategic games
where destroying your opponent's pieces and your opponent's territory
is the ultimate goal of the game.
It's a desirable outcome of the game,
and often the only way to determine a winner.
Yet in the Go world, an aggressive approach to the game,
aiming to dominate the entire territory without recognizing the need
of your opponent to coexist, to form its own space,
is the surest way to lose the game.
And this is simply illustrated by the first of the 10 strategies of Go:
"Don't be greedy."
A novice player is quick to learn
that being greedy is not one of the biggest mistakes to make,
but also one that makes you feel like a fool.
In my first 100 games, I aimed to win every battle,
only to realize that I've lost an entire side of the board
or of the bigger picture,
and I'm still learning this lesson today.
Thirdly, in Go all stones are of equal value,
which could be easily related to the principles of equity and inclusion.
Go players rely on their long-term vision to place each stone.
Go is a creative game, where players start with an empty board
and then end with a mosaic-like full picture,
where imagination is just as important as logical thinking and problem solving.
This can be easily related to real life.
A stone placed in the right place of the board
has the potential to overturn the entire result, even in the endgame,
something impossible in other strategic games.
In real life, this means that we all make choices every day,
and thus we have the opportunity to change our lives at any one point.
At one point in my life, I felt like I've lost all battles,
as if all of my stones have been wrongly placed on the board.
I survived domestic violence, and I started a new life,
forming a new sense of place in a new territory.
When I landed in Perth about 10 years ago, it was a beautiful and sunny day,
just like today, but I didn't know anyone.
Metaphorically speaking, I placed a stone in a new area of the board.
The Perth Go Club became my place to form connections with people
from diverse backgrounds and to make new friends.
Go became my 19-by-19 pillar of strength
where I could form meaningful connections with people from different backgrounds.
Here, in the microcosmos of the Go board,
I could battle while reflecting on real-life problems.
It offered the perfect place, both physically and mentally,
to practice some of the ancient principles in Go:
"Don't be greedy on winning." "Aim to sacrifice to take the lead."
"Compromise when in trouble."
Before you declare me for a Go master, I have a confession to make.
I'm one of the worst Go players in Perth.
(Laughter)
The reason that I continue to play is not necessarily to win,
but to develop skills that I can use in my everyday life,
to make better decisions,
and to inspire others to benefit from the strategies of Go.
Go is a simple yet complex game. Everyone can learn the rules in minutes.
Yet the deceivingly simple rules of Go contrast with its strategies,
which is so immensely complex that they even baffled
artificial intelligence through the DeepMind AlphaGo Challenge.
So is it this ability of the game
to stimulate logical thinking and problem solving,
and to provoke our imagination
that has sustained the game of Go over 4,000 years?
And why has it been ignored for so long in the West?
My answer is that above anything else, Go offers a unique way
of connecting people, places, and culture -
a cultural bridge through time.
Go offers a millennia-old, strategic, tangible tool to teach skills
that are just as relevant today as they were in the past.
For example, in the business world,
this could simply mean
that instead of seeing your business competitor
as your opponent or your enemy,
you see them as your teachers.
Forming connections based on trust and respect
could be as simple as asking for a game following the Go etiquette,
which is, "Please teach me."
So what if we could bridge centuries
of strategic thinking to modern boardrooms
and gamify strategic thinking using the lessons of the Go game?
And what if we can teach children new, transferable skills through gaming?
In my opinion, Go is destined to take over chess
and to teach us lessons that we cannot even imagine.
Go has the immense potential to teach both hard and soft skills.
Students who play Go are found to form better relations with their peers,
to have higher marks and better concentration.
Go has the potential to teach Australian children
problem solving and imagination and creativity.
In fact, this is exactly one of the goals in the Australian school curriculum:
to develop students as global citizens while providing a cultural bridge
with some of our closest neighbors in the ancient century.
I have a vision: in every boardroom, in every schoolroom, in every university,
to have a Go board,
to be able to make better decisions,
to be able to teach young people how to think,
to be able to form a new set of values
in tune with the better angels of our nature.
I dream of more places to connect,
more places to play,
and more freedom to learn.
Only then, we can forge a new sense of freedom,
learn to appreciate differences,
and grow the next generation of leaders.
Thank you.
(Applause)