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Today, I am going to show you
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how this tablet and this virtual-reality headset that I'm wearing
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is going to completely revolutionize science education.
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And I'm also going to show you
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how it can make any science teacher more than twice as effective.
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But before I show you how all of this is possible,
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let's talk briefly about why improving the quality of science education
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is so vitally important.
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If you think about it,
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the world is growing incredibly fast.
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And with that growth comes a whole list of growing challenges,
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challenges such as dealing with global warming,
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solving starvation and water shortages
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and curing diseases,
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to name just a few.
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And who, exactly, is going to help us solve all of these great challenges?
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Well, to a very last degree, it is these young students.
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This is the next generation of young, bright scientists.
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And in many ways, we all rely on them
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for coming up with new, great innovations
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to help us solve all these challenges ahead of us.
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And so a couple of years back,
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my cofounder and I were teaching university students just like these,
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only the students we were teaching looked a little bit more like this here.
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(Laughter)
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And yes, this is really the reality out there
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in way too many universities around the world:
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students that are bored, disengaged
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and sometimes not even sure why they're learning about a topic in the first place.
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So we started looking around for new, innovative teaching methods,
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but what we found was quite disappointing.
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We saw that books were being turned into e-books,
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blackboards were being turned into YouTube videos
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and lecture hall monologues were being turned into MOOCs --
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massive open online courses.
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And if you think about it,
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all we're really doing here is taking the same content
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and the same format,
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and bringing it out to more students --
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which is great, don't get me wrong, that is really great --
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but the teaching method is still more or less the same,
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no real innovation there.
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So we started looking elsewhere.
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What we found was that flight simulators had been proven over and over again
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to be far more effective.
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when used in combination with real, in-flight training to train the pilots.
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And so we thought to ourselves:
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Why not just apply that to science?
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Why not build a virtual laboratory simulator?
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Well, we did it.
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We basically set out to create
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a fully simulated, one-to-one, virtual reality laboratory simulator,
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where the students could perform experiments
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with mathematical equations
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that would simulate what would happen in a real-world lab.
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But not just simple simulations --
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we would also create advanced simulations
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with top universities like MIT,
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to bring out cutting-edge cancer research to these students.
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And suddenly, the universities could save millions of dollars
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by letting the students perform virtual experiments
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before they go into the real laboratory.
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And not only that; now, they could also understand --
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even on a molecular level inside the machine --
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what is happening to the machines.
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And then they could suddenly perform
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dangerous experiments in the labs as well.
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For instance also here,
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learning about salmonella bacteria, which is an important topic
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that many schools cannot teach for good safety reasons.
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And we, of course, quiz the students
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and then give the teachers a full dashboard,
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so they fully understand where the students are at.
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But we didn't stop there,
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because we had seen just how important meaning is
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for the students' engagement in the class.
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So we brought in game designers
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to create fun and engaging stories.
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For instance, here in this case,
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where the students have to solve a mysterious CSI murder case
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using their core science skills.
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And the feedback we got when we launched all of this
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was quite overwhelmingly positive.
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Here we have 300 students,
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all passionately solving CSI murder cases
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while learning core science skills.
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And what I love the most about this
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is really when the students come up to me sometimes afterwards,
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all surprised and a little confused,
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and say, "I just spent two hours in this virtual lab,
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and ... and I didn't check Facebook."
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(Laughter)
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That's how engaging and immersive this really is for the students.
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And so, to investigate whether this really worked,
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a learning psychologist did a study with 160 students --
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that was from Stanford University and Technical University of Denmark.
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And what they did is split the students into two groups.
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One group would only use the virtual laboratory simulations,
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the other group would only use traditional teaching methods,
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and they had the same amount of time.
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Then, interestingly,
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they gave the students a test before and after the experiment,
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so they could clearly measure the learning impact of the students.
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And what they found
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was a surprisingly high 76 percent increase in the learning effectiveness
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when using virtual laboratories over traditional teaching methods.
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But even more interestingly,
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the second part of this study investigated
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what the teacher's impact was on the learning.
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And what they found
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was that when you combined the virtual laboratories
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with teacher-led coaching and mentoring,
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then we saw a total 101 percent increase in the learning effectiveness,
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which effectively doubles the science teacher's impact
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with the same amount of time spent.
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So a couple of months back,
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we started asking ourselves --
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we have a wonderful team now of learning psychologists
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and teachers and scientists and game developers --
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and we started asking ourselves:
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How can we keep ourselves to our promise
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of constantly reimagining education?
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And today, I am really excited to be presenting what we came up with
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and have been working incredibly hard to create.
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I will explain briefly what this is.
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Basically, I take my mobile phone --
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most students already have these, smartphones --
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and I plug it into this virtual-reality headset, a low-cost headset.
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And now what I can effectively do is,
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I can literally step into this virtual world.
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We'll have some of you in the audience also get to try this,
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because it is really something that you have to try
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to fully feel how immersive it really is.
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It literally feels like I just stepped inside this virtual lab.
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Do you see me up on the screen?
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Yes.
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Great! Awesome.
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So basically, I have just turned my mobile phone
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into a fully simulated, million-dollar Ivy League laboratory
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with all this amazing equipment that I can interact with.
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I can, for instance, pick up the pipette and do experiments with it.
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I have my E-gel, my PCR and -- oh, look there,
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I have my next-generation sequencing machine,
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and there I even have my electron microscope.
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I mean, who's carrying around an electron microscope in their pocket?
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And here I have my machine,
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I can do different experiments on the machine.
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And over here I have the door,
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I can go into other experiments,
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I can perform in the laboratories.
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And here, I have my learning tablet.
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This is an intelligent tablet
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that allows me to read about relevant theory.
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As you can see, I can interact with it.
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I can watch videos and see content that is relevant
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to the experiment that I'm performing right now.
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Then over here, I have Marie.
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She is my teacher -- my lab assistant --
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and what she does is guides me through this whole laboratory.
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And very soon,
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the teachers will be able to literally teleport themselves
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into this virtual world that I'm in right now
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and help me, guide me, through this whole experiment.
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And now before I finalize this,
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I want to show you an even cooler thing, I think --
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something you cannot even do in real laboratories.
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This is a PCR machine.
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I'm now going to start this experiment.
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And what I just did is literally shrunk myself a million times
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into the size of a molecule --
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and it really feels like it, you have to try this.
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So now it feels like I'm standing inside the machine
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and I'm seeing all the DNA, and I see the molecules.
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I see the polymerase and the enzymes and so forth.
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And I can see how in this case,
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DNA is being replicated millions of times,
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just like it's happening inside your body right now.
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And I can really feel and understand how all of this works.
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Now, I hope that gives you a little bit of a sense
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of the possibilities in these new teaching methods.
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And I want to also emphasize
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that everything you just saw also works on iPads and laptops
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without the headsets.
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I say that for a very important reason.
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In order for us to really empower and inspire
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the next generation of scientists,
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we really need teachers to drive the adoption
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of new technologies in the classroom.
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And so in many ways,
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I believe that the next big, quantum leap in science education
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lies no longer with the technology,
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but rather with the teachers' decision
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to push forward and adopt these technologies
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inside the classrooms.
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And so it is our hope that more universities and schools and teachers
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will collaborate with technology companies
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to realize this full potential.
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And so,
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lastly, I'd like to leave you with a little story
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that really inspires me.
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And that is the story of Jack Andraka.
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Some of you might already know him.
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Jack invented a new, groundbreaking low-cost test for pancreatic cancer
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at the age 15.
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And when Jack shares his story of how he did this huge breakthrough,
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he also explains that one thing almost prevented him
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from making this breakthrough.
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And that was that he did not have access to real laboratories,
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because he was too inexperienced
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to be allowed in.
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Now, imagine if we could bring
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Ivy League, million-dollar virtual laboratories
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out to all these students just like Jack,
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all over the world,
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and give them the latest, greatest, most fancy machines you can imagine
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that would quite literally make any scientist in here
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jump up and down out of pure excitement.
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And then imagine how that would empower and inspire
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a whole new generation of young and bright scientists,
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ready to innovate and change the world.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
