New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman,
once said, "More and more kids
will have to invent their jobs
and then reinvent, re-engineer,
and reimagine their jobs
to remain competitive
in this new competitive world."
The world is changing at a faster pace
than it ever has before,
and with the emergence of other countries,
and with the increased rate of technology
we have to deal with
this new sort of society.
Many people say that the solution to this
would be a more qualified workforce,
one that exchanges
high school degrees for PhDs.
Therefore,
the age of a high school degree
getting you a stable job, is now over.
This is a diagram trying to represent
how knowledge grows
over time in human society.
As times goes on,
you see the radius of this circle
increasing, and it comes to a point
where many say that,
there is just too much to know,
that we have to start splitting up
the task amongst other people.
But the inherit problem
with specialization
is that it limits ideas we're exposed to,
what sort of problems
we have to deal with,
and also the techniques
that people use to solve these issues.
One of the things that may happen
because of increased specialization
is what my friend likes to call
tumors on our sphere of knowledge.
There are fields that are
very well researched and well developed,
and then there are other fields
that are completely neglected.
This is not necessarily
the best view of knowledge, though.
I preferably like this one,
one of the web.
A bunch of different fields
interconnected together
in a way that creates
new and interesting ideas.
For instance, many of you may have thought
meteorology is just taking
barometric pressure or temperature
and then trying to predict the weather,
but now it's a combination of physics,
mathematics, and computer science.
Robotics inherently is a combination
of mechanical, electrical,
and computing engineering.
And even business is no longer
just management, accounting, or marketing,
it also requires a deep understanding
of the technologies
underneath a product or service.
All these fields require
a large amount of specialization
and large qualifications
to be taken seriously.
However, I, as a high school student,
have had some success
in each one of these fields.
While specialization gives you
a nice depth into a problem
is more important in the future
to understand problems,
understand how to learn and apply
knowledge, and how to develop solutions.
So this idea of the web
may be a bit abstract,
but the implications already exist today.
I already talked about robotics.
Another related field is machine-learning,
one that combines ideas from neuroscience
ideas from sociology
about how the brain works
and how ideas move
through different groups,
to help computers make decisions
and act more human.
Another interesting idea is
one from biomechanical engineering
that uses ideas
from electrical engineering
using overlaid substrates,
as a way to simulate bodily functions;
this chip is in fact a lung.
So, if education is not the only answer,
then, how would you go about
solving problems in the future?
Well, there are many techniques,
but they all end up having
the same sort of structure.
First of all,
you have to define the problem,
otherwise, all you're doing
is a mental exercise.
Secondly, you have to learn
about your problem,
you have to understand what it entails,
what people want in a solution,
and perhaps what technologies
or ideas from other fields
may be applicable
to helping you solve this.
The second step is creating
the idea, solving the problem,
and perhaps creating
a mockup or something.
But the final step is to execute.
An idea is great,
but if you don't have something
that other people can touch and feel,
then you actually
haven't solved the problem.
And then, you have to step back,
and you have to look at your solution,
and you have to see, "Does it actually
solve the issue I set out to solve?"
A good example
of this first step of learning
is Fairview High School's
mobile web application.
The existing website,
though well created and very functional,
does not help students
who are trying to access
information on their mobile phones,
and as it's becoming more prevalent,
it's a pressing issue.
So, what I did is, I started,
and I worked with some students,
talking about what features
they want in their phone
or what they want in their app,
and then what features
they already had on the website.
Then I also investigated technologies
like Ruby on Rails or jQuery Mobile,
both tools that developers use today
to do this sort of thing.
And then it doesn't stop there.
I went back
after I released the first version,
and I talked again to these students.
I asked them what they thought,
and what we can improve on,
and in one year we've already gone
through three versions of this one app.
So, a good example
of the second step is this.
This is a mockup of an idea
we have been working on
at the University of Colorado, Boulder,
and Correll Lab, a small robotics lab
where we work on ideas
surrounding emergent behavior,
replicating the ideas that we see
in areas like beehives,
or anthills, or even cities,
where different little organisms
work together to complete common goals.
We try to replicate this with robotics
and each one of those hexagons
you see on this picture
is supposed to be a different robot
that communicates with its neighbors.
So, the problem we're trying to solve here
was one of office spaces.
There are two types
of office spaces nowadays:
there is the cubicle-based system,
which is one that breaks up conversation
but allows for a lot of privacy,
and then there is one that is
the open plan system,
which uses an open space structure
to increase the amount
of conversation between workers,
but does not allow any room
for private and personal thought.
We aimed to create a system that takes
the best aspect of both of these,
while solving other problems
like energy efficiency, lighting,
ventilation, and information displays.
This is great and all, but...
if you don't have an actual solution
like I said, it doesn't mean anything.
So, over the course of three months
I worked with the University of Colorado,
and we created this system of blocks.
They are made out of acrylic,
they have a front panel
that has an LCD film on it
that allows it to change transparency
and a circuit board built-in
that has LEDs and other sorts of sensors.
This bring me to two points.
The first is, though having
a solution is important
and being a perfectionist,
and getting it done is great,
you have to understand
when good enough is good enough,
because if you can't get it out
then, it again, doesn't help anybody.
For me, good enough,
was a basic user interface
and some hard coded functionality.
This was not only good enough for me
it was also good enough
for an international conference
on how people interact with technology.
The second point is
that solutions are hard
and don't necessarily work all the time.
It is a good measure
if something is worthwhile doing,
if you fail a couple of times
and keep wanting to do it.
So if I can leave you
with one point is this:
Tony Wagner, an expert in residence
at Harvard University, said,
"Young people who are
intrinsically motivated, persistent,
curious, and willing to take risks,
will learn new knowledge and new skills,
be able to take advantage of opportunities
and create their own quality
that will be increasingly important
as traditional careers disappear.
Thank you.
(Applause)
