When I was little , I thought my country was the best on the planet , and I grew up singing a song called " Nothing To Envy . " And I was very proud . In school , we spent a lot of time studying the history of Kim Il-Sung , but we never learned much about the outside world , except that America , South Korea , Japan are the enemies . Although I often wondered about the outside world , I thought I would spend my entire life in North Korea , until everything suddenly changed . When I was seven years old , I saw my first public execution , but I thought my life in North Korea was normal . My family was not poor , and myself , I had never experienced hunger . But one day , in 1995 , my mom brought home a letter from a coworker 's sister . It read , " When you read this , all five family members will not exist in this world , because we haven 't eaten for the past two weeks . We are lying on the floor together , and our bodies are so weak we are ready to die . " I was so shocked . This was the first time I heard that people in my country were suffering . Soon after , when I was walking past a train station , I saw something terrible that I can 't erase from my memory . A lifeless woman was lying on the ground , while an emaciated child in her arms just stared helplessly at his mother 's face . But nobody helped them , because they were so focused on taking care of themselves and their families . A huge famine hit North Korea in the mid-1990s . Ultimately , more than a million North Koreans died during the famine , and many only survived by eating grass , bugs and tree bark . Power outages also became more and more frequent , so everything around me was completely dark at night except for the sea of lights in China , just across the river from my home . I always wondered why they had lights but we didn 't . This is a satellite picture showing North Korea at night compared to neighbors . This is the Amrok River , which serves as a part of the border between North Korea and China . As you can see , the river can be very narrow at certain points , allowing North Koreans to secretly cross . But many die . Sometimes , I saw dead bodies floating down the river . I can 't reveal many details [ about ] how I left North Korea , but I only can say that during the ugly years of the famine I was sent to China to live with distant relatives . But I only thought that I would be separated from my family for a short time . I could have never imagined that it would take 14 years to live together . In China , it was hard living as a young girl without my family . I had no idea what life was going to be like as a North Korean refugee , but I soon learned it 's not only extremely difficult , it 's also very dangerous , since North Korean refugees are considered in China as illegal migrants . So I was living in constant fear that my identity could be revealed , and I would be repatriated to a horrible fate back in North Korea . One day , my worst nightmare came true , when I was caught by the Chinese police and brought to the police station for interrogation . Someone had accused me of being North Korean , so they tested my Chinese language abilities and asked me tons of questions . I was so scared , I thought my heart was going to explode . If anything seemed unnatural , I could be imprisoned and repatriated . I thought my life was over , but I managed to control all the emotions inside me and answer the questions . After they finished questioning me , one official said to another , " This was a false report . She 's not North Korean . " And they let me go . It was a miracle . Some North Koreans in China seek asylum in foreign embassies , but many can be caught by the Chinese police and repatriated . These girls were so lucky . Even though they were caught , they were eventually released after heavy international pressure . These North Koreans were not so lucky . Every year , countless North Koreans are caught in China and repatriated to North Korea , where they can be tortured , imprisoned or publicly executed . Even though I was really fortunate to get out , many other North Koreans have not been so lucky . It 's tragic that North Koreans have to hide their identities and struggle so hard just to survive . Even after learning a new language and getting a job , their whole world can be turned upside down in an instant . That 's why , after 10 years of hiding my identity , I decided to risk going to South Korea , and I started a new life yet again . Settling down in South Korea was a lot more challenging than I had expected . English was so important in South Korea , so I had to start learning my third language . Also , I realized there was a wide gap between North and South . We are all Korean , but inside , we have become very different due to 67 years of division . I even went through an identity crisis . Am I South Korean or North Korean ? Where am I from ? Who am I ? Suddenly , there was no country I could proudly call my own . Even though adjusting to life in South Korea was not easy , I made a plan . I started studying for the university entrance exam . Just as I was starting to get used to my new life , I received a shocking phone call . The North Korean authorities intercepted some money that I sent to my family , and , as a punishment , my family was going to be forcibly removed to a desolate location in the countryside . They had to get out quickly , so I started planning how to help them escape . North Koreans have to travel incredible distances on the path to freedom . It 's almost impossible to cross the border between North Korea and South Korea , so , ironically , I took a flight back to China and I headed toward the North Korean border . Since my family couldn 't speak Chinese , I had to guide them , somehow , through more than 2,000 miles in China and then into Southeast Asia . The journey by bus took one week , and we were almost caught several times . One time , our bus was stopped and boarded by a Chinese police officer . He took everyone 's I.D. cards , and he started asking them questions . Since my family couldn 't understand Chinese , I thought my family was going to be arrested . As the Chinese officer approached my family , I impulsively stood up , and I told him that these are deaf and dumb people that I was chaperoning . He looked at me suspiciously , but luckily he believed me . We made it all the way to the border of Laos , but I had to spend almost all my money to bribe the border guards in Laos . But even after we got past the border , my family was arrested and jailed for illegal border crossing . After I paid the fine and bribe , my family was released in one month , but soon after , my family was arrested and jailed again in the capital of Laos . This was one of the lowest points in my life . I did everything to get my family to freedom , and we came so close , but my family was thrown in jail just a short distance from the South Korean embassy . I went back and forth between the immigration office and the police station , desperately trying to get my family out , but I didn 't have enough money to pay a bribe or fine anymore . I lost all hope . At that moment , I heard one man 's voice ask me , " What 's wrong ? " I was so surprised that a total stranger cared enough to ask . In my broken English , and with a dictionary , I explained the situation , and without hesitating , the man went to the ATM and he paid the rest of the money for my family and two other North Koreans to get out of jail . I thanked him with all my heart , and I asked him , " Why are you helping me ? " " I 'm not helping you , " he said . " I 'm helping the North Korean people . " I realized that this was a symbolic moment in my life . The kind stranger symbolized new hope for me and the North Korean people when we needed it most , and he showed me the kindness of strangers and the support of the international community are truly the rays of hope we North Korean people need . Eventually , after our long journey , my family and I were reunited in South Korea , but getting to freedom is only half the battle . Many North Koreans are separated from their families , and when they arrive in a new country , they start with little or no money . So we can benefit from the international community for education , English language training , job training , and more . We can also act as a bridge between the people inside North Korea and the outside world , because many of us stay in contact with family members still inside , and we send information and money that is helping to change North Korea from inside . I 've been so lucky , received so much help and inspiration in my life , so I want to help give aspiring North Koreans a chance to prosper with international support . I 'm confident that you will see more and more North Koreans succeeding all over the world , including the TED stage . Thank you . Today I have just one request . Please don 't tell me I 'm normal . Now I 'd like to introduce you to my brothers . Remi is 22 , tall and very handsome . He 's speechless , but he communicates joy in a way that some of the best orators cannot . Remi knows what love is . He shares it unconditionally and he shares it regardless . He 's not greedy . He doesn 't see skin color . He doesn 't care about religious differences , and get this : He has never told a lie . When he sings songs from our childhood , attempting words that not even I could remember , he reminds me of one thing : how little we know about the mind , and how wonderful the unknown must be . Samuel is 16 . He 's tall . He 's very handsome . He has the most impeccable memory . He has a selective one , though . He doesn 't remember if he stole my chocolate bar , but he remembers the year of release for every song on my iPod , conversations we had when he was four , weeing on my arm on the first ever episode of Teletubbies , and Lady Gaga 's birthday . Don 't they sound incredible ? But most people don 't agree . And in fact , because their minds don 't fit into society 's version of normal , they 're often bypassed and misunderstood . But what lifted my heart and strengthened my soul was that even though this was the case , although they were not seen as ordinary , this could only mean one thing : that they were extraordinary -- autistic and extraordinary . Now , for you who may be less familiar with the term " autism , " it 's a complex brain disorder that affects social communication , learning and sometimes physical skills . It manifests in each individual differently , hence why Remi is so different from Sam . And across the world , every 20 minutes , one new person is diagnosed with autism , and although it 's one of the fastest-growing developmental disorders in the world , there is no known cause or cure . And I cannot remember the first moment I encountered autism , but I cannot recall a day without it . I was just three years old when my brother came along , and I was so excited that I had a new being in my life . And after a few months went by , I realized that he was different . He screamed a lot . He didn 't want to play like the other babies did , and in fact , he didn 't seem very interested in me whatsoever . Remi lived and reigned in his own world , with his own rules , and he found pleasure in the smallest things , like lining up cars around the room and staring at the washing machine and eating anything that came in between . And as he grew older , he grew more different , and the differences became more obvious . Yet beyond the tantrums and the frustration and the never-ending hyperactivity was something really unique : a pure and innocent nature , a boy who saw the world without prejudice , a human who had never lied . Extraordinary . Now , I cannot deny that there have been some challenging moments in my family , moments where I 've wished that they were just like me . But I cast my mind back to the things that they 've taught me about individuality and communication and love , and I realize that these are things that I wouldn 't want to change with normality . Normality overlooks the beauty that differences give us , and the fact that we are different doesn 't mean that one of us is wrong . It just means that there 's a different kind of right . And if I could communicate just one thing to Remi and to Sam and to you , it would be that you don 't have to be normal . You can be extraordinary . Because autistic or not , the differences that we have -- We 've got a gift ! Everyone 's got a gift inside of us , and in all honesty , the pursuit of normality is the ultimate sacrifice of potential . The chance for greatness , for progress and for change dies the moment we try to be like someone else . Please -- don 't tell me I 'm normal . Thank you . You probably all agree with me that this is a very nice road . It 's made of asphalt , and asphalt is a very nice material to drive on , but not always , especially not on these days as today , when it 's raining a lot . Then you can have a lot of splash water in the asphalt . And especially if you then ride with your bicycle , and pass these cars , then that 's not very nice . Also , asphalt can create a lot of noise . It 's a noisy material , and if we produce roads like in the Netherlands , very close to cities , then we would like a silent road . The solution for that is to make roads out of porous asphalt . Porous asphalt , a material that we use now in most of the highways in the Netherlands , it has pores and water can just rain through it , so all the rainwater will flow away to the sides , and you have a road that 's easy to drive on , so no splash water anymore . Also the noise will disappear in these pores . Because it 's very hollow , all the noise will disappear , so it 's a very silent road . It also has disadvantages , of course , and the disadvantage of this road is that raveling can occur . What is raveling ? You see that in this road that the stones at the surface come off . First you get one stone , then several more , and more and more and more and more , and then they -- well , I will not do that . But they can damage your windshield , so you 're not happy with that . And finally , this raveling can also lead to more and more damage . Sometimes you can create potholes with that . Ha . He 's ready . Potholes , of course , that can become a problem , but we have a solution . Here you see actually how the damage appears in this material . It 's a porous asphalt , like I said , so you have only a small amount of binder between the stones . Due to weathering , due to U.V. light , due to oxidation , this binder , this bitumen , the glue between the aggregates is going to shrink , and if it shrinks , it gets micro-cracks , and it delaminates from the aggregates . Then if you drive over the road , you take out the aggregates -- what we just saw here . To solve this problem , we thought of self-healing materials . If we can make this material self-healing , then probably we have a solution . So what we can do is use steel wool just to clean pans , and the steel wool we can cut in very small pieces , and these very small pieces we can mix to the bitumen . So then you have asphalt with very small pieces of steel wool in it . Then you need a machine , like you see here , that you can use for cooking -- an induction machine . Induction can heat , especially steel ; it 's very good at that . Then what you do is you heat up the steel , you melt the bitumen , and the bitumen will flow into these micro-cracks , and the stones are again fixed to the surface . Today I use a microwave because I cannot take the big induction machine here onstage . So a microwave is a similar system . So I put the specimen in , which I 'm now going to take out to see what happened . So this is the specimen coming out now . So I said we have such an industrial machine in the lab to heat up the specimens . We tested a lot of specimens there , and then the government , they actually saw our results , and they thought , " Well , that 's very interesting . We have to try that . " So they donated to us a piece of highway , 400 meters of the A58 , where we had to make a test track to test this material . So that 's what we did here . You see where we were making the test road , and then of course this road will last several years without any damage . That 's what we know from practice . So we took a lot of samples from this road and we tested them in the lab . So we did aging on the samples , did a lot of loading on it , healed them with our induction machine , and healed them and tested them again . Several times we can repeat that . So actually , the conclusion from this research is that if we go on the road every four years with our healing machine -- this is the big version we have made to go on the real road -- if we go on the road every four years we can double the surface life of this road , which of course saves a lot of money . Well , to conclude , I can say that we made a material using steel fibers , the addition of steel fibers , using induction energy to really increase the surface life of the road , double the surface life you can even do , so it will really save a lot of money with very simple tricks . And now you 're of course curious if it also worked . So we still have the specimen here . It 's quite warm . Actually , it still has to cool down first before I can show you that the healing works . But I will do a trial . Let 's see . Yeah , it worked . Thank you . I 'm here today to talk about a disturbing question , which has an equally disturbing answer . My topic is the secrets of domestic violence , and the question I 'm going to tackle is the one question everyone always asks : Why does she stay ? Why would anyone stay with a man who beats her ? I 'm not a psychiatrist , a social worker or an expert in domestic violence . I 'm just one woman with a story to tell . I was 22 . I had just graduated from Harvard College . I had moved to New York City for my first job as a writer and editor at Seventeen magazine . I had my first apartment , my first little green American Express card , and I had a very big secret . My secret was that I had this gun loaded with hollow-point bullets pointed at my head by the man who I thought was my soulmate , many , many times . The man who I loved more than anybody on Earth held a gun to my head and threatened to kill me more times than I can even remember . I 'm here to tell you the story of crazy love , a psychological trap disguised as love , one that millions of women and even a few men fall into every year . It may even be your story . I don 't look like a typical domestic violence survivor . I have a B.A. in English from Harvard College , an MBA in marketing from Wharton Business School . I 've spent most of my career working for Fortune 500 companies including Johnson & amp ; Johnson , Leo Burnett and The Washington Post . I 've been married for almost 20 years to my second husband and we have three kids together . My dog is a black lab , and I drive a Honda Odyssey minivan . So my first message for you is that domestic violence happens to everyone -- all races , all religions , all income and education levels . It 's everywhere . And my second message is that everyone thinks domestic violence happens to women , that it 's a women 's issue . Not exactly . Over 85 percent of abusers are men , and domestic abuse happens only in intimate , interdependent , long-term relationships , in other words , in families , the last place we would want or expect to find violence , which is one reason domestic abuse is so confusing . I would have told you myself that I was the last person on Earth who would stay with a man who beats me , but in fact I was a very typical victim because of my age . I was 22 , and in the United States , women ages 16 to 24 are three times as likely to be domestic violence victims as women of other ages , and over 500 women and girls this age are killed every year by abusive partners , boyfriends , and husbands in the United States . I was also a very typical victim because I knew nothing about domestic violence , its warning signs or its patterns . I met Conor on a cold , rainy January night . He sat next to me on the New York City subway , and he started chatting me up . He told me two things . One was that he , too , had just graduated from an Ivy League school , and that he worked at a very impressive Wall Street bank . But what made the biggest impression on me that first meeting was that he was smart and funny and he looked like a farm boy . He had these big cheeks , these big apple cheeks and this wheat-blond hair , and he seemed so sweet . One of the smartest things Conor did , from the very beginning , was to create the illusion that I was the dominant partner in the relationship . He did this especially at the beginning by idolizing me . We started dating , and he loved everything about me , that I was smart , that I 'd gone to Harvard , that I was passionate about helping teenage girls , and my job . He wanted to know everything about my family and my childhood and my hopes and dreams . Conor believed in me , as a writer and a woman , in a way that no one else ever had . And he also created a magical atmosphere of trust between us by confessing his secret , which was that , as a very young boy starting at age four , he had been savagely and repeatedly physically abused by his stepfather , and the abuse had gotten so bad that he had had to drop out of school in eighth grade , even though he was very smart , and he 'd spent almost 20 years rebuilding his life . Which is why that Ivy League degree and the Wall Street job and his bright shiny future meant so much to him . If you had told me that this smart , funny , sensitive man who adored me would one day dictate whether or not I wore makeup , how short my skirts were , where I lived , what jobs I took , who my friends were and where I spent Christmas , I would have laughed at you , because there was not a hint of violence or control or anger in Conor at the beginning . I didn 't know that the first stage in any domestic violence relationship is to seduce and charm the victim . I also didn 't know that the second step is to isolate the victim . Now , Conor did not come home one day and announce , " You know , hey , all this Romeo and Juliet stuff has been great , but I need to move into the next phase where I isolate you and I abuse you " — — " so I need to get you out of this apartment where the neighbors can hear you scream and out of this city where you have friends and family and coworkers who can see the bruises . " Instead , Conor came home one Friday evening and he told me that he had quit his job that day , his dream job , and he said that he had quit his job because of me , because I had made him feel so safe and loved that he didn 't need to prove himself on Wall Street anymore , and he just wanted to get out of the city and away from his abusive , dysfunctional family , and move to a tiny town in New England where he could start his life over with me by his side . Now , the last thing I wanted to do was leave New York , and my dream job , but I thought you made sacrifices for your soulmate , so I agreed , and I quit my job , and Conor and I left Manhattan together . I had no idea I was falling into crazy love , that I was walking headfirst into a carefully laid physical , financial and psychological trap . The next step in the domestic violence pattern is to introduce the threat of violence and see how she reacts . And here 's where those guns come in . As soon as we moved to New England -- you know , that place where Connor was supposed to feel so safe -- he bought three guns . He kept one in the glove compartment of our car . He kept one under the pillows on our bed , and the third one he kept in his pocket at all times . And he said that he needed those guns because of the trauma he 'd experienced as a young boy . He needed them to feel protected . But those guns were really a message for me , and even though he hadn 't raised a hand to me , my life was already in grave danger every minute of every day . Conor first physically attacked me five days before our wedding . It was 7 a.m. I still had on my nightgown . I was working on my computer trying to finish a freelance writing assignment , and I got frustrated , and Conor used my anger as an excuse to put both of his hands around my neck and to squeeze so tightly that I could not breathe or scream , and he used the chokehold to hit my head repeatedly against the wall . Five days later , the ten bruises on my neck had just faded , and I put on my mother 's wedding dress , and I married him . Despite what had happened , I was sure we were going to live happily ever after , because I loved him , and he loved me so much . And he was very , very sorry . He had just been really stressed out by the wedding and by becoming a family with me . It was an isolated incident , and he was never going to hurt me again . It happened twice more on the honeymoon . The first time , I was driving to find a secret beach and I got lost , and he punched me in the side of my head so hard that the other side of my head repeatedly hit the driver 's side window . And then a few days later , driving home from our honeymoon , he got frustrated by traffic , and he threw a cold Big Mac in my face . Conor proceeded to beat me once or twice a week for the next two and a half years of our marriage . I was mistaken in thinking that I was unique and alone in this situation . One in three American women experiences domestic violence or stalking at some point in her life , and the CDC reports that 15 million children are abused every year , 15 million . So actually , I was in very good company . Back to my question : Why did I stay ? The answer is easy . I didn 't know he was abusing me . Even though he held those loaded guns to my head , pushed me down stairs , threatened to kill our dog , pulled the key out of the car ignition as I drove down the highway , poured coffee grinds on my head as I dressed for a job interview , I never once thought of myself as a battered wife . Instead , I was a very strong woman in love with a deeply troubled man , and I was the only person on Earth who could help Conor face his demons . The other question everybody asks is , why doesn 't she just leave ? Why didn 't I walk out ? I could have left any time . To me , this is the saddest and most painful question that people ask , because we victims know something you usually don 't : It 's incredibly dangerous to leave an abuser . Because the final step in the domestic violence pattern is kill her . Over 70 percent of domestic violence murders happen after the victim has ended the relationship , after she 's gotten out , because then the abuser has nothing left to lose . Other outcomes include long-term stalking , even after the abuser remarries ; denial of financial resources ; and manipulation of the family court system to terrify the victim and her children , who are regularly forced by family court judges to spend unsupervised time with the man who beat their mother . And still we ask , why doesn 't she just leave ? I was able to leave , because of one final , sadistic beating that broke through my denial . I realized that the man who I loved so much was going to kill me if I let him . So I broke the silence . I told everyone : the police , my neighbors , my friends and family , total strangers , and I 'm here today because you all helped me . We tend to stereotype victims as grisly headlines , self-destructive women , damaged goods . The question , " Why does she stay ? " is code for some people for , " It 's her fault for staying , " as if victims intentionally choose to fall in love with men intent upon destroying us . But since publishing " Crazy Love , " I have heard hundreds of stories from men and women who also got out , who learned an invaluable life lesson from what happened , and who rebuilt lives -- joyous , happy lives -- as employees , wives and mothers , lives completely free of violence , like me . Because it turns out that I 'm actually a very typical domestic violence victim and a typical domestic violence survivor . I remarried a kind and gentle man , and we have those three kids . I have that black lab , and I have that minivan . What I will never have again , ever , is a loaded gun held to my head by someone who says that he loves me . Right now , maybe you 're thinking , " Wow , this is fascinating , " or , " Wow , how stupid was she , " but this whole time , I 've actually been talking about you . I promise you there are several people listening to me right now who are currently being abused or who were abused as children or who are abusers themselves . Abuse could be affecting your daughter , your sister , your best friend right now . I was able to end my own crazy love story by breaking the silence . I 'm still breaking the silence today . It 's my way of helping other victims , and it 's my final request of you . Talk about what you heard here . Abuse thrives only in silence . You have the power to end domestic violence simply by shining a spotlight on it . We victims need everyone . We need every one of you to understand the secrets of domestic violence . Show abuse the light of day by talking about it with your children , your coworkers , your friends and family . Recast survivors as wonderful , lovable people with full futures . Recognize the early signs of violence and conscientiously intervene , deescalate it , show victims a safe way out . Together we can make our beds , our dinner tables and our families the safe and peaceful oases they should be . Thank you . I would like to talk to you about a very special group of animals . There are 10,000 species of birds in the world . Vultures are amongst the most threatened group of birds . When you see a vulture like this , the first thing that comes to your mind is , these are disgusting , ugly , greedy creatures that are just after your flesh , associated with politicians . I want to change that perception . I want to change those feelings you have for these birds , because they need our sympathy . They really do . And I 'll tell you why . First of all , why do they have such a bad press ? When Charles Darwin went across the Atlantic in 1832 on the Beagle , he saw the turkey vulture , and he said , " These are disgusting birds with bald scarlet heads that are formed to revel in putridity . " You could not get a worse insult , and that from Charles Darwin . You know , he changed his mind when he came back , and I 'll tell you why . They 've also be associated with Disney — — personified as goofy , dumb , stupid characters . More recently , if you 've been following the Kenyan press — — these are the attributes that they associated the Kenyan MPs with . But I want to challenge that . I want to challenge that . Do you know why ? Because MPs do not keep the environment clean . MPs do not help to prevent the spread of diseases . They are hardly monogamous . They are far from being extinct . And , my favorite is , vultures are better looking . So there 's two types of vultures in this planet . There are the New World vultures that are mainly found in the Americas , like the condors and the caracaras , and then the Old World vultures , where we have 16 species . From these 16 , 11 of them are facing a high risk of extinction . So why are vultures important ? First of all , they provide vital ecological services . They clean up . They 're our natural garbage collectors . They clean up carcasses right to the bone . They help to kill all the bacteria . They help absorb anthrax that would otherwise spread and cause huge livestock losses and diseases in other animals . Recent studies have shown that in areas where there are no vultures , carcasses take up to three to four times to decompose , and this has huge ramifications for the spread of diseases . Vultures also have tremendous historical significance . They have been associated in ancient Egyptian culture . Nekhbet was the symbol of the protector and the motherhood , and together with the cobra , symbolized the unity between Upper and Lower Egypt . In Hindu mythology , Jatayu was the vulture god , and he risked his life in order to save the goddess Sita from the 10-headed demon Ravana . In Tibetan culture , they are performing very important sky burials . In places like Tibet , there are no places to bury the dead , or wood to cremate them , so these vultures provide a natural disposal system . So what is the problem with vultures ? We have eight species of vultures that occur in Kenya , of which six are highly threatened with extinction . The reason is that they 're getting poisoned , and the reason that they 're getting poisoned is because there 's human-wildlife conflicts . The pastoral communities are using this poison to target predators , and in return , the vultures are falling victim to this . In South Asia , in countries like India and Pakistan , four species of vultures are listed as critically endangered , which means they have less than 10 or 15 years to go extinct , and the reason is because they are falling prey by consuming livestock that has been treated with a painkilling drug like Diclofenac . This drug has now been banned for veterinary use in India , and they have taken a stand . Because there are no vultures , there 's been a spread in the numbers of feral dogs at carcass dump sites , and when you have feral dogs , you have a huge time bomb of rabies . The number of cases of rabies has increased tremendously in India . Kenya is going to have one of the largest wind farms in Africa : 353 wind turbines are going to be up at Lake Turkana . I am not against wind energy , but we need to work with the governments , because wind turbines do this to birds . They slice them in half . They are bird-blending machines . In West Africa , there 's a horrific trade of dead vultures to serve the witchcraft and the fetish market . So what 's being done ? Well , we 're conducting research on these birds . We 're putting transmitters on them . We 're trying to determine their basic ecology , and see where they go . We can see that they travel different countries , so if you focus on a problem locally , it 's not going to help you . We need to work with governments in regional levels . We 're working with local communities . We 're talking to them about appreciating vultures , about the need from within to appreciate these wonderful creatures and the services that they provide . How can you help ? You can become active , make noise . You can write a letter to your government and tell them that we need to focus on these very misunderstood creatures . Volunteer your time to spread the word . Spread the word . When you walk out of this room , you will be informed about vultures , but speak to your families , to your children , to your neighbors about vultures . They are very graceful . Charles Darwin said he changed his mind because he watched them fly effortlessly without energy in the skies . Kenya , this world , will be much poorer without these wonderful species . Thank you very much . When I was 11 , I remember waking up one morning to the sound of joy in my house . My father was listening to BBC News on his small , gray radio . There was a big smile on his face which was unusual then , because the news mostly depressed him . " The Taliban are gone ! " my father shouted . I didn 't know what it meant , but I could see that my father was very , very happy . " You can go to a real school now , " he said . A morning that I will never forget . A real school . You see , I was six when the Taliban took over Afghanistan and made it illegal for girls to go to school . So for the next five years , I dressed as a boy to escort my older sister , who was no longer allowed to be outside alone , to a secret school . It was the only way we both could be educated . Each day , we took a different route so that no one would suspect where we were going . We would cover our books in grocery bags so it would seem we were just out shopping . The school was in a house , more than 100 of us packed in one small living room . It was cozy in winter but extremely hot in summer . We all knew we were risking our lives -- the teacher , the students and our parents . From time to time , the school would suddenly be canceled for a week because Taliban were suspicious . We always wondered what they knew about us . Were we being followed ? Do they know where we live ? We were scared , but still , school was where we wanted to be . I was very lucky to grow up in a family where education was prized and daughters were treasured . My grandfather was an extraordinary man for his time . A total maverick from a remote province of Afghanistan , he insisted that his daughter , my mom , go to school , and for that he was disowned by his father . But my educated mother became a teacher . There she is . She retired two years ago , only to turn our house into a school for girls and women in our neighborhood . And my father -- that 's him -- he was the first ever in his family to receive an education . There was no question that his children would receive an education , including his daughters , despite the Taliban , despite the risks . To him , there was greater risk in not educating his children . During Taliban years , I remember there were times I would get so frustrated by our life and always being scared and not seeing a future . I would want to quit , but my father , he would say , " Listen , my daughter , you can lose everything you own in your life . Your money can be stolen . You can be forced to leave your home during a war . But the one thing that will always remain with you is what is here , and if we have to sell our blood to pay your school fees , we will . So do you still not want to continue ? " Today I am 22 . I was raised in a country that has been destroyed by decades of war . Fewer than six percent of women my age have made it beyond high school , and had my family not been so committed to my education , I would be one of them . Instead , I stand here a proud graduate of Middlebury College . When I returned to Afghanistan , my grandfather , the one exiled from his home for daring to educate his daughters , was among the first to congratulate me . He not only brags about my college degree , but also that I was the first woman , and that I am the first woman to drive him through the streets of Kabul . My family believes in me . I dream big , but my family dreams even bigger for me . That 's why I am a global ambassador for 10x10 , a global campaign to educate women . That 's why I cofounded SOLA , the first and perhaps only boarding school for girls in Afghanistan , a country where it 's still risky for girls to go to school . The exciting thing is that I see students at my school with ambition grabbing at opportunity . And I see their parents and their fathers who , like my own , advocate for them , despite and even in the face of daunting opposition . Like Ahmed . That 's not his real name , and I cannot show you his face , but Ahmed is the father of one of my students . Less than a month ago , he and his daughter were on their way from SOLA to their village , and they literally missed being killed by a roadside bomb by minutes . As he arrived home , the phone rang , a voice warning him that if he sent his daughter back to school , they would try again . " Kill me now , if you wish , " he said , " but I will not ruin my daughter 's future because of your old and backward ideas . " What I 've come to realize about Afghanistan , and this is something that is often dismissed in the West , that behind most of us who succeed is a father who recognizes the value in his daughter and who sees that her success is his success . It 's not to say that our mothers aren 't key in our success . In fact , they 're often the initial and convincing negotiators of a bright future for their daughters , but in the context of a society like in Afghanistan , we must have the support of men . Under the Taliban , girls who went to school numbered in the hundreds -- remember , it was illegal . But today , more than three million girls are in school in Afghanistan . Afghanistan looks so different from here in America . I find that Americans see the fragility in changes . I fear that these changes will not last much beyond the U.S. troops ' withdrawal . But when I am back in Afghanistan , when I see the students in my school and their parents who advocate for them , who encourage them , I see a promising future and lasting change . To me , Afghanistan is a country of hope and boundless possibilities , and every single day the girls of SOLA remind me of that . Like me , they are dreaming big . Thank you . Hi . This is my mobile phone . A mobile phone can change your life , and a mobile phone gives you individual freedom . With a mobile phone , you can shoot a crime against humanity in Syria . With a mobile phone , you can tweet a message and start a protest in Egypt . And with a mobile phone , you can record a song , load it up to SoundCloud and become famous . All this is possible with your mobile phone . I 'm a child of 1984 , and I live in the city of Berlin . Let 's go back to that time , to this city . Here you can see how hundreds of thousands of people stood up and protested for change . This is autumn 1989 , and imagine that all those people standing up and protesting for change had a mobile phone in their pocket . Who in the room has a mobile phone with you ? Hold it up . Hold your phones up , hold your phones up ! Hold it up . An Android , a Blackberry , wow . That 's a lot . Almost everybody today has a mobile phone . But today I will talk about me and my mobile phone , and how it changed my life . And I will talk about this . These are 35,830 lines of information . Raw data . And why are these informations there ? Because in the summer of 2006 , the E.U. Commission tabled a directive . This directive [ is ] called Data Retention Directive . This directive says that each phone company in Europe , each Internet service company all over Europe , has to store a wide range of information about the users . Who calls whom ? Who sends whom an email ? Who sends whom a text message ? And if you use your mobile phone , where you are . All this information is stored for at least six months , up to two years by your phone company or your Internet service provider . And all over Europe , people stood up and said , " We don 't want this . " They said , we don 't want this data retention . We want self-determination in the digital age , and we don 't want that phone companies and Internet companies have to store all this information about us . They were lawyers , journalists , priests , they all said : " We don 't want this . " And here you can see , like 10 thousands of people went out on the streets of Berlin and said , " Freedom , not fear . " And some even said , this would be Stasi 2.0 . Stasi was the secret police in East Germany . And I also ask myself , does it really work ? Can they really store all this information about us ? Every time I use my mobile phone ? So I asked my phone company , Deutsche Telekom , which was at that time the largest phone company in Germany , and I asked them , please , send me all the information you have stored about me . And I asked them once , and I asked them again , and I got no real answer . It was only blah blah answers . But then I said , I want to have this information , because this is my life you are protocoling . So I decided to start a lawsuit against them , because I wanted to have this information . But Deutsche Telekom said , no , we will not give you this information . So at the end , I had a settlement with them . I 'll put down the lawsuit and they will send me all the information I ask for . Because in the mean time , the German Constitutional Court ruled that the implementation of this E.U. directive into German law was unconstitutional . So I got this ugly brown envelope with a C.D. inside . And on the C.D. , this was on . Thirty-five thousand eight hundred thirty lines of information . At first I saw it , and I said , okay , it 's a huge file . Okay . But then after a while I realized , this is my life . This is six months of my life , into this file . So I was a little bit skeptical , what should I do with it ? Because you can see where I am , where I sleep at night , what I am doing . But then I said , I want to go out with this information . I want to make them public . Because I want to show the people what does data retention mean . So together with Zeit Online and Open Data City , I did this . This is a visualization of six months of my life . You can zoom in and zoom out , you can wind back and fast forward . You can see every step I take . And you can even see how I go from Frankfurt by train to Cologne , and how often I call in between . All this is possible with this information . That 's a little bit scary . But it is not only about me . It 's about all of us . First , it 's only like , I call my wife and she calls me , and we talk to each other a couple of times . And then there are some friends calling me , and they call each other . And after a while you are calling you , and you are calling you , and you have this great communication network . But you can see how your people are communicating with each other , what times they call each other , when they go to bed . You can see all of this . You can see the hubs , like who are the leaders in the group . If you have access to this information , you can see what your society is doing . If you have access to this information , you can control your society . This is a blueprint for countries like China and Iran . This is a blueprint how to survey your society , because you know who talks to whom , who sends whom an email , all this is possible if you have access to this information . And this information is stored for at least six months in Europe , up to two years . Like I said at the beginning , imagine that all those people on the streets of Berlin in autumn of 1989 had a mobile phone in their pocket . And the Stasi would have known who took part at this protest , and if the Stasi would have known who are the leaders behind it , this may never have happened . The fall of the Berlin Wall would maybe not [ have been ] there . And in the aftermath , also not the fall of the Iron Curtain . Because today , state agencies and companies want to store as much information as they can get about us , online and offline . They want to have the possibility to track our lives , and they want to store them for all time . But self-determination and living in the digital age is no contradiction . But you have to fight for your self-determination today . You have to fight for it every day . So , when you go home , tell your friends that privacy is a value of the 21st century , and it 's not outdated . When you go home , tell your representative only because companies and state agencies have the possibility to store certain information , they don 't have to do it . And if you don 't believe me , ask your phone company what information they store about you . So , in the future , every time you use your mobile phone , let it be a reminder to you that you have to fight for self-determination in the digital age . Thank you . Photography has been my passion ever since I was old enough to pick up a camera , but today I want to share with you the 15 most treasured photos of mine , and I didn 't take any of them . There were no art directors , no stylists , no chance for reshoots , not even any regard for lighting . In fact , most of them were taken by random tourists . My story begins when I was in New York City for a speaking engagement , and my wife took this picture of me holding my daughter on her first birthday . We 're on the corner of 57th and 5th . We happened to be back in New York exactly a year later , so we decided to take the same picture . Well you can see where this is going . Approaching my daughter 's third birthday , my wife said , " Hey , why don 't you take Sabina back to New York and make it a father-daughter trip , and continue the ritual ? " This is when we started asking passing tourists to take the picture . You know , it 's remarkable how universal the gesture is of handing your camera to a total stranger . No one 's ever refused , and luckily no one 's ever run off with our camera . Back then , we had no idea how much this trip would change our lives . It 's really become sacred to us . This one was taken just weeks after 9 / 11 , and I found myself trying to explain what had happened that day in ways a five-year-old could understand . So these photos are far more than proxies for a single moment , or even a specific trip . They 're also ways for us to freeze time for one week in October and reflect on our times and how we change from year to year , and not just physically , but in every way . Because while we take the same photo , our perspectives change , and she reaches new milestones , and I get to see life through her eyes , and how she interacts with and sees everything . This very focused time we get to spend together is something we cherish and anticipate the entire year . Recently , on one trip , we were walking , and she stops dead in her tracks , and she points to a red awning of the doll store that she loved when she was little on our earlier trips . And she describes to me the feeling she felt as a five-year-old standing in that exact spot . She said she remembers her heart bursting out of her chest when she saw that place for the very first time nine years earlier . And now what she 's looking at in New York are colleges , because she 's determined to go to school in New York . And it hit me : One of the most important things we all make are memories . So I want to share the idea of taking an active role in consciously creating memories . I don 't know about you , but aside from these 15 shots , I 'm not in many of the family photos . I 'm always the one taking the picture . So I want to encourage everyone today to get in the shot , and don 't hesitate to go up to someone and ask , " Will you take our picture ? " Thank you . I have never , ever forgotten the words of my grandmother who died in her exile : " Son , resist Gaddafi . Fight him . But don 't you ever turn into a Gaddafi-like revolutionary . " Almost two years have passed since the Libyan Revolution broke out , inspired by the waves of mass mobilization in both the Tunisian and the Egyptian revolutions . I joined forces with many other Libyans inside and outside Libya to call for a day of rage and to initiate a revolution against the tyrannical regime of Gaddafi . And there it was , a great revolution . Young Libyan women and men were at the forefront calling for the fall of the regime , raising slogans of freedom , dignity , social justice . They have shown an exemplary bravery in confronting the brutal dictatorship of Gaddafi . They have shown a great sense of solidarity from the far east to the far west to the south . Eventually , after a period of six months of brutal war and a toll rate of almost 50,000 dead , we managed to liberate our country and to topple the tyrant . However , Gaddafi left behind a heavy burden , a legacy of tyranny , corruption and seeds of diversions . For four decades Gaddafi 's tyrannical regime destroyed the infrastructure as well as the culture and the moral fabric of Libyan society . Aware of the devastation and the challenges , I was keen among many other women to rebuild the Libyan civil society , calling for an inclusive and just transition to democracy and national reconciliation . Almost 200 organizations were established in Benghazi during and immediately after the fall of Gaddafi -- almost 300 in Tripoli . After a period of 33 years in exile , I went back to Libya , and with unique enthusiasm , I started organizing workshops on capacity building , on human development of leadership skills . With an amazing group of women , I co-founded the Libyan Women 's Platform for Peace , a movement of women , leaders , from different walks of life , to lobby for the sociopolitical empowerment of women and to lobby for our right for equal participation in building democracy and peace . I met a very difficult environment in the pre-elections , an environment which was increasingly polarized , an environment which was shaped by the selfish politics of dominance and exclusion . I led an initiative by the Libyan Women 's Platform for Peace to lobby for a more inclusive electoral law , a law that would give every citizen , no matter what your background , the right to vote and run , and most importantly to stipulate on political parties the alternation of male and female candidates vertically and horizontally in their lists , creating the zipper list . Eventually , our initiative was adopted and successful . Women won 17.5 percent of the National Congress in the first elections ever in 52 years . However , bit by bit , the euphoria of the elections , and of the revolution as a whole , was fading out -- for every day we were waking up to the news of violence . One day we wake up to the news of the desecration of ancient mosques and Sufi tombs . On another day we wake up to the news of the murder of the American ambassador and the attack on the consulate . On another day we wake up to the news of the assassination of army officers . And every day , every day we wake up with the rule of the militias and their continuous violations of human rights of prisoners and their disrespect of the rule of law . Our society , shaped by a revolutionary mindset , became more polarized and has driven away from the ideals and the principles -- freedom , dignity , social justice -- that we first held . Intolerance , exclusion and revenge became the icons of the [ aftermath ] of the revolution . I am here today not at all to inspire you with our success story of the zipper list and the elections . I 'm rather here today to confess that we as a nation took the wrong choice , made the wrong decision . We did not prioritize right . For elections did not bring peace and stability and security in Libya . Did the zipper list and the alternation between female and male candidates bring peace and national reconciliation ? No , it didn 't . What is it , then ? Why does our society continue to be polarized and dominated with selfish politics of dominance and exclusion , by both men and women ? Maybe what was missing was not the women only , but the feminine values of compassion , mercy and inclusion . Our society needs national dialogue and consensus-building more than it needed the elections , which only reinforced polarization and division . Our society needs the qualitative representation of the feminine more than it needs the numerical , quantitative representation of the feminine . We need to stop acting as agents of rage and calling for days of rage . We need to start acting as agents of compassion and mercy . We need to develop a feminine discourse that not only honors but also implements mercy instead of revenge , collaboration instead of competition , inclusion instead of exclusion . These are the ideals that a war-torn Libya needs desperately in order to achieve peace . For peace has an alchemy , and this alchemy is about the intertwining , the alternation between the feminine and masculine perspectives . That 's the real zipper . And we need to establish that existentially before we do so sociopolitically . According to a Quranic verse " Salam " -- peace -- " is the word of the all-merciful God , raheem . " In turn , the word " raheem , " which is known in all Abrahamic traditions , has the same root in Arabic as the word " rahem " -- womb -- symbolizing the maternal feminine encompassing all humanity from which the male and the female , from which all tribes , all peoples , have emanated from . And so just as the womb entirely envelopes the embryo , which grows within it , the divine matrix of compassion nourishes the entire existence . Thus we are told that " My mercy encompasses all things . " Thus we are told that " My mercy takes precedence over my anger . " May we all be granted a grace of mercy . Thank you . Five years ago , I experienced a bit of what it must have been like to be Alice in Wonderland . Penn State asked me , a communications teacher , to teach a communications class for engineering students . And I was scared . Really scared . Scared of these students with their big brains and their big books and their big , unfamiliar words . But as these conversations unfolded , I experienced what Alice must have when she went down that rabbit hole and saw that door to a whole new world . That 's just how I felt as I had those conversations with the students . I was amazed at the ideas that they had , and I wanted others to experience this wonderland as well . And I believe the key to opening that door is great communication . We desperately need great communication from our scientists and engineers in order to change the world . Our scientists and engineers are the ones that are tackling our grandest challenges , from energy to environment to health care , among others , and if we don 't know about it and understand it , then the work isn 't done , and I believe it 's our responsibility as non-scientists to have these interactions . But these great conversations can 't occur if our scientists and engineers don 't invite us in to see their wonderland . So scientists and engineers , please , talk nerdy to us . I want to share a few keys on how you can do that to make sure that we can see that your science is sexy and that your engineering is engaging . First question to answer for us : so what ? Tell us why your science is relevant to us . Don 't just tell me that you study trabeculae , but tell me that you study trabeculae , which is the mesh-like structure of our bones because it 's important to understanding and treating osteoporosis . And when you 're describing your science , beware of jargon . Jargon is a barrier to our understanding of your ideas . Sure , you can say " spatial and temporal , " but why not just say " space and time , " which is so much more accessible to us ? And making your ideas accessible is not the same as dumbing it down . Instead , as Einstein said , make everything as simple as possible , but no simpler . You can clearly communicate your science without compromising the ideas . A few things to consider are having examples , stories and analogies . Those are ways to engage and excite us about your content . And when presenting your work , drop the bullet points . Have you ever wondered why they 're called bullet points ? What do bullets do ? Bullets kill , and they will kill your presentation . A slide like this is not only boring , but it relies too much on the language area of our brain , and causes us to become overwhelmed . Instead , this example slide by Genevieve Brown is much more effective . It 's showing that the special structure of trabeculae are so strong that they actually inspired the unique design of the Eiffel Tower . And the trick here is to use a single , readable sentence that the audience can key into if they get a bit lost , and then provide visuals which appeal to our other senses and create a deeper sense of understanding of what 's being described . So I think these are just a few keys that can help the rest of us to open that door and see the wonderland that is science and engineering . And because the engineers that I 've worked with have taught me to become really in touch with my inner nerd , I want to summarize with an equation . Take your science , subtract your bullet points and your jargon , divide by relevance , meaning share what 's relevant to the audience , and multiply it by the passion that you have for this incredible work that you 're doing , and that is going to equal incredible interactions that are full of understanding . And so , scientists and engineers , when you 've solved this equation , by all means , talk nerdy to me . Thank you . Hi . My name is Cameron Russell , and for the last little while I 've been a model . Actually , for 10 years . And I feel like there 's an uncomfortable tension in the room right now because I should not have worn this dress . So luckily I brought an outfit change . This is the first outfit change on the TED stage , so you guys are pretty lucky to witness it , I think . If some of the women were really horrified when I came out , you don 't have to tell me now , but I 'll find out later on Twitter . I 'd also note that I 'm quite privileged to be able to transform what you think of me in a very brief 10 seconds . Not everybody gets to do that . These heels are very uncomfortable , so good thing I wasn 't going to wear them . The worst part is putting this sweater over my head , because that 's when you 'll all laugh at me , so don 't do anything while it 's over my head . All right . So why did I do that ? That was awkward . Well , hopefully not as awkward as that picture . Image is powerful , but also image is superficial . I just totally transformed what you thought of me in six seconds . And in this picture , I had actually never had a boyfriend in real life . I was totally uncomfortable , and the photographer was telling me to arch my back and put my hand in that guy 's hair . And of course , barring surgery , or the fake tan that I got two days ago for work , there 's very little that we can do to transform how we look , and how we look , though it is superficial and immutable , has a huge impact on our lives . So today , for me , being fearless means being honest . And I am on this stage because I am a model . I am on this stage because I am a pretty , white woman , and in my industry we call that a sexy girl . And I 'm going to answer the questions that people always ask me , but with an honest twist . So the first question is , how do you become a model ? And I always just say , " Oh , I was scouted , " but that means nothing . The real way that I became a model is I won a genetic lottery , and I am the recipient of a legacy , and maybe you 're wondering what is a legacy . Well , for the past few centuries we have defined beauty not just as health and youth and symmetry that we 're biologically programmed to admire , but also as tall , slender figures , and femininity and white skin . And this is a legacy that was built for me , and it 's a legacy that I 've been cashing out on . And I know there are people in the audience who are skeptical at this point , and maybe there are some fashionistas who are , like , " Wait . Naomi . Tyra . Joan Smalls . Liu Wen . " And first , I commend you on your model knowledge . Very impressive . But unfortunately I have to inform you that in 2007 , a very inspired NYU Ph.D. student counted all the models on the runway , every single one that was hired , and of the 677 models that were hired , only 27 , or less than four percent , were non-white . The next question people always ask me is , " Can I be a model when I grow up ? " And the first answer is , " I don 't know , they don 't put me in charge of that . " But the second answer , and what I really want to say to these little girls is , " Why ? You know ? You can be anything . You could be the President of the United States , or the inventor of the next Internet , or a ninja cardio-thoracic surgeon poet , which would be awesome , because you 'd be the first one . " If , after this amazing list , they still are like , " No , no , Cameron , I want to be a model , " well then I say , " Be my boss . " Because I 'm not in charge of anything , and you could be the editor in chief of American Vogue or the CEO of H & amp ; M , or the next Steven Meisel . Saying that you want to be a model when you grow up is akin to saying that you want to win the Powerball when you grow up . It 's out of your control , and it 's awesome , and it 's not a career path . I will demonstrate for you now 10 years of accumulated model knowledge , because unlike cardio-thoracic surgeons , it can just be distilled right into -- right now . So if the photographer is right there and the light is right there , like a nice HMI , and the client says , " Cameron , we want a walking shot , " well then this leg goes first , nice and long , this arm goes back , this arm goes forward , the head is at three quarters , and you just go back and forth , just do that , and then you look back at your imaginary friends , 300 , 400 , 500 times . It will look something like this . Hopefully less awkward than that one in the middle . That was , I don 't know what happened there . Unfortunately after you 've gone to school , and you have a résumé and you 've done a few jobs , you can 't say anything anymore , so if you say you want to be the President of the United States , but your résumé reads , " Underwear Model : 10 years , " people give you a funny look . The next question people always ask me is , " Do they retouch all the photos ? " And yeah , they pretty much retouch all the photos , but that is only a small component of what 's happening . This picture is the very first picture that I ever took , and it 's also the very first time that I had worn a bikini , and I didn 't even have my period yet . I know we 're getting personal , but I was a young girl . This is what I looked like with my grandma just a few months earlier . Here 's me on the same day as this shoot . My friend got to come with me . Here 's me at a slumber party a few days before I shot French Vogue . Here 's me on the soccer team and in V Magazine . And here 's me today . And I hope what you 're seeing is that these pictures are not pictures of me . They are constructions , and they are constructions by a group of professionals , by hairstylists and makeup artists and photographers and stylists and all of their assistants and pre-production and post-production , and they build this . That 's not me . Okay , so the next question people always ask me is , " Do you get free stuff ? " I do have too many 8-inch heels which I never get to wear , except for earlier , but the free stuff that I get is the free stuff that I get in real life , and that 's what we don 't like to talk about . I grew up in Cambridge , and one time I went into a store and I forgot my money and they gave me the dress for free . When I was a teenager , I was driving with my friend who was an awful driver and she ran a red and of course , we got pulled over , and all it took was a " Sorry , officer , " and we were on our way . And I got these free things because of how I look , not who I am , and there are people paying a cost for how they look and not who they are . I live in New York , and last year , of the 140,000 teenagers that were stopped and frisked , 86 percent of them were black and Latino , and most of them were young men . And there are only 177,000 young black and Latino men in New York , so for them , it 's not a question of , " Will I get stopped ? " but " How many times will I get stopped ? When will I get stopped ? " When I was researching this talk , I found out that of the 13-year-old girls in the United States , 53 percent don 't like their bodies , and that number goes to 78 percent by the time that they 're 17 . So the last question people ask me is , " What is it like to be a model ? " And I think the answer that they 're looking for is , " If you are a little bit skinnier and you have shinier hair , you will be so happy and fabulous . " And when we 're backstage , we give an answer that maybe makes it seem like that . We say , " It 's really amazing to travel , and it 's amazing to get to work with creative , inspired , passionate people . " And those things are true , but they 're only one half of the story , because the thing that we never say on camera , that I have never said on camera , is , " I am insecure . " And I 'm insecure because I have to think about what I look like every day . And if you ever are wondering , " If I have thinner thighs and shinier hair , will I be happier ? " you just need to meet a group of models , because they have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes , and they 're the most physically insecure women probably on the planet . So when I was writing this talk , I found it very difficult to strike an honest balance , because on the one hand , I felt very uncomfortable to come out here and say , " Look I 've received all these benefits from a deck stacked in my favor , " and it also felt really uncomfortable to follow that up with , " and it doesn 't always make me happy . " But mostly it was difficult to unpack a legacy of gender and racial oppression when I am one of the biggest beneficiaries . But I 'm also happy and honored to be up here and I think that it 's great that I got to come before 10 or 20 or 30 years had passed and I 'd had more agency in my career , because maybe then I wouldn 't tell the story of how I got my first job , or maybe I wouldn 't tell the story of how I paid for college , which seems so important right now . If there 's a takeaway to this talk , I hope it 's that we all feel more comfortable acknowledging the power of image in our perceived successes and our perceived failures . Thank you . There are a lot of ways the people around us can help improve our lives . We don 't bump into every neighbor , so a lot of wisdom never gets passed on , though we do share the same public spaces . So over the past few years , I 've tried ways to share more with my neighbors in public space , using simple tools like stickers , stencils and chalk . And these projects came from questions I had , like , how much are my neighbors paying for their apartments ? How can we lend and borrow more things without knocking on each other 's doors at a bad time ? How can we share more of our memories of our abandoned buildings , and gain a better understanding of our landscape ? And how can we share more of our hopes for our vacant storefronts , so our communities can reflect our needs and dreams today ? Now , I live in New Orleans , and I am in love with New Orleans . My soul is always soothed by the giant live oak trees , shading lovers , drunks and dreamers for hundreds of years , and I trust a city that always makes way for music . I feel like every time someone sneezes , New Orleans has a parade . The city has some of the most beautiful architecture in the world , but it also has one of the highest amounts of abandoned properties in America . I live near this house , and I thought about how I could make it a nicer space for my neighborhood , and I also thought about something that changed my life forever . In 2009 , I lost someone I loved very much . Her name was Joan , and she was a mother to me , and her death was sudden and unexpected . And I thought about death a lot , and this made me feel deep gratitude for the time I 've had , and brought clarity to the things that are meaningful to my life now . But I struggle to maintain this perspective in my daily life . I feel like it 's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day , and forget what really matters to you . So with help from old and new friends , I turned the side of this abandoned house into a giant chalkboard and stenciled it with a fill-in-the-blank sentence : " Before I die , I want to ... " So anyone walking by can pick up a piece of chalk , reflect on their lives , and share their personal aspirations in public space . I didn 't know what to expect from this experiment , but by the next day , the wall was entirely filled out , and it kept growing . And I 'd like to share a few things that people wrote on this wall . " Before I die , I want to be tried for piracy . " " Before I die , I want to straddle the International Date Line . " " Before I die , I want to sing for millions . " " Before I die , I want to plant a tree . " " Before I die , I want to live off the grid . " " Before I die , I want to hold her one more time . " " Before I die , I want to be someone 's cavalry . " " Before I die , I want to be completely myself . " So this neglected space became a constructive one , and people 's hopes and dreams made me laugh out loud , tear up , and they consoled me during my own tough times . It 's about knowing you 're not alone . It 's about understanding our neighbors in new and enlightening ways . It 's about making space for reflection and contemplation , and remembering what really matters most to us as we grow and change . I made this last year , and started receiving hundreds of messages from passionate people who wanted to make a wall with their community , so my civic center colleagues and I made a tool kit , and now walls have been made in countries around the world , including Kazakhstan , South Africa , Australia , Argentina and beyond . Together , we 've shown how powerful our public spaces can be if we 're given the opportunity to have a voice and share more with one another . Two of the most valuable things we have are time and our relationships with other people . In our age of increasing distractions , it 's more important than ever to find ways to maintain perspective and remember that life is brief and tender . Death is something that we 're often discouraged to talk about or even think about , but I 've realized that preparing for death is one of the most empowering things you can do . Thinking about death clarifies your life . Our shared spaces can better reflect what matters to us as individuals and as a community , and with more ways to share our hopes , fears and stories , the people around us can not only help us make better places , they can help us lead better lives . Thank you . Thank you . So , well , I do applied math , and this is a peculiar problem for anyone who does applied math , is that we are like management consultants . No one knows what the hell we do . So I am going to give you some -- attempt today to try and explain to you what I do . So , dancing is one of the most human of activities . We delight at ballet virtuosos and tap dancers you will see later on . Now , ballet requires an extraordinary level of expertise and a high level of skill , and probably a level of initial suitability that may well have a genetic component to it . Now , sadly , neurological disorders such as Parkinson 's disease gradually destroy this extraordinary ability , as it is doing to my friend Jan Stripling , who was a virtuoso ballet dancer in his time . So great progress and treatment has been made over the years . However , there are 6.3 million people worldwide who have the disease , and they have to live with incurable weakness , tremor , rigidity and the other symptoms that go along with the disease , so what we need are objective tools to detect the disease before it 's too late . We need to be able to measure progression objectively , and ultimately , the only way we 're going to know when we actually have a cure is when we have an objective measure that can answer that for sure . But frustratingly , with Parkinson 's disease and other movement disorders , there are no biomarkers , so there 's no simple blood test that you can do , and the best that we have is like this 20-minute neurologist test . You have to go to the clinic to do it . It 's very , very costly , and that means that , outside the clinical trials , it 's just never done . It 's never done . But what if patients could do this test at home ? Now , that would actually save on a difficult trip to the clinic , and what if patients could do that test themselves , right ? No expensive staff time required . Takes about $ 300 , by the way , in the neurologist 's clinic to do it . So what I want to propose to you as an unconventional way in which we can try to achieve this , because , you see , in one sense , at least , we are all virtuosos like my friend Jan Stripling . So here we have a video of the vibrating vocal folds . Now , this is healthy and this is somebody making speech sounds , and we can think of ourselves as vocal ballet dancers , because we have to coordinate all of these vocal organs when we make sounds , and we all actually have the genes for it . FoxP2 , for example . And like ballet , it takes an extraordinary level of training . I mean , just think how long it takes a child to learn to speak . From the sound , we can actually track the vocal fold position as it vibrates , and just as the limbs are affected in Parkinson 's , so too are the vocal organs . So on the bottom trace , you can see an example of irregular vocal fold tremor . We see all the same symptoms . We see vocal tremor , weakness and rigidity . The speech actually becomes quieter and more breathy after a while , and that 's one of the example symptoms of it . So these vocal effects can actually be quite subtle , in some cases , but with any digital microphone , and using precision voice analysis software in combination with the latest in machine learning , which is very advanced by now , we can now quantify exactly where somebody lies on a continuum between health and disease using voice signals alone . So these voice-based tests , how do they stack up against expert clinical tests ? We 'll , they 're both non-invasive . The neurologist 's test is non-invasive . They both use existing infrastructure . You don 't have to design a whole new set of hospitals to do it . And they 're both accurate . Okay , but in addition , voice-based tests are non-expert . That means they can be self-administered . They 're high-speed , take about 30 seconds at most . They 're ultra-low cost , and we all know what happens . When something becomes ultra-low cost , it becomes massively scalable . So here are some amazing goals that I think we can deal with now . We can reduce logistical difficulties with patients . No need to go to the clinic for a routine checkup . We can do high-frequency monitoring to get objective data . We can perform low-cost mass recruitment for clinical trials , and we can make population-scale screening feasible for the first time . We have the opportunity to start to search for the early biomarkers of the disease before it 's too late . So , taking the first steps towards this today , we 're launching the Parkinson 's Voice Initiative . With Aculab and PatientsLikeMe , we 're aiming to record a very large number of voices worldwide to collect enough data to start to tackle these four goals . We have local numbers accessible to three quarters of a billion people on the planet . Anyone healthy or with Parkinson 's can call in , cheaply , and leave recordings , a few cents each , and I 'm really happy to announce that we 've already hit six percent of our target just in eight hours . Thank you . So Max , by taking all these samples of , let 's say , 10,000 people , you 'll be able to tell who 's healthy and who 's not ? What are you going to get out of those samples ? Yeah . Yeah . So what will happen is that , during the call you have to indicate whether or not you have the disease or not , you see . Right . You see , some people may not do it . They may not get through it . But we 'll get a very large sample of data that is collected from all different circumstances , and it 's getting it in different circumstances that matter because then we are looking at ironing out the confounding factors , and looking for the actual markers of the disease . So you 're 86 percent accurate right now ? It 's much better than that . Actually , my student Thanasis , I have to plug him , because he 's done some fantastic work , and now he has proved that it works over the mobile telephone network as well , which enables this project , and we 're getting 99 percent accuracy . Ninety-nine . Well , that 's an improvement . So what that means is that people will be able to — People will be able to call in from their mobile phones and do this test , and people with Parkinson 's could call in , record their voice , and then their doctor can check up on their progress , see where they 're doing in this course of the disease . Absolutely . Thanks so much . Max Little , everybody . Thanks , Tom . I live in South Central . This is South Central : liquor stores , fast food , vacant lots . So the city planners , they get together and they figure they 're going to change the name South Central to make it represent something else , so they change it to South Los Angeles , like this is going to fix what 's really going wrong in the city . This is South Los Angeles . Liquor stores , fast food , vacant lots . Just like 26.5 million other Americans , I live in a food desert , South Central Los Angeles , home of the drive-thru and the drive-by . Funny thing is , the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys . People are dying from curable diseases in South Central Los Angeles . For instance , the obesity rate in my neighborhood is five times higher than , say , Beverly Hills , which is probably eight , 10 miles away . I got tired of seeing this happening . And I was wondering , how would you feel if you had no access to healthy food , if every time you walk out your door you see the ill effects that the present food system has on your neighborhood ? I see wheelchairs bought and sold like used cars . I see dialysis centers popping up like Starbucks . And I figured , this has to stop . So I figured that the problem is the solution . Food is the problem and food is the solution . Plus I got tired of driving 45 minutes round trip to get an apple that wasn 't impregnated with pesticides . So what I did , I planted a food forest in front of my house . It was on a strip of land that we call a parkway . It 's 150 feet by 10 feet . Thing is , it 's owned by the city . But you have to maintain it . So I 'm like , " Cool . I can do whatever the hell I want , since it 's my responsibility and I gotta maintain it . " And this is how I decided to maintain it . So me and my group , L.A. Green Grounds , we got together and we started planting my food forest , fruit trees , you know , the whole nine , vegetables . What we do , we 're a pay-it-forward kind of group , where it 's composed of gardeners from all walks of life , from all over the city , and it 's completely volunteer , and everything we do is free . And the garden , it was beautiful . And then somebody complained . The city came down on me , and basically gave me a citation saying that I had to remove my garden , which this citation was turning into a warrant . And I 'm like , " Come on , really ? A warrant for planting food on a piece of land that you could care less about ? " And I was like , " Cool . Bring it . " Because this time it wasn 't coming up . So L.A. Times got ahold of it . Steve Lopez did a story on it and talked to the councilman , and one of the Green Grounds members , they put up a petition on Change.org , and with 900 signatures , we were a success . We had a victory on our hands . My councilman even called in and said how they endorse and love what we 're doing . I mean , come on , why wouldn 't they ? L.A. leads the United States in vacant lots that the city actually owns . They own 26 square miles of vacant lots . That 's 20 Central Parks . That 's enough space to plant 725 million tomato plants . Why in the hell would they not okay this ? Growing one plant will give you 1,000 , 10,000 seeds . When one dollar 's worth of green beans will give you 75 dollars ' worth of produce . It 's my gospel , when I 'm telling people , grow your own food . Growing your own food is like printing your own money . See , I have a legacy in South Central . I grew up there . I raised my sons there . And I refuse to be a part of this manufactured reality that was manufactured for me by some other people , and I 'm manufacturing my own reality . See , I 'm an artist . Gardening is my graffiti . I grow my art . Just like a graffiti artist , where they beautify walls , me , I beautiful lawns , parkways . I use the garden , the soil , like it 's a piece of cloth , and the plants and the trees , that 's my embellishment for that cloth . You 'd be surprised what the soil could do if you let it be your canvas . You just couldn 't imagine how amazing a sunflower is and how it affects people . So what happened ? I have witnessed my garden become a tool for the education , a tool for the transformation of my neighborhood . To change the community , you have to change the composition of the soil . We are the soil . You 'd be surprised how kids are affected by this . Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do , especially in the inner city . Plus you get strawberries . I remember this time , there was this mother and a daughter came , it was , like , 10 : 30 at night , and they were in my yard , and I came out and they looked so ashamed . So I 'm like , man , it made me feel bad that they were there , and I told them , you know , you don 't have to do this like this . This is on the street for a reason . It made me feel ashamed to see people that were this close to me that were hungry , and this only reinforced why I do this , and people asked me , " Fin , aren 't you afraid people are going to steal your food ? " And I 'm like , " Hell no , I ain 't afraid they 're gonna steal it . That 's why it 's on the street . That 's the whole idea . I want them to take it , but at the same time , I want them to take back their health . " There 's another time when I put a garden in this homeless shelter in downtown Los Angeles . These are the guys , they helped me unload the truck . It was cool , and they just shared the stories about how this affected them and how they used to plant with their mother and their grandmother , and it was just cool to see how this changed them , if it was only for that one moment . So Green Grounds has gone on to plant maybe 20 gardens . We 've had , like , 50 people come to our dig-ins and participate , and it 's all volunteers . If kids grow kale , kids eat kale . If they grow tomatoes , they eat tomatoes . But when none of this is presented to them , if they 're not shown how food affects the mind and the body , they blindly eat whatever the hell you put in front of them . I see young people and they want to work , but they 're in this thing where they 're caught up -- I see kids of color and they 're just on this track that 's designed for them , that leads them to nowhere . So with gardening , I see an opportunity where we can train these kids to take over their communities , to have a sustainable life . And when we do this , who knows ? We might produce the next George Washington Carver . but if we don 't change the composition of the soil , we will never do this . Now this is one of my plans . This is what I want to do . I want to plant a whole block of gardens where people can share in the food in the same block . I want to take shipping containers and turn them into healthy cafes . Now don 't get me wrong . I 'm not talking about no free shit , because free is not sustainable . The funny thing about sustainability , you have to sustain it . What I 'm talking about is putting people to work , and getting kids off the street , and letting them know the joy , the pride and the honor in growing your own food , opening farmer 's markets . So what I want to do here , we gotta make this sexy . So I want us all to become ecolutionary renegades , gangstas , gangsta gardeners . We gotta flip the script on what a gangsta is . If you ain 't a gardener , you ain 't gangsta . Get gangsta with your shovel , okay ? And let that be your weapon of choice . So basically , if you want to meet with me , you know , if you want to meet , don 't call me if you want to sit around in cushy chairs and have meetings where you talk about doing some shit -- where you talk about doing some shit . If you want to meet with me , come to the garden with your shovel so we can plant some shit . Peace . Thank you . Thank you . This is where I live . I live in Kenya , at the south parts of the Nairobi National Park . Those are my dad 's cows at the back , and behind the cows , that 's the Nairobi National Park . Nairobi National Park is not fenced in the south widely , which means wild animals like zebras migrate out of the park freely . So predators like lions follow them , and this is what they do . They kill our livestock . This is one of the cows which was killed at night , and I just woke up in the morning and I found it dead , and I felt so bad , because it was the only bull we had . My community , the Maasai , we believe that we came from heaven with all our animals and all the land for herding them , and that 's why we value them so much . So I grew up hating lions so much . The morans are the warriors who protect our community and the livestock , and they 're also upset about this problem . So they kill the lions . It 's one of the six lions which were killed in Nairobi . And I think this is why the Nairobi National Park lions are few . So a boy , from six to nine years old , in my community is responsible for his dad 's cows , and that 's the same thing which happened to me . So I had to find a way of solving this problem . And the first idea I got was to use fire , because I thought lions were scared of fire . But I came to realize that that didn 't really help , because it was even helping the lions to see through the cowshed . So I didn 't give up . I continued . And a second idea I got was to use a scarecrow . I was trying to trick the lions [ into thinking ] that I was standing near the cowshed . But lions are very clever . They will come the first day and they see the scarecrow , and they go back , but the second day , they 'll come and they say , this thing is not moving here , it 's always here . So he jumps in and kills the animals . So one night , I was walking around the cowshed with a torch , and that day , the lions didn 't come . And I discovered that lions are afraid of a moving light . So I had an idea . Since I was a small boy , I used to work in my room for the whole day , and I even took apart my mom 's new radio , and that day she almost killed me , but I learned a lot about electronics . So I got an old car battery , an indicator box . It 's a small device found in a motorcycle , and it helps motorists when they want to turn right or left . It blinks . And I got a switch where I can switch on the lights , on and off . And that 's a small torch from a broken flashlight . So I set up everything . As you can see , the solar panel charges the battery , and the battery supplies the power to the small indicator box . I call it a transformer . And the indicator box makes the lights flash . As you can see , the bulbs face outside , because that 's where the lions come from . And that 's how it looks to lions when they come at night . The lights flash and trick the lions into thinking I was walking around the cowshed , but I was sleeping in my bed . Thanks . So I set it up in my home two years ago , and since then , we have never experienced any problem with lions . And my neighboring homes heard about this idea . One of them was this grandmother . She had a lot of her animals being killed by lions , and she asked me if I could put the lights for her . And I said , " Yes . " So I put the lights . You can see at the back , those are the lion lights . Since now , I 've set up seven homes around my community , and they 're really working . And my idea is also being used now all over Kenya for scaring other predators like hyenas , leopards , and it 's also being used to scare elephants away from people 's farms . Because of this invention , I was lucky to get a scholarship in one of the best schools in Kenya , Brookhouse International School , and I 'm really excited about this . My new school now is coming in and helping by fundraising and creating an awareness . I even took my friends back to my community , and we 're installing the lights to the homes which don 't have [ any ] , and I 'm teaching them how to put them . So one year ago , I was just a boy in the savanna grassland herding my father 's cows , and I used to see planes flying over , and I told myself that one day , I 'll be there inside . And here I am today . I got a chance to come by plane for my first time for TED . So my big dream is to become an aircraft engineer and pilot when I grow up . I used to hate lions , but now because my invention is saving my father 's cows and the lions , we are able to stay with the lions without any conflict . Ashê olên . It means in my language , thank you very much . You have no idea how exciting it is to hear a story like yours . So you got this scholarship . Yep . You 're working on other electrical inventions . What 's the next one on your list ? My next invention is , I want to make an electric fence . Electric fence ? But I know electric fences are already invented , but I want to make mine . You already tried it once , right , and you -- I tried it before , but I stopped because it gave me a shock . In the trenches . Richard Turere , you are something else . We 're going to cheer you on every step of the way , my friend . Thank you so much . Thank you . Everything I do , and everything I do professionally -- my life -- has been shaped by seven years of work as a young man in Africa . From 1971 to 1977 -- I look young , but I 'm not — -- I worked in Zambia , Kenya , Ivory Coast , Algeria , Somalia , in projects of technical cooperation with African countries . I worked for an Italian NGO , and every single project that we set up in Africa failed . And I was distraught . I thought , age 21 , that we Italians were good people and we were doing good work in Africa . Instead , everything we touched we killed . Our first project , the one that has inspired my first book , " Ripples from the Zambezi , " was a project where we Italians decided to teach Zambian people how to grow food . So we arrived there with Italian seeds in southern Zambia in this absolutely magnificent valley going down to the Zambezi River , and we taught the local people how to grow Italian tomatoes and zucchini and ... And of course the local people had absolutely no interest in doing that , so we paid them to come and work , and sometimes they would show up . And we were amazed that the local people , in such a fertile valley , would not have any agriculture . But instead of asking them how come they were not growing anything , we simply said , " Thank God we 're here . " " Just in the nick of time to save the Zambian people from starvation . " And of course , everything in Africa grew beautifully . We had these magnificent tomatoes . In Italy , a tomato would grow to this size . In Zambia , to this size . And we could not believe , and we were telling the Zambians , " Look how easy agriculture is . " When the tomatoes were nice and ripe and red , overnight , some 200 hippos came out from the river and they ate everything . And we said to the Zambians , " My God , the hippos ! " And the Zambians said , " Yes , that 's why we have no agriculture here . " " Why didn 't you tell us ? " " You never asked . " I thought it was only us Italians blundering around Africa , but then I saw what the Americans were doing , what the English were doing , what the French were doing , and after seeing what they were doing , I became quite proud of our project in Zambia . Because , you see , at least we fed the hippos . You should see the rubbish — -- You should see the rubbish that we have bestowed on unsuspecting African people . You want to read the book , read " Dead Aid , " by Dambisa Moyo , Zambian woman economist . The book was published in 2009 . We Western donor countries have given the African continent two trillion American dollars in the last 50 years . I 'm not going to tell you the damage that that money has done . Just go and read her book . Read it from an African woman , the damage that we have done . We Western people are imperialist , colonialist missionaries , and there are only two ways we deal with people : We either patronize them , or we are paternalistic . The two words come from the Latin root " pater , " which means " father . " But they mean two different things . Paternalistic , I treat anybody from a different culture as if they were my children . " I love you so much . " Patronizing , I treat everybody from another culture as if they were my servants . That 's why the white people in Africa are called " bwana , " boss . I was given a slap in the face reading a book , " Small is Beautiful , " written by Schumacher , who said , above all in economic development , if people do not wish to be helped , leave them alone . This should be the first principle of aid . The first principle of aid is respect . This morning , the gentleman who opened this conference lay a stick on the floor , and said , " Can we -- can you imagine a city that is not neocolonial ? " I decided when I was 27 years old to only respond to people , and I invented a system called Enterprise Facilitation , where you never initiate anything , you never motivate anybody , but you become a servant of the local passion , the servant of local people who have a dream to become a better person . So what you do -- you shut up . You never arrive in a community with any ideas , and you sit with the local people . We don 't work from offices . We meet at the cafe . We meet at the pub . We have zero infrastructure . And what we do , we become friends , and we find out what that person wants to do . The most important thing is passion . You can give somebody an idea . If that person doesn 't want to do it , what are you going to do ? The passion that the person has for her own growth is the most important thing . The passion that that man has for his own personal growth is the most important thing . And then we help them to go and find the knowledge , because nobody in the world can succeed alone . The person with the idea may not have the knowledge , but the knowledge is available . So years and years ago , I had this idea : Why don 't we , for once , instead of arriving in the community to tell people what to do , why don 't , for once , listen to them ? But not in community meetings . Let me tell you a secret . There is a problem with community meetings . Entrepreneurs never come , and they never tell you , in a public meeting , what they want to do with their own money , what opportunity they have identified . So planning has this blind spot . The smartest people in your community you don 't even know , because they don 't come to your public meetings . What we do , we work one-on-one , and to work one-on-one , you have to create a social infrastructure that doesn 't exist . You have to create a new profession . The profession is the family doctor of enterprise , the family doctor of business , who sits with you in your house , at your kitchen table , at the cafe , and helps you find the resources to transform your passion into a way to make a living . I started this as a tryout in Esperance , in Western Australia . I was a doing a Ph.D. at the time , trying to go away from this patronizing bullshit that we arrive and tell you what to do . And so what I did in Esperance that first year was to just walk the streets , and in three days I had my first client , and I helped this first guy who was smoking fish from a garage , was a Maori guy , and I helped him to sell to the restaurant in Perth , to get organized , and then the fishermen came to me to say , " You the guy who helped Maori ? Can you help us ? " And I helped these five fishermen to work together and get this beautiful tuna not to the cannery in Albany for 60 cents a kilo , but we found a way to take the fish for sushi to Japan for 15 dollars a kilo , and the farmers came to talk to me , said , " Hey , you helped them . Can you help us ? " In a year , I had 27 projects going on , and the government came to see me to say , " How can you do that ? How can you do — ? " And I said , " I do something very , very , very difficult . I shut up , and listen to them . " So — — So the government says , " Do it again . " We 've done it in 300 communities around the world . We have helped to start 40,000 businesses . There is a new generation of entrepreneurs who are dying of solitude . Peter Drucker , one of the greatest management consultants in history , died age 96 , a few years ago . Peter Drucker was a professor of philosophy before becoming involved in business , and this is what Peter Drucker says : " Planning is actually incompatible with an entrepreneurial society and economy . " Planning is the kiss of death of entrepreneurship . So now you 're rebuilding Christchurch without knowing what the smartest people in Christchurch want to do with their own money and their own energy . You have to learn how to get these people to come and talk to you . You have to offer them confidentiality , privacy , you have to be fantastic at helping them , and then they will come , and they will come in droves . In a community of 10,000 people , we get 200 clients . Can you imagine a community of 400,000 people , the intelligence and the passion ? Which presentation have you applauded the most this morning ? Local , passionate people . That 's who you have applauded . So what I 'm saying is that entrepreneurship is where it 's at . We are at the end of the first industrial revolution -- nonrenewable fossil fuels , manufacturing -- and all of a sudden , we have systems which are not sustainable . The internal combustion engine is not sustainable . Freon way of maintaining things is not sustainable . What we have to look at is at how we feed , cure , educate , transport , communicate for seven billion people in a sustainable way . The technologies do not exist to do that . Who is going to invent the technology for the green revolution ? Universities ? Forget about it ! Government ? Forget about it ! It will be entrepreneurs , and they 're doing it now . There 's a lovely story that I read in a futurist magazine many , many years ago . There was a group of experts who were invited to discuss the future of the city of New York in 1860 . And in 1860 , this group of people came together , and they all speculated about what would happen to the city of New York in 100 years , and the conclusion was unanimous : The city of New York would not exist in 100 years . Why ? Because they looked at the curve and said , if the population keeps growing at this rate , to move the population of New York around , they would have needed six million horses , and the manure created by six million horses would be impossible to deal with . They were already drowning in manure . So 1860 , they are seeing this dirty technology that is going to choke the life out of New York . So what happens ? In 40 years ' time , in the year 1900 , in the United States of America , there were 1,001 car manufacturing companies -- 1,001 . The idea of finding a different technology had absolutely taken over , and there were tiny , tiny little factories in backwaters . Dearborn , Michigan . Henry Ford . However , there is a secret to work with entrepreneurs . First , you have to offer them confidentiality . Otherwise they don 't come and talk to you . Then you have to offer them absolute , dedicated , passionate service to them . And then you have to tell them the truth about entrepreneurship . The smallest company , the biggest company , has to be capable of doing three things beautifully : The product that you want to sell has to be fantastic , you have to have fantastic marketing , and you have to have tremendous financial management . Guess what ? We have never met a single human being in the world who can make it , sell it and look after the money . It doesn 't exist . This person has never been born . We 've done the research , and we have looked at the 100 iconic companies of the world -- Carnegie , Westinghouse , Edison , Ford , all the new companies , Google , Yahoo . There 's only one thing that all the successful companies in the world have in common , only one : None were started by one person . Now we teach entrepreneurship to 16-year-olds in Northumberland , and we start the class by giving them the first two pages of Richard Branson 's autobiography , and the task of the 16-year-olds is to underline , in the first two pages of Richard Branson 's autobiography how many times Richard uses the word " I " and how many times he uses the word " we . " Never the word " I , " and the word " we " 32 times . He wasn 't alone when he started . Nobody started a company alone . No one . So we can create the community where we have facilitators who come from a small business background sitting in cafes , in bars , and your dedicated buddies who will do to you , what somebody did for this gentleman who talks about this epic , somebody who will say to you , " What do you need ? What can you do ? Can you make it ? Okay , can you sell it ? Can you look after the money ? " " Oh , no , I cannot do this . " " Would you like me to find you somebody ? " We activate communities . We have groups of volunteers supporting the Enterprise Facilitator to help you to find resources and people and we have discovered that the miracle of the intelligence of local people is such that you can change the culture and the economy of this community just by capturing the passion , the energy and imagination of your own people . Thank you . Before March , 2011 , I was a photographic retoucher based in New York City . We 're pale , gray creatures . We hide in dark , windowless rooms , and generally avoid sunlight . We make skinny models skinnier , perfect skin more perfect , and the impossible possible , and we get criticized in the press all the time , but some of us are actually talented artists with years of experience and a real appreciation for images and photography . On March 11 , 2011 , I watched from home , as the rest of the world did , as the tragic events unfolded in Japan . Soon after , an organization I volunteer with , All Hands Volunteers , were on the ground , within days , working as part of the response efforts . I , along with hundreds of other volunteers , knew we couldn 't just sit at home , so I decided to join them for three weeks . On May the 13th , I made my way to the town of Ōfunato . It 's a small fishing town in Iwate Prefecture , about 50,000 people , one of the first that was hit by the wave . The waters here have been recorded at reaching over 24 meters in height , and traveled over two miles inland . As you can imagine , the town had been devastated . We pulled debris from canals and ditches . We cleaned schools . We de-mudded and gutted homes ready for renovation and rehabilitation . We cleared tons and tons of stinking , rotting fish carcasses from the local fish processing plant . We got dirty , and we loved it . For weeks , all the volunteers and locals alike had been finding similar things . They 'd been finding photos and photo albums and cameras and SD cards . And everyone was doing the same . They were collecting them up , and handing them in to various places around the different towns for safekeeping . Now , it wasn 't until this point that I realized that these photos were such a huge part of the personal loss these people had felt . As they had run from the wave , and for their lives , absolutely everything they had , everything had to be left behind . At the end of my first week there , I found myself helping out in an evacuation center in the town . I was helping clean the onsen , the communal onsen , the huge giant bathtubs . This happened to also be a place in the town where the evacuation center was collecting the photos . This is where people were handing them in , and I was honored that day that they actually trusted me to help them start hand-cleaning them . Now , it was emotional and it was inspiring , and I 've always heard about thinking outside the box , but it wasn 't until I had actually gotten outside of my box that something happened . As I looked through the photos , there were some were over a hundred years old , some still in the envelope from the processing lab , I couldn 't help but think as a retoucher that I could fix that tear and mend that scratch , and I knew hundreds of people who could do the same . So that evening , I just reached out on Facebook and asked a few of them , and by morning the response had been so overwhelming and so positive , I knew we had to give it a go . So we started retouching photos . This was the very first . Not terribly damaged , but where the water had caused that discoloration on the girl 's face had to be repaired with such accuracy and delicacy . Otherwise , that little girl isn 't going to look like that little girl anymore , and surely that 's as tragic as having the photo damaged . Over time , more photos came in , thankfully , and more retouchers were needed , and so I reached out again on Facebook and LinkedIn , and within five days , 80 people wanted to help from 12 different countries . Within two weeks , I had 150 people wanting to join in . Within Japan , by July , we 'd branched out to the neighboring town of Rikuzentakata , further north to a town called Yamada . Once a week , we would set up our scanning equipment in the temporary photo libraries that had been set up , where people were reclaiming their photos . The older ladies sometimes hadn 't seen a scanner before , but within 10 minutes of them finding their lost photo , they could give it to us , have it scanned , uploaded to a cloud server , it would be downloaded by a gaijin , a stranger , somewhere on the other side of the globe , and it 'd start being fixed . The time it took , however , to get it back is a completely different story , and it depended obviously on the damage involved . It could take an hour . It could take weeks . It could take months . The kimono in this shot pretty much had to be hand-drawn , or pieced together , picking out the remaining parts of color and detail that the water hadn 't damaged . It was very time-consuming . Now , all these photos had been damaged by water , submerged in salt water , covered in bacteria , in sewage , sometimes even in oil , all of which over time is going to continue to damage them , so hand-cleaning them was a huge part of the project . We couldn 't retouch the photo unless it was cleaned , dry and reclaimed . Now , we were lucky with our hand-cleaning . We had an amazing local woman who guided us . It 's very easy to do more damage to those damaged photos . As my team leader Wynne once said , it 's like doing a tattoo on someone . You don 't get a chance to mess it up . The lady who brought us these photos was lucky , as far as the photos go . She had started hand-cleaning them herself and stopped when she realized she was doing more damage . She also had duplicates . Areas like her husband and her face , which otherwise would have been completely impossible to fix , we could just put them together in one good photo , and remake the whole photo . When she collected the photos from us , she shared a bit of her story with us . Her photos were found by her husband 's colleagues at a local fire department in the debris a long way from where the home had once stood , and they 'd recognized him . The day of the tsunami , he 'd actually been in charge of making sure the tsunami gates were closed . He had to go towards the water as the sirens sounded . Her two little boys , not so little anymore , but her two boys were both at school , separate schools . One of them got caught up in the water . It took her a week to find them all again and find out that they had all survived . The day I gave her the photos also happened to be her youngest son 's 14th birthday . For her , despite all of this , those photos were the perfect gift back to him , something he could look at again , something he remembered from before that wasn 't still scarred from that day in March when absolutely everything else in his life had changed or been destroyed . After six months in Japan , 1,100 volunteers had passed through All Hands , hundreds of whom had helped us hand-clean over 135,000 photographs , the large majority a large majority of which did actually find their home again , importantly . Over five hundred volunteers around the globe helped us get 90 families hundreds of photographs back , fully restored and retouched . During this time , we hadn 't really spent more than about a thousand dollars in equipment and materials , most of which was printer inks . We take photos constantly . A photo is a reminder of someone or something , a place , a relationship , a loved one . They 're our memory-keepers and our histories , the last thing we would grab and the first thing you 'd go back to look for . That 's all this project was about , about restoring those little bits of humanity , giving someone that connection back . When a photo like this can be returned to someone like this , it makes a huge difference in the lives of the person receiving it . The project 's also made a big difference in the lives of the retouchers . For some of them , it 's given them a connection to something bigger , giving something back , using their talents on something other than skinny models and perfect skin . I would like to conclude by reading an email I got from one of them , Cindy , the day I finally got back from Japan after six months . " As I worked , I couldn 't help but think about the individuals and the stories represented in the images . One in particular , a photo of women of all ages , from grandmother to little girl , gathered around a baby , struck a chord , because a similar photo from my family , my grandmother and mother , myself , and newborn daughter , hangs on our wall . Across the globe , throughout the ages , our basic needs are just the same , aren 't they ? " Thank you . I 'm 150 feet down an illegal mine shaft in Ghana . The air is thick with heat and dust , and it 's hard to breathe . I can feel the brush of sweaty bodies passing me in the darkness , but I can 't see much else . I hear voices talking , but mostly the shaft is this cacophony of men coughing , and stone being broken with primitive tools . Like the others , I wear a flickering , cheap flashlight tied to my head with this elastic , tattered band , and I can barely make out the slick tree limbs holding up the walls of the three-foot square hole dropping hundreds of feet into the earth . When my hand slips , I suddenly remember a miner I had met days before who had lost his grip and fell countless feet down that shaft . As I stand talking to you today , these men are still deep in that hole , risking their lives without payment or compensation , and often dying . I got to climb out of that hole , and I got to go home , but they likely never will , because they 're trapped in slavery . For the last 28 years , I 've been documenting indigenous cultures in more than 70 countries on six continents , and in 2009 I had the great honor of being the sole exhibitor at the Vancouver Peace Summit . Amongst all the astonishing people I met there , I met a supporter of Free the Slaves , an NGO dedicated to eradicating modern day slavery . We started talking about slavery , and really , I started learning about slavery , for I had certainly known it existed in the world , but not to such a degree . After we finished talking , I felt so horrible and honestly ashamed at my own lack of knowledge of this atrocity in my own lifetime , and I thought , if I don 't know , how many other people don 't know ? It started burning a hole in my stomach , so within weeks , I flew down to Los Angeles to meet with the director of Free the Slaves and offer them my help . Thus began my journey into modern day slavery . Oddly , I had been to many of these places before . Some I even considered like my second home . But this time , I would see the skeletons hidden in the closet . A conservative estimate tells us there are more than 27 million people enslaved in the world today . That 's double the amount of people taken from Africa during the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade . A hundred and fifty years ago , an agricultural slave cost about three times the annual salary of an American worker . That equates to about $ 50,000 in today 's money . Yet today , entire families can be enslaved for generations over a debt as small as $ 18 . Astonishingly , slavery generates profits of more than $ 13 billion worldwide each year . Many have been tricked by false promises of a good education , a better job , only to find that they 're forced to work without pay under the threat of violence , and they cannot walk away . Today 's slavery is about commerce , so the goods that enslaved people produce have value , but the people producing them are disposable . Slavery exists everywhere , nearly , in the world , and yet it is illegal everywhere in the world . In India and Nepal , I was introduced to the brick kilns . This strange and awesome sight was like walking into ancient Egypt or Dante 's Inferno . Enveloped in temperatures of 130 degrees , men , women , children , entire families in fact , were cloaked in a heavy blanket of dust , while mechanically stacking bricks on their head , up to 18 at a time , and carrying them from the scorching kilns to trucks hundreds of yards away . Deadened by monotony and exhaustion , they work silently , doing this task over and over for 16 or 17 hours a day . There were no breaks for food , no water breaks , and the severe dehydration made urinating pretty much inconsequential . So pervasive was the heat and the dust that my camera became too hot to even touch and ceased working . Every 20 minutes , I 'd have to run back to our cruiser to clean out my gear and run it under an air conditioner to revive it , and as I sat there , I thought , my camera is getting far better treatment than these people . Back in the kilns , I wanted to cry , but the abolitionist next to me quickly grabbed me and he said , " Lisa , don 't do that . Just don 't do that here . " And he very clearly explained to me that emotional displays are very dangerous in a place like this , not just for me , but for them . I couldn 't offer them any direct help . I couldn 't give them money , nothing . I wasn 't a citizen of that country . I could get them in a worse situation than they were already in . I 'd have to rely on Free the Slaves to work within the system for their liberation , and I trusted that they would . As for me , I 'd have to wait until I got home to really feel my heartbreak . In the Himalayas , I found children carrying stone for miles down mountainous terrain to trucks waiting at roads below . The big sheets of slate were heavier than the children carrying them , and the kids hoisted them from their heads using these handmade harnesses of sticks and rope and torn cloth . It 's difficult to witness something so overwhelming . How can we affect something so insidious , yet so pervasive ? Some don 't even know they 're enslaved , people working 16 , 17 hours a day without any pay , because this has been the case all their lives . They have nothing to compare it to . When these villagers claimed their freedom , the slaveholders burned down all of their houses . I mean , these people had nothing , and they were so petrified , they wanted to give up , but the woman in the center rallied for them to persevere , and abolitionists on the ground helped them get a quarry lease of their own , so that now they do the same back-breaking work , but they do it for themselves , and they get paid for it , and they do it in freedom . Sex trafficking is what we often think of when we hear the word slavery , and because of this worldwide awareness , I was warned that it would be difficult for me to work safely within this particular industry . In Kathmandu , I was escorted by women who had previously been sex slaves themselves . They ushered me down a narrow set of stairs that led to this dirty , dimly fluorescent lit basement . This wasn 't a brothel , per se . It was more like a restaurant . Cabin restaurants , as they 're known in the trade , are venues for forced prostitution . Each has small , private rooms , where the slaves , women , along with young girls and boys , some as young as seven years old , are forced to entertain the clients , encouraging them to buy more food and alcohol . Each cubicle is dark and dingy , identified with a painted number on the wall , and partitioned by plywood and a curtain . The workers here often endure tragic sexual abuse at the hands of their customers . Standing in the near darkness , I remember feeling this quick , hot fear , and in that instant , I could only imagine what it must be like to be trapped in that hell . I had only one way out : the stairs from where I 'd come in . There were no back doors . There were no windows large enough to climb through . These people have no escape at all , and as we take in such a difficult subject , it 's important to note that slavery , including sex trafficking , occurs in our own backyard as well . Tens of hundreds of people are enslaved in agriculture , in restaurants , in domestic servitude , and the list can go on . Recently , the New York Times reported that between 100,000 and 300,000 American children are sold into sex slavery every year . It 's all around us . We just don 't see it . The textile industry is another one we often think of when we hear about slave labor . I visited villages in India where entire families were enslaved in the silk trade . This is a family portrait . The dyed black hands are the father , while the blue and red hands are his sons . They mix dye in these big barrels , and they submerge the silk into the liquid up to their elbows , but the dye is toxic . My interpreter told me their stories . " We have no freedom , " they said . " We hope still , though , that we could leave this house someday and go someplace else where we actually get paid for our dyeing . " It 's estimated that more than 4,000 children are enslaved on Lake Volta , the largest man-made lake in the world . When we first arrived , I went to have a quick look . I saw what seemed to be a family fishing on a boat , two older brothers , some younger kids , makes sense right ? Wrong . They were all enslaved . Children are taken from their families and trafficked and vanished , and they 're forced to work endless hours on these boats on the lake , even though they do not know how to swim . This young child is eight years old . He was trembling when our boat approached , frightened it would run over his tiny canoe . He was petrified he would be knocked in the water . The skeletal tree limbs submerged in Lake Volta often catch the fishing nets , and weary , frightened children are thrown into the water to untether the lines . Many of them drown . For as long as he can recall , he 's been forced to work on the lake . Terrified of his master , he will not run away , and since he 's been treated with cruelty all his life , he passes that down to the younger slaves that he manages . I met these boys at five in the morning , when they were hauling in the last of their nets , but they had been working since 1 a.m. in the cold , windy night . And it 's important to note that these nets weigh more than a thousand pounds when they 're full of fish . I want to introduce you to Kofi . Kofi was rescued from a fishing village . I met him at a shelter where Free the Slaves rehabilitates victims of slavery . Here he 's seen taking a bath at the well , pouring big buckets of water over his head , and the wonderful news is , as you and I are sitting here talking today , Kofi has been reunited with his family , and what 's even better , his family has been given tools to make a living and to keep their children safe . Kofi is the embodiment of possibility . Who will he become because someone took a stand and made a difference in his life ? Driving down a road in Ghana with partners of Free the Slaves , a fellow abolitionist on a moped suddenly sped up to our cruiser and tapped on the window . He told us to follow him down a dirt road into the jungle . At the end of the road , he urged us out of the car , and told the driver to quickly leave . Then he pointed toward this barely visible footpath , and said , " This is the path , this is the path . Go . " As we started down the path , we pushed aside the vines blocking the way , and after about an hour of walking in , found that the trail had become flooded by recent rains , so I hoisted the photo gear above my head as we descended into these waters up to my chest . After another two hours of hiking , the winding trail abruptly ended at a clearing , and before us was a mass of holes that could fit into the size of a football field , and all of them were full of enslaved people laboring . Many women had children strapped to their backs while they were panning for gold , wading in water poisoned by mercury . Mercury is used in the extraction process . These miners are enslaved in a mine shaft in another part of Ghana . When they came out of the shaft , they were soaking wet from their own sweat . I remember looking into their tired , bloodshot eyes , for many of them had been underground for 72 hours . The shafts are up to 300 feet deep , and they carry out heavy bags of stone that later will be transported to another area , where the stone will be pounded so that they can extract the gold . At first glance , the pounding site seems full of powerful men , but when we look closer , we see some less fortunate working on the fringes , and children too . All of them are victim to injury , illness and violence . In fact , it 's very likely that this muscular person will end up like this one here , racked with tuberculosis and mercury poisoning in just a few years . This is Manuru . When his father died , his uncle trafficked him to work with him in the mines . When his uncle died , Manuru inherited his uncle 's debt , which further forced him into being enslaved in the mines . When I met him , he had been working in the mines for 14 years , and the leg injury that you see here is actually from a mining accident , one so severe doctors say his leg should be amputated . On top of that , Manuru has tuberculosis , yet he 's still forced to work day in and day out in that mine shaft . Even still , he has a dream that he will become free and become educated with the help of local activists like Free the Slaves , and it 's this sort of determination , in the face of unimaginable odds , that fills me with complete awe . I want to shine a light on slavery . When I was working in the field , I brought lots of candles with me , and with the help of my interpreter , I imparted to the people I was photographing that I wanted to illuminate their stories and their plight , so when it was safe for them , and safe for me , I made these images . They knew their image would be seen by you out in the world . I wanted them to know that we will be bearing witness to them , and that we will do whatever we can to help make a difference in their lives . I truly believe , if we can see one another as fellow human beings , then it becomes very difficult to tolerate atrocities like slavery . These images are not of issues . They are of people , real people , like you and me , all deserving of the same rights , dignity and respect in their lives . There is not a day that goes by that I don 't think of these many beautiful , mistreated people I 've had the tremendous honor of meeting . I hope that these images awaken a force in those who view them , people like you , and I hope that force will ignite a fire , and that fire will shine a light on slavery , for without that light , the beast of bondage can continue to live in the shadows . Thank you very much .