-
I'll never forget the sound
-
of laughing with my friends.
-
I'll never forget the sound
-
of my mother's voice
right before I fell asleep.
-
And I'll never forget
the comforting sound of water
-
trickling down a stream.
-
Imagine my fear, pure fear,
-
when, at the age of 10,
-
I was told I was going to lose my hearing.
-
And over the next five years,
it progressed until I was classified
-
as profoundly deaf.
-
But I believe that losing my hearing
-
was one of the greatest gifts
that I have ever received.
-
You see, I get to experience
the world in a unique way,
-
and I believe that
these unique experiences
-
that people with disabilities have
-
is what's going to help us
make and design a better world
-
for everyone, both for people
-
with and without disabilities.
-
Now, I used to be
a disability rights lawyer,
-
and I spent a lot of my time
focused on enforcing the law,
-
ensuring that accommodations were made.
-
And then I had to quickly learn
-
international policy,
-
because I was asked to work on
-
the UN Commission that protects
people with disabilities.
-
As the leader of the NGO there,
-
I spent most of my energy
-
trying to convince people
-
about the capabilities
of people with disabilities,
-
but somewhere along the way,
-
and after many career transitions
that my parents weren't so happy about --
-
(Laughter) --
-
I stumbled upon a solution
-
that I believe may be
-
an even more powerful tool
-
to solve some of the world's
greatest problems,
-
disability or not.
-
And that tool is called design thinking.
-
Design thinking is a process
for innovation and problem-solving.
-
There are five steps.
-
The first is defining the problem
-
and understanding its constraints.
-
The second is observing people
in real-life situations
-
and empathizing with them.
-
Third, throwing out hundreds of ideas,
-
the more the better,
the wilder the better.
-
Fourth, prototyping: gathering
whatever you can,
-
whatever you can find,
-
to mimic your solution, to test it,
-
and to refine it.
-
And finally, implementation:
-
ensuring that the solution
you came up with is sustainable.
-
Warren Burger says that
-
design thinking teaches us
to look sideways,
-
to reframe, to refine,
-
to experiment,
-
and probably most importantly,
-
ask the stupid questions.
-
Design thinkers believe
that everyone is creative.
-
They believe in bringing people
from multiple disciplines together,
-
because they want to share
multiple perspectives
-
and bring them together
and ultimately merge them
-
to form something new.
-
Design thinking is such a successful
and versatile tool
-
that it has been applied
in almost every industry.
-
I saw the potential that it had
-
for the issues that I faced,
-
so I decided to go back to school
-
and get my Masters in Social Design.
-
This looks at how to use design
to create positive change in the world.
-
While I was there,
-
I fell in love with woodworking,
-
but what I quickly realized
-
was that I was missing out on something.
-
As you're working with the tool,
-
right before it's about
to kick back at you,
-
which means the piece, or the tool,
jumps back at you,
-
it makes a sound,
-
and I couldn't hear this sound.
-
So I decided, why not try and solve it?
-
My solution was a pair of safety glasses
-
that were engineered
to visually alert the user
-
to pitch changes in the tool
-
before the human ear could pick it up.
-
Why hadn't tool designers
thought of this before?
-
(Laughter)
-
Two reasons: one, I was a beginner.
-
I wasn't weighed down by expertise
or conventional wisdom.
-
The second is I was deaf.
-
My unique experience of the world
-
helped inform my solution.
-
And as I went on, I kept running into
more and more solutions
-
that were originally made
for people with disabilities,
-
and that ended up being picked up,
-
embraced, and loved by the mainstream,
-
disability or not.
-
This is an OXO potato peeler.
-
It was originally designed
for people with arthritis,
-
but it was so comfortable,
everybody loved it.
-
Text messaging: that was originally
designed for people who are deaf.
-
And as you know, everybody loves that too.
-
(Laughter)
-
I started thinking,
-
what if we changed our mindset?
-
What if we started designing
for disability first,
-
not the norm?
-
As you see, when we design
for disability first,
-
we often stumble upon
-
solutions that are not only inclusive
-
but also are often better
-
than those when we design for the norm.
-
And this excites me, because this means
-
that the energy it takes to accommodate
someone with a disability
-
can be leveraged, molded,
-
and played with as a force for creativity
-
and innovation.
-
This moves us
-
from the mindset of trying
to change the hearts
-
and deficiency mindset of tolerance
-
to becoming an alchemist,
-
the type of magician that this world
so desperately needs
-
to solve some of its greatest problems.
-
Now, I also believe that people
with disabilities have great potential
-
to be designers within
this design thinking process.
-
Without knowing it, from a very early age,
I've been a design thinker,
-
fine-tuning my skills.
-
Design thinkers
-
are by nature problem-solvers.
-
So imagine listening to a conversation
-
and only understanding 50 percent
of what is said.
-
You can't ask them to repeat
every single word.
-
They would just get frustrated with you.
-
So without even realizing it,
-
my solution was to take
muffled sound that I heard
-
that was the beat
and turn it into a rhythm
-
and place it with the lips that I read.
-
Years later, someone commented
that my writing
-
had a rhythm to it.
-
Well, this is because I experience
conversations as rhythms.
-
I also became really, really good
-
at failing.
-
(Laughter)
-
Quite literally.
-
My first semester in Spanish, I got a D,
-
but what I learned was that
when I pick myself up
-
and I change a few things around,
-
eventually I succeeded.
-
Similarly, design thinking
encourages people to fail
-
and fail often,
-
because eventually, you will succeed.
-
Very few great innovations in this world
-
have come from someone succeeding
-
on the first try.
-
I also experienced this lesson in sports,
-
and I'll never forget my coach
saying to my mom
-
that if she just didn't
have her hearing loss,
-
she would be on the national team.
-
But what my coach, and what I
didn't even know at the time
-
was that my hearing loss
-
actually helped me excel at sports.
-
You see, when you lose your hearing,
not only do you adapt your behavior,
-
but you also adapt your physical senses.
-
One example of this
-
is that my visual
attention span increased.
-
Imagine a player, a soccer player,
coming down the left flank.
-
Imagine being goalkeeper, like I was,
-
and the ball is coming
down the left flank.
-
A person with normal hearing
would have the visual perspective of this.
-
I had the benefit of a spectrum this wide,
-
so I picked up the players over here
that were moving about
-
and coming down the field,
and I picked them up quicker,
-
so that if the ball was passed,
I could reposition myself and be ready
-
for that shot.
-
So as you can see, I've been
a design thinker for nearly all my life.
-
My observation skills have been honed
so that I pick up on things
-
that others would never pick up on.
-
My constant need to adapt
has made me a great ideator
-
and problem-solver,
-
and I've often had to do this
within limitations and constraints.
-
This is something that designers
also have to deal with frequently.
-
Now, my work most recently
took me to Haiti.
-
Design thinkers often seek out
extreme situations
-
because that often informs
some of their best designs,
-
and Haiti, it was like a perfect storm.
-
I lived and grew up
with 300 deaf individuals
-
that were relocated
after the 2010 earthquake,
-
but five and a half years later,
-
there still was no electricity,
-
there still was no safe drinking water,
-
there was still no job opportunities,
-
there was still rampant crime,
and it went unpunished.
-
International aid organizations
came one by one,
-
but they came with
pre-determined solutions.
-
They didn't come ready to observe
-
and to adapt
-
based on the communities' needs.
-
One organization gave them
goats and chickens,
-
but they didn't realize that there was
so much hunger in that community
-
that went the deaf went to sleep at night
and they couldn't hear,
-
people broke in to their yards
and their homes
-
and they stole these chickens
and these goats,
-
and eventually they were all gone.
-
Now, if that organization
had taken the time
-
to observe deaf people,
-
to observe the community,
-
they would have realized their problem
-
and perhaps they would have
come up with a solution,
-
something like a solar light
-
lighting up a secure pen to put them in
at night to ensure their safety.
-
You don't have to be a design thinker
to insert the ideas
-
that I've shared with you today.
-
You are creative.
-
You are a designer.
-
Everyone is.
-
Let people like me help you.
-
Let people with disabilities
help you look sideways,
-
and in the process solve some of
the greatest problems.
-
That's it. Thank you.
-
(Applause)