This virtual lab will revolutionize science class

Today I am going to show you

how this tablet and this virtual
reality headset that I'm wearing

are going to completely
revolutionize science education.

And I'm also going to show you

how it can make any science teacher
more than twice as effective.

But before I show you how
all of this is possible,

let's talk briefly

about why improving
the quality of science education

is so vitally important.

If you think about it,

the world is growing incredibly fast.

And with that growth comes
a whole list of growing challenges.

Challenges such as dealing
with global warming,

solving starvation and water shortages,

and curing diseases,

to name just a few.

And who exactly is going to help us
solve all of these great challenges?

Well, to [varying degrees]
it is these young students.

This is the next generation
of young, bright scientists

and in many ways,

we all rely on them

for coming up with new, great innovations

to help us solve all
these challenges ahead of us.

And so a couple of years back,

my cofounder and I were
teaching university students,

just like these,

only the students we were teaching
looked a little bit more like this here.

(Laughter)

And yes, this is really
the reality out there

in way too many universities
around the world.

Students that are bored, disengaged

and sometimes not even sure why they're
learning about a topic in the first place.

So we started looking around for new,
innovative teaching methods,

but what we found was quite disappointing.

We saw that books were being
turned into e-books,

blackboards were being turned
into Youtube videos

and lecture hall monologues
were being turned into MOOCs:

massive online open courses.

And if you think about it,

all we're really doing here
is taking the same content

and the same format,

and bringing it out to more students.

Which is great --

don't get me wrong.

That is really great,

but the teaching method
is still more or less the same,

no real innovation there.

So we started looking elsewhere,

and what we found

was the flight simulators
had been proven over and over again

to be far more effective

when used in combination with real,
in-flight training to train the pilots.

And so we thought to ourselves:

why not just apply that to science?

Why not build a virtual
laboratory simulator?

Well, we did it.

We basically set out to create

a fully simulated, one-to-one,
virtual reality laboratory simulator,

where the students
could perform experiments

with mathematical equations

that would simulate what would
happen in a real-world lab.

But not just simple simulations,

we would also create advanced simulations
with top universities like MIT,

to bring out cutting-edge cancer
research to these students.

And suddenly the universities
could save millions of dollars

by letting the students
perform virtual experiments

before they go into the real laboratory.

And not only that,

now they could also understand --

even on a molecular level
inside the machine --

what is happening to the machines.

And then they could suddenly perform
dangerous experiments in the labs as well.

For instance also here,

learning about salmonella bacteria,

which is an imporant topic

that many schools cannot teach
for a good safety reasons.

And we of course quiz the students

and then give the teachers
a full dashboard,

so they fully understand
where the students are at.

But we didn't stop there

because we had seen just
how important [meaning] is

for the students' engagement in the class.

So we brought in game designers

to create fun and engaging stories.

For instance here in this case,

where the students have to solve
a mysterious CSI muder case

using their core science skills.

And the feedback we got
when we launched all of this

was quite overwhelmingly positive.

Here we have 300 students

all passionately solving CSI murder cases

while learning core science skills.

And what I love the most about this

is really when the students
come up to me sometimes afterwards,

and they're all surprised
and a little confused,

and say, "I just spent
two hours in this virtual lab

and I didn't check Facebook?"

(Laughter)

That's how engaging and immersive
this really is for the students.

And so to investigate
whether this really worked,

a learning psychologist
did a study with 160 students

[that were] from Stamford University
and a technical university in Denmark.

And what they did is they split
the students into two groups:

one group would only use
the virtual laboratory simulations

and then the other group would
only use traditional teaching methods,

and they had the same amount of time.

Okay?

Then interestingly,

they gave the students a test
before and after the experiments,

so they could clearly measure
the learning impact of the students.

And what they found

was a surprisingly high 76 percent
increase in the learning effectiveness

when using virtual laboratories
over traditional teaching methods.

But even more interestingly,

the second part of this study

investigated what the teacher's
impact was on the the learning.

And what they found

was that when you combined
the virtual laboratories

with teacher-led coaching and mentoring,

then we saw a total 101 percent
increase in the learning effectiveness,

which effectively doubles
the science teacher's impact

with the same amount of time spent.

So a couple of months back,

we started asking ourselves --

we have a wonderful team now
of learning psychologists

and teachers and scientists
and game developers --

and we started asking ourselves:

how can we keep ourselves

to our promise of constantly
reimagining education?

And today I am really excited

to be presenting what we came up with

and have been working
incredibly hard to create.

And --

I will explain briefly what this is.

Basically I take my mobile phone --

most students already have these,

smartphone --

and I plug it into this virtual
reality headset.

A low-cost headset.

And now what I can effectively do is,

I can literally step
into this virtual world

and we'll have some of you
in the audience also get to try this

because it is really something
that you have to try

to fully feel how immersive it really is.

It literally feels like I just stepped
inside this virtual lab.

Do you see me up on the screen?

(Yes)

Great, awesome, very good.

So basically,

now I have just turned my mobile phone

into a fully-simulated, million-dollar,
Ivy League laboratory

with all this amazing equipment
that I can interact with.

I can, for instance here,
pick up the pipette

and I can do experiments with it.

I have my [E-gel],

my PCR,

and oh, look there I have my Next
Generation Sequencing machine,

and oh, [there I even have]
my electron microscope.

I mean, who's carrying around
an electron microscope in their pocket?

And here,

here I have my machine,

I can do different experiments
on the machine,

and over here I have the door,

I can go into other experiments,

I can perform in [other] laboratories.

And here I have my learning tablet.

This is an intelligent tablet

that allows me to read
about relevant theory.

And as you can see,

I can interact with it,

I can watch videos

and see content that is
relevant to the experiment

that I'm performing right now.

And then over here I have Marie.

She is my teacher --

my lab assistant --

and what she does is she guides me
through this whole laboratory,

and very soon,

the teachers will be able
to literally teleport themselves

into this virtual world
that I'm in right now

and help me --

guide me through this whole experiment.

And now before I finalize this,

I was want to show you
an even cooler thing, I think --

something you cannot
even do in the real laboratories.

This is a PCR machine

and I'm now going
to start this experiment.

And what I just did

is I literally shrunk myself
a million times

into the size of a molecule --

and it really feels like it,

you have to try this.

So now it feels like
I'm standing inside the machine

and I'm seeing all the DNA,

and I see the molecules,

I see the polymerase
and the enzymes and so forth --

and I can see how in this case,

DNA is being replicated millions of times,

just like it's happening
inside your body right now

and I can really feel and understand
how all of this works.

Now I hope that gives you

a little bit of a sense
of the possibilities

in these new teaching methods.

And I want to also emphasize

that everything you just saw

also works on iPads and laptops
without the headsets,

and I say that for
a very important reason.

In order for us to really
empower and inspire

the next generation of scientists,

we really need teachers

to drive the adoption of new
technologies in the classroom.

And so in many ways,

I believe that the next big,
quantum leap in science education

lies no longer with the technology,

but rather with the teacher's
decision to push forward

and adopt these technologies
inside the classrooms.

And so it is our hope

that more universities,
and schools and teachers

will collaborate with technology
companies to realize this full potential.

And so lastly,

I'd like to leave you with a little
story that really inspires me,

and that is the story of Jack Andraka.

Some of you might already know him.

Jack --

he invented a new, grounded-breaking,
low-cost test for pancreatic cancer

at the age 15.

And when Jack shares his story
of how he did this huge breakthrough,

he also explains

that one thing almost prevented him
from making this breakthrough.

And that was that he did not
have access to real laboratories

because he was too inexperienced
to be allowed in.

Now imagine if we could bring Ivy league,
million dollar, virtual laboratories

out to all these students,

just like Jack,

all over the world

and give them the latest, greatest,
most fancy machines you can imagine

that would quite literally
make any scientist in here

jump up and down out of pure excitement.

And then imagine how that
would empower and inspire

a whole new generation
of young and bright scientists

ready to innovate and change the world.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)