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Today I am going to show you
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how this tablet and this virtual
reality headset that I'm wearing
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are going to completely
revolutionize science education.
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And I'm also going to show you
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how it can make any science teacher
more than twice as effective.
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But before I show you how
all of this is possible,
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let's talk briefly
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about why improving
the quality of science education
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is so vitally important.
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If you think about it,
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the world is growing incredibly fast.
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And with that growth comes
a whole list of growing challenges.
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Challenges such as dealing
with global warming,
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solving starvation and water shortages,
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and curing diseases,
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to name just a few.
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And who exactly is going to help us
solve all of these great challenges?
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Well, to [varying degrees]
it is these young students.
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This is the next generation
of young, bright scientists
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and in many ways,
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we all rely on them
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for coming up with new, great innovations
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to help us solve all
these challenges ahead of us.
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And so a couple of years back,
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my cofounder and I were
teaching university students,
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just like these,
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only the students we were teaching
looked a little bit more like this here.
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(Laughter)
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And yes, this is really
the reality out there
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in way too many universities
around the world.
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Students that are bored, disengaged
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and sometimes not even sure why they're
learning about a topic in the first place.
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So we started looking around for new,
innovative teaching methods,
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but what we found was quite disappointing.
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We saw that books were being
turned into e-books,
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blackboards were being turned
into Youtube videos
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and lecture hall monologues
were being turned into MOOCs:
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massive online open courses.
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And if you think about it,
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all we're really doing here
is taking the same content
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and the same format,
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and bringing it out to more students.
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Which is great --
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don't get me wrong.
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That is really great,
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but the teaching method
is still more or less the same,
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no real innovation there.
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So we started looking elsewhere,
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and what we found
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was the flight simulators
had been proven over and over again
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to be far more effective
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when used in combination with real,
in-flight training to train the pilots.
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And so we thought to ourselves:
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why not just apply that to science?
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Why not build a virtual
laboratory simulator?
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Well, we did it.
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We basically set out to create
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a fully simulated, one-to-one,
virtual reality laboratory simulator,
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where the students
could perform experiments
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with mathematical equations
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that would simulate what would
happen in a real-world lab.
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But not just simple simulations,
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we would also create advanced simulations
with top universities like MIT,
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to bring out cutting-edge cancer
research to these students.
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And suddenly the universities
could save millions of dollars
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by letting the students
perform virtual experiments
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before they go into the real laboratory.
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And not only that,
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now they could also understand --
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even on a molecular level
inside the machine --
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what is happening to the machines.
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And then they could suddenly perform
dangerous experiments in the labs as well.
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For instance also here,
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learning about salmonella bacteria,
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which is an imporant topic
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that many schools cannot teach
for a good safety reasons.
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And we of course quiz the students
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and then give the teachers
a full dashboard,
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so they fully understand
where the students are at.
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But we didn't stop there
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because we had seen just
how important [meaning] is
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for the students' engagement in the class.
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So we brought in game designers
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to create fun and engaging stories.
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For instance here in this case,
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where the students have to solve
a mysterious CSI muder case
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using their core science skills.
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And the feedback we got
when we launched all of this
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was quite overwhelmingly positive.
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Here we have 300 students
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all passionately solving CSI murder cases
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while learning core science skills.
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And what I love the most about this
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is really when the students
come up to me sometimes afterwards,
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and they're all surprised
and a little confused,
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and say, "I just spent
two hours in this virtual lab
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and I didn't check Facebook?"
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(Laughter)
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That's how engaging and immersive
this really is for the students.
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And so to investigate
whether this really worked,
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a learning psychologist
did a study with 160 students
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[that were] from Stamford University
and a technical university in Denmark.
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And what they did is they split
the students into two groups:
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one group would only use
the virtual laboratory simulations
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and then the other group would
only use traditional teaching methods,
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and they had the same amount of time.
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Okay?
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Then interestingly,
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they gave the students a test
before and after the experiments,
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so they could clearly measure
the learning impact of the students.
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And what they found
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was a surprisingly high 76 percent
increase in the learning effectiveness
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when using virtual laboratories
over traditional teaching methods.
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But even more interestingly,
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the second part of this study
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investigated what the teacher's
impact was on the the learning.
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And what they found
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was that when you combined
the virtual laboratories
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with teacher-led coaching and mentoring,
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then we saw a total 101 percent
increase in the learning effectiveness,
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which effectively doubles
the science teacher's impact
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with the same amount of time spent.
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So a couple of months back,
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we started asking ourselves --
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we have a wonderful team now
of learning psychologists
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and teachers and scientists
and game developers --
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and we started asking ourselves:
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how can we keep ourselves
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to our promise of constantly
reimagining education?
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And today I am really excited
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to be presenting what we came up with
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and have been working
incredibly hard to create.
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And --
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I will explain briefly what this is.
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Basically I take my mobile phone --
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most students already have these,
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smartphone --
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and I plug it into this virtual
reality headset.
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A low-cost headset.
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And now what I can effectively do is,
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I can literally step
into this virtual world
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and we'll have some of you
in the audience also get to try this
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because it is really something
that you have to try
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to fully feel how immersive it really is.
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It literally feels like I just stepped
inside this virtual lab.
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Do you see me up on the screen?
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(Yes)
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Great, awesome, very good.
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So basically,
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now I have just turned my mobile phone
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into a fully-simulated, million-dollar,
Ivy League laboratory
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with all this amazing equipment
that I can interact with.
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I can, for instance here,
pick up the pipette
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and I can do experiments with it.
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I have my [E-gel],
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my PCR,
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and oh, look there I have my Next
Generation Sequencing machine,
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and oh, [there I even have]
my electron microscope.
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I mean, who's carrying around
an electron microscope in their pocket?
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And here,
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here I have my machine,
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I can do different experiments
on the machine,
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and over here I have the door,
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I can go into other experiments,
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I can perform in [other] laboratories.
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And here I have my learning tablet.
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This is an intelligent tablet
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that allows me to read
about relevant theory.
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And as you can see,
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I can interact with it,
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I can watch videos
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and see content that is
relevant to the experiment
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that I'm performing right now.
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And then over here I have Marie.
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She is my teacher --
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my lab assistant --
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and what she does is she guides me
through this whole laboratory,
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and very soon,
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the teachers will be able
to literally teleport themselves
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into this virtual world
that I'm in right now
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and help me --
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guide me through this whole experiment.
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And now before I finalize this,
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I was want to show you
an even cooler thing, I think --
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something you cannot
even do in the real laboratories.
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This is a PCR machine
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and I'm now going
to start this experiment.
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And what I just did
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is I literally shrunk myself
a million times
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into the size of a molecule --
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and it really feels like it,
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you have to try this.
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So now it feels like
I'm standing inside the machine
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and I'm seeing all the DNA,
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and I see the molecules,
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I see the polymerase
and the enzymes and so forth --
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and I can see how in this case,
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DNA is being replicated millions of times,
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just like it's happening
inside your body right now
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and I can really feel and understand
how all of this works.
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Now I hope that gives you
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a little bit of a sense
of the possibilities
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in these new teaching methods.
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And I want to also emphasize
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that everything you just saw
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also works on iPads and laptops
without the headsets,
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and I say that for
a very important reason.
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In order for us to really
empower and inspire
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the next generation of scientists,
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we really need teachers
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to drive the adoption of new
technologies in the classroom.
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And so in many ways,
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I believe that the next big,
quantum leap in science education
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lies no longer with the technology,
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but rather with the teacher's
decision to push forward
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and adopt these technologies
inside the classrooms.
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And so it is our hope
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that more universities,
and schools and teachers
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will collaborate with technology
companies to realize this full potential.
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And so lastly,
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I'd like to leave you with a little
story that really inspires me,
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and that is the story of Jack Andraka.
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Some of you might already know him.
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Jack --
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he invented a new, grounded-breaking,
low-cost test for pancreatic cancer
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at the age 15.
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And when Jack shares his story
of how he did this huge breakthrough,
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he also explains
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that one thing almost prevented him
from making this breakthrough.
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And that was that he did not
have access to real laboratories
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because he was too inexperienced
to be allowed in.
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Now imagine if we could bring Ivy league,
million dollar, virtual laboratories
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out to all these students,
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just like Jack,
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all over the world
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and give them the latest, greatest,
most fancy machines you can imagine
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that would quite literally
make any scientist in here
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jump up and down out of pure excitement.
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And then imagine how that
would empower and inspire
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a whole new generation
of young and bright scientists
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ready to innovate and change the world.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
Retired user
Could it be that in 7:16 there should be E-Gel instead of E-Egel?