woken up by their parents rushing them
telling them not to be late for school
and as they good they get up they brush
their teeth and they comb their hair
they think to themselves I don’t want to
go back to that place I don’t want to go
back to the place where the children
laugh at me the teachers don’t
understand me and the assignments I
cannot do I don’t want to go back to a
place where I am alone every day and
where I feel stupider each day more than
the last then as their rush off into
their car and their parents kiss them
goodbye as they drop them off in front
of the large brick schoolhouse the
student gets out they look around and
they see everyone else smiling and
rushing into class and they think why
can’t I just be normal like everybody
else this is how I felt every day
growing up as a student with a learning
disability I am dyslexic I’d like to
tell you a little bit about dyslexia for
some people who are unfamiliar with it
it is the learning disability that
creates it a hard problem with reading
sometimes writing spelling and
comprehension it can make it very
difficult in school to understand
projects assignments or be able to read
out loud so I’d like to tell you about
my experience as a child I went into
class and our teacher would ask us to
sit down and read a reading assignment
so we would bring out our books and each
student would read one passage this
terrified me it was so scary to think
that I was going to have to read in
front of people and I couldn’t even
understand the words that were in front
of me so I would sit there and I would
count out the students who were going to
read in front of me and then I would
flip through my book until I found the
passage that correlated with mine I read
it over and over and over again until
hopefully I could read some of the words
and I could feel my teacher staring at
me I knew she thought that I was
ignoring her I was ignoring the
assignment and I wasn’t paying attention
in school she thought I was a bad
student at that point and she knew that
I would make a joke and she thought it
was to make fun of her curriculum
so she she would yell at me all the time
telling me please stop flipping the
pages and reading ahead you need to stay
with the group but little did she know I
was not reading ahead
I could barely read the words that were
right in front of me and so I struggled
and when it was my turn I made a joke
I read a little bit and I joked because
the kids would laugh at my jokes instead
of laughing at me it was hard and as it
got closer to my turn my palms began to
sweat and my heart began to race and I
felt sheer panic fall over me this was
so hard to not be able to do one of the
simplest tasks that everybody does in an
everyday setting read and so as I
entered fourth grade I came in with low
hopes thinking it would be just like any
other year but that was the year that it
changed that was the year that my
teacher mrs. Ahuja came in she was the
most caring teacher I’ve ever had she
changed my views on education she
created what I am today she was someone
who was kind caring empathetic she
understood each student and she wanted
them to learn she wanted them to go the
way that it was that made most sense to
them and so she took time to learn each
individual person and that is what makes
a good teacher and so she was the one
who taught me that I wasn’t stupid and
that being normal was just overrated
being different allows you to have so
many more advantages and you can learn
so many different things and help
improve other people’s lives as well so
as I grew up I kept thinking to myself
there was no way she was the only one
there had to be other empathetic
teachers out there and so I looked and I
did more research about learning
disabilities and I learned that 52
percent of teachers have no training in
students with learning disabilities but
15% of our population has a learning
disability that’s a large portion of our
population that is being ignored and
neglected in school we need to change
our education system we need to find
more teachers like mrs. Ahuja and so I
set out to create them this is what I
learned about virtual reality
for those of you who are not familiar
with it it’s a very immersive program
it’s a headset you put on yourself and
you can experience people’s lives places
activities and things all from the
comfort of just sitting right here but
you can be anywhere virtually in VR
let’s say have you ever been to Mars I’m
sure you haven’t have you swam with
sharks have you seen the Eiffel Tower
well in virtual reality you can and when
you’re inside you get the emotion you
get the feeling of actually physically
being there that is what makes all the
difference
vr has allowed us to create immersive
understanding technology unlike what’s
currently out there currently everyday
you use your cell phone you call you
text you write emails and you feel that
that’s a great connection with somebody
else but is it really the connection
you’re looking for do you feel
empathetic to somebody can you
understand a story that they’ve
explained in words probably not most of
the time you just think of it as your
daily life and so now virtual reality
allows to do something completely
different it allows us to be immersed in
the emotion the understanding and
experience things that you might never
have been able to experience prior to
that and so with virtual reality I soon
learned that it was not a toy it was not
a game but it could be used to make real
change in people’s lives we could
improve the education system by teaching
our teachers our educators our parents
our friends our family about learning
disabilities from a first-person
perspective of a student with a learning
disability and that is why I’ve created
peers a virtual reality company that
teaches teachers about students with
learning disabilities within the
experience of teacher a parent a friend
like I mentioned can all be immersed in
the moment understand what those
emotions are experience something that
is more than you ever thought you could
and in VR what’s so interesting about it
with a learning disability is that those
teachers the teachers I had as a child
the teachers that are learning teaching
every single day understanding training
they can now understand what it was to
feel the way that I was feeling
the way that many other people are
feeling and what’s great about that is
that you can truly when my teacher would
look back she could truly understand
that I wasn’t just flipping the pages to
ignore her I wasn’t trying to make a
trouble and I wasn’t trying to make
jokes I was trying to protect myself
from people laughing at me I was trying
to understand the material by slowly
reading ahead and learning word by word
the way that was best for me and so what
I’ve learned is virtual reality doesn’t
just create empathy but empathy within
itself creates innovation people when
they understand the experience and I
mean truly experience and understand
something they want to create change
they want to create solutions and they
want to find help to other people so
when teachers experience virtual reality
of learning disabilities they’re able to
understand what a student’s going
through and then in turn make it better
teaching better programs better
experiences for so many students that
are struggling out there virtual reality
can bring us back to something that we
never thought we’d have true connection
with somebody else
an emotional feel and so I would like to
say that learning disabilities are not
an issue they’re not a struggle I wasn’t
just trying to make problem this is
something we can create change for we
can help people we can help all those
people out there who are looking for
solutions who are looking to feel
something and we can connect on a deeper
level that will allow us to understand
each individual person and so my
teachers or the teachers out there will
know what everybody is doing they’ll
understand it will create a better
education system and with technology we
can take children like myself scared
timid students who are afraid of school
and their peers and turn them into
successful entrepreneurs nurses lawyers
or maybe even a teacher thank you [Applause]