for the past few years I’ve been super
passionate curious about technology and
the impact it can have on the future of
our world what if I told you we can
start creating real tangible social
impact and start solving some of the
world’s most important problems right
here and right now my journey towards
this dream started at the knowledge
Society a human onyx accelerator program
here in Toronto for high school students
designed to build some of the most
exceptional people in the world to solve
some of the world’s most important
problems through this program I got
exposed to technologies like artificial
intelligence brain computer interfaces
genomics but virtual reality really
caught my eye when I went online and I
saw all the amazing 3d VR content I
wanted to try out an experience of my
own as soon as I could so I went out
there and got myself a headset and got
into my first experience when I got in
there I was completely amazed about how
magical and breathtaking the entire
experience was I could see trees animals
mountains and cities that did not exist
in our real world at that point I didn’t
know too much about the actual
technology but what I did know that the
insane opportunity to create real social
impact and change in the world
using a technology like VR virtual
reality is a technology that enables us
to create new artificial worlds that are
contained within head-mounted displays
and we can display customized 3d content
with them some of the world’s biggest
companies like Microsoft Apple Google
and Facebook are all super invested in
this industry because they know that
this is the future of how humans are
going to interact overall but in my
opinion virtual reality isn’t really a
technology it’s a feeling VR will only
reach the pinnacle of Technology when
it’s able to really simulate and shape
our emotions and feelings
we should be designing vr for a brain
and not for her eyes we should be
designing it in terms of senses emotions
feelings and thoughts so you can get as
close or existing reality as possible
now we’ve been throwing around this word
innovation for the past few years but do
we really know what it means and what it
meant in the past present and future in
the past we are in the age of
incremental innovation where we were
adding features and technologies at a
slow pace to build technology in terms
of the internet cars airplanes all that
type of stuff and now in the present
we’re in the stage of disruptive
innovation where every advancement is
ten times the last one and this can
include things like genomics space
explorations solar energy and virtual
reality but in the future how about we
talk about changing the world altogether
how about we throw all past concepts out
the window and change how entire
industries operate completely and use
technologies to completely change how
the world works and my vision on how
this can happen with virtual reality is
creating a utopia and we’ve heard this
word in science-fiction movies like The
Matrix already player one and we’ve been
going through hundreds of years without
really making an attempt to create this
ideal world but I think we start
building it right now and my definition
of this utopia is a virtual world in
which everything is perfect and humans
have the ability to shape who they are
in the future some of the really
important big world problems that a
utopia can solve include housing or
education distance and identity in terms
of housing housing right now is based on
proximity to a core location within a
city like downtown but within a virtual
world distance is immaterial because
we’re in this completely a digital space
where that really doesn’t matter anymore
and this will bring cost of housing so
much lower than it is right now with
education we can completely
revolutionize it when we’re able to
centralize it in
of universities schools professors and
opportunities this will play a key part
in getting our world out of something
like poverty and creating a prosperous
world another problem that it can really
tackle is distance and this is a problem
that’s in my life myself and my family
and my brother are here in Toronto right
now and all the rest of my family are
all in India imagine having the ability
to essentially teleport them into our
world and feel and interact with them as
if it was in real life but I think the
ultimate problem for utopia to solve is
identity and identity is there’s two
parts to it one being your biology and
the second your experiences right now
they’re being insane advancements being
made in biology with gene editing human
longevity and pharmacogenomics but I
think the key part for VR to play in
this entire equation is with experiences
and how we can shape people’s identity
using experiences I got the chance to
try at this experience where I got to
enter an Egyptian tomb that no longer
exists and this is a very unique
opportunity and most people don’t get to
actually go inside this Egyptian tomb
and in VR are able to do that and really
try something that crazy that very few
people in the world have actually tried
out before and this really showed me how
we can be using these experiences to
shape who we are and give us perspective
that we usually would not in our lives
and this doesn’t have to be something as
crazy as doing something that not a lot
of people have done it can be something
really small like a meaningful
conversation another section to this is
empathy imagine having the ability to
live your life as a refugee for a week
and really gain completely new
perspective gratitude and really
understand how privileged to you are so
you can really value your entire life
but if we want to bring upon this entire
utopia we need to start building this
technology right now virtual reality is
that this cusp of growing immensely and
we need to start taking advantage of
this
we need to start building meaningful
applications that are gonna bring
virtual reality into mass adoption and
allow for us to start creating social
impact with it but right now we have a
gap between this reality and the promise
the technology just isn’t there right
now in terms of head-mounted displays or
haptic feedback we need some of the
smartest people in the world to start
getting involved in this industry if we
really want to start creating the
technology that can eventually get us to
start building a utopia and me
personally I’m super passionate about
virtual reality in technology and when I
think about it
I really want to create something that’s
impactful not in terms of marketing or
gaming or entertainment I want to create
something that can really change the
lives of billions and billions of people
and I think creating something like an
entirely new world like nothing gets
bigger than that by 2050 this reality
will barely exist all we’ll know is a
mixed reality which will become our
default reality just like how the
internet used to be foreign to our
grandparents VR will be foreign to
everyone here if we don’t start getting
involved in the space right now as
developers creators or pioneers we need
all the smartest people in the world to
play key roles if you want to create
this utopia they’ll create a perfect
positive and exciting feature thank you [Applause]
passionate curious about technology and
the impact it can have on the future of
our world what if I told you we can
start creating real tangible social
impact and start solving some of the
world’s most important problems right
here and right now my journey towards
this dream started at the knowledge
Society a human onyx accelerator program
here in Toronto for high school students
designed to build some of the most
exceptional people in the world to solve
some of the world’s most important
problems through this program I got
exposed to technologies like artificial
intelligence brain computer interfaces
genomics but virtual reality really
caught my eye when I went online and I
saw all the amazing 3d VR content I
wanted to try out an experience of my
own as soon as I could so I went out
there and got myself a headset and got
into my first experience when I got in
there I was completely amazed about how
magical and breathtaking the entire
experience was I could see trees animals
mountains and cities that did not exist
in our real world at that point I didn’t
know too much about the actual
technology but what I did know that the
insane opportunity to create real social
impact and change in the world
using a technology like VR virtual
reality is a technology that enables us
to create new artificial worlds that are
contained within head-mounted displays
and we can display customized 3d content
with them some of the world’s biggest
companies like Microsoft Apple Google
and Facebook are all super invested in
this industry because they know that
this is the future of how humans are
going to interact overall but in my
opinion virtual reality isn’t really a
technology it’s a feeling VR will only
reach the pinnacle of Technology when
it’s able to really simulate and shape
our emotions and feelings
we should be designing vr for a brain
and not for her eyes we should be
designing it in terms of senses emotions
feelings and thoughts so you can get as
close or existing reality as possible
now we’ve been throwing around this word
innovation for the past few years but do
we really know what it means and what it
meant in the past present and future in
the past we are in the age of
incremental innovation where we were
adding features and technologies at a
slow pace to build technology in terms
of the internet cars airplanes all that
type of stuff and now in the present
we’re in the stage of disruptive
innovation where every advancement is
ten times the last one and this can
include things like genomics space
explorations solar energy and virtual
reality but in the future how about we
talk about changing the world altogether
how about we throw all past concepts out
the window and change how entire
industries operate completely and use
technologies to completely change how
the world works and my vision on how
this can happen with virtual reality is
creating a utopia and we’ve heard this
word in science-fiction movies like The
Matrix already player one and we’ve been
going through hundreds of years without
really making an attempt to create this
ideal world but I think we start
building it right now and my definition
of this utopia is a virtual world in
which everything is perfect and humans
have the ability to shape who they are
in the future some of the really
important big world problems that a
utopia can solve include housing or
education distance and identity in terms
of housing housing right now is based on
proximity to a core location within a
city like downtown but within a virtual
world distance is immaterial because
we’re in this completely a digital space
where that really doesn’t matter anymore
and this will bring cost of housing so
much lower than it is right now with
education we can completely
revolutionize it when we’re able to
centralize it in
of universities schools professors and
opportunities this will play a key part
in getting our world out of something
like poverty and creating a prosperous
world another problem that it can really
tackle is distance and this is a problem
that’s in my life myself and my family
and my brother are here in Toronto right
now and all the rest of my family are
all in India imagine having the ability
to essentially teleport them into our
world and feel and interact with them as
if it was in real life but I think the
ultimate problem for utopia to solve is
identity and identity is there’s two
parts to it one being your biology and
the second your experiences right now
they’re being insane advancements being
made in biology with gene editing human
longevity and pharmacogenomics but I
think the key part for VR to play in
this entire equation is with experiences
and how we can shape people’s identity
using experiences I got the chance to
try at this experience where I got to
enter an Egyptian tomb that no longer
exists and this is a very unique
opportunity and most people don’t get to
actually go inside this Egyptian tomb
and in VR are able to do that and really
try something that crazy that very few
people in the world have actually tried
out before and this really showed me how
we can be using these experiences to
shape who we are and give us perspective
that we usually would not in our lives
and this doesn’t have to be something as
crazy as doing something that not a lot
of people have done it can be something
really small like a meaningful
conversation another section to this is
empathy imagine having the ability to
live your life as a refugee for a week
and really gain completely new
perspective gratitude and really
understand how privileged to you are so
you can really value your entire life
but if we want to bring upon this entire
utopia we need to start building this
technology right now virtual reality is
that this cusp of growing immensely and
we need to start taking advantage of
this
we need to start building meaningful
applications that are gonna bring
virtual reality into mass adoption and
allow for us to start creating social
impact with it but right now we have a
gap between this reality and the promise
the technology just isn’t there right
now in terms of head-mounted displays or
haptic feedback we need some of the
smartest people in the world to start
getting involved in this industry if we
really want to start creating the
technology that can eventually get us to
start building a utopia and me
personally I’m super passionate about
virtual reality in technology and when I
think about it
I really want to create something that’s
impactful not in terms of marketing or
gaming or entertainment I want to create
something that can really change the
lives of billions and billions of people
and I think creating something like an
entirely new world like nothing gets
bigger than that by 2050 this reality
will barely exist all we’ll know is a
mixed reality which will become our
default reality just like how the
internet used to be foreign to our
grandparents VR will be foreign to
everyone here if we don’t start getting
involved in the space right now as
developers creators or pioneers we need
all the smartest people in the world to
play key roles if you want to create
this utopia they’ll create a perfect
positive and exciting feature thank you [Applause]
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