hello everybody I’m Alexandra as I was
just introduced I probably know a lot of
you because I go to school here every
day but I’m excited to talk to you today
about innovation which is definitely not
something I talk about in the hallways
every day but today I want to talk about
how we perceive innovation usually my
journey as an innovator and how we can
change how we think about innovation to
become a little more unique in our
everyday lives so I think the kind of
innovation economy that we live in today
started in 1984 when Steve Jobs launched
the Mac and when he did that he kind of
made technology pretty sexy and pretty
cool for the first time in a long time
and people understood that technology
wasn’t just something for science labs
and research universities it was
something that was going to come into
our everyday lives and that definitely
continued in 1990 when the world wide
web was first connected and when people
got on the internet and they found that
they could collaborate with people all
around the world to start solving
problems and changing the world in big
ways and in small ways – in 1991 when
the clicker works
there we go line X the first open-source
software was open to the world and
that’s when really people saw that
technology was something that anybody
could use whether you had a PhD in
computer science or not and people start
seeing technology as a way to solve
problems and change the world and change
the future so how is even before most of
us were born and those were some pretty
exciting times and the world started to
see technology computers iPhone just the
way forward but I personally think that
that came as a cost to the future of
innovation because it established some
pretty miffed about innovation that kind
of stifle creativity so the first myth
is that innovators are all California
and computer science geniuses and I know
I certainly and not one of those and I
have never you know shared a dorm room
with another middle-aged mid-20s man who
is a computer science and physics genius
but that’s not where all innovators come
from but somehow we’ve been trained to
think the innovators of this special
unicorn breed of human that we can only
aspire to be but it’s not it’s something
gene that people are born with and that
we can only aspire to be them but that’s
definitely not the truth the truth is
that you know there are so many paths
you can follow to being an innovator and
being innovative innovation in my mind
is just solving a problem in a new way
and there’s no one way to solve a
problem that’s definitely something I’ve
learned at Branksome and you can you
know be solving a problem with your Lego
blocks at four years old and finding a
new way to construct the car package
they’ve given you into a plane or you
can be 90 years old in a nursing home
and change the way you live your daily
life and those are both ways to be
innovative without you know being a PhD
Caltech grad who can understand deep
computing better than anybody else
specifically my truth is that when I
started thinking of myself as an
innovator I was 15 years old and I still
think I’m young now and in 17 I was a
girl I still am – two things that are
typically underrepresented in innovate
and science and technology I didn’t have
a roommate who was my only roommate is
my cat who was a genius along with me I
don’t know how to code I never did I
hope to do have some day but that wasn’t
my background and I didn’t have some wad
of cash waiting in my 15 year old bank
account to help me start a business so I
came from an atypical background but the
reality is that when you’re an innovator
with an atypical background there are so
many supports out there waiting for you
in the world that are trying to help
like everybody from any sort of
background be innovative and that’s what
you have to take advantage of in the
world today so I started at one of these
ecosystems leading to support young
entrepreneurs called Chad and chad is a
canadian charity and it’s a month-long
program that happens at universities all
across the country every summer and I
went into shad thinking that I was going
to come home after two days I didn’t
actually booked a flight home because I
thought I would be scared away by the
science nerds which I didn’t think of
myself as but when I got a shadow
actually found a group of incredibly
like-minded people who were really
enthusiastic to solve big problems in
the world and Chad was the first time
that I realized that you can come from
any background and start it with a
problem and work towards solving it so
sure the challenge we were given was to
get Canadians outside and my group we
didn’t we didn’t build an app we didn’t
have any same technology we just started
a subscription box company that gave you
all the tools you needed for an outdoor
adventure every month and it wasn’t I
mean ultimately our company venture was
successful we work with Parks Canada and
uber and lots of big corporations but it
wasn’t because we had any business
business knowledge coming out of grade
10 or good lovin it was because we were
all enthusiastic and we were ready to
work together and support each other and
what I found there is what one of the
key things about being innovative is
finding people who support your crazy
ideas who think that when you say
something that sounds impossible they’re
excited to work with you to find a way
to do that so having that group of
people around you is a really important
part of working to solve challenging
problem
the summer after shad I went to a
program called catapult and catapult is
an incubator for high school students
again lots of high school support out
there for everybody who still goes to
bring some and you spend three weekends
in three different cities working on
building a company and I came into
catapult with a problem I saw that
having two parents who are doctors I’ve
been exposed to lots of medical problems
so I came up with a medical problem that
teens aren’t really engaged in health
care I saw my rowing car pool on the way
back to school googling their symptoms
and diagnosing themselves various
cancers and deadly infections just all
on the drive back from Argos to brain so
and I thought this is not the way the
world should be there are so many
resources out there to help young people
engage with and activate and empower
themselves to manage their health I want
to connect people to there so I came in
with that problem another group I mean
equally Valley came in with a desire to
build a shoe website for teens and we
took two very different paths you know
they wanted to build their website they
worked along that path and you know they
built the website but I came in with
this big scary problem knowing I was
going to fail because I can’t help every
team out there to be empowered to manage
their health but it’s having those big
ideas and being open to fail that allow
you to ultimately weed out the little
bad ideas and the impossible things
until you find something that actually
works so I catapult they encouraged us
you know build things and fail fast and
I I mean I started Emoji health which
I’ll talk about more in a second just by
texting my friends and I mean even they
were my friends but they were telling me
this is failing I I’m bored by what
you’re doing
and you know then I move you over to
Facebook Messenger and it was a little
bit better because like you said more
visuals and it’s getting those you know
feedback from people you know from
people you don’t know finding ways that
you’re succeeding you’re failing and by
challenging yourself to not be afraid to
fail that you can start solving problems
and so ultimately what came out of
catapult which emoji health and
emotional health has been quite
successful and surprised next I divide
every day we are a company that earns
revenue and I have employees and it’s
all very exciting and I
centered on big stages like conferences
like South by Southwest and I’ve had
lots of opportunities because of emoji
health but when you know I first came
out of catapult I didn’t think it would
ever be like that because I’m 17 years
old and I would never think that being
17 years old would be an asset in being
a founder of a start-up but what I
realized is that you know what you know
and you have to embrace what you know I
know what it’s like to be a teenager and
so when I go into a business meeting
with a round table full of pharma like
executives I certainly don’t know what
they know about Pharma but I do know
about being a 17 year old girl and they
do not know what it’s like to be a 17
year old girl and they know that they
don’t know what it’s like to be a 17
year old girl because when they try to
reach out to people like me they fail
and so they’re pretty excited that I
have that experience so that I can share
that with them because that’s a unique
skillset that not many people have so I
kind of leads me into why I’ve been so
excited what I about what I’ve done with
emoji health Eyck really inspired me to
think about the future and what the
future is going to be like I realized
that the future must be created by youth
and by us and by high school students
and by not waiting until you have
letters behind your name like an MD or a
law degree or an undergrad degree even
to serve building the future you want to
see because young people are people who
are going to be living in the future for
longer than anybody else and we have to
create the future we want it’s going to
be pretty cool when you see even
technologies like I mean growing organs
or looking at your mood on your watch
that’s really cool but it’s also really
cool when my friend Leila starts with
granola business and everybody in our
grade starts buying granola and needing
granola in class and that super cool and
fun as well it doesn’t have to be
technology it doesn’t have to be
anything super special it’s just
Brett being ready to solve problems and
do things that excite you and that’s
what’s going to build the really cool
exciting future we all want to live in
so we have to remember that is that
future is now I mean the future when I
started this presentation was now and
you know
you’re so I keep thinking about the
imminent future and the future is you so
don’t wait until someday when you think
you’re going to solve this problem that
you know you’re going to have you can
start now and you have different
problems now then you’re going to have
in twenty years and the way you’re going
to solve those problems is going to
evolve but you have to take advantage of
what you can do now to change you know
your life your day your community or
even the world
so before I conclude I just want to
start with the three keys I think there
are two being innovative and a before
you can even do these three things it’s
important to remember that it doesn’t
have to be the Steve Jobs HP shared
garage white middle-aged man to be
innovative you have to start with –
knowing that you are an innovator even
when you just solved the problem of how
do I run to the AWC fastest on chicken
shawarma bowl day you have to figure out
those small things but it’s important to
have a purpose and know that what you’re
doing is valuable I am excited to wake
up every day and work on a Moche health
because I know what I’m doing is
changing people’s lives and I know that
what I’m doing has value and when you
find something that you’re passionate
about you’re going to work infinite many
times harder on it because when you’re
excited to spend the Saturday that you
don’t have homework working on a company
that’s pretty cool and that means that
you know that you’re invested in what
you’re doing and people can appreciate
that
people will respect you for that and
they’ll help you because they know that
you want to do what you’re doing being
authentic is also super important
knowing who you are what you’re good at
and what you’re not good at is so
important you can’t go out and try and
convince people that you are an expert
in health care knowledge when you’re a
high school student I don’t try and do
that I embrace what I know and what I
don’t know and I people will respect
what you know and they’ll value you for
that but you can also work with other
people who know things you don’t know
and when you build cohesive teams that
can help each other to know things and
not know things that’s really important
and most importantly you have to be
brave if you can do everything else if
you can create the next Apple even but
you don’t have the confidence to do it
you’re never going to get anywhere so
you have to have the confidence in
yourself
your idea and the world to support even
that before you can do anything so I
think you know when you do those things
and you’re brave enough to believe in
yourself as an innovator even when you
can’t really see yourself as an
innovator yet that’s really important so
thank you very much it was very exciting
to speak to all of you
[Applause]
just introduced I probably know a lot of
you because I go to school here every
day but I’m excited to talk to you today
about innovation which is definitely not
something I talk about in the hallways
every day but today I want to talk about
how we perceive innovation usually my
journey as an innovator and how we can
change how we think about innovation to
become a little more unique in our
everyday lives so I think the kind of
innovation economy that we live in today
started in 1984 when Steve Jobs launched
the Mac and when he did that he kind of
made technology pretty sexy and pretty
cool for the first time in a long time
and people understood that technology
wasn’t just something for science labs
and research universities it was
something that was going to come into
our everyday lives and that definitely
continued in 1990 when the world wide
web was first connected and when people
got on the internet and they found that
they could collaborate with people all
around the world to start solving
problems and changing the world in big
ways and in small ways – in 1991 when
the clicker works
there we go line X the first open-source
software was open to the world and
that’s when really people saw that
technology was something that anybody
could use whether you had a PhD in
computer science or not and people start
seeing technology as a way to solve
problems and change the world and change
the future so how is even before most of
us were born and those were some pretty
exciting times and the world started to
see technology computers iPhone just the
way forward but I personally think that
that came as a cost to the future of
innovation because it established some
pretty miffed about innovation that kind
of stifle creativity so the first myth
is that innovators are all California
and computer science geniuses and I know
I certainly and not one of those and I
have never you know shared a dorm room
with another middle-aged mid-20s man who
is a computer science and physics genius
but that’s not where all innovators come
from but somehow we’ve been trained to
think the innovators of this special
unicorn breed of human that we can only
aspire to be but it’s not it’s something
gene that people are born with and that
we can only aspire to be them but that’s
definitely not the truth the truth is
that you know there are so many paths
you can follow to being an innovator and
being innovative innovation in my mind
is just solving a problem in a new way
and there’s no one way to solve a
problem that’s definitely something I’ve
learned at Branksome and you can you
know be solving a problem with your Lego
blocks at four years old and finding a
new way to construct the car package
they’ve given you into a plane or you
can be 90 years old in a nursing home
and change the way you live your daily
life and those are both ways to be
innovative without you know being a PhD
Caltech grad who can understand deep
computing better than anybody else
specifically my truth is that when I
started thinking of myself as an
innovator I was 15 years old and I still
think I’m young now and in 17 I was a
girl I still am – two things that are
typically underrepresented in innovate
and science and technology I didn’t have
a roommate who was my only roommate is
my cat who was a genius along with me I
don’t know how to code I never did I
hope to do have some day but that wasn’t
my background and I didn’t have some wad
of cash waiting in my 15 year old bank
account to help me start a business so I
came from an atypical background but the
reality is that when you’re an innovator
with an atypical background there are so
many supports out there waiting for you
in the world that are trying to help
like everybody from any sort of
background be innovative and that’s what
you have to take advantage of in the
world today so I started at one of these
ecosystems leading to support young
entrepreneurs called Chad and chad is a
canadian charity and it’s a month-long
program that happens at universities all
across the country every summer and I
went into shad thinking that I was going
to come home after two days I didn’t
actually booked a flight home because I
thought I would be scared away by the
science nerds which I didn’t think of
myself as but when I got a shadow
actually found a group of incredibly
like-minded people who were really
enthusiastic to solve big problems in
the world and Chad was the first time
that I realized that you can come from
any background and start it with a
problem and work towards solving it so
sure the challenge we were given was to
get Canadians outside and my group we
didn’t we didn’t build an app we didn’t
have any same technology we just started
a subscription box company that gave you
all the tools you needed for an outdoor
adventure every month and it wasn’t I
mean ultimately our company venture was
successful we work with Parks Canada and
uber and lots of big corporations but it
wasn’t because we had any business
business knowledge coming out of grade
10 or good lovin it was because we were
all enthusiastic and we were ready to
work together and support each other and
what I found there is what one of the
key things about being innovative is
finding people who support your crazy
ideas who think that when you say
something that sounds impossible they’re
excited to work with you to find a way
to do that so having that group of
people around you is a really important
part of working to solve challenging
problem
the summer after shad I went to a
program called catapult and catapult is
an incubator for high school students
again lots of high school support out
there for everybody who still goes to
bring some and you spend three weekends
in three different cities working on
building a company and I came into
catapult with a problem I saw that
having two parents who are doctors I’ve
been exposed to lots of medical problems
so I came up with a medical problem that
teens aren’t really engaged in health
care I saw my rowing car pool on the way
back to school googling their symptoms
and diagnosing themselves various
cancers and deadly infections just all
on the drive back from Argos to brain so
and I thought this is not the way the
world should be there are so many
resources out there to help young people
engage with and activate and empower
themselves to manage their health I want
to connect people to there so I came in
with that problem another group I mean
equally Valley came in with a desire to
build a shoe website for teens and we
took two very different paths you know
they wanted to build their website they
worked along that path and you know they
built the website but I came in with
this big scary problem knowing I was
going to fail because I can’t help every
team out there to be empowered to manage
their health but it’s having those big
ideas and being open to fail that allow
you to ultimately weed out the little
bad ideas and the impossible things
until you find something that actually
works so I catapult they encouraged us
you know build things and fail fast and
I I mean I started Emoji health which
I’ll talk about more in a second just by
texting my friends and I mean even they
were my friends but they were telling me
this is failing I I’m bored by what
you’re doing
and you know then I move you over to
Facebook Messenger and it was a little
bit better because like you said more
visuals and it’s getting those you know
feedback from people you know from
people you don’t know finding ways that
you’re succeeding you’re failing and by
challenging yourself to not be afraid to
fail that you can start solving problems
and so ultimately what came out of
catapult which emoji health and
emotional health has been quite
successful and surprised next I divide
every day we are a company that earns
revenue and I have employees and it’s
all very exciting and I
centered on big stages like conferences
like South by Southwest and I’ve had
lots of opportunities because of emoji
health but when you know I first came
out of catapult I didn’t think it would
ever be like that because I’m 17 years
old and I would never think that being
17 years old would be an asset in being
a founder of a start-up but what I
realized is that you know what you know
and you have to embrace what you know I
know what it’s like to be a teenager and
so when I go into a business meeting
with a round table full of pharma like
executives I certainly don’t know what
they know about Pharma but I do know
about being a 17 year old girl and they
do not know what it’s like to be a 17
year old girl and they know that they
don’t know what it’s like to be a 17
year old girl because when they try to
reach out to people like me they fail
and so they’re pretty excited that I
have that experience so that I can share
that with them because that’s a unique
skillset that not many people have so I
kind of leads me into why I’ve been so
excited what I about what I’ve done with
emoji health Eyck really inspired me to
think about the future and what the
future is going to be like I realized
that the future must be created by youth
and by us and by high school students
and by not waiting until you have
letters behind your name like an MD or a
law degree or an undergrad degree even
to serve building the future you want to
see because young people are people who
are going to be living in the future for
longer than anybody else and we have to
create the future we want it’s going to
be pretty cool when you see even
technologies like I mean growing organs
or looking at your mood on your watch
that’s really cool but it’s also really
cool when my friend Leila starts with
granola business and everybody in our
grade starts buying granola and needing
granola in class and that super cool and
fun as well it doesn’t have to be
technology it doesn’t have to be
anything super special it’s just
Brett being ready to solve problems and
do things that excite you and that’s
what’s going to build the really cool
exciting future we all want to live in
so we have to remember that is that
future is now I mean the future when I
started this presentation was now and
you know
you’re so I keep thinking about the
imminent future and the future is you so
don’t wait until someday when you think
you’re going to solve this problem that
you know you’re going to have you can
start now and you have different
problems now then you’re going to have
in twenty years and the way you’re going
to solve those problems is going to
evolve but you have to take advantage of
what you can do now to change you know
your life your day your community or
even the world
so before I conclude I just want to
start with the three keys I think there
are two being innovative and a before
you can even do these three things it’s
important to remember that it doesn’t
have to be the Steve Jobs HP shared
garage white middle-aged man to be
innovative you have to start with –
knowing that you are an innovator even
when you just solved the problem of how
do I run to the AWC fastest on chicken
shawarma bowl day you have to figure out
those small things but it’s important to
have a purpose and know that what you’re
doing is valuable I am excited to wake
up every day and work on a Moche health
because I know what I’m doing is
changing people’s lives and I know that
what I’m doing has value and when you
find something that you’re passionate
about you’re going to work infinite many
times harder on it because when you’re
excited to spend the Saturday that you
don’t have homework working on a company
that’s pretty cool and that means that
you know that you’re invested in what
you’re doing and people can appreciate
that
people will respect you for that and
they’ll help you because they know that
you want to do what you’re doing being
authentic is also super important
knowing who you are what you’re good at
and what you’re not good at is so
important you can’t go out and try and
convince people that you are an expert
in health care knowledge when you’re a
high school student I don’t try and do
that I embrace what I know and what I
don’t know and I people will respect
what you know and they’ll value you for
that but you can also work with other
people who know things you don’t know
and when you build cohesive teams that
can help each other to know things and
not know things that’s really important
and most importantly you have to be
brave if you can do everything else if
you can create the next Apple even but
you don’t have the confidence to do it
you’re never going to get anywhere so
you have to have the confidence in
yourself
your idea and the world to support even
that before you can do anything so I
think you know when you do those things
and you’re brave enough to believe in
yourself as an innovator even when you
can’t really see yourself as an
innovator yet that’s really important so
thank you very much it was very exciting
to speak to all of you
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: