my name is Donna SH and my full-time job
is to count people’s arms and us and
like it all started at my first day of
school after my family moved from
Pakistan to Tanzania
I was busy sketching my dream cars in my
notebook and all of a sudden I hear a
voice in my direction the teacher
Daanish can you please rise up and
introduce yourself she had put me on the
spot I was in this foreign land 30 pairs
of eyes staring at me how would you feel
when a teacher puts you on the spot in
this kind of situation my mind went
blank my heart started racing I kept
quiet I started hearing giggles in the
classroom and then tears ran down my
cheek that was the first time I felt the
fear of speaking in front of others the
first time I felt the fear of public
speaking
fast-forward a few years I was at
college here in America that fear still
stuck with me it wasn’t slow it was part
of my soul now when I was little I had
many other fears I was afraid of the
dark the monsters under my bed the
cockroaches and I don’t mean the tiny
cockroaches here but the big flying
cockroaches I had back home in Pakistan
in Tanzania but I outgrew these fears I
overcame them as I grew older but public
speaking no way I was still afraid of it
but I decided enough was enough I
decided to do something about it to take
that step and find a solution and so I
went to the one place on the internet
where we all look for problems – our
solution to our problems Google I
searched on Google how to overcome the
fear of public speaking the first link
told me about the great things I could
be if I overcame this fear sound like a
leader
get a great job share your ideas give a
TED talk change the world the second
link showed me all the different ways I
could overcome this fear hire a speech
coach talk in front of the mirror do
online courses attend public speaking
clubs like Toastmasters that’s when I
realized that I had it wrong all this
time I thought you are either born a
public speaker or you’re not I was wrong
I realized that public speaking is
actually a teachable skill that means
that if any one of you here wants to
speak powerfully like any of your famous
public speakers yes you can we all can
now some of these solutions work for me
others not so much
like hiring a speech coach that was
outside of my student budget but online
courses that’s where I learned how to
vary my tone up and down how do talk
really really fast that I could get
someone’s excited or to slow right down
to get someone’s attention and I
practiced I practiced in front of the
mirror at least that’s where I had one
friend who thought I was good as for the
public speaking Club Toastmasters that
was fantastic I got to go in front of
others and I got feedback on what I did
good and what I did bad so I did all
these things and I realized that first I
was trapped in this cold dark hole where
the fear of public speaking haunted at
me it pulled me down and over here was
this promise of sunshine of green
pastures no anxiety but the path from
here to here was all over the place I
had to do all these things and I thought
to myself there had to be one simpler
way there had to be one way that I could
go from here and leap to here so I went
back to Google the source of all wisdom
did some research
and I started learning and reading a lot
about artificial intelligence about
these personal assistants we have in our
pocket like Siri Alexa who understand
what we’re saying hey Siri was the next
meeting I have here’s your meeting they
understand what we say what if they
could also understand how you’re saying
something and analyze your voice what if
they could be your speech coaches what
if every single person in the world
anywhere had their own personal
on-demand speech coach can you imagine a
world where anyone has this help to help
them overcome this fear of public
speaking to help them speak powerfully
to help them share their ideas that’s
the idea that God has started that’s the
idea that helped us create or I aural AI
a mobile app that counts your arms and
us a mobile app that gives you
personalized lessons a place to practice
them quietly in privacy and an app that
gives you instant feedback using
artificial intelligence now a year and a
half ago when my roommate and I started
building this we were no experts all we
knew is that we want to build something
we want to create a solution we were no
speech coaches we were not public
speakers we were no data scientists but
we had the power of the Internet so we
read bunch of research papers on
computational linguistics we spoke with
hundreds of speech coaches trying to
understand how they give feedback on
their speech we watched videos on
machine learning and artificial
intelligence so that we could codify all
these things and create this app because
we believe that we can use technology to
help people become better versions of
ourselves and the reason I’m sharing my
story with you guys today is not to tell
you guys go out and build apps or be
entrepreneurs
I’m saying go out and face your fears
don’t burry them deep inside if you have
a problem look for a solution if nothing
exists create that solution if you don’t
have the skills go to Google find how
you can improve your knowledge and
create something for me it’s all started
when I was little that first time I felt
the fear of public speaking
that’s what empowered me to act that’s
what empowered me to go on this journey
of becoming a better speaker and this
journey is never ending you will never
see the finish line in fact there is no
finish line in public speaking you can
always get better remember that you can
always become a better speaker you only
stop if you tell yourself you’re good
enough thank you
by the way I was recording my speech
let’s see what feedback or I gives ok so
I had a few filler words like you know
and um my pace
ok 107 words per minute not too bad good
energy and then some feedback or I was
giving almost perfect I think I need to
practice a little bit more and it’s
saying looks like you’ll be hosting a
TED talk at no time and my speech is
already a plus and my transcript and I
can even play back my audio and listen
to itself check it out
[Applause]
is to count people’s arms and us and
like it all started at my first day of
school after my family moved from
Pakistan to Tanzania
I was busy sketching my dream cars in my
notebook and all of a sudden I hear a
voice in my direction the teacher
Daanish can you please rise up and
introduce yourself she had put me on the
spot I was in this foreign land 30 pairs
of eyes staring at me how would you feel
when a teacher puts you on the spot in
this kind of situation my mind went
blank my heart started racing I kept
quiet I started hearing giggles in the
classroom and then tears ran down my
cheek that was the first time I felt the
fear of speaking in front of others the
first time I felt the fear of public
speaking
fast-forward a few years I was at
college here in America that fear still
stuck with me it wasn’t slow it was part
of my soul now when I was little I had
many other fears I was afraid of the
dark the monsters under my bed the
cockroaches and I don’t mean the tiny
cockroaches here but the big flying
cockroaches I had back home in Pakistan
in Tanzania but I outgrew these fears I
overcame them as I grew older but public
speaking no way I was still afraid of it
but I decided enough was enough I
decided to do something about it to take
that step and find a solution and so I
went to the one place on the internet
where we all look for problems – our
solution to our problems Google I
searched on Google how to overcome the
fear of public speaking the first link
told me about the great things I could
be if I overcame this fear sound like a
leader
get a great job share your ideas give a
TED talk change the world the second
link showed me all the different ways I
could overcome this fear hire a speech
coach talk in front of the mirror do
online courses attend public speaking
clubs like Toastmasters that’s when I
realized that I had it wrong all this
time I thought you are either born a
public speaker or you’re not I was wrong
I realized that public speaking is
actually a teachable skill that means
that if any one of you here wants to
speak powerfully like any of your famous
public speakers yes you can we all can
now some of these solutions work for me
others not so much
like hiring a speech coach that was
outside of my student budget but online
courses that’s where I learned how to
vary my tone up and down how do talk
really really fast that I could get
someone’s excited or to slow right down
to get someone’s attention and I
practiced I practiced in front of the
mirror at least that’s where I had one
friend who thought I was good as for the
public speaking Club Toastmasters that
was fantastic I got to go in front of
others and I got feedback on what I did
good and what I did bad so I did all
these things and I realized that first I
was trapped in this cold dark hole where
the fear of public speaking haunted at
me it pulled me down and over here was
this promise of sunshine of green
pastures no anxiety but the path from
here to here was all over the place I
had to do all these things and I thought
to myself there had to be one simpler
way there had to be one way that I could
go from here and leap to here so I went
back to Google the source of all wisdom
did some research
and I started learning and reading a lot
about artificial intelligence about
these personal assistants we have in our
pocket like Siri Alexa who understand
what we’re saying hey Siri was the next
meeting I have here’s your meeting they
understand what we say what if they
could also understand how you’re saying
something and analyze your voice what if
they could be your speech coaches what
if every single person in the world
anywhere had their own personal
on-demand speech coach can you imagine a
world where anyone has this help to help
them overcome this fear of public
speaking to help them speak powerfully
to help them share their ideas that’s
the idea that God has started that’s the
idea that helped us create or I aural AI
a mobile app that counts your arms and
us a mobile app that gives you
personalized lessons a place to practice
them quietly in privacy and an app that
gives you instant feedback using
artificial intelligence now a year and a
half ago when my roommate and I started
building this we were no experts all we
knew is that we want to build something
we want to create a solution we were no
speech coaches we were not public
speakers we were no data scientists but
we had the power of the Internet so we
read bunch of research papers on
computational linguistics we spoke with
hundreds of speech coaches trying to
understand how they give feedback on
their speech we watched videos on
machine learning and artificial
intelligence so that we could codify all
these things and create this app because
we believe that we can use technology to
help people become better versions of
ourselves and the reason I’m sharing my
story with you guys today is not to tell
you guys go out and build apps or be
entrepreneurs
I’m saying go out and face your fears
don’t burry them deep inside if you have
a problem look for a solution if nothing
exists create that solution if you don’t
have the skills go to Google find how
you can improve your knowledge and
create something for me it’s all started
when I was little that first time I felt
the fear of public speaking
that’s what empowered me to act that’s
what empowered me to go on this journey
of becoming a better speaker and this
journey is never ending you will never
see the finish line in fact there is no
finish line in public speaking you can
always get better remember that you can
always become a better speaker you only
stop if you tell yourself you’re good
enough thank you
by the way I was recording my speech
let’s see what feedback or I gives ok so
I had a few filler words like you know
and um my pace
ok 107 words per minute not too bad good
energy and then some feedback or I was
giving almost perfect I think I need to
practice a little bit more and it’s
saying looks like you’ll be hosting a
TED talk at no time and my speech is
already a plus and my transcript and I
can even play back my audio and listen
to itself check it out
[Applause]
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