everybody has great ideas they just
don’t do write a book start a charity
company travel the world or run a
business but almost every single time an
idea like that comes in to one of our
minds we just say no no I just wouldn’t
know where to start
no my boss wouldn’t let me or no I just
don’t have the resources all the time
but if even one of those times we said
yes instead of no and followed through
of our day that could be one of the most
rewarding and fulfilling things that we
ever do so I’m going to tell you how to
not say no and make your ideas come true
so last year I had an idea to join the
International genetically engineered
machines competition
idea IgM is about coming up with a
genetic engineering solution to an
existing problem it’s exactly what I’m
interested in and it was just outside of
my depth so it’s something I really
wanted to do so after some deliberation
I decided to just go for it and that’s
the first really important step if you
want to make your own idea come true
take the initiative do not say no find
out exactly what it is that you need to
do next to make your idea come true so
for me that involves looking up online
what I needed to do and emailing
strangers on the internet who you far
more than I did and ask them for help I
talked to my teachers and my classmates
and awesomes they wanted to collaborate
with me and if we could build something
together so now it’s quite easy to go
through the first week or two of your
project and be have a really good
understanding of what you want to do and
still kind of be high off the adrenaline
of first guy having your idea but
eventually that adrenalin dies out and
when the first real challenge is hit you
you’re still going to be in a position
where it’s very easy to say no so the
second important step when you want to
make a project come true is to commit
yourself to the idea well and committing
yourself what you can do is what I did
is you can find someone else to do it
with you so I have a friend called Jake
who’s interested in a lot of similar
things that I am and when I told him
about the idea what I wanted to do and
more importantly why I wanted to do it
he was on board we were going to do this
together at that point it was very
difficult for me to back out and say no
because if I did I not only be failing
myself I’d be failing him now that’s
something you can do for your own
projects even if it’s something that you
are doing completely for yourself if you
tell your friends and your family what
and more importantly why you’re doing it
they they’ll be committed to help you
and you’ll kind of be committed to
finish it for them so after me and J
could figure out what kind of what we
want to do we approached our teacher mr.
Deveny who was extremely helpful and it
was really rewarding thing to do because
we expected him to be kind of cautious
and say no but he didn’t seen it instead
he gave us the opportunity and try to
help us figure out what to do next
that was an extremely inspirational
moment and it helps us continue from
that this is when we hit our first big
problem the $4,500 entry fee for this
competition this is obviously something
that we couldn’t do ourselves we
couldn’t fund this from our back pocket
someone out there was going to have to
invest it was essentially the pipe dream
of to a 16 year olds and make you come
true we didn’t really know what to do
this is a point where a lot of our
teachers said no this is not going to
work they told us to say no but we’re in
a position where we committed ourselves
to this project and we didn’t want to do
that so we so what we did is we approach
our headmistress and we asked her for
help he asked her to say yes with us so
that we could help this project come
true now when we plan to put our pitch
we kind of have one goal in mind we want
to walk out of that room making sure she
hadn’t said no she didn’t has to say yes
but as long as she didn’t say no that
was good
so when we planned our pitch we try to
figure out a way to get her to
understand why we want to do it and try
to find it in some advantages for the
school so we can make that come true and
we were incredibly lucky because our
school understands the importance of
taking the initiative and starting a
project like this so she invested in us
and believes in us at that point it was
impossible to turn back because now the
$4,500 of the school’s money was
counting for not succeeding this is
where this is where we kind of start
with the initial stage of a project and
that’s where things started to go really
really well we can we collaborate with
ten other students and from the team and
we came up with the initial idea for our
project to genetically engineer
photosynthetic bacteria to come up with
a new solution to solar power it was
incredibly exciting sound it’s so cool
we well spent hours a day just
researching it and planning sort of the
genetic
circuits we had to build and work going
really well but then the summer came and
the first real problem start hit us it
was really it was a stressful time
because we had to build a genetic
circuit but we had no idea how this was
the first problem that challenge of a
varietal project and we didn’t really
know how to tackle it this was huge the
biggest part of the project was to build
a genetic circuit and we had no idea how
to do it it was very daunting but what
we did instead of saying no we took a
problem that was very difficult we broke
it into smaller problems where do we
find our DNA what bit to the DNA do we
need to cut out how do we stick it back
together and then we took those problems
and turned them into even smaller
problems and we kept doing that until
every single problem took an hour or
maybe a day it was very easy to not say
no to so once we had done that we kind
of started to get things working and we
actually started building our genetic
part very exciting but at this point we
hit a slightly harder problem to tackle
in order to for one of the steps of our
genetic modification to work we had to
freeze the bacteria at minus 80 degrees
C now no freezing our school could do
this and we sure as hell pin before dawn
and there’s no way to break this problem
down to something more achievable we we
were stuck but here we pulled out
another tool from the problem solving
toolbox that’s to ask for help we went
to a conference about synthetic biology
and we also the biotech company and when
every single one of those said know who
reached out to universities until
eventually somebody was willing to help
us now this was an imperial university
and they gave us not only that they gave
us their freedom they also give us
invaluable advice because they knew so
much more about this than we did they
were willing to predict the problem that
we were going to have and avoid us from
even having them at the first place in
hindsight that was probably the most
important step we took even if it hadn’t
been for the freezer we probably
wouldn’t have finished our project if we
hadn’t taking it always if you out of
the depth try to find help because most
often or not there’ll be someone out
there who’s willing I’ll find a problem
that we here was one that we really
couldn’t achieve you see a genetic part
consists of three components something
called a promoter something called a
ribosome binding site and something
called the protein coding sequence so
you’re your piece of DNA eventually code
for a protein but first it has to turn
to something called RNA which is where
the promoter does and then after that it
needs to bind to the ribosome that’s
what
and binding sites for the rest of the
coding protein coding sequence which is
like the ones and zeros the AC T’s and
G’s that tell that tell the ribosomal
protein to build now turnout for two of
the four genetic circuits we built we
completely forgot the writers and
binding site when we had a little white
residue of DNA it just didn’t work this
was there was no way that we could go
back and do it all again it took us
weeks to do this and we didn’t have that
long to the end of the competition we
couldn’t break this problem down and we
couldn’t ask anyone for help we were
stuck but once again we had another tool
and the problem-solving toolbox I’m not
saying that and that was just simply
sidestep the problem we realized that we
didn’t need to solve the problem to
finish and to enter the competition so
we didn’t really say no but we didn’t
really say yes even so once we had done
this and we’ve made our DNA and we
tested it we were on the final stretch
of our project we had to present this
project in some way to the judges not at
all three things that involved making a
presentation involve making a poster and
involved making a website now the post
and presentation were easy they only
took two days even though they were very
nerve nerve wracking much like this TED
talk but a the website was far far more
difficult the website took over a month
to complete and revolved a lot of hard
work this is the problem that we knew
exactly how to solve we had broken it
down we’d asked everyone for help and we
we knew what we were doing the limiting
factor here was our motivation sometimes
we would say no even though we knew what
to do so the art of keeping motivated I
found out was is simply finding out a
way to not say no in the future so for
me that involved in planning out rewards
after particularly difficult pieces of
work or or that idea of committing
yourself there’s certain parts of
product that I promised I would do and
if I didn’t do them I’d be letting
everyone down so it was almost a fear
that motivated me to do this here after
we kind of got this thing sorted as far
as for a sprint who actually would be
fulfilling because we took an idea that
was initially in our heads and we saw it
manifest itself and this was a very
rewarding process after this whilst we’d
finished all of this and we’d finally
put in the hard work that we need to do
came to pay off we’ve got to go to
Boston to present our idea to various
people around the world and we got to
see hundreds of other ideas like ours
and listen to their stories and listen
what they had done it was an incredibly
interesting thing to do because we met a
lot of people we had a lot of
opportunities that we simply wouldn’t
have had before it was very very
rewarding I’d also just like this
conference being so amazing that’s
definitely not the most important thing
this project this project it also taught
me a lot of things I didn’t have before
I learnt a sense of confidence that I
wouldn’t have got otherwise I learnt
ways of problem-solving that involved
not saying no that I’d wouldn’t have
thought of otherwise and I had got a
deep understanding of the subject of
synthetic biology because I was so
engaged in what I was doing and I had
such a great teacher I realized that I I
realized things and I was looking from
perspectives I just wouldn’t have had in
a classroom or under standard test
conditions so this project was something
that I did that I was ridiculously proud
of it’s probably the thing I’m most
proud of today a few years ago when I
was about 13 I had a programming teacher
called Arthur who taught me how to
program and he was a dick you see good
teacher because he knew how to get an
idea in charter students mind and he
learned figured out how to get them
engaged but more important was that was
that he encouraged me to start my first
project with him I created a computer
game and it was the first thing I was
really proud of that’s when the seed of
not saying no but planted in my mind now
recently in this item competition that
seed has grown and I’ve realized just
the power that this philosophy has so
and this audience I implore you next
time that you have a great idea it’s
time to take the initiative not say no
and make your idea come true
thank you
[Applause]
don’t do write a book start a charity
company travel the world or run a
business but almost every single time an
idea like that comes in to one of our
minds we just say no no I just wouldn’t
know where to start
no my boss wouldn’t let me or no I just
don’t have the resources all the time
but if even one of those times we said
yes instead of no and followed through
of our day that could be one of the most
rewarding and fulfilling things that we
ever do so I’m going to tell you how to
not say no and make your ideas come true
so last year I had an idea to join the
International genetically engineered
machines competition
idea IgM is about coming up with a
genetic engineering solution to an
existing problem it’s exactly what I’m
interested in and it was just outside of
my depth so it’s something I really
wanted to do so after some deliberation
I decided to just go for it and that’s
the first really important step if you
want to make your own idea come true
take the initiative do not say no find
out exactly what it is that you need to
do next to make your idea come true so
for me that involves looking up online
what I needed to do and emailing
strangers on the internet who you far
more than I did and ask them for help I
talked to my teachers and my classmates
and awesomes they wanted to collaborate
with me and if we could build something
together so now it’s quite easy to go
through the first week or two of your
project and be have a really good
understanding of what you want to do and
still kind of be high off the adrenaline
of first guy having your idea but
eventually that adrenalin dies out and
when the first real challenge is hit you
you’re still going to be in a position
where it’s very easy to say no so the
second important step when you want to
make a project come true is to commit
yourself to the idea well and committing
yourself what you can do is what I did
is you can find someone else to do it
with you so I have a friend called Jake
who’s interested in a lot of similar
things that I am and when I told him
about the idea what I wanted to do and
more importantly why I wanted to do it
he was on board we were going to do this
together at that point it was very
difficult for me to back out and say no
because if I did I not only be failing
myself I’d be failing him now that’s
something you can do for your own
projects even if it’s something that you
are doing completely for yourself if you
tell your friends and your family what
and more importantly why you’re doing it
they they’ll be committed to help you
and you’ll kind of be committed to
finish it for them so after me and J
could figure out what kind of what we
want to do we approached our teacher mr.
Deveny who was extremely helpful and it
was really rewarding thing to do because
we expected him to be kind of cautious
and say no but he didn’t seen it instead
he gave us the opportunity and try to
help us figure out what to do next
that was an extremely inspirational
moment and it helps us continue from
that this is when we hit our first big
problem the $4,500 entry fee for this
competition this is obviously something
that we couldn’t do ourselves we
couldn’t fund this from our back pocket
someone out there was going to have to
invest it was essentially the pipe dream
of to a 16 year olds and make you come
true we didn’t really know what to do
this is a point where a lot of our
teachers said no this is not going to
work they told us to say no but we’re in
a position where we committed ourselves
to this project and we didn’t want to do
that so we so what we did is we approach
our headmistress and we asked her for
help he asked her to say yes with us so
that we could help this project come
true now when we plan to put our pitch
we kind of have one goal in mind we want
to walk out of that room making sure she
hadn’t said no she didn’t has to say yes
but as long as she didn’t say no that
was good
so when we planned our pitch we try to
figure out a way to get her to
understand why we want to do it and try
to find it in some advantages for the
school so we can make that come true and
we were incredibly lucky because our
school understands the importance of
taking the initiative and starting a
project like this so she invested in us
and believes in us at that point it was
impossible to turn back because now the
$4,500 of the school’s money was
counting for not succeeding this is
where this is where we kind of start
with the initial stage of a project and
that’s where things started to go really
really well we can we collaborate with
ten other students and from the team and
we came up with the initial idea for our
project to genetically engineer
photosynthetic bacteria to come up with
a new solution to solar power it was
incredibly exciting sound it’s so cool
we well spent hours a day just
researching it and planning sort of the
genetic
circuits we had to build and work going
really well but then the summer came and
the first real problem start hit us it
was really it was a stressful time
because we had to build a genetic
circuit but we had no idea how this was
the first problem that challenge of a
varietal project and we didn’t really
know how to tackle it this was huge the
biggest part of the project was to build
a genetic circuit and we had no idea how
to do it it was very daunting but what
we did instead of saying no we took a
problem that was very difficult we broke
it into smaller problems where do we
find our DNA what bit to the DNA do we
need to cut out how do we stick it back
together and then we took those problems
and turned them into even smaller
problems and we kept doing that until
every single problem took an hour or
maybe a day it was very easy to not say
no to so once we had done that we kind
of started to get things working and we
actually started building our genetic
part very exciting but at this point we
hit a slightly harder problem to tackle
in order to for one of the steps of our
genetic modification to work we had to
freeze the bacteria at minus 80 degrees
C now no freezing our school could do
this and we sure as hell pin before dawn
and there’s no way to break this problem
down to something more achievable we we
were stuck but here we pulled out
another tool from the problem solving
toolbox that’s to ask for help we went
to a conference about synthetic biology
and we also the biotech company and when
every single one of those said know who
reached out to universities until
eventually somebody was willing to help
us now this was an imperial university
and they gave us not only that they gave
us their freedom they also give us
invaluable advice because they knew so
much more about this than we did they
were willing to predict the problem that
we were going to have and avoid us from
even having them at the first place in
hindsight that was probably the most
important step we took even if it hadn’t
been for the freezer we probably
wouldn’t have finished our project if we
hadn’t taking it always if you out of
the depth try to find help because most
often or not there’ll be someone out
there who’s willing I’ll find a problem
that we here was one that we really
couldn’t achieve you see a genetic part
consists of three components something
called a promoter something called a
ribosome binding site and something
called the protein coding sequence so
you’re your piece of DNA eventually code
for a protein but first it has to turn
to something called RNA which is where
the promoter does and then after that it
needs to bind to the ribosome that’s
what
and binding sites for the rest of the
coding protein coding sequence which is
like the ones and zeros the AC T’s and
G’s that tell that tell the ribosomal
protein to build now turnout for two of
the four genetic circuits we built we
completely forgot the writers and
binding site when we had a little white
residue of DNA it just didn’t work this
was there was no way that we could go
back and do it all again it took us
weeks to do this and we didn’t have that
long to the end of the competition we
couldn’t break this problem down and we
couldn’t ask anyone for help we were
stuck but once again we had another tool
and the problem-solving toolbox I’m not
saying that and that was just simply
sidestep the problem we realized that we
didn’t need to solve the problem to
finish and to enter the competition so
we didn’t really say no but we didn’t
really say yes even so once we had done
this and we’ve made our DNA and we
tested it we were on the final stretch
of our project we had to present this
project in some way to the judges not at
all three things that involved making a
presentation involve making a poster and
involved making a website now the post
and presentation were easy they only
took two days even though they were very
nerve nerve wracking much like this TED
talk but a the website was far far more
difficult the website took over a month
to complete and revolved a lot of hard
work this is the problem that we knew
exactly how to solve we had broken it
down we’d asked everyone for help and we
we knew what we were doing the limiting
factor here was our motivation sometimes
we would say no even though we knew what
to do so the art of keeping motivated I
found out was is simply finding out a
way to not say no in the future so for
me that involved in planning out rewards
after particularly difficult pieces of
work or or that idea of committing
yourself there’s certain parts of
product that I promised I would do and
if I didn’t do them I’d be letting
everyone down so it was almost a fear
that motivated me to do this here after
we kind of got this thing sorted as far
as for a sprint who actually would be
fulfilling because we took an idea that
was initially in our heads and we saw it
manifest itself and this was a very
rewarding process after this whilst we’d
finished all of this and we’d finally
put in the hard work that we need to do
came to pay off we’ve got to go to
Boston to present our idea to various
people around the world and we got to
see hundreds of other ideas like ours
and listen to their stories and listen
what they had done it was an incredibly
interesting thing to do because we met a
lot of people we had a lot of
opportunities that we simply wouldn’t
have had before it was very very
rewarding I’d also just like this
conference being so amazing that’s
definitely not the most important thing
this project this project it also taught
me a lot of things I didn’t have before
I learnt a sense of confidence that I
wouldn’t have got otherwise I learnt
ways of problem-solving that involved
not saying no that I’d wouldn’t have
thought of otherwise and I had got a
deep understanding of the subject of
synthetic biology because I was so
engaged in what I was doing and I had
such a great teacher I realized that I I
realized things and I was looking from
perspectives I just wouldn’t have had in
a classroom or under standard test
conditions so this project was something
that I did that I was ridiculously proud
of it’s probably the thing I’m most
proud of today a few years ago when I
was about 13 I had a programming teacher
called Arthur who taught me how to
program and he was a dick you see good
teacher because he knew how to get an
idea in charter students mind and he
learned figured out how to get them
engaged but more important was that was
that he encouraged me to start my first
project with him I created a computer
game and it was the first thing I was
really proud of that’s when the seed of
not saying no but planted in my mind now
recently in this item competition that
seed has grown and I’ve realized just
the power that this philosophy has so
and this audience I implore you next
time that you have a great idea it’s
time to take the initiative not say no
and make your idea come true
thank you
[Applause]
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