how many people in the room know someone
that’s committed suicide I’d like you to
raise your hand with me if you do but
keep your hand up and now look around
the room with your hand up suicide is a
tragedy 50% of us in America knows
someone that’s committed it and like all
tragedies it’s a call for action today
I’d like to tell you a story about the
loss of two of my friends to suicide and
how that was a starting point for a
platform that now brings people together
over lunch when I first started my PhD
at MIT about five years ago I had heard
the statistics about campus suicides but
you know the interesting thing about
statistics are that it’s just that
they’re just statistics they don’t mean
anything until they touch you in a
personal way so two years into my PhD
approximately a friend of mine made the
unfortunate decision to take his own
life
and I remember when I first heard the
news I was really shocked by it I
thought why would somebody who is
getting this prestigious degree he’s so
close to graduation and he’s his whole
life in front of him make a decision to
end it all
why but then you know that feeling of
shock made a quick change when I learned
that if he had been found just a few
minutes sooner he could have been
resuscitated and brought back he might
be here in the audience today sitting
with you I started to ask myself what
part did I play in this or not plan this
maybe if I had when I passed him in the
hallway earlier that week said a couple
words or invited him out for dinner
maybe the course of destiny would have
been different
maybe I could have been that one person
that altered his destiny suicide is a
tragedy and like all tragedies we learn
to accept it as time goes on and as I
was coming to terms with the loss of
this first friend I was hit by the loss
of another and this time it was much
closer to home this time it was a
childhood friend someone I knew for 15
years I grew up with this person riding
bikes down the street digging for
fossils and desert Lots all the things
that kids do and you know help at least
in New Mexico did anybody hear the news
about the fossil that was found yeah in
all seriousness though when this friend
of mine made the decision to take her
life that half life on the shock to
regret it was very very quick to just
become a sensation of regrets I asked
myself you know in the time that we had
both kind of moved away and started to
live our own lives and had drifted apart
maybe I played a role in that maybe if I
would have been in better touch destiny
would have turned out different maybe I
did have some role to play in this
because one person really can change
destiny and this set of back-to-back
suicides really did have an impact on me
it does till today I started wondering
how as a society did we get to a point
where suicide is the second leading
cause of death among young people and
why does year after year the number and
the incidents continue to rise I’m not
going to sit here and pretend I know the
answer to that question I’m not educated
enough or I don’t research this enough
to give you a complete answer what I can
tell you though is that social isolation
is part of the problem it’s really
unprecedented isn’t it you know this
device that sits in our pocket or
whatever version of this that sits in
your pockets it’s facilitated
communication that’s historically
unprecedented you can pick up your
telephone and speak to another person on
the
other side of the planet live and almost
for free in all cases but somehow in the
increasing of the bandwidth of
communication there’s this growing sense
that we’ve sacrificed something about
what communication was supposed to
facilitate in the first place which was
that genuine connection with the other
person the quantity and the quality has
somehow become unbalanced you know an
average person spends about two hours a
day on social media but half of us eat
our lunch alone on any given day it’s a
paradox I’m guilty of going and crawling
LinkedIn saying oh I’m gonna find that
next connection it’s gonna really
revolutionize my career but then I don’t
know anyone who works in my floor of my
workplace it’s crazy isn’t it it’s
really crazy so you know I was thinking
about this paradox and I decided to
confide in a friend of mine and a
colleague to Cal Hana who’s actually
here in the audience today and touka
said to me well this is great that
you’ve found out all these great
statistics but again it’s just
statistics what are you going to do
about it and what we did about it over
the next two years was a platform called
connect the idea of connect is very very
simple you tell us who you are when you
free what you’d like to eat and we tell
you who to meet when to meet and where
the point of connect was to not increase
your face to screen time increase your
face-to-face time with other people all
the interactions are one-on-one they’re
platonic they’re in person and if you’re
at a university campus we even pay for
your lunch so you can quote me on this
there is actually such a thing as a free
lunch
Connect is not intended to be the next
Facebook it is not currently the next
Facebook there are no profile pictures
there’s no chat
there’s no advertisements you’re not
going to know if the person you meet
wears a headscarf how old they are what
their racial background is not until you
meet them one-on-one
in-person and face-to-face over the last
couple years Connect has facilitated
7,000 connections both in the Boston
area and outside it’s really blown my
mind I didn’t expect when we built this
that it would this would have happened
90% of the users enjoy their experience
and 50% of the users have made a lasting
friend you remember what I said earlier
though 50% of us eat lunch alone what a
lucky coincidence that is right
it’s really was it was something
beautiful when we first saw that but
again what am i doing I’m just quoting
statistics right it doesn’t mean
anything until it touches you personally
and just two months ago the outcome of
all this work did touch me personally
when just one guy who had used the
platform completely unprovoked sent me
and touka a very simple email he just
said hi there I want to say that this
platform was responsible for some of my
best memories at MIT
thank you and I have to say as somebody
who is fortunate to attend an
institution that really has accelerated
my own academic progress that email felt
better than many of the things I’ve ever
done at MIT as an academic even the
growth of connect is the story of how
one person chose to make a difference
initially it was just going to be a
platform that sat at MIT and it did good
things at MIT and we were gonna leave it
like that but then another member of the
audience who’s here today hediye from
the university of toledo decided she
wanted to send an email and said hey
this would be great at my school and
just like that
destiny was altered and we’ve since
configured Connect so that now anyone
can email us and say I want this at my
school and we can at the turn of a key
launched it and if you’re one of those
people I can’t wait to hear from you the
future of Connect is not just something
to be contained within the walls of
academia we believe that it can solve
problems of social isolation among the
elderly or at least play a part in that
process and we think that the issue I
brought up about workplaces you don’t
know anyone who works in your office
space it could play a part in solving
that problem too
but I want to make something very clear
connect it’s not a panacea it’s not
going to solve every problem that has to
do with our lack of connectedness what
it is is it’s one piece and a mosaic of
things that we can do to be better
connected as people another one of those
things that we can do is something that
I’m going to ask every single one of you
in the audience to do today keep your
heart and your mind open today here at
the TEDx session to the opportunity of
making a new friend because you really
never know you could be that one person
that changes someone destiny or you
could meet that one person that changes
yours thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
that’s committed suicide I’d like you to
raise your hand with me if you do but
keep your hand up and now look around
the room with your hand up suicide is a
tragedy 50% of us in America knows
someone that’s committed it and like all
tragedies it’s a call for action today
I’d like to tell you a story about the
loss of two of my friends to suicide and
how that was a starting point for a
platform that now brings people together
over lunch when I first started my PhD
at MIT about five years ago I had heard
the statistics about campus suicides but
you know the interesting thing about
statistics are that it’s just that
they’re just statistics they don’t mean
anything until they touch you in a
personal way so two years into my PhD
approximately a friend of mine made the
unfortunate decision to take his own
life
and I remember when I first heard the
news I was really shocked by it I
thought why would somebody who is
getting this prestigious degree he’s so
close to graduation and he’s his whole
life in front of him make a decision to
end it all
why but then you know that feeling of
shock made a quick change when I learned
that if he had been found just a few
minutes sooner he could have been
resuscitated and brought back he might
be here in the audience today sitting
with you I started to ask myself what
part did I play in this or not plan this
maybe if I had when I passed him in the
hallway earlier that week said a couple
words or invited him out for dinner
maybe the course of destiny would have
been different
maybe I could have been that one person
that altered his destiny suicide is a
tragedy and like all tragedies we learn
to accept it as time goes on and as I
was coming to terms with the loss of
this first friend I was hit by the loss
of another and this time it was much
closer to home this time it was a
childhood friend someone I knew for 15
years I grew up with this person riding
bikes down the street digging for
fossils and desert Lots all the things
that kids do and you know help at least
in New Mexico did anybody hear the news
about the fossil that was found yeah in
all seriousness though when this friend
of mine made the decision to take her
life that half life on the shock to
regret it was very very quick to just
become a sensation of regrets I asked
myself you know in the time that we had
both kind of moved away and started to
live our own lives and had drifted apart
maybe I played a role in that maybe if I
would have been in better touch destiny
would have turned out different maybe I
did have some role to play in this
because one person really can change
destiny and this set of back-to-back
suicides really did have an impact on me
it does till today I started wondering
how as a society did we get to a point
where suicide is the second leading
cause of death among young people and
why does year after year the number and
the incidents continue to rise I’m not
going to sit here and pretend I know the
answer to that question I’m not educated
enough or I don’t research this enough
to give you a complete answer what I can
tell you though is that social isolation
is part of the problem it’s really
unprecedented isn’t it you know this
device that sits in our pocket or
whatever version of this that sits in
your pockets it’s facilitated
communication that’s historically
unprecedented you can pick up your
telephone and speak to another person on
the
other side of the planet live and almost
for free in all cases but somehow in the
increasing of the bandwidth of
communication there’s this growing sense
that we’ve sacrificed something about
what communication was supposed to
facilitate in the first place which was
that genuine connection with the other
person the quantity and the quality has
somehow become unbalanced you know an
average person spends about two hours a
day on social media but half of us eat
our lunch alone on any given day it’s a
paradox I’m guilty of going and crawling
LinkedIn saying oh I’m gonna find that
next connection it’s gonna really
revolutionize my career but then I don’t
know anyone who works in my floor of my
workplace it’s crazy isn’t it it’s
really crazy so you know I was thinking
about this paradox and I decided to
confide in a friend of mine and a
colleague to Cal Hana who’s actually
here in the audience today and touka
said to me well this is great that
you’ve found out all these great
statistics but again it’s just
statistics what are you going to do
about it and what we did about it over
the next two years was a platform called
connect the idea of connect is very very
simple you tell us who you are when you
free what you’d like to eat and we tell
you who to meet when to meet and where
the point of connect was to not increase
your face to screen time increase your
face-to-face time with other people all
the interactions are one-on-one they’re
platonic they’re in person and if you’re
at a university campus we even pay for
your lunch so you can quote me on this
there is actually such a thing as a free
lunch
Connect is not intended to be the next
Facebook it is not currently the next
Facebook there are no profile pictures
there’s no chat
there’s no advertisements you’re not
going to know if the person you meet
wears a headscarf how old they are what
their racial background is not until you
meet them one-on-one
in-person and face-to-face over the last
couple years Connect has facilitated
7,000 connections both in the Boston
area and outside it’s really blown my
mind I didn’t expect when we built this
that it would this would have happened
90% of the users enjoy their experience
and 50% of the users have made a lasting
friend you remember what I said earlier
though 50% of us eat lunch alone what a
lucky coincidence that is right
it’s really was it was something
beautiful when we first saw that but
again what am i doing I’m just quoting
statistics right it doesn’t mean
anything until it touches you personally
and just two months ago the outcome of
all this work did touch me personally
when just one guy who had used the
platform completely unprovoked sent me
and touka a very simple email he just
said hi there I want to say that this
platform was responsible for some of my
best memories at MIT
thank you and I have to say as somebody
who is fortunate to attend an
institution that really has accelerated
my own academic progress that email felt
better than many of the things I’ve ever
done at MIT as an academic even the
growth of connect is the story of how
one person chose to make a difference
initially it was just going to be a
platform that sat at MIT and it did good
things at MIT and we were gonna leave it
like that but then another member of the
audience who’s here today hediye from
the university of toledo decided she
wanted to send an email and said hey
this would be great at my school and
just like that
destiny was altered and we’ve since
configured Connect so that now anyone
can email us and say I want this at my
school and we can at the turn of a key
launched it and if you’re one of those
people I can’t wait to hear from you the
future of Connect is not just something
to be contained within the walls of
academia we believe that it can solve
problems of social isolation among the
elderly or at least play a part in that
process and we think that the issue I
brought up about workplaces you don’t
know anyone who works in your office
space it could play a part in solving
that problem too
but I want to make something very clear
connect it’s not a panacea it’s not
going to solve every problem that has to
do with our lack of connectedness what
it is is it’s one piece and a mosaic of
things that we can do to be better
connected as people another one of those
things that we can do is something that
I’m going to ask every single one of you
in the audience to do today keep your
heart and your mind open today here at
the TEDx session to the opportunity of
making a new friend because you really
never know you could be that one person
that changes someone destiny or you
could meet that one person that changes
yours thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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