Ive Learned to Learn

when i was 5 years old

i was walking to preschool with my dad

i was holding his hand and we were

walking

there was this park on the way to school

where my brother and i used to go and

play regularly

we were walking and i was looking at the

park

and what happened was i hit the corner

of my eye

into one of these parking ballards you

know these black structures they put

into pedestrian walkways to not allow

cars to come in

i hit the corner of my eye i immediately

started bleeding

my dad in panic mode held me carried me

ran

all the way to the doctor’s office i got

stitches

and i still have that mark as a reminder

that that day i was curious to go to the

park

a few weeks later i was coming back home

from preschool

so i was holding my dad’s arm and

we were passing the park and i was

looking at the park again

and as you can guess

i hit the other corner of my eye into

one of the parking ballards

my dad in panic mode held me carried me

ran to the doctor’s office

i got stitches my mom was not happy

and i have another mark on the other

corner of my eye

as a second reminder

now i’m not here today to talk about the

injuries that i’ve had in my life i’m

here to talk about

curiosity and the empowerment in

learning

let me tell you a little bit about

myself my name is leila danish mandy

i’m a phd candidate in biomedical

engineering

and i’m also the chief operating officer

and co-founder of encapsulate

a biotech startup that is working in the

field of cancer therapy

at encapsulate we’ve developed automated

biochips

that can take a cancer patient cells

from when they’re initially

diagnosed with cancer grow them outside

the body in their native state

and test all the possible chemotherapy

drugs that an oncologist may want to

test

to determine the most effective one from

the very beginning

in an individualized basis

because what happens currently in

clinics now is that when a patient is

diagnosed with cancer

the oncologist will choose the

chemotherapy drug based on the type of

cancer

and what has worked well in previous

patients

but what works well for one person may

not necessarily work well for the other

and so that’s why in ovarian cancer for

instance

the first round of chemotherapy fails in

70

of the cases

so the oncologist will try additional

rounds of treatment each time with a new

drug

until they get some sort of response

from the patient

or the patient passes away and in

all these unnecessary chemotherapy

cycles

the patients are enduring unnecessary

pain

with our biochips we can determine the

most effective drug

from the very beginning on an

individualized basis

and avoid all these complications

so we’re currently partnering with

hartford healthcare to run our clinical

studies

on colon cancer patients which is

exciting

and we were recently awarded the

technology and space prize by the

international space station in

partnership with boeing

and it’ll allow us to send our

technology

into space on the international space

station

and test how cancer cells behave up

there

so i’m going to be able to

watch real astronauts work on technology

that i

built up there

and all the time and thinking how did

this happen

so let me back up a little bit i said

i’m a biomedical engineer

i’ve been a biomedical engineer for

almost 10 years now

four years of undergrad three and a half

because i was in a rush i don’t know why

one year at temple university in

philadelphia

and i’m five and a half here at uconn

where i’ve been for the past few years

i am ashamed to say that until two years

ago

and before encapsulate i had

never stepped foot in a hospital to see

what the issue is

that patients are dealing with

i came into engineering because i love

solving problems but after eight years

in the field at the time

after all these studies and experience i

didn’t even know what the problem was

that i was supposed to solve

what kind of an engineer was i

i didn’t suddenly come to this

realization

it happened when i took a course on

entrepreneurship at uconn

the course was titled technology

innovation and entrepreneurship

i don’t even know why i took the course

to be honest i think someone told me

about it

it’s interesting i took it i was curious

and so in the course we were paired into

teams

and we were asked to identify problems

to which we could provide solutions for

and i won’t go into the full details but

that’s kind of where encapsulate was

born

and in one of the programs that we

participated in we were asked to speak

to potential users and customers

of our technology in our case that means

the oncologists the patients the

pathologists

insurance companies hospital procurement

people

so when i say we were asked to speak to

these people i mean we were forced to

speak to these people

i am not comfortable speaking to new

people at all

but every week i would muster up all my

courage

and approach all these different

individuals

and set up a meeting and i would ask

what their work is like what their

challenges are

what they do in a day what they wish

could make their life easier it’s not

that hard right it’s just a few

questions

but why hadn’t i done it sooner

again eight years in the field and i had

zero input

from the people that my target was to

help

now i don’t even know why i did it why i

did all of it

i think in general that’s how it is i

was

i was curious i was curious to go to the

park

i was curious to take the class i was

curious to see what i could learn

i never thought that i would be pushing

myself to these limits

i didn’t even know what the limits were

an introvert who would cold call people

to set up a meeting to talk

that’s like our biggest nightmare

but i was eager i was i was eager to

learn i was eager to grow

and i did it i set aside all my personal

insecurities

however hard it was and i would throw

myself out there

and when i say throw i mean throw so

when we would get done with

events or meetings or gatherings where

we had to talk afterwards i would just

crawl on

the couch under a blanket and not do

anything for a while

you have to have courage

it’s hard i know it’s it’s so much

easier

to not do what you don’t want to do

but it’s so much more rewarding when you

do

it’s like ziplining for me so

i’m afraid of heights everyone knows

that my friends

but for some reason i have this inkling

to push myself i love ziplining

so when i get on that platform

my hands start to sweat like they are

now

my knees start to shake my mouth goes

dry

and i think why am i doing this

i mean i even took a dna test a 23andme

test

and it said you’re more likely than

average to be afraid of hikes

okay it’s science i’m afraid of heights

but then i push through i mean those

black level

like the highest platforms the most

difficult ones those i turn back there’s

no way i’m doing that at this stage but

anyway i pushed through because i enjoy

standing on that platform looking at the

path ahead of me

and trying to figure out what steps i

need to take to solve the problem ahead

of me

so have courage

have the courage to start and it’s not

just about having courage

it’s about wanting to grow

wanting to learn wanting to try new

things

wanting to experience life

if we don’t know what’s out there

how do we know where we’re at is good

so you have to care care about yourself

what it is that you do care enough

to give yourself the chance for

something more

and that brings me to my second point in

addition to having courage

and being curious you have to be open

open and receptive you have to listen

and not just listen to hear words come

out of someone’s mouth

or listen to think of an answer to

respond with

listen to internalize take it in

whatever it is that the other person’s

saying take it in

think about it reflect on it

it’s not about the answer you give it’s

about what you receive from it

when we first started encapsulate we

were developing our biochips for a

completely different purpose

but then when we were asked to talk to

all those people we realized that

oh there’s a problem in cancer therapy

and chemotherapy

that we could solve with our biochips

and so we talked we listened

and we changed and i’ve learned that

i’ve learned that

everyone has something to say even if

i think i have the answer or

i’ve made up my mind about something

i could still be wrong i could

improve i could learn

back in undergrad i used to go to this

group discussion thing

with a bunch of students and we would

just talk about our daily lives and

you know honestly it was just a grumble

party so

everyone would come in and start

complaining about something their

major their coursework their dorm their

dog

but then whenever it was my turn i could

only talk about the positive

so positive stuff positive events

positivity

and a friend once told me

leila you’re too positive i fear that

you’re living in a fantasy

and you’re not seeing the world for what

it is

i mean it could be right it could be

that i’m a happy bunny

i walk on air and i’m having the time of

my life

what happened after was a few weeks

later one of the students came

and he said you know i’ve been thinking

i’ve been thinking why is it that

whenever it’s our turn to talk

we always start by complaining

but then layla over here is so content

and gratified

is it really that my life is so bad that

the first

the first things that i want to say to

it about someone

is the negative stuff i mean i like my

major

i love my parents

i love my friends we hang out a lot

life is good life is

good

and i’m not saying to you know put on a

smiley face and be happy all the time

forget about your worries

no i’m saying

what’s the alternative

create your own fantasy the world that

you want to live in the one

within the limits of what you can do and

even beyond the limits of what you can

do

or in the world or in the words of

pinterest

bring your own sunshine

i think it’s important to care

in addition to being courageous to being

brave

curious to being open and receptive

you have to care care about yourself

care about others care about

cancer patients that you happen to know

are enduring

painful treatments care

empathy is one of those traits that we

need more of

i know it sounds cliche but can you

really put yourself in the shoes of

someone else

and try to understand or feel their

experience

you may not agree with it you

may not do it yourself

you can’t even support it but can you

understand why they did it

can you listen

back at temple when i’d first come to

the states i

was feeling very subconscious

academically

i wasn’t sure of the stuff that i knew i

had just come to a new country

i was shy uncomfortable

and i had this class

with this instructor slash advisor

and you know it happened to be that i

knew the core stuff i was i was doing

okay

but whenever he would ask a question i

would never be the one to respond

i did not have the confidence to respond

i it was

what if i said the wrong thing it would

be too embarrassing

and it happened that a few times he

would ask directed questions

and you know he asked questions directly

at me

and you know it turned out that my

answer was correct

and so after that whenever you would ask

the class a question

he would look at me as if you were

waiting for me

to answer the question

and then eventually his patients would

run out and he would say

layla i know you know this why aren’t

you answering

i know you know this speak up why aren’t

you answering

and you know i look back at this as one

of those defining moments

speak up

and you don’t need someone else to tell

you to speak up

you can tell it to yourself you have to

tell it to yourself

be brave be bold

make mistakes we’re supposed to

one of the lines that i’ve recently come

across and it’s become one of my

favorite lines

is to be brave be brave enough to be bad

at something new

this semester fall 2020

the instructor of that class that

technology innovation and

entrepreneurship class that i took two

years ago where encapsulate was born

contacted me and said would you be

willing to teach the course with me

now i had no experience in teaching a

course i’ve mentor students

but a classroom student sitting there

listening to me

what i have to say no

and then i came across the quote be

brave enough to be bad at something new

and i accepted it i taught the course

i developed lectures assignments tasks

homeworks and to be honest

i went in thinking that i wouldn’t like

it i i was ready to

not like it

i still did it i persevered and i did it

and the first class was terrible

i came in late i set up the computer

late

half the students were in person half of

them are online i didn’t know where to

stand where to look

who to talk to the mic wasn’t working it

was just

a disaster and i was thinking oh my god

how am i going to be able to do this for

the next few weeks

and then two sessions later i absolutely

love the class i love the students i

love their questions

their thought processes they were taking

notes when i was talking

and they would call me professor layla

which was like the highlight

one person called me professor layla

still the highlight

i went in with the preconception that i

would dislike this

but i ended up loving it i learned to

love it

and you know it’s kind of full circle

for me i

started in that course shy uncomfortable

to talk

uncomfortable to share i didn’t know

what an engineer was

what i was supposed to do with my degree

were i supposed to do with my life

would anyone ever benefit from my

presence in the world

i mean i don’t have the answer to those

questions now

but i’ve learned so much

i’ve learned to

take on new experiences

to be brave to be open and receptive

to listen to be humble and kind

to be curious i might have had that for

a while

but most important of all i’ve learned

to learn

to never stop learning to never stop

myself from learning

even when i’m at the end when i think

i’m at the end

there’s always more

and so i want to leave you with one

thing

or actually three let’s make it fun i

want you to after this

think of three things that you normally

wouldn’t do

that are uncomfortable challenging

difficult awkward

and be brave

and give them a try it doesn’t have to

be perfect

you just have to find the courage to

start

allow yourself the chance

to learn thank you

you