What do you need to know to solve the next impossible problem

[Music]

thank you

it’s my pleasure to be here

to share with you my belief and some of

my experiences and hopefully this will

have some takeaway for all those

scientists and startup people who are

here

i believe technology

is everything we are here

since

cavemen and us difference between us and

the cavemen is technology and technology

and we pass it on to our next generation

i learned about the value of technology

when i was seven years old

where myself

and my little brother

were registered in the

local

the only community

first grade

school

and of course we were minorities and

there was some pressure between us the

local bullies and very first day of the

school

we encountered that that we need to uh

defend ourselves and there was fights

first day first class

fights

and fighting was severely

punished by the administration and i was

punished because i was defending myself

from fighting so this continued in a

remote part of the school until we

decided

we take the school

out and go out after school and fight

defending ourselves me and my brother so

that was risky

we were afraid

because in the school at least to

separate you then all the shoes

continue fighting but outside nobody

does that so we were worried scared and

we

didn’t tell our parents we decided to

use technology

and a technology we use with a stick

this big

and how to hit so hard

when you hit a seven seven-year-old in

the limbs where wherever

it was so painful they’ll sit down cry

or the rest will

fly away and run away and so that’s

exactly what happened unexpectedly our

surprised attack using a stick

technology

worked

and then we had the bullies

come and

the head body

truce

shaking hands

cutting bloods shaken up against blood

brother for the duration of our stay in

that school

we were elite

no bullies nobody that was great and

that

actually

happened as my father changed the job

location to another city another school

we were a little older

same story different scenario so i

became a believer that technology does

solve personal problems

and from then on i

i knew i’m gonna become technologist of

self-defense myself my brother and my

family and so on

graduated from

high school my family immigrated to usa

i attended ucla after college i got my

bachelor’s degree

master’s degree and other degrees

and then

i was

offered as my destiny brought me to

technology by a very high-tech military

complex company

and

i had a great job of learning different

state of art technologies just loved it

and became expert in one and two

and then my first inflection

point in my life was the first time

i was honored to be part of a

proposal writing team

to write a proposal for a

usa-wide competition

to

have a new technology of night vision to

the

uh cobra helicopters

that was a big deal for me learned a lot

of

good stuff from much higher

scientists and technologists and then we

wrote a proposal give it to the

government

waited to see if we win

and then the government

finished the evaluation of all the

companies and military

complex

and decided

cancel the program

cancellation of a program was a shock to

at least me

so when i asked what’s the what’s the

reason

how

nobody actually met

the the the the the information or the

requirements wanted

the

it was cost nobody met the cost bulgie

because they had to buy a lot of it

being young and not being savvy in the

politics of a corporation

i thought of a solution of it i

envisioned that i could do

do that by

changing the competence of technologies

and bring some other technologies and

solve the problem so i went to my

division manager i said

i have a solution

to to meet the requirements now if you

allow me to explain

shut me down

don’t even think about it

it’s shameful

an entire company

with a lot more experienced

technologists

have not solved the problem besides

in the entire usa there’s so many

other companies with smart people

a lot more experience than you

they have not solved the problem

so

now after everything is over you have an

idea and a vision

to do this

forget about it you can’t you can’t

think about it go back

well when you have a vision

and a technology to solve a problem

which big part of humanity may actually

benefit from it you just don’t go ahead

and say okay boss

and with me texts took maybe a day or

two

i did actually

couldn’t live with this

i called

i did something very

risky and career limiting by calling the

commander-in-chief

in the military who had this requirement

said do you still need it do you still

have money because congress canceled it

because there is a way to do that and he

said well if you’ve got the product come

and talk to me

i did flew to saint louis talk to him

convinced him

he bought it

he said does your boss agree with you i

said absolutely not

then he said how do you

want to go forward that says well you

have to go the chain of command of the

company to the vice president level

and they may

do it

flew back all the time worried that i’d

be fired for this

or career limiting at best

and so

first thing in the morning sure thing

the division manager came back the

division manager is pretty high guy in

that company

and he says

furious with me says what didn’t you

understand

this is pretty

embarrassing now how we have to answer

the question

grounded me says you cannot travel

anywhere without my permission

well the agonizing couple hours passed

and finally the vice president called me

his officer says sit down and tell me

how we got this mess

and of course

that was my first chance i convinced him

that the technology that i envisioned

makes sense

but he couldn’t make a decision i

wouldn’t back down

so he called an emergency meeting he

said this is a black hole for the

corporation because you may not be able

to make it

and if that’s the case the only person

who can actually

permit

you to go forward with this with a

customer is the ceo of 80 000 strong

technologies and company

people

so he called an emergency meeting with a

vice president in one hour so i’m there

for the first time seeing a whole bunch

of

older individuals all

body language

while the champion number one this this

vice president was explaining this to

the ceo

and the and and and smart guys i could

see the body language of these people

and i said i’m fired that’s it

there’s no way these guys will say okay

and then i was surprised when the ceo

listening to all these

vice presidents smart people said

gentlemen

it’s young people like this we need to

support

because they are the ones who take a

seemingly impossible problem and make it

happen

and we support to make them happen

we are going to be leading

the technologies up front for the next

generation or so he located that was my

chance

what seemed impossible by some people

was that the perception of them is

impossible and it was the difficulty to

go

convince them

and then of course you convinced them

you get the support

the rest is mixing and matching

different technologies from whether you

have it or somebody else have it or not

partnership fix it deliver it

that happened

i became

from a low-level system engineer

technologist

went up and up in the rank in about a

few months

from then on i only got tough programmed

and tougher programs

and the same philosophy was this was

there the obstacle were us people

assuming impossibilities

where they were actually somebody’s

vision it is possible

that when 30 years are retired

i came to this country in armenia

involved with very low tech

projects

like building schools and

kindergartens in villages outside

remote places in armenia and artach

and i was very happy until i met

another

brilliant

scientist

and i’d like to ask him in this dark to

stand up at least a moment so you can

see

professor

sanveel guevorcan from erawan state

university he’s amongst us

thank you very much

he invited me to ysu laboratory he

showed me something earth-shaking

that he invented

and that was a because of the earthquake

country armenia big earthquake currently

he he applied that

technology of his to build a very first

prototype earthquake sensor

but it was a

ground

changing

business changing

earthquake sensor better than the best

in america better than the best any

place in the world but a factor of 30.

i saw his vision and i saw his

frustration because

he could not

the the the complex

situation here in armenia

the scientific community and the chain

of command all the way to the top

did not appreciate his vision

they didn’t think his vision is real

and of course he went to japan another

earthquake country

who

he taught in the university as an

associate professor for four years with

his family there

came back the same way frustrated that

the appreciation was not there so when

we met the first day that was obvious to

me that that is a great vision

technology let’s go

how can i say no so let’s let’s go and

start up a company and so there’s a

bunch of us

two of us started a company

and we said let’s not make earthquake

sensors we put that in the shelf they’ll

be always

available for let’s go for something

more demanding

and at that time

the demand was

border security

because borders were violated by having

all kinds of bad things happening you

know

contraband

uh

terrorists

weapons of mass destruction going back

and so forth trafficking so that was a

good thing and there was a very big

demand for it and the government of usa

homeland security had a big

uh contract given to one of the giants

very well known in the industry

to make

then

the uh

early warning border security system we

said that’s it

we go against them

and then the two of us

strategized how to do that i want to ask

the audience for all the technologies

who sit here or to start up people

if you were in our position two of us

startup company

we have no money

no recognition no hardware

and we’re trying to find a giant

and beat them when they have the money

recognition and they had a two and a

half billion dollar contract to do that

show our hands quick how many thought

that was impossible

thank you well

it’s possible

we

strategized went first had no money

how do you get money because most people

think they need money first and that’s a

myth myth

you don’t need money first you need

recognition first

because if you’re recognized

somebody will flip the money

we decided to take our champion horse in

this village

to an international horse race called

global security challenge

where the whole world technology is

involved

and you get recognized

so someone and i went to singapore

became top two in asia

same time the top two from asia and

europe

same time same top two from the rest of

the americas

got together from singapore to

in london and we were actually

recognized and in that little path we

got our first contract from singapore

country

you see we started then

i won’t go too far tell you today

as i speak to you

we are the only one recognized with a

technology which is viable to do that

job

that big giant got cancelled out

and happy to say

that we have a commercial

contract to be order to produce these

things

so what seemed to be

impossible or perceived to be impossible

was very much possible

so

if i would want to conclude this thing

right now and hope hopefully leave

something

for you young guys

people who actually are technologists or

will be technologies or work with

technologists

is it looks impossible at the beginning

because there’s no money

that’s wrong

you need to be creative

and look at the obstacles and you you

are probably yourself obstacles thinking

i need money first you remove that

and look for

ways to convince somebody

who is in charge and

wants this

you gotta find the right place and then

a strategy how to convince them

convincing becomes easy if you’re

creative

if you’re not creative find somebody who

is a creative and become partners

and then

obstacles removed because you know the

root cause of the

each obstacle usually they are tangled

up there are ten of them and one he

thinks one

can’t figure it out it’s ten

each root cause has a solution if you’re

creative to solve it or find somebody

else to solve it

team up with it all of a sudden you

integrate all this and you have

a road map from where you are with the

impossibility

to the destination

i thank you very much for listening