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