They may neglect their newborn , and in some extreme cases , even harm the child .


Equine veterinarians also know that occasionally , a mare , soon after giving birth , will neglect the foal , refusing to nurse , and in some instances , kick the foal , even to death .


But veterinarians have devised an intervention to deal with this foal rejection syndrome that involves increasing oxytocin in the mare .


Oxytocin is the bonding hormone , and this leads to renewed interest , on the part of the mare , in her foal .


Shouldn 't this information be put into the hands of ob / gyn 's and family doctors and patients who are struggling with postpartum depression and psychosis ?


Well , despite all of this promise , unfortunately the gulf between our fields remains large .


To explain it , I 'm afraid I 'm going to have to air some dirty laundry .


Some physicians can be real snobs about doctors who are not M.D. ' s .


I 'm talking about dentists and optometrists and psychologists , but maybe especially animal doctors .


Of course , most physicians don 't realize that it is harder to get into vet school these days than medical school , and that when we go to medical school , we learn everything there is to know about one species , Homo sapiens , but veterinarians need to learn about health and disease in mammals , amphibians , reptiles , fish and birds .


So I don 't blame the vets for feeling annoyed by my profession 's condescension and ignorance .


But here 's one from the vets : What do you call a veterinarian who can only take care of one species ?


A physician . ( Laughter ) Closing the gap has become a passion for me , and I 'm doing this through programs like Darwin on Rounds at UCLA , where we 're bringing animal experts and evolutionary biologists and embedding them on our medical teams with our interns and our residents .


And through Zoobiquity conferences , where we bring medical schools together with veterinary schools for collabortive discussions of the shared diseases and disorders of animal and human patients .


At Zoobiquity conferences , participants learn how treating breast cancer in a tiger can help us better treat breast cancer in a kindergarten teacher ; how understanding polycystic overies in a Holstein cow can help us better take care of a dance instructor with painful periods ; and how better understanding the treatment of separation anxiety in a high-strung Sheltie can help an anxious young child struggling with his first days of school .


In the United States and now internationally , at Zoobiquity conferences physicians and veterinarians check their attitudes and their preconceptions at the door and come together as colleagues , as peers , as doctors .


After all , we humans are animals , too , and it 's time for us physicians to embrace our patients ' and our own animal natures and join veterinarians in a species-spanning approach to health .


Because it turns out , some of the best and most humanistic medicine is being practiced by doctors whose patients aren 't human .


And one of the best ways we can take care of the human patient is by paying close attention to how all the other patients on the planet live , grow , get sick and heal .


Thank you .


( Applause ) .


Can geographic information make you healthy ?


In 2001 I got hit by a train .


My train was a heart attack .


I found myself in a hospital in an intensive-care ward , recuperating from emergency surgery .


And I suddenly realized something : that I was completely in the dark .


I started asking my questions , " " Well , why me ? " " " Why now ? " " Why here ? "


" Could my doctor have warned me ? "


So , what I want to do here in the few minutes I have with you is really talk about what is the formula for life and good health .


Genetics , lifestyle and environment .


That 's going to sort of contain our risks , and if we manage those risks we 're going to live a good life and a good healthy life .


Well , I understand the genetics and lifestyle part .


And you know why I understand that ?


Because my physicians constantly ask me questions about this .


Have you ever had to fill out those long , legal-size forms in your doctor 's office ?


I mean , if you 're lucky enough you get to do it more than once , right ?


( Laughter ) Do it over and over again . And they ask you questions about your lifestyle and your family history , your medication history , your surgical history , your allergy history ... did I forget any history ?


But this part of the equation I didn 't really get , and I don 't think my physicians really get this part of the equation .


What does that mean , my environment ?


Well , it can mean a lot of things .


This is my life . These are my life places .


We all have these .


While I 'm talking I 'd like you to also be thinking about : How many places have you lived ?


Just think about that , you know , wander through your life thinking about this .


And you realize that you spend it in a variety of different places .


You spend it at rest and you spend it at work .


And if you 're like me , you 're in an airplane a good portion of your time traveling some place .


So , it 's not really simple when somebody asks you , " " Where do you live , where do you work , and where do you spend all your time ?


And where do you expose yourselves to risks that maybe perhaps you don 't even see ? " " Well , when I have done this on myself , I always come to the conclusion that I spend about 75 percent of my time relatively in a small number of places .


And I don 't wander far from that place for a majority of my time , even though I 'm an extensive global trekker .


Now , I 'm going to take you on a little journey here .


I started off in Scranton , Pennsylvania .


I don 't know if anybody might hail from northeastern Pennsylvania , but this is where I spent my first 19 years with my little young lungs .


You know , breathing high concentrations here of sulfur dioxide , carbon dioxide and methane gas , in unequal quantities — 19 years of this .


And if you 've been in that part of the country , this is what those piles of burning , smoldering coal waste look like .


So then I decided to leave that part of the world , and I was going to go to the mid-west .


OK , so I ended up in Louisville , Kentucky .


Well , I decided to be neighbors to a place called Rubbertown .


They manufacture plastics . They use large quantities chloroprene and benzene .


Okay , I spent 25 years , in my middle-age lungs now , breathing various concentrations of that .


And on a clear day it always looked like this , so you never saw it .


It was insidious and it was really happening .


Then I decided I had to get really smart , I would take this job in the West Coast .


And I moved to Redlands California .


Very nice , and there my older , senior lungs , as I like to call them , I filled with particulate matter , carbon dioxide and very high doses of ozone .


Okay ? Almost like the highest in the nation .


Alright , this is what it looks like on a good day .


If you 've been there , you know what I 'm talking about .


So , what 's wrong with this picture ?


Well , the picture is , there is a huge gap here .


The one thing that never happens in my doctor 's office : They never ask me about my place history .


No doctor , can I remember , ever asking me , " Where have you lived ? "


They haven 't asked me what kind of the quality of the drinking water that I put in my mouth or the food that I ingest into my stomach .


They really don 't do that . It 's missing .


Look at the kind of data that 's available .


This data 's from all over the world — countries spend billions of dollars investing in this kind of research .


Now , I 've circled the places where I 've been .


Well , by design , if I wanted to have a heart attack I 'd been in the right places . Right ?


So , how many people are in the white ?


How many people in the room have spent the majority of their life in the white space ?


Anybody ? Boy you 're lucky .


How many have spent it in the red places ?


Oh , not so lucky .


There are thousands of these kinds of maps that are displayed in atlases all over the world .


They give us some sense of what 's going to be our train wreck .


But none of that 's in my medical record .


And it 's not in yours either .


So , here 's my friend Paul .


He 's a colleague . He allowed his cell phone to be tracked every two hours , 24 / 7 , 365 days out of the year for the last two years , everywhere he went .


And you can see he 's been to a few places around the United States .


And this is where he has spent most of his time .


If you really studied that you might have some clues as to what Paul likes to do .


Anybody got any clues ? Ski . Right .


We can zoom in here , and we suddenly see that now we see where Paul has really spent a majority of his time .


And all of those black dots are all of the toxic release inventories that are monitored by the EPA .


Did you know that data existed ?


For every community in the United States , you could have your own personalized map of that .


So , our cell phones can now build a place history .


This is how Paul did it . He did it with his iPhone .


This might be what we end up with .


This is what the physician would have in front of him and her when we enter that exam room instead of just the pink slip that said I paid at the counter . Right ?


This could be my little assessment .


And he looks at that and he says , " " Whoa Bill , I suggest that maybe you not decide , just because you 're out here in beautiful California , and it 's warm every day , that you get out and run at six o 'clock at night .


I 'd suggest that that 's a bad idea Bill , because of this report . " " What I 'd like to leave you for are two prescriptions .


Okay , number one is , we must teach physicians about the value of geographical information .


It 's called geomedicine . There are about a half a dozen programs in the world right now that are focused on this .


And they 're in the early stages of development .


These programs need to be supported , and we need to teach our future doctors of the world the importance of some of the information I 've shared here with you today .


The second thing we need to do is while we 're spending billions and billions of dollars all over the world building an electronic health record , we make sure we put a place history inside that medical record .


It not only will be important for the physician ; it will be important for the researchers that now will have huge samples to draw upon .


But it will also be useful for us .


I could have made the decision , if I had this information , not to move to the ozone capital of the United States , couldn 't I ? I could make that decision .


Or I could negotiate with my employer to make that decision in the best interest of myself and my company .


With that , I would like to just say that Jack Lord said this almost 10 years ago .


Just look at that for a minute .


That was what the conclusion of the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare was about , was saying that we can explain the geographic variations that occur in disease , in illness , in wellness , and how our healthcare system actually operates .


That was what he was talking about on that quote .


And I would say he got it right almost a decade ago .


So , I 'd very much like to see us begin to really seize this as an opportunity to get this into our medical records .


So with that , I 'll leave you that in my particular view of view of health : Geography always matters .


And I believe that geographic information can make both you and me very healthy . Thank you .


( Applause )


So I was trained to become a gymnast for two years in Hunan , China in the 1970s .


When I was in the first grade , the government wanted to transfer me to a school for athletes , all expenses paid .


But my tiger mother said , " " No . " " My parents wanted me to become an engineer like them .


After surviving the Cultural Revolution , they firmly believed there 's only one sure way to happiness : a safe and well-paid job .


It is not important if I like the job or not .


But my dream was to become a Chinese opera singer .


That is me playing my imaginary piano .


An opera singer must start training young to learn acrobatics , so I tried everything I could to go to opera school .


I even wrote to the school principal and the host of a radio show .


But no adults liked the idea .


No adults believed I was serious .


Only my friends supported me , but they were kids , just as powerless as I was .


So at age 15 , I knew I was too old to be trained .


My dream would never come true .


I was afraid that for the rest of my life some second-class happiness would be the best I could hope for .


But that 's so unfair .


So I was determined to find another calling .


Nobody around to teach me ? Fine .


I turned to books .


I satisfied my hunger for parental advice from this book by a family of writers and musicians . [ " " Correspondence in the Family of Fou Lei " " ] I found my role model of an independent woman when Confucian tradition requires obedience . [ " " Jane Eyre " " ] And I learned to be efficient from this book . [ " " Cheaper by the Dozen " " ] And I was inspired to study abroad after reading these .


[ " " Complete Works of Sanmao " " ( aka Echo Chan ) ] [ " " Lessons From History " " by Nan Huaijin ] I came to the U.S. in 1995 , so which books did I read here first ?


Books banned in China , of course .


" " The Good Earth " " is about Chinese peasant life .


That 's just not convenient for propaganda . Got it .


The Bible is interesting , but strange .


( Laughter ) That 's a topic for a different day .


But the fifth commandment gave me an epiphany : " You shall honor your father and mother . "


" " Honor , " " I said . " " That 's so different , and better , than obey . " " So it becomes my tool to climb out of this Confucian guilt trap and to restart my relationship with my parents .


Encountering a new culture also started my habit of comparative reading .


It offers many insights .


For example , I found this map out of place at first because this is what Chinese students grew up with .


It had never occurred to me , China doesn 't have to be at the center of the world .


A map actually carries somebody 's view .


Comparative reading actually is nothing new .


It 's a standard practice in the academic world .


There are even research fields such as comparative religion and comparative literature .


Compare and contrast gives scholars a more complete understanding of a topic .


So I thought , well , if comparative reading works for research , why not do it in daily life too ?


So I started reading books in pairs .


So they can be about people — [ " " Benjamin Franklin " " by Walter Isaacson ] [ " " John Adams " " by David McCullough ] — who are involved in the same event , or friends with shared experiences .


[ " " Personal History " " by Katharine Graham ] [ " " The Snowball : Warren Buffett and the Business of Life , " " by Alice Schroeder ] I also compare the same stories in different genres — ( Laughter ) [ Holy Bible : King James Version ] [ " " Lamb " " by Chrisopher Moore ] — or similar stories from different cultures , as Joseph Campbell did in his wonderful book . [ " " The Power of Myth " " by Joseph Campbell ] For example , both the Christ and the Buddha went through three temptations .


For the Christ , the temptations are economic , political and spiritual .


For the Buddha , they are all psychological : lust , fear and social duty — interesting .


So if you know a foreign language , it 's also fun to read your favorite books in two languages .


[ " " The Way of Chuang Tzu " " Thomas Merton ] [ " " Tao : The Watercourse Way " " Alan Watts ] Instead of lost in translation , I found there is much to gain .


For example , it 's through translation that I realized " " happiness " " in Chinese literally means " " fast joy . " " Huh !


" " Bride " " in Chinese literally means " " new mother . " " Uh-oh .


( Laughter ) Books have given me a magic portal to connect with people of the past and the present .


I know I shall never feel lonely or powerless again .


Having a dream shattered really is nothing compared to what many others have suffered .


I have come to believe that coming true is not the only purpose of a dream .


Its most important purpose is to get us in touch with where dreams come from , where passion comes from , where happiness comes from .


Even a shattered dream can do that for you .


So because of books , I 'm here today , happy , living again with a purpose and a clarity , most of the time .


So may books be always with you .


Thank you .


( Applause ) Thank you . ( Applause ) Thank you . ( Applause )


I 'm an American , which means , generally , I ignore football unless it involves guys my size or Bruno 's size running into each other at extremely high speeds .


That said , it 's been really hard to ignore football for the last couple of weeks .


I go onto Twitter , there are all these strange words that I 've never heard before : FIFA , vuvuzela , weird jokes about octopi .


But the one that 's really been sort of stressing me out , that I haven 't been able to figure out , is this phrase " " Cala a boca , Galvao . " " If you 've gone onto Twitter in the last couple of weeks , you 've probably seen this .


It 's been a major trending topic .


Being a monolingual American , I obviously don 't know what the phrase means .


So I went onto Twitter , and I asked some people if they could explain to me " " Cala a boca , Galvao . " " And fortunately , my Brazilian friends were more than ready to help .


They explained that the Galvao bird is a rare and endangered parrot that 's in terrible , terrible danger .


In fact , I 'll let them tell you a bit more about it .


Narrator : A word about Galvao , a very rare kind of bird native to Brazil .


Every year , more than 300,000 Galvao birds are killed during Carnival parades .


Ethan Zuckerman : Obviously , this is a tragic situation , and it actually gets worse .


It turns out that , not only is the Galvao parrot very attractive , useful for headdresses , it evidently has certain hallucinogenic properties , which means that there 's a terrible problem with Galvao abuse .


Some sick and twisted people have found themselves snorting Galvao .


And it 's terribly endangered .


The good news about this is that the global community — again , my Brazilian friends tell me — is pitching in to help out .


It turns out that Lady Gaga has released a new single — actually five or six new singles , as near as I can tell — titled " " Cala a boca , Galvao . " " And my Brazilian friends tell me that if I just tweet the phrase " " Cala a boca , Galvao , " " 10 cents will be given to a global campaign to save this rare and beautiful bird .


Now , most of you have figured out that this was a prank , and actually a very , very good one .


" " Cala a boca , Galvao " " actually means something very different .


In Portugese , it means " " Shut your mouth , Galvao . " " And it specifically refers to this guy , Galvao Bueno , who 's the lead soccer commentator for Rede Globo .


And what I understand from my Brazilian friends is that this guy is just a cliche machine .


He can ruin the most interesting match by just spouting cliche again and again and again .


So Brazilians went to that first match against North Korea , put up this banner , started a Twitter campaign and tried to convince the rest of us to tweet the phrase : " " Cala a boca , Galvao . " " And in fact , were so successful at this that it topped Twitter for two weeks .


Now there 's a couple — there 's a couple of lessons that you can take from this .


And the first lesson , which I think is a worthwhile one , is that you cannot go wrong asking people to be active online , so long as activism just means retweeting a phrase .


So as long as activism is that simple , it 's pretty easy to get away with .


The other thing you can take from this , by the way , is that there are a lot of Brazilians on Twitter .


There 's more than five million of them .


As far as national representation , 11 percent of Brazilian internet users are on Twitter .


That 's a much higher number than in the U.S. or U.K.


Next to Japan , it 's the second most represented by population .


Now if you 're using Twitter or other social networks , and you didn 't realize this was a space with a lot of Brazilians in it , you 're like most of us .


Because what happens on a social network is you interact with the people that you have chosen to interact with .


And if you are like me , a big , geeky , white , American guy , you tend to interact with a lot of other geeky , white , American guys .


And you don 't necessarily have the sense that Twitter is in fact a very heavily Brazilian space .


It 's also extremely surprising to many Americans , a heavily African-American space .


Twitter recently did some research .


They looked at their local population .


They believe that 24 percent of American Twitter users are African-American .


That 's about twice as high as African-Americans are represented in the population .


And again , that was very shocking to many Twitter users , but it shouldn 't be .


And the reason it shouldn 't be is that on any day you can go into Trending Topics .


And you tend to find topics that are almost entirely African-American conversations .


This was a visualization done by Fernando Viegas and Martin Wattenberg , two amazing visualization designers , who looked at a weekend 's worth of Twitter traffic and essentially found that a lot of these trending topics were basically segregated conversations — and in ways that you wouldn 't expect .


It turns out that oil spill is a mostly white conversation , that cookout is a mostly black conversation .


And what 's crazy about this is that if you wanted to mix up who you were seeing on Twitter , it 's literally a quick click away .


You click on that cookout tag , there an entirely different conversation with different people participating in it .


But generally speaking , most of us don 't .


We end up within these filter bubbles , as my friend Eli Pariser calls them , where we see the people we already know and the people who are similar to the people we already know .


And we tend not to see that wider picture .


Now for me , I 'm surprised by this , because this wasn 't how the internet was supposed to be .


If you go back into the early days of the internet , when cyber-utopians like Nick Negroponte were writing big books like " " Being Digital , " " the prediction was that the internet was going to be an incredibly powerful force to smooth out cultural differences , to put us all on a common field of one fashion or another .


Negroponte started his book with a story about how hard it is to build connections in the world of atoms .


He 's at a technology conference in Florida .


And he 's looking at something really , truly absurd , which is bottles of Evian water on the table .


And Negroponte says this is crazy .


This is the old economy .


It 's the economy of moving these heavy , slow atoms over long distances that 's very difficult to do .


We 're heading to the future of bits , where everything is speedy , it 's weightless .


It can be anywhere in the world at any time .


And it 's going to change the world as we know it .


Now , Negroponte has been right about a lot of things .


He 's totally wrong about this one .


It turns out that in many cases atoms are much more mobile than bits .


If I walk into a store in the United States , it 's very , very easy for me to buy water that 's bottled in Fiji , shipped at great expense to the United States .


It 's actually surprisingly hard for me to see a Fijian feature film .


It 's really difficult for me to listen to Fijian music .


It 's extremely difficult for me to get Fijian news , which is strange , because actually there 's an enormous amount going on in Fiji .


There 's a coup government . There 's a military government .


There 's crackdowns on the press .


It 's actually a place that we probably should be paying attention to at the moment .


Here 's what I think is going on .


I think that we tend to look a lot at the infrastructure of globalization .


We look at the framework that makes it possible to live in this connected world .


And that 's a framework that includes things like airline routes .


It includes things like the Internet cables .


We look at a map like this one , and it looks like the entire world is flat because everything is a hop or two away .


You can get on a flight in London , you can end up in Bangalore later today .


Two hops , you 're in Suva , the capitol of Fiji .


It 's all right there .


When you start looking at what actually flows on top of these networks , you get a very different picture .


You start looking at how the global plane flights move , and you suddenly discover that the world isn 't even close to flat .


It 's extremely lumpy .


There are parts of the world that are very , very well connected .


There 's basically a giant pathway in the sky between London and New York .


but look at this map , and you can watch this for , you know , two or three minutes .


You won 't see very many planes go from South America to Africa .


And you 'll discover that there are parts of the globe that are systematically cut off .


When we stop looking at the infrastructure that makes connection possible , and we look at what actually happens , we start realizing that the world doesn 't work quite the same way that we think it does .


So here 's the problem that I 've been interested in in the last decade or so .


The world is , in fact , getting more global .


It 's getting more connected .


More of problems are global in scale .


More of our economics is global in scale .


And our media is less global by the day .


If you watched a television broadcast in the United States in the 1970s , 35 to 40 percent of it would have been international news on a nightly new broadcast .


That 's down to about 12 to 15 percent .


And this tends to give us a very distorted view of the world .


Here 's a slide that Alisa Miller showed at a previous TED Talk .


Alisa 's the president of Public Radio International .


And she made a cartogram , which is basically a distorted map based on what American television news casts looked at for a month .


And you see that when you distort a map based on attention , the world within American television news is basically reduced to this giant bloated U.S.


and a couple of other countries which we 've invaded .


And that 's basically what our media is about .


And before you conclude that this is just a function of American TV news — which is dreadful , and I agree that it 's dreadful — I 've been mapping elite media like the New York Times , and I get the same thing .


When you look at the New York Times , you look at other elite media , what you largely get are pictures of very wealthy nations and the nations we 've invaded .


It turns out that new media isn 't necessarily helping us all that much .


Here 's a map made by Mark Graham who 's down the street at the Oxford Internet Institute .


A this is a map of articles in Wikipedia that have been geo-coded .


And you 'll notice that there 's a very heavy bias towards North America and Western Europe .


Even within Wikipedias , where we 're creating their own content online , there 's a heavy bias towards the place where a lot of the Wikipedia authors are based , rather than to the rest of the world .


In the U.K. , you can get up , you can pick up your computer when you get out of this session , you could read a newspaper from India or from Australia , from Canada , God forbid from the U.S.


You probably won 't .


If you look at online media consumption — in this case , in the top 10 users of the internet — more than 95 percent of the news readership is on domestic news sites .


It 's one of these rare cases where the U.S. is actually slightly better than [ the U.K. ] , because we actually like reading your media , rather than vice versa .


So all of this starts leading me to think that we 're in a state that I refer to as imaginary cosmopolitanism .


We look at the internet .


We think we 're getting this wide view of the globe .


We occasionally stumble onto a page in Chinese , and we decide that we do in fact have the greatest technology ever built to connect us to the rest of the world .


And we forget that most of the time we 're checking Boston Red Sox scores .


So this is a real problem — not just because the Red Sox are having a bad year — but it 's a real problem because , as we 're discussing here at TED , the real problems in the world the interesting problems to solve are global in scale and scope , they require global conversations to get to global solutions .


This is a problem we have to solve .


So here 's the good news .


For six years , I 've been hanging out with these guys .


This is a group called Global Voices .


This is a team of bloggers from around the world .


Our mission was to fix the world 's media .


We started in 2004 .


You might have noticed , we haven 't done all that well so far .


Nor do I think we are by ourselves , actually going to solve the problem .


But the more that I think about it , the more that I think that a few things that we have learned along the way are interesting lessons for how we would rewire if we we wanted to use the web to have a wider world .


The first thing you have to consider is that there are parts of the world that are dark spots in terms of attention .


In this case — the map of the world at night by NASA — they 're dark literally because of lack of electricity .


And I used to think that a dark spot on this map basically meant you 're not going to get media from there because there are more basic needs .


What I 'm starting to realize is that you can get media , it 's just an enormous amount of work , and you need an enormous amount of encouragement .


One of those dark spots is Madagascar , a country which is generally better known for the Dreamworks film than it is actually known for the lovely people who live there .


And so the people who founded Foko Club in Madagascar weren 't actually concerned with trying to change the image of their country .


They were doing something much simpler .


It was a club to learn English and to learn computers and the internet .


but what happened was that Madagascar went through a violent coup .


Most independent media was shut down .


And the high school students who were learning to blog through Foko Club suddenly found themselves talking to an international audience about the demonstrations , the violence , everything that was going on within this country .


So a very , very small program designed to get people in front of computers , publishing their own thoughts , publishing independent media , ended up having a huge impact on what we know about this country .


Now the trick with this is that I 'm guessing most people here don 't speak Malagasy .


I 'm also guessing that most of you don 't even speak Chinese — which is sort of sad if you think about it , as it 's now the most represented language on the internet .


Fortunately people are trying to figure out how to fix this .


If you 're using Google Chrome and you go to a Chinese language site , you notice this really cute box at the top , which automatically detects that the page is in Chinese and very quickly at a mouse click will give you a translation of the page .


Unfortunately , it 's a machine translation of the page .


And while Google is very , very good with some languages , it 's actually pretty dreadful with Chinese .


And the results can be pretty funny .


What you really want — what I really want , is eventually the ability to push a button and have this queued so a human being can translate this .


And if you think this is absurd , it 's not .


There 's a group right now in China called Yeeyan .


And Yeeyan is a group of 150,000 volunteers who get online every day .


They look for the most interesting content in the English language .


They translate roughly 100 articles a day from major newspapers , major websites .


They put it online for free .


It 's the project of a guy named Zhang Lei , who was living in the United States during the Lhasa riots and who couldn 't believe how biased American media coverage was .


And he said , " " If there 's one thing I can do , I can start translating , so that people between these countries start understanding each other a little bit better . " " And my question to you is : if Yeeyan can line up 150,000 people to translate the English internet into Chinese , where 's the English language Yeeyan ?


Who 's going after Chinese , which now has 400 million internet users out there ?


My guess is at least one of them has something interesting to say .


So even if we can find a way to translate from Chinese , there 's no guarantee that we 're going to find it .


When we look for information online , we basically have two strategies .


We use a lot of search .


And search is terrific if you know what you 're looking for .


But if what you 're looking for is serendipity , if you want to stumble onto something that you didn 't know you needed , our main philosophy is to look to our social networks , to look for our friends .


What are they looking at ? Maybe we should be looking at it .


The problem with this is that essentially what you end up getting after a while is the wisdom of the flock .


You end up flocking with a lot of people who are probably similar to you , who have similar interests .


And it 's very , very hard to get information from the other flocks , from the other parts of the world where people getting together and talking about their own interests .


To do this , at a certain point , you need someone to bump you out of your flock and into another flock .


You need a guide .


So this is Amira Al Hussaini . She is the Middle East editor for Global Voices .


She has one of the hardest jobs in the world .


Not only does she have to keep our Israeli and Palestinian contributors from killing each other , she has to figure out what is going to interest you about the Middle East .


And in that sense of trying to get you out of your normal orbit , and to try to get you to pay attention to a story about someone who 's given up smoking for the month of Ramadan , she has to know something about a global audience .


She has to know something about what stories are available .


Basically , she 's a deejay .


She 's a skilled human curator who knows what material is available to her , who 's able to listen to the audience , and who 's able to make a selection and push people forward in one fashion or another .


I don 't think this is necessarily an algorithmic process .


I think what 's great about the internet is that it actually makes it much easier for deejays to reach a wider audience .


I know Amira .


I can ask her what to read .


But with the internet , she 's in a position where she can tell a lot of people what to read .


And you can listen to her as well , if this is a way that you 're interested in having your web widened .


So once you start widening like this , once you start lighting up voices in the dark spots , once you start translating , once you start curating , you end up in some really weird places .


This is an image from pretty much my favorite blog , which is AfriGadget .


And AfriGadget is a blog that looks at technology in an Africa context .


And specifically , it 's looking at a blacksmith in Kibera in Nairobi , who is turning the shaft of a Landrover into a cold chisel .


And when you look at this image , you might find yourself going , " Why would I conceivably care about this ? "


And the truth is , this guy can probably explain this to you .


This is Erik Hersman . You guys may have seen him around the conference .


He goes by the moniker White African .


He 's both a very well known American geek , but he 's also Kenyan ; he was born in Sudan , grew up in Kenya .


He is a bridge figure .


He is someone who literally has feet in both worlds — one in the world of the African technology community , one in the world of the American technology community .


And so he 's able to tell a story about this blacksmith in Kibera and turn it into a story about repurposing technology , about innovating from constraint , about looking for inspiration based on reusing materials .


He knows one world , and he 's finding a way to communicate it to another world , both of which he has deep connections to .


These bridge figures , I 'm pretty well convinced , are the future of how we try to make the world wider through using the web .


But the trick with bridges is , ultimately , you need someone to cross them .


And that 's where we start talking about xenophiles .


So if I found myself in the NFL , I suspect I would spend my off-season nursing my wounds , enjoying my house , so on and so forth — possibly recording a hip-hop album .


Dhani Jones , who is the middle linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals , has a slightly different approach to the off-season .


Dhani has a television show .


It 's called " " Dhani Tackles the Globe . " " And every week on this television show , Dhani travels to a different nation of the world .


He finds a local sporting team .


He trains with them for a week , and he plays a match with them .


And his reason for this is not just that he wants to master Muay Thai boxing .


It 's because , for him , sport is the language that allows him to encounter the full width and wonder of the world .


For some of us it might be music . For some of us it might be food .


For a lot of us it might be literature or writing .


But there are all these different techniques that allow you to go out and look at the world and find your place within it .


The goal of my Talk here is not to persuade the people in this room to embrace your xenophilia .


My guess — given that you 're at a conference called TEDGlobal — is that most of you are xenophiles , whether or not you use that term .


My challenge instead is this .


It 's not enough to make the personal decision that you want a wider world .


We have to figure out how to rewire the systems that we have .


We have to fix our media .


We have to fix the internet . We have to fix our education .


We have to fix our immigration policy .


We need to look at ways of creating serendipity , of making translation pervasive , and we need to find ways to embrace and celebrate these bridge figures .


And we need to figure out how to cultivate xenophiles .


That 's what I 'm trying to do . I need your help .


( Applause )


Basically , there 's a major demographic event going on .


And it may be that passing the 50 percent urban point is an economic tipping point . So the world now is a map of connectivity .


It used to be that Paris and London and New York were the largest cities .


What we have now is the end of the rise of the West . That 's over .


The aggregate numbers are overwhelming .


So what 's really going on ? Well , villages of the world are emptying out .


The question is , why ?


And here 's the unromantic truth — and the city air makes you free , they said in Renaissance Germany . So some people go to places like Shanghai but most go to the squatter cities where aesthetics rule .


And these are not really a people oppressed by poverty .


They 're people getting out of poverty as fast as they can .


They 're the dominant builders and to a large extent , the dominant designers .


They have home-brewed infrastructure and vibrant urban life .


One-sixth of the GDP in India is coming out of Mumbai .


They are constantly upgrading , and in a few cases , the government helps .


Education is the main event that can happen in cities .


What 's going on in the street in Mumbai ?


Al Gore knows . It 's basically everything .


There 's no unemployment in squatter cities . Everyone works .


One-sixth of humanity is there . It 's soon going to be more than that .


So here 's the first punch line : cities have defused the population bomb .


And here 's the second punch line .


That 's the news from downtown . Here it is in perspective .


Stars have shined down on earth 's life for billions of years .


Now we 're shining right back up .


Thank you .


The night before I was heading for Scotland , I was invited to host the final of " " China 's Got Talent " " show in Shanghai with the 80,000 live audience in the stadium .


Guess who was the performing guest ?


Susan Boyle .


And I told her , " " I 'm going to Scotland the next day . " " She sang beautifully , and she even managed to say a few words in Chinese : 送你葱 So it 's not like " " hello " " or " " thank you , " " that ordinary stuff .


It means " " green onion for free . " " Why did she say that ?


Because it was a line from our Chinese parallel Susan Boyle — a 50-some year-old woman , a vegetable vendor in Shanghai , who loves singing Western opera , but she didn 't understand any English or French or Italian , so she managed to fill in the lyrics with vegetable names in Chinese .


( Laughter ) And the last sentence of Nessun Dorma that she was singing in the stadium was " " green onion for free . " " So [ as ] Susan Boyle was saying that , 80,000 live audience sang together .


That was hilarious .


So I guess both Susan Boyle and this vegetable vendor in Shanghai belonged to otherness .


They were the least expected to be successful in the business called entertainment , yet their courage and talent brought them through .


And a show and a platform gave them the stage to realize their dreams .


Well , being different is not that difficult .


We are all different from different perspectives .


But I think being different is good , because you present a different point of view .


You may have the chance to make a difference .


My generation has been very fortunate to witness and participate in the historic transformation of China that has made so many changes in the past 20 , 30 years .


I remember that in the year of 1990 , when I was graduating from college , I was applying for a job in the sales department of the first five-star hotel in Beijing , Great Wall Sheraton — it 's still there .


So after being interrogated by this Japanese manager for a half an hour , he finally said , " " So , Miss Yang , do you have any questions to ask me ? " " I summoned my courage and poise and said , " " Yes , but could you let me know , what actually do you sell ? " " I didn 't have a clue what a sales department was about in a five-star hotel .


That was the first day I set my foot in a five-star hotel .


Around the same time , I was going through an audition — the first ever open audition by national television in China — with another thousand college girls .


The producer told us they were looking for some sweet , innocent and beautiful fresh face .


So when it was my turn , I stood up and said , " " Why [ do ] women 's personalities on television always have to be beautiful , sweet , innocent and , you know , supportive ?


Why can 't they have their own ideas and their own voice ? " " I thought I kind of offended them .


But actually , they were impressed by my words .


And so I was in the second round of competition , and then the third and the fourth .


After seven rounds of competition , I was the last one to survive it .


So I was on a national television prime-time show .


And believe it or not , that was the first show on Chinese television that allowed its hosts to speak out of their own minds without reading an approved script .


( Applause ) And my weekly audience at that time was between 200 to 300 million people .


Well after a few years , I decided to go to the U.S. and Columbia University to pursue my postgraduate studies , and then started my own media company , which was unthought of during the years that I started my career .


So we do a lot of things .


I 've interviewed more than a thousand people in the past .


And sometimes I have young people approaching me say , " " Lan , you changed my life , " " and I feel proud of that .


But then we are also so fortunate to witness the transformation of the whole country .


I was in Beijing 's bidding for the Olympic Games .


I was representing the Shanghai Expo .


I saw China embracing the world and vice versa .


But then sometimes I 'm thinking , what are today 's young generation up to ?


How are they different , and what are the differences they are going to make to shape the future of China , or at large , the world ?


So today I want to talk about young people through the platform of social media .


First of all , who are they ? [ What ] do they look like ?


Well this is a girl called Guo Meimei — 20 years old , beautiful .


She showed off her expensive bags , clothes and car on her microblog , which is the Chinese version of Twitter .


And she claimed to be the general manager of Red Cross at the Chamber of Commerce .


She didn 't realize that she stepped on a sensitive nerve and aroused national questioning , almost a turmoil , against the credibility of Red Cross .


The controversy was so heated that the Red Cross had to open a press conference to clarify it , and the investigation is going on .


So far , as of today , we know that she herself made up that title — probably because she feels proud to be associated with charity .


All those expensive items were given to her as gifts by her boyfriend , who used to be a board member in a subdivision of Red Cross at Chamber of Commerce .


It 's very complicated to explain .


But anyway , the public still doesn 't buy it .


It is still boiling .


It shows us a general mistrust of government or government-backed institutions , which lacked transparency in the past .


And also it showed us the power and the impact of social media as microblog .


Microblog boomed in the year of 2010 , with visitors doubled and time spent on it tripled .


Sina.com , a major news portal , alone has more than 140 million microbloggers .


On Tencent , 200 million .


The most popular blogger — it 's not me — it 's a movie star , and she has more than 9.5 million followers , or fans .


About 80 percent of those microbloggers are young people , under 30 years old .


And because , as you know , the traditional media is still heavily controlled by the government , social media offers an opening to let the steam out a little bit .


But because you don 't have many other openings , the heat coming out of this opening is sometimes very strong , active and even violent .


So through microblogging , we are able to understand Chinese youth even better .


So how are they different ?


First of all , most of them were born in the 80s and 90s , under the one-child policy .


And because of selected abortion by families who favored boys to girls , now we have ended up with 30 million more young men than women .


That could pose a potential danger to the society , but who knows ; we 're in a globalized world , so they can look for girlfriends from other countries .


Most of them have fairly good education .


The illiteracy rate in China among this generation is under one percent .


In cities , 80 percent of kids go to college .


But they are facing an aging China with a population above 65 years old coming up with seven-point-some percent this year , and about to be 15 percent by the year of 2030 .


And you know we have the tradition that younger generations support the elders financially , and taking care of them when they 're sick .


So it means young couples will have to support four parents who have a life expectancy of 73 years old .


So making a living is not that easy for young people .


College graduates are not in short supply .


In urban areas , college graduates find the starting salary is about 400 U.S. dollars a month , while the average rent is above $ 500 .


So what do they do ? They have to share space — squeezed in very limited space to save money — and they call themselves " " tribe of ants . " " And for those who are ready to get married and buy their apartment , they figured out they have to work for 30 to 40 years to afford their first apartment .


That ratio in America would only cost a couple five years to earn , but in China it 's 30 to 40 years with the skyrocketing real estate price .


Among the 200 million migrant workers , 60 percent of them are young people .


They find themselves sort of sandwiched between the urban areas and the rural areas .


Most of them don 't want to go back to the countryside , but they don 't have the sense of belonging .


They work for longer hours with less income , less social welfare .


And they 're more vulnerable to job losses , subject to inflation , tightening loans from banks , appreciation of the renminbi , or decline of demand from Europe or America for the products they produce .


Last year , though , an appalling incident in a southern OEM manufacturing compound in China : 13 young workers in their late teens and early 20s committed suicide , just one by one like causing a contagious disease .


But they died because of all different personal reasons .


But this whole incident aroused a huge outcry from society about the isolation , both physical and mental , of these migrant workers .


For those who do return back to the countryside , they find themselves very welcome locally , because with the knowledge , skills and networks they have learned in the cities , with the assistance of the Internet , they 're able to create more jobs , upgrade local agriculture and create new business in the less developed market .


So for the past few years , the coastal areas , they found themselves in a shortage of labor .


These diagrams show a more general social background .


The first one is the Engels coefficient , which explains that the cost of daily necessities has dropped its percentage all through the past decade , in terms of family income , to about 37-some percent .


But then in the last two years , it goes up again to 39 percent , indicating a rising living cost .


The Gini coefficient has already passed the dangerous line of 0.4 .


Now it 's 0.5 — even worse than that in America — showing us the income inequality .


And so you see this whole society getting frustrated about losing some of its mobility .


And also , the bitterness and even resentment towards the rich and the powerful is quite widespread .


So any accusations of corruption or backdoor dealings between authorities or business would arouse a social outcry or even unrest .


So through some of the hottest topics on microblogging , we can see what young people care most about .


Social justice and government accountability runs the first in what they demand .


For the past decade or so , a massive urbanization and development have let us witness a lot of reports on the forced demolition of private property .


And it has aroused huge anger and frustration among our young generation .


Sometimes people get killed , and sometimes people set themselves on fire to protest .


So when these incidents are reported more and more frequently on the Internet , people cry for the government to take actions to stop this .


So the good news is that earlier this year , the state council passed a new regulation on house requisition and demolition and passed the right to order forced demolition from local governments to the court .


Similarly , many other issues concerning public safety is a hot topic on the Internet .


We heard about polluted air , polluted water , poisoned food .


And guess what , we have faked beef .


They have sorts of ingredients that you brush on a piece of chicken or fish , and it turns it to look like beef .


And then lately , people are very concerned about cooking oil , because thousands of people have been found [ refining ] cooking oil from restaurant slop .


So all these things have aroused a huge outcry from the Internet .


And fortunately , we have seen the government responding more timely and also more frequently to the public concerns .


While young people seem to be very sure about their participation in public policy-making , but sometimes they 're a little bit lost in terms of what they want for their personal life .


China is soon to pass the U.S.


as the number one market for luxury brands — that 's not including the Chinese expenditures in Europe and elsewhere .


But you know what , half of those consumers are earning a salary below 2,000 U.S. dollars .


They 're not rich at all .


They 're taking those bags and clothes as a sense of identity and social status .


And this is a girl explicitly saying on a TV dating show that she would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle .


But of course , we do have young people who would still prefer to smile , whether in a BMW or [ on ] a bicycle .


So in the next picture , you see a very popular phenomenon called " " naked " " wedding , or " " naked " " marriage .


It does not mean they will wear nothing in the wedding , but it shows that these young couples are ready to get married without a house , without a car , without a diamond ring and without a wedding banquet , to show their commitment to true love .


And also , people are doing good through social media .


And the first picture showed us that a truck caging 500 homeless and kidnapped dogs for food processing was spotted and stopped on the highway with the whole country watching through microblogging .


People were donating money , dog food and offering volunteer work to stop that truck .


And after hours of negotiation , 500 dogs were rescued .


And here also people are helping to find missing children .


A father posted his son 's picture onto the Internet .


After thousands of resends in relay , the child was found , and we witnessed the reunion of the family through microblogging .


So happiness is the most popular word we have heard through the past two years .


Happiness is not only related to personal experiences and personal values , but also , it 's about the environment .


People are thinking about the following questions : Are we going to sacrifice our environment further to produce higher GDP ?


How are we going to perform our social and political reform to keep pace with economic growth , to keep sustainability and stability ?


And also , how capable is the system of self-correctness to keep more people content with all sorts of friction going on at the same time ?


I guess these are the questions people are going to answer .


And our younger generation are going to transform this country while at the same time being transformed themselves .


Thank you very much .


( Applause )


This back here was my brain cancer .


Isn 't it nice ?


( Laughter ) The key phrase is " " was , " " phew .


( Applause ) Having brain cancer was really , as you can imagine , shocking news for me .


I knew nothing about cancer .


In Western cultures , when you have cancer , it 's as if you disappear in a way .


Your life as a complex human being is replaced by medical data : Your images , your exams , your lab values , a list of medicines .


And everyone changes as well .


You suddenly become a disease on legs .


Doctors start speaking a language which you don 't understand .


They start pointing their fingers at your body and your images .


People start changing as well because they start dealing with the disease , instead of with the human being .


They say , " " What did the doctor say ? " " before even saying , " " Hello . " " And in the meanwhile , you 're left with questions to which nobody gives an answer .


These are the " " Can I ? " " questions : Can I work while I have cancer ?


Can I study ? Can I make love ? Can I be creative ?


And you wonder , " " What have I done to deserve this ? " " You wonder , " " Can I change something about my lifestyle ? " " You wonder , " " Can I do something ?


Are there any other options ? " " And , obviously , doctors are the good guys in all these scenarios , because they are very professional and dedicated to curing you .


But they also are very used to having to deal with patients , so I 'd say that they sometimes lose the idea that this is torture for you and that you become , literally , a patient — " patient " means " the one who waits . "


( Laughter ) Things are changing , but classically , they tend to not engage you in any way to learn about your condition , to get your friends and family engaged , or showing you ways in which you can change your lifestyle to minimize the risks of what you 're going through .


But instead , you 're forced there to wait in the hands of a series of very professional strangers .


While I was in the hospital , I asked for a printed-out picture of my cancer and I spoke with it .


It was really hard to obtain , because it 's not common practice to ask for a picture of your own cancer .


I talked to it and I said , " " Okay , cancer , you 're not all there is to me .


There 's more to me .


A cure , whichever it is , will have to deal with the whole of me . " " And so , the next day , I left the hospital against medical advice .


I was determined to change my relationship with the cancer and I was determined to learn more about my cancer before doing anything as drastic as a surgery .


I 'm an artist , I use several forms of open-source technologies and open information in my practice .


So my best bet was to get it all out there , get the information out there , and use it so that it could be accessed by anyone .


So I created a website , which is called La Cura , on which I put my medical data , online .


I actually had to hack it and that 's a thing which we can talk about in another speech .


( Laughter ) I chose this word , La Cura — La Cura in Italian means " " the cure " " — because in many different cultures , the word " " cure " " can mean many different things .


In our Western cultures , it means eradicating or reversing a disease , but in different cultures , for example , a culture from Asia , from the Mediterranean , from Latin countries , from Africa , it can mean many more things .


Of course , I was interested in the opinions of doctors and healthcare providers , but I was also interested in the cure of the artist , of the poet , of the designer , of , who knows , the musicians .


I was interested in the social cure , I was interested in the psychological cure , I was interested in the spiritual cure , I was interested in the emotional cure , I was interested in any form of cure .


And , it worked .


The La Cura website went viral .


I received lots of media attention from Italy and from abroad and I quickly received more than 500,000 contacts — emails , social networking — most of them were a suggestion on how to cure my cancer , but more of them were about how to cure myself as a full individual .


For example , many thousands of videos , images , pictures , art performances were produced for La Cura .


For example , here we see Francesca Fini in her performance .


Or , as artist Patrick Lichty has done : He produced a 3D sculpture of my tumor and put it on sale on Thingiverse .


Now you can have my cancer , too !


( Laughter ) Which is a nice thing , if you think about it , we can share our cancer .


And this was going on — scientists , the traditional medicine experts , several researchers , doctors — all connected with me to give advice .


With all this information and support , I was able to form a team of several neurosurgeons , traditional doctors , oncologists , and several hundred volunteers with whom I was able to discuss the information I was receiving , which is very important .


And together , we were able to form a strategy for my own cure in many languages , according to many cultures .


And the current strategy spans the whole world and thousands of years of human history , which is quite remarkable for me .


[ Surgery ] The follow-up MRIs showed , luckily , little to no growth of the cancer .


So I was able to take my time and choose .


I chose the doctor I wanted to work with , I chose the hospital I wanted to stay in , and in the meanwhile , I was supported by thousands of people , none of whom felt pity for me .


Everyone felt like they could take an active role in helping me to get well , and this was the most important part of La Cura .


What are the outcomes ?


I 'm fine , as you can see , pretty fine .


( Applause ) I had excellent news after the surgery — I have — I had a very low-grade glioma , which is a " " good " " kind of cancer which doesn 't grow a lot .


I have completely changed my life and my lifestyle .


Everything I did was thoughtfully designed to get me engaged .


Up until the very last few minutes of the surgery , which was very intense , a matrix of electrodes was implanted in my brain from this side , to be able to build a functional map of what the brain controls .


And right before the operation , we were able to discuss the functional map of my brain with the doctor , to understand which risks I was running into and if there were any I wanted to avoid .


Obviously , there were .


[ Open ] And this openness was really the fundamental part of La Cura .


Thousands of people shared their stories , their experiences .


Doctors got to talk with people they don 't usually consult when they think about cancer .


I 'm a self-founding , continuous state of translation among many different languages , in which science meets emotion and conventional research meets traditional research .


[ Society ] The most important thing of La Cura was to feel like a part of a really engaged and connected society whose wellness really depends on the wellness of all of its components .


This global performance is my open-source cure for cancer .


And from what I feel , it 's a cure for me , but for us all .


Thank you .


( Applause ) .


I 've always had a fascination for computers and technology , and I made a few apps for the iPhone , iPod touch , and iPad .


I 'd like to share a couple with you today .


My first app was a unique fortune teller called " " Earth Fortune " " that would display different colors of Earth depending on what your fortune was .


My favorite and most successful app is " " Bustin Jieber , " " which is — ( Laughter ) which is a Justin Bieber whack-a-mole . ( Laughter )


I created it because a lot of people at school disliked Justin Bieber a little bit , so I decided to make the app .


So I went to work programming it , and I released it just before the holidays in 2010 .


A lot of people ask me , how did I make these ?


A lot of times it 's because the person who asked the question wants to make an app also .


A lot of kids these days like to play games , but now they want to make them , and it 's difficult , because not many kids know where to go to find out how to make a program .


I mean , for soccer , you could go to a soccer team .


For violin , you could get lessons for a violin .


But what if you want to make an app ?


And the kid 's parents might have done some of these things when they were young , but not many parents have written apps .


( Laughter ) Where do you go to find out how to make an app ?


Well , this is how I approached it , this is what I did .


First of all , I 've been programming in multiple other programming languages to get the basics down , such as Python , C , Java , etc .


And then Apple released the iPhone , and with it , the iPhone software development kit , and the software development kit is a suite of tools for creating and programming an iPhone app .


This opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me , and after playing with the software development kit a little bit , I made a couple of apps , I made some test apps .


One of them happened to be " " Earth Fortune , " " and I was ready to put " " Earth Fortune " " on the App Store , and so I persuaded my parents to pay the 99 dollar fee to be able to put my apps on the App Store .


They agreed , and now I have apps on the App Store .


I 've gotten a lot of interest and encouragement from my family , friends , teachers and even people at the Apple Store , and that 's been a huge help to me .


I 've gotten a lot of inspiration from Steve Jobs , and I 've started an app club at school , and a teacher at my school is kindly sponsoring my app club .


Any student at my school can come and learn how to design an app .


This is so I can share my experiences with others .


There 's these programs called the iPad Pilot Program , and some districts have them .


I 'm fortunate enough to be part of one .


A big challenge is , how should the iPads be used , and what apps should we put on the iPads ?


So we 're getting feedback from teachers at the school to see what kind of apps they 'd like .


When we design the app and we sell it , it will be free to local districts ; and other districts that we sell to — all the money from that will go into the local ed foundations .


These days , students usually know a little bit more than teachers with the technology .


( Laughter ) So — ( Laughter ) Sorry . ( Laughter )


So this is a resource to teachers , and educators should recognize this resource and make good use of it . ( Laughter )


I 'd like to finish up by saying what I 'd like to do in the future .


First of all , I 'd like to create more apps , more games .


I 'm working with a third party company to make an app .


I 'd like to get into Android programming and development , and I 'd like to continue my app club , and find other ways for students to share knowledge with others .


Thank you .


( Applause )


Hi everybody . So my name is Mac .


My job is that I lie to children , but they 're honest lies .


I write children 's books , and there 's a quote from Pablo Picasso , " " We all know that Art is not truth .


Art is a lie that makes us realize truth or at least the truth that is given us to understand .


The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies . " " I first heard this when I was a kid , and I loved it , but I had no idea what it meant .


( Laughter ) So I thought , you know what , it 's what I 'm here to talk to you today about , though , truth and lies , fiction and reality .


So how could I untangle this knotted bunch of sentences ?


And I said , I 've got PowerPoint . Let 's do a Venn diagram .


[ " " Truth . Lies . " " ] ( Laughter ) So there it is , right there , boom .


We 've got truth and lies and then there 's this little space , the edge , in the middle .


That liminal space , that 's art .


All right . Venn diagram . ( Laughter ) ( Applause ) But that 's actually not very helpful either .


The thing that made me understand that quote and really kind of what art , at least the art of fiction , was , was working with kids .


I used to be a summer camp counselor .


I would do it on my summers off from college , and I loved it .


It was a sports summer camp for four- to six-year-olds .


I was in charge of the four-year-olds , which is good , because four-year-olds can 't play sports , and neither can I.


( Laughter ) I play sports at a four-year-old level , so what would happen is the kids would dribble around some cones , and then got hot , and then they would go sit underneath the tree where I was already sitting — ( Laughter ) — and I would just make up stories and tell them to them and I would tell them stories about my life .


I would tell them about how , on the weekends , I would go home and I would spy for the Queen of England .


And soon , other kids who weren 't even in my group of kids , they would come up to me , and they would say , " " You 're Mac Barnett , right ?


You 're the guy who spies for the Queen of England . " " And I had been waiting my whole life for strangers to come up and ask me that question .


In my fantasy , they were svelte Russian women , but , you know , four-year-olds — you take what you can get in Berkeley , California .


And I realized that the stories that I was telling were real in this way that was familiar to me and really exciting .


I think the pinnacle of this for me — I 'll never forget this — there was this little girl named Riley . She was tiny , and she used to always take out her lunch every day and she would throw out her fruit .


She would just take her fruit , her mom packed her a melon every day , and she would just throw it in the ivy and then she would eat fruit snacks and pudding cups , and I was like , " " Riley , you can 't do that , you have to eat the fruit . " " And she was like , " " Why ? " " And I was like , " " Well , when you throw the fruit in the ivy , pretty soon , it 's going to be overgrown with melons , " " which is why I think I ended up telling stories to children and not being a nutritionist for children .


And so Riley was like , " " That will never happen .


That 's not going to happen . " " And so , on the last day of camp , I got up early and I got a big cantaloupe from the grocery store and I hid it in the ivy , and then at lunchtime , I was like , " Riley , why don 't you go over there and see what you 've done . "


And — ( Laughter ) — she went trudging through the ivy , and then her eyes just got so wide , and she pointed out this melon that was bigger than her head , and then all the kids ran over there and rushed around her , and one of the kids was like , " " Hey , why is there a sticker on this ? " " ( Laughter ) And I was like , " " That is also why I say do not throw your stickers in the ivy .


Put them in the trash can . It ruins nature when you do this . " " And Riley carried that melon around with her all day , and she was so proud .


And Riley knew she didn 't grow a melon in seven days , but she also knew that she did , and it 's a weird place , but it 's not just a place that kids can get to .


It 's anything . Art can get us to that place .


She was right in that place in the middle , that place which you could call art or fiction .


I 'm going to call it wonder .


It 's what Coleridge called the willing suspension of disbelief or poetic faith , for those moments where a story , no matter how strange , has some semblance of the truth , and then you 're able to believe it .


It 's not just kids who can get there .


Adults can too , and we get there when we read .


It 's why in two days , people will be descending on Dublin to take the walking tour of Bloomsday and see everything that happened in " " Ulysses , " " even though none of that happened .


Or people go to London and they visit Baker Street to see Sherlock Holmes ' apartment , even though 221B is just a number that was painted on a building that never actually had that address .


We know these characters aren 't real , but we have real feelings about them , and we 're able to do that . We know these characters aren 't real ,


and yet we also know that they are .


Kids can get there a lot more easily than adults can , and that 's why I love writing for kids .


I think kids are the best audience for serious literary fiction .


When I was a kid , I was obsessed with secret door novels , things like " " Narnia , " " where you would open a wardrobe and go through to a magical land .


And I was convinced that secret doors really did exist and I would look for them and try to go through them .


I wanted to live and cross over into that fictional world , which is — I would always just open people 's closet doors . ( Laughter ) I would just go through my mom 's boyfriend 's closet , and there was not a secret magical land there .


There was some other weird stuff that I think my mom should know about .


( Laughter ) And I was happy to tell her all about it .


After college , my first job was working behind one of these secret doors .


This is a place called 826 Valencia .


It 's at 826 Valencia Street in the Mission in San Francisco , and when I worked there , there was a publishing company headquartered there called McSweeney 's , a nonprofit writing center called 826 Valencia , but then the front of it was a strange shop .


You see , this place was zoned retail , and in San Francisco , they were not going to give us a variance , and so the writer who founded it , a writer named Dave Eggers , to come into compliance with code , he said , " " Fine , I 'm just going to build a pirate supply store . " " And that 's what he did . ( Laughter ) And it 's beautiful . It 's all wood .


There 's drawers you can pull out and get citrus so you don 't get scurvy .


They have eyepatches in lots of colors , because when it 's springtime , pirates want to go wild .


You don 't know . Black is boring . Pastel .


Or eyes , also in lots of colors , just glass eyes , depending on how you want to deal with that situation .


And the store , strangely , people came to them and bought things , and they ended up paying the rent for our tutoring center , which was behind it , but to me , more important was the fact that I think the quality of work you do , kids would come and get instruction in writing , and when you have to walk this weird , liminal , fictional space like this to go do your writing , it 's going to affect the kind of work that you make .


It 's a secret door that you can walk through .


So I ran the 826 in Los Angeles , and it was my job to build the store down there .


So we have The Echo Park Time Travel Mart .


That 's our motto : " " Whenever you are , we 're already then . " " ( Laughter ) And it 's on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles .


Our friendly staff is ready to help you .


They 're from all eras , including just the 1980s , that guy on the end , he 's from the very recent past .


There 's our Employees of the Month , including Genghis Khan , Charles Dickens .


Some great people have come up through our ranks .


This is our kind of pharmacy section .


We have some patent medicines , Canopic jars for your organs , communist soap that says , " " This is your soap for the year . " " ( Laughter ) Our slushy machine broke on the opening night and we didn 't know what to do .


Our architect was covered in red syrup .


It looked like he had just murdered somebody , which it was not out of the question for this particular architect , and we didn 't know what to do .


It was going to be the highlight of our store .


So we just put that sign on it that said , " " Out of order . Come back yesterday . " " ( Laughter ) And that ended up being a better joke than slushies , so we just left it there forever .


Mammoth Chunks . These things weigh , like , seven pounds each .


Barbarian repellent . It 's full of salad and potpourri — things that barbarians hate .


Dead languages .


( Laughter ) Leeches , nature 's tiny doctors .


And Viking Odorant , which comes in lots of great scents : toenails , sweat and rotten vegetables , pyre ash .


Because we believe that Axe Body Spray is something that you should only find on the battlefield , not under your arms . ( Laughter ) And these are robot emotion chips , so robots can feel love or fear .


Our biggest seller is Schadenfreude , which we did not expect .


( Laughter ) We did not think that was going to happen .


But there 's a nonprofit behind it , and kids go through a door that says " " Employees Only " " and they end up in this space where they do homework and write stories and make films and this is a book release party where kids will read .


There 's a quarterly that 's published with just writing that 's done by the kids who come every day after school , and we have release parties and they eat cake and read for their parents and drink milk out of champagne glasses .


And it 's a very special space , because it 's this weird space in the front .


The joke isn 't a joke .


You can 't find the seams on the fiction , and I love that . It 's this little bit of fiction that 's colonized the real world .


I see it as kind of a book in three dimensions .


There 's a term called metafiction , and that 's just stories about stories , and meta 's having a moment now .


Its last big moment was probably in the 1960s with novelists like John Barth and William Gaddis , but it 's been around .


It 's almost as old as storytelling itself .


And one metafictive technique is breaking the fourth wall . Right ?


It 's when an actor will turn to the audience and say , " " I am an actor , these are just rafters . " " And even that supposedly honest moment , I would argue , is in service of the lie , but it 's supposed to foreground the artificiality of the fiction .


For me , I kind of prefer the opposite .


If I 'm going to break down the fourth wall , I want fiction to escape and come into the real world .


I want a book to be a secret door that opens and lets the stories out into reality .


And so I try to do this in my books .


And here 's just one example .


This is the first book that I ever made .


It 's called " " Billy Twitters and his Blue Whale Problem . " " And it 's about a kid who gets a blue whale as a pet but it 's a punishment and it ruins his life .


So it 's delivered overnight by FedUp .


( Laughter ) And he has to take it to school with him .


He lives in San Francisco — very tough city to own a blue whale in .


A lot of hills , real estate is at a premium .


This market 's crazy , everybody .


But underneath the jacket is this case , and that 's the cover underneath the book , the jacket , and there 's an ad that offers a free 30-day risk-free trial for a blue whale .


And you can just send in a self-addressed stamped envelope and we 'll send you a whale .


And kids do write in .


So here 's a letter . It says , " " Dear people , I bet you 10 bucks you won 't send me a blue whale .


Eliot Gannon ( age 6 ) . " " ( Laughter ) ( Applause ) So what Eliot and the other kids who send these in get back is a letter in very small print from a Norwegian law firm — ( Laughter ) — that says that due to a change in customs laws , their whale has been held up in Sognefjord , which is a very lovely fjord , and then it just kind of talks about Sognefjord and Norwegian food for a little while . It digresses . ( Laughter )


But it finishes off by saying that your whale would love to hear from you .


He 's got a phone number , and you can call and leave him a message .


And when you call and leave him a message , you just , on the outgoing message , it 's just whale sounds and then a beep , which actually sounds a lot like a whale sound .


And they get a picture of their whale too .


So this is Randolph , and Randolph belongs to a kid named Nico who was one of the first kids to ever call in , and I 'll play you some of Nico 's message .


This is the first message I ever got from Nico .


( Audio ) Nico : Hello , this is Nico .


I am your owner , Randolph . Hello .


So this is the first time I can ever talk to you , and I might talk to you soon another day . Bye .


Mac Barnett : So Nico called back , like , an hour later .


( Laughter ) And here 's another one of Nico 's messages .


( Audio ) Nico : Hello , Randolph , this is Nico .


I haven 't talked to you for a long time , but I talked to you on Saturday or Sunday , yeah , Saturday or Sunday , so now I 'm calling you again to say hello and I wonder what you 're doing right now , and I 'm going to probably call you again tomorrow or today , so I 'll talk to you later . Bye .


MB : So he did , he called back that day again .


He 's left over 25 messages for Randolph over four years .


You find out all about him and the grandma that he loves and the grandma that he likes a little bit less — ( Laughter ) — and the crossword puzzles that he does , and this is — I 'll play you one more message from Nico .


This is the Christmas message from Nico .


[ Beep ] ( Audio ) Nico : Hello , Randolph , sorry I haven 't talked to you in a long time .


It 's just that I 've been so busy because school started , as you might not know , probably , since you 're a whale , you don 't know , and I 'm calling you to just say , to wish you a merry Christmas .


So have a nice Christmas , and bye-bye , Randolph . Goodbye .


MB : I actually got Nico , I hadn 't heard from in 18 months , and he just left a message two days ago .


His voice is completely different , but he put his babysitter on the phone , and she was very nice to Randolph as well .


But Nico 's the best reader I could hope for .


I would want anyone I was writing for to be in that place emotionally with the things that I create .


I feel lucky . Kids like Nico are the best readers , and they deserve the best stories we can give them .


Thank you very much .


( Applause )


( Music ) ( Applause ) Thank you . Ooh , I 'm like , " " Phew , phew , calm down . Get back into my body now . " " ( Laughter ) Usually when I play out , the first thing that happens is people scream out , " " What 's she doing ? ! " " I 'll play at these rock shows , be on stage standing completely still , and they 're like , " What 's she doing ? ! What 's she doing ? ! "


And then I 'll kind of be like — ( Vvvwow ! ) — and then they 're like , " " Whoa ! " " ( Laughter ) I 'm sure you 're trying to figure out , " Well , how does this thing work ? "


Well , what I 'm doing is controlling the pitch with my left hand .


See , the closer I get to this antenna , the higher the note gets — ( Portamento ) — and you can get it really low .


And with this hand I 'm controlling the volume , so the further away my right hand gets , the louder it gets .


( Tones ) So basically , with both of your hands you 're controlling pitch and volume and kind of trying to create the illusion that you 're doing separate notes , when really it 's continuously going ...


( Flourish ... Beep ) ( Laughter ) Sometimes I startle myself : I 'll forget that I have it on , and I 'll lean over to pick up something , and then it goes like — ( Blip ) — " " Oh ! " " And it 's like a funny sound effect that follows you around if you don 't turn the thing off . ( Laughter )


Maybe we 'll go into the next tune , because I totally lost where this is going .


We 're going to do a song by David Mash called " " Listen : the Words Are Gone , " " and maybe I 'll have words come back into me afterwards if I can relax .


( Music ) ( Applause ) So , I 'm trying to think of some of the questions that are commonly asked ; there are so many .


And ... Well , I guess I could tell you a little of the history of the theremin .


It was invented around the 1920s , and the inventor , Léon Theremin — he also was a musician besides an inventor — he came up with the idea for making the theremin , I think , when he was working on some shortwave radios .


And there 'd be that sound in the signal — it 's like ( Screeching ) — and he thought , " " Oh , what if I could control that sound and turn it into an instrument , because there are pitches in it . " " And so somehow through developing that , he eventually came to make the theremin the way it is now .


And a lot of times , even kids nowadays , they 'll make reference to a theremin by going , " " Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo , " " because in the ' 50s it was used in the sci-fi horror movies , that sound that 's like ... ( Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo ) ( Laughter ) It 's kind of a funny , goofy sound to do .


And sometimes if I have too much coffee , then my vibrato gets out of hand .


You 're really sensitive to your body and its functions when you 're behind this thing .


You have to stay so still if you want to have the most control .


It reminds me of the balancing act earlier on — what Michael was doing — because you 're fighting so hard to keep the balance with what you 're playing with and stay in tune , and at the same time you don 't want to focus so much on being in tune all the time ; you want to be feeling the music .


And then also , you 're trying to stay very , very , very still because little movements with other parts of your body will affect the pitch , or sometimes if you 're holding a low note — ( Tone rising out of key ) — and breathing will make it ...


( Laughter ) If I pass out on the next song ... ( Laughter )


I think of it almost like like a yoga instrument because it makes you so aware of every little crazy thing your body is doing , or just aware of what you don 't want it to be doing while you 're playing ; you don 't want to have any sudden movements .


And if I go to a club and play a gig , people are like , " Here , have some drinks on us ! "


And it 's like , " " Well , I 'm about to go on soon ; I don 't want to be like — ( Teetering tones ) — you know ? " " It really does reflect the mood that you 're in also , if you 're ...


it 's similar to being a vocalist , except instead of it coming out of your throat , you 're controlling it just in the air and you don 't really have a point of reference ; you 're always relying on your ears and adjusting constantly .


You just have to always adjust to what 's happening and realize you 'll have bummer notes come here and there and listen to it , adjust it , and just move on , or else you 'll get too tied up and go crazy . Like me .


I think we will play another tune now .


I 'm going to do " " Lush Life . " " It 's one of my favorite tunes to play .


( Music ) ( Applause )


It has been 128 years since the last country in the world abolished slavery and 53 years since Martin Luther King pronounced his " " I Have A Dream " " speech .


But we still live in a world where the color of our skin not only gives a first impression , but a lasting one that remains .


I was born in a family full of colors .


My father is the son of a maid from whom he inherited an intense dark chocolate tone .


He was adopted by those who I know as my grandparents .


The matriarch , my grandma , has a porcelain skin and cotton-like hair .


My grandpa was somewhere between a vanilla and strawberry yogurt tone , like my uncle and my cousin .


My mother is a cinnamon-skin daughter of a native Brazilian , with a pinch of hazel and honey , and a man [ who is ] a mix of coffee with milk , but with a lot of coffee .


She has two sisters .


One in a toasted-peanut skin and the other , also adopted , more on the beige side , like a pancake .


( Laughter ) Growing up in this family , color was never important for me .


Outside home , however , things were different soon .


Color had many other meanings .


I remember my first drawing lessons in school as a bunch of contradictory feelings .


It was exciting and creative but I never understood the unique flesh-colored pencil .


I was made of flesh but I wasn 't pink .


My skin was brown , and people said I was black .


I was seven years old with a mess of colors in my head .


Later , when I took my cousin to school , I was usually taken for the nanny .


By helping in the kitchen at a friend 's party , people thought I was the maid .


I was even treated like a prostitute just because I was walking alone on the beach with European friends .


And many times , visiting my grandma or friends in upper class buildings , I was invited not to use the main elevator .


Because in the end , with this color and this hair , I cannot belong to some places .


In some way , I get to used to it and accept part of it .


However , something inside of me keeps revolving and struggling .


Years later I married a Spaniard .


But not any Spaniard .


I chose one with the skin color of a lobster when sunburnt .


( Laughter ) Since then , a new question started to chase me .


What will be the color of your children ?


As you can understand , this is my last concern .


But thinking about it , with my previous background , my story led me to make my personal exercise as a photographer .


And that is how Humanae was born .


Humanae is a pursuit to highlight our true colors , rather than the untrue white , red , black or yellow associated with race .


It 's a kind of game to question our codes .


It 's a work in progress from a personal story to a global history .


I portray the subjects in a white background .


Then I choose an 11-pixel square from the nose , paint the background , and look for the corresponding color in the industrial palette , Pantone .


I started with my family and friends , then more and more people joined the adventure , thanks to public calls coming through the social media .


I thought that the main space to show my work was the Internet because I want an open concept that invites everybody to push the share button in both the computer and their brain .


The snowball started to roll .


The project had a great welcome — invitations , exhibitions , physical formats , galleries and museums ...


just happened .


And among them , my favorite : when Humanae occupies public spaces and appears in the street , it fosters a popular debate and creates a feeling of community .


I have portrayed more than 3,000 people in 13 different countries , 19 different cities around the world .


Just to mention some of them — from someone included in the Forbes list , to refugees who crossed the Mediterranean by boat .


In Paris , from the UNESCO Headquarters to a shelter .


And students both in Switzerland and favelas in Rio de Janeiro .


All kinds of beliefs , gender identities or physical impairments , a newborn or terminally ill .


We all together build Humanae .


Those portraits make us rethink how we see each other .


When modern science is questioning the race concept , what does it mean for us to be black , white , yellow , red ?


Is it the eye , the nose , the mouth , the hair ?


Or does it have to do with our origin , nationality or bank account ?


This personal exercise turned out to be a discovery .


Suddenly I realized that Humanae was useful for many people .


It represents a sort of mirror for those who cannot find themselves reflected in any label .


It was amazing that people started to share their thoughts about the work with me .


I have hundreds of that , I will share with you , too .


A mother of 11 years — A mother of an 11-year-old girl wrote me , " " Very good for me as a tool to work on her confidence , as this past weekend one of her girlfriends argued with her that she does not belong and should not be allowed to live in Norway .


So your work has a very special place in my heart and it 's very important for me . " " A woman shared her portrait on Facebook and wrote , " " All my life , people from across the globe had difficulties to place me in a group , a stereotype , a box .


Perhaps we should stop .


Instead of framing , ask the individual , ' How would you label yourself ? ' Then I would say , ' Hi . I 'm Massiel .


I 'm a Dominican-Dutch , I grew up in a mixed family and I 'm a bisexual woman . ' " " Besides these unexpected and touching reactions , Humanae finds a new life in a different variety of fields .


Just to show you some examples , illustrators and art students using it as a reference for their sketches and their studies .


It 's a collection of faces .


Researchers in the fields of anthropology , physics and neuroscience use Humanae with different scientific approaches related to human ethnicity , optophysiology , face recognition or Alzheimer 's .


One of the most important impacts of the project is that Humanae was chosen to be the cover of Foreign Affairs , one of the most relevant political publications .


And talking about foreign affairs , I found the perfect ambassadors for my project ...


teachers .


They are the ones that use Humanae as a tool for educational purposes .


Their passion encourages me to go back to drawing classes , but this time as a teacher myself .


My students , both adults and kids , paint their self-portraits , trying to discover their own unique color .


As a photographer , I realize that I can be a channel for others to communicate .


As an individual , as Angélica , every time I take a picture , I feel that I am sitting in front of a therapist .


All the frustration , fear and loneliness that I once felt ...


becomes love .


The last country — the last country in the world who abolished slavery is the country where I was born , Brazil .


We still have to work hard to abolish discrimination .


That remains a common practice worldwide , and that will not disappear by itself .


Thank you .


( Applause ) Thank you .


I 'm very fortunate to be here .


I feel so fortunate .


I 've been so impressed by the kindness expressed to me .


I called my wife Leslie , and I said , " " You know , there 's so many good people trying to do so much good .


It feels like I 've landed in a colony of angels . " " It 's a true feeling .


But let me get to the talk — I see the clock is running .


I 'm a public school teacher , and I just want to share a story of my superintendent .


Her name is Pam Moran in Albemarle County , Virginia , the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains .


And she 's a very high-tech superintendent .


She uses smart boards , she blogs , she Tweets , she does Facebook , she does all this sort of high-tech stuff .


She 's a technology leader and instructional leader .


But in her office , there 's this old wooden , weather-worn table , kitchen table — peeling green paint , it 's kind of rickety .


And I said , " " Pam , you 're such a modern , cutting-edge person .


Why is this old table in your office ? " " And she told me , she said , " " You know , I grew up in Southwestern Virginia , in the coal mines and the farmlands of rural Virginia , and this table was in my grandfather 's kitchen .


And we 'd come in from playing , he 'd come in from plowing and working , and we 'd sit around that table every night .


And as I grew up , I heard so much knowledge and so many insights and so much wisdom come out around this table , I began to call it the wisdom table .


And when he passed on , I took this table with me and brought it to my office , and it reminds me of him .


It reminds me of what goes on around an empty space sometimes . " " The project I 'm going to tell you about is called the World Peace Game , and essentially it is also an empty space .


And I 'd like to think of it as a 21st century wisdom table , really .


It all started back in 1977 .


I was a young man , and I had been dropping in and out of college .


And my parents were very patient , but I had been doing intermittent sojourns to India on a mystical quest .


And I remember the last time I came back from India — in my long white flowing robes and my big beard and my John Lennon glasses — and I said to my father , " Dad , I think I 've just about found spiritual enlightenment . "


He said , " " Well there 's one more thing you need to find . " " I said , " " What is that , dad ? " " " " A job . " " ( Laughter ) And so they pleaded with me to get a degree in something .


So I got a degree and it turned out to be education .


It was an experimental education program .


It could have been dentistry , but the word " " experimental " " was in it , and so that 's what I had to go for .


And I went in for a job interview in the Richmond Public Schools in Virginia , the capital city , bought a three-piece suit — my concession to convention — kept my long beard and my afro and my platform shoes — at the time it was the ' 70s — and I walked in , and I sat down and had an interview .


And I guess they were hard up for teachers because the supervisor , her name was Anna Aro , said I had the job teaching gifted children .


And I was so shocked , so stunned , I got up and said , " " Well , thank you , but what do I do ? " " ( Laughter ) Gifted education hadn 't really taken hold too much .


There weren 't really many materials or things to use .


And I said , " " What do I do ? " " And her answer shocked me . It stunned me .


Her answer set the template for the entire career I was to have after that .


She said , " " What do you want to do ? " " And that question cleared the space .


There was no program directive , no manual to follow , no standards in gifted education in that way .


And she cleared such a space that I endeavored from then on to clear a space for my students , an empty space , whereby they could create and make meaning out of their own understanding .


So this happened in 1978 , and I was teaching many years later , and a friend of mine introduced me to a young filmmaker .


His name is Chris Farina .


Chris Farina is here today at his own cost .


Chris , could you stand up and let them see you — a young , visionary filmmaker who 's made a film .


( Applause ) This film is called " " World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements . " " He proposed the film to me — it 's a great title .


He proposed the film to me , and I said , " " Yeah , maybe it 'll be on local TV , and we can say hi to our friends . " " But the film has really gone places .


Now it 's still in debt , but Chris has managed , through his own sacrifice , to get this film out .


So we made a film and it turns out to be more than a story about me , more than a story about one teacher .


It 's a story that 's a testament to teaching and teachers .


And it 's a beautiful thing .


And the strange thing is , when I watch the film — I have the eerie sensation of seeing it — I saw myself literally disappear .


What I saw was my teachers coming through me .


I saw my geometry teacher in high school , Mr. Rucell 's wry smile under his handlebar mustache .


That 's the smile I use — that 's his smile .


I saw Jan Polo 's flashing eyes .


And they weren 't flashing in anger , they were flashing in love , intense love for her students .


And I have that kind of flash sometimes .


And I saw Miss Ethel J. Banks who wore pearls and high-heels to elementary school every day .


And you know , she had that old-school teacher stare .


You know the one .


( Laughter ) " " And I 'm not even talking about you behind me , because I 've got eyes in the back of my head . " " ( Laughter ) You know that teacher ?


I didn 't use that stare very often , but I do have it in my repertoire .


And Miss Banks was there as a great mentor for me .


And then I saw my own parents , my first teachers .


My father , very inventive , spatial thinker .


That 's my brother Malcolm there on the right .


And my mother , who taught me in fourth grade in segregated schools in Virginia , who was my inspiration .


And really , I feel as though , when I see the film — I have a gesture she does , like this — I feel like I am a continuation of her gesture .


I am one of her teaching gestures .


And the beautiful thing was , I got to teach my daughter in elementary school , Madeline .


And so that gesture of my mother 's continues through many generations .


It 's an amazing feeling to have that lineage .


And so I 'm here standing on the shoulders of many people .


I 'm not here alone .