( Laughter ) So , what would happen if I showed up at a physics conference and said , " " String theory is bogus .


It doesn 't resonate with me . It 's not how I chose to view the universe at a small scale .


I 'm not a fan . " " ( Laughter ) Well , nothing would happen because I 'm not a physicist ; I don 't understand string theory .


I 'm the Ted Bundy of string theory .


( Laughter ) I wouldn 't want to belong to any string theory club that would have me as a member .


But this is just the point .


Whenever we are talking about facts certain opinions must be excluded .


That is what it is to have a domain of expertise .


That is what it is for knowledge to count .


How have we convinced ourselves that in the moral sphere there is no such thing as moral expertise , or moral talent , or moral genius even ? How have we convinced ourselves


that every opinion has to count ? How have we convinced ourselves


that every culture has a point of view on these subjects worth considering ?


Does the Taliban have a point of view on physics that is worth considering ? No .


( Laughter ) How is their ignorance any less obvious on the subject of human well-being ?


( Applause ) So , this , I think , is what the world needs now .


It needs people like ourselves to admit that there are right and wrong answers to questions of human flourishing , and morality relates to that domain of facts .


It is possible for individuals , and even for whole cultures , to care about the wrong things , which is to say that it 's possible for them to have beliefs and desires that reliably lead to needless human suffering .


Just admitting this will transform our discourse about morality .


We live in a world in which the boundaries between nations mean less and less , and they will one day mean nothing .


We live in a world filled with destructive technology , and this technology cannot be uninvented ; it will always be easier to break things than to fix them .


It seems to me , therefore , patently obvious that we can no more respect and tolerate vast differences in notions of human well-being than we can respect or tolerate vast differences in the notions about how disease spreads , or in the safety standards of buildings and airplanes .


We simply must converge on the answers we give to the most important questions in human life .


And to do that , we have to admit that these questions have answers .


Thank you very much .


( Applause ) Chris Anderson : So , some combustible material there .


Whether in this audience or people elsewhere in the world , hearing some of this , may well be doing the screaming-with-rage thing , after as well , some of them .


Language seems to be really important here .


When you 're talking about the veil , you 're talking about women dressed in cloth bags .


I 've lived in the Muslim world , spoken with a lot of Muslim women .


And some of them would say something else . They would say , " " No , you know , this is a celebration of female specialness , it helps build that and it 's a result of the fact that " " — and this is arguably a sophisticated psychological view — " that male lust is not to be trusted . "


I mean , can you engage in a conversation with that kind of woman without seeming kind of cultural imperialist ?


Sam Harris : Yeah , well I think I tried to broach this in a sentence , watching the clock ticking , but the question is : What is voluntary in a context where men have certain expectations , and you 're guaranteed to be treated in a certain way if you don 't veil yourself ?


And so , if anyone in this room wanted to wear a veil , or a very funny hat , or tattoo their face — I think we should be free to voluntarily do whatever we want , but we have to be honest about the constraints that these women are placed under .


And so I think we shouldn 't be so eager to always take their word for it , especially when it 's 120 degrees out and you 're wearing a full burqa .


CA : A lot of people want to believe in this concept of moral progress .


But can you reconcile that ?


I think I understood you to say that you could reconcile that with a world that doesn 't become one dimensional , where we all have to think the same .


Paint your picture of what rolling the clock 50 years forward , 100 years forward , how you would like to think of the world , balancing moral progress with richness .


SH : Well , I think once you admit that we are on the path toward understanding our minds at the level of the brain in some important detail , then you have to admit that we are going to understand all of the positive and negative qualities of ourselves in much greater detail .


So , we 're going to understand positive social emotion like empathy and compassion , and we 're going to understand the factors that encourage it — whether they 're genetic , whether they 're how people talk to one another , whether they 're economic systems , and insofar as we begin to shine light on that we are inevitably going to converge on that fact space .


So , everything is not going to be up for grabs .


It 's not going to be like veiling my daughter from birth is just as good as teaching her to be confident and well-educated in the context of men who do desire women .


I mean I don 't think we need an NSF grant to know that compulsory veiling is a bad idea — but at a certain point we 're going to be able to scan the brains of everyone involved and actually interrogate them .


Do people love their daughters just as much in these systems ?


And I think there are clearly right answers to that .


CA : And if the results come out that actually they do , are you prepared to shift your instinctive current judgment on some of these issues ?


SH : Well yeah , modulo one obvious fact , that you can love someone in the context of a truly delusional belief system .


So , you can say like , " " Because I knew my gay son was going to go to hell if he found a boyfriend , I chopped his head off . And that was the most compassionate thing I could do . " " If you get all those parts aligned , yes I think you could probably be feeling the emotion of love .


But again , then we have to talk about well-being in a larger context .


It 's all of us in this together , not one man feeling ecstasy and then blowing himself up on a bus .


CA : Sam , this is a conversation I would actually love to continue for hours .


We don 't have that , but maybe another time . Thank you for coming to TED .


SH : Really an honor . Thank you .


( Applause )


( Music ) ( Applause ) Thank you very much . ( Applause ) Thank you . It 's a distinct privilege to be here .


A few weeks ago , I saw a video on YouTube of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at the early stages of her recovery from one of those awful bullets .


This one entered her left hemisphere , and knocked out her Broca 's area , the speech center of her brain .


And in this session , Gabby 's working with a speech therapist , and she 's struggling to produce some of the most basic words , and you can see her growing more and more devastated , until she ultimately breaks down into sobbing tears , and she starts sobbing wordlessly into the arms of her therapist .


And after a few moments , her therapist tries a new tack , and they start singing together , and Gabby starts to sing through her tears , and you can hear her clearly able to enunciate the words to a song that describe the way she feels , and she sings , in one descending scale , she sings , " Let it shine , let it shine , let it shine . "


And it 's a very powerful and poignant reminder of how the beauty of music has the ability to speak where words fail , in this case literally speak .


Seeing this video of Gabby Giffords reminded me of the work of Dr. Gottfried Schlaug , one of the preeminent neuroscientists studying music and the brain at Harvard , and Schlaug is a proponent of a therapy called Melodic Intonation Therapy , which has become very popular in music therapy now .


Schlaug found that his stroke victims who were aphasic , could not form sentences of three- or four-word sentences , but they could still sing the lyrics to a song , whether it was " " Happy Birthday To You " " or their favorite song by the Eagles or the Rolling Stones .


And after 70 hours of intensive singing lessons , he found that the music was able to literally rewire the brains of his patients and create a homologous speech center in their right hemisphere to compensate for the left hemisphere 's damage .


When I was 17 , I visited Dr. Schlaug 's lab , and in one afternoon he walked me through some of the leading research on music and the brain — how musicians had fundamentally different brain structure than non-musicians , how music , and listening to music , could just light up the entire brain , from our prefrontal cortex all the way back to our cerebellum , how music was becoming a neuropsychiatric modality to help children with autism , to help people struggling with stress and anxiety and depression , how deeply Parkinsonian patients would find that their tremor and their gait would steady when they listened to music ,


and how late-stage Alzheimer 's patients , whose dementia was so far progressed that they could no longer recognize their family , could still pick out a tune by Chopin at the piano that they had learned when they were children .


But I had an ulterior motive of visiting Gottfried Schlaug , and it was this : that I was at a crossroads in my life , trying to choose between music and medicine .


I had just completed my undergraduate , and I was working as a research assistant at the lab of Dennis Selkoe , studying Parkinson 's disease at Harvard , and I had fallen in love with neuroscience . I wanted to become a surgeon .


I wanted to become a doctor like Paul Farmer or Rick Hodes , these kind of fearless men who go into places like Haiti or Ethiopia and work with AIDS patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis , or with children with disfiguring cancers .


I wanted to become that kind of Red Cross doctor , that doctor without borders .


On the other hand , I had played the violin my entire life .


Music for me was more than a passion . It was obsession .


It was oxygen . I was lucky enough to have studied at the Juilliard School in Manhattan , and to have played my debut with Zubin Mehta and the Israeli philharmonic orchestra in Tel Aviv , and it turned out that Gottfried Schlaug had studied as an organist at the Vienna Conservatory , but had given up his love for music to pursue a career in medicine . And that afternoon , I had to ask him , " How was it for you making that decision ? "


And he said that there were still times when he wished he could go back and play the organ the way he used to , and that for me , medical school could wait , but that the violin simply would not .


And after two more years of studying music , I decided to shoot for the impossible before taking the MCAT and applying to medical school like a good Indian son to become the next Dr. Gupta . ( Laughter ) And I decided to shoot for the impossible and I took an audition for the esteemed Los Angeles Philharmonic .


It was my first audition , and after three days of playing behind a screen in a trial week , I was offered the position .


And it was a dream . It was a wild dream to perform in an orchestra , to perform in the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall in an orchestra conducted now by the famous Gustavo Dudamel , but much more importantly to me to be surrounded by musicians and mentors that became my new family , my new musical home .


But a year later , I met another musician who had also studied at Juilliard , one who profoundly helped me find my voice and shaped my identity as a musician .


Nathaniel Ayers was a double bassist at Juilliard , but he suffered a series of psychotic episodes in his early 20s , was treated with thorazine at Bellevue , and ended up living homeless on the streets of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles 30 years later .


Nathaniel 's story has become a beacon for homelessness and mental health advocacy throughout the United States , as told through the book and the movie " " The Soloist , " " but I became his friend , and I became his violin teacher , and I told him that wherever he had his violin , and wherever I had mine , I would play a lesson with him .


And on the many times I saw Nathaniel on Skid Row , I witnessed how music was able to bring him back from his very darkest moments , from what seemed to me in my untrained eye to be the beginnings of a schizophrenic episode .


Playing for Nathaniel , the music took on a deeper meaning , because now it was about communication , a communication where words failed , a communication of a message that went deeper than words , that registered at a fundamentally primal level in Nathaniel 's psyche , yet came as a true musical offering from me .


I found myself growing outraged that someone like Nathaniel could have ever been homeless on Skid Row because of his mental illness , yet how many tens of thousands of others there were out there on Skid Row alone who had stories as tragic as his , but were never going to have a book or a movie made about them that got them off the streets ?


And at the very core of this crisis of mine , I felt somehow the life of music had chosen me , where somehow , perhaps possibly in a very naive sense , I felt what Skid Row really needed was somebody like Paul Farmer and not another classical musician playing on Bunker Hill .


But in the end , it was Nathaniel who showed me that if I was truly passionate about change , if I wanted to make a difference , I already had the perfect instrument to do it , that music was the bridge that connected my world and his .


There 's a beautiful quote by the Romantic German composer Robert Schumann , who said , " " To send light into the darkness of men 's hearts , such is the duty of the artist . " " And this is a particularly poignant quote because Schumann himself suffered from schizophrenia and died in asylum .


And inspired by what I learned from Nathaniel , I started an organization on Skid Row of musicians called Street Symphony , bringing the light of music into the very darkest places , performing for the homeless and mentally ill at shelters and clinics on Skid Row , performing for combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder , and for the incarcerated and those labeled as criminally insane .


After one of our events at the Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino , a woman walked up to us and she had tears streaming down her face , and she had a palsy , she was shaking , and she had this gorgeous smile , and she said that she had never heard classical music before , she didn 't think she was going to like it , she had never heard a violin before , but that hearing this music was like hearing the sunshine , and that nobody ever came to visit them , and that for the first time in six years , when she heard us play , she stopped shaking without medication .


Suddenly , what we 're finding with these concerts , away from the stage , away from the footlights , out of the tuxedo tails , the musicians become the conduit for delivering the tremendous therapeutic benefits of music on the brain to an audience that would never have access to this room , would never have access to the kind of music that we make .


Just as medicine serves to heal more than the building blocks of the body alone , the power and beauty of music transcends the " " E " " in the middle of our beloved acronym .


Music transcends the aesthetic beauty alone .


The synchrony of emotions that we experience when we hear an opera by Wagner , or a symphony by Brahms , or chamber music by Beethoven , compels us to remember our shared , common humanity , the deeply communal connected consciousness , the empathic consciousness that neuropsychiatrist Iain McGilchrist says is hard-wired into our brain 's right hemisphere .


And for those living in the most dehumanizing conditions of mental illness within homelessness and incarceration , the music and the beauty of music offers a chance for them to transcend the world around them , to remember that they still have the capacity to experience something beautiful and that humanity has not forgotten them .


And the spark of that beauty , the spark of that humanity transforms into hope , and we know , whether we choose the path of music or of medicine , that 's the very first thing we must instill within our communities , within our audiences , if we want to inspire healing from within .


I 'd like to end with a quote by John Keats , the Romantic English poet , a very famous quote that I 'm sure all of you know .


Keats himself had also given up a career in medicine to pursue poetry , but he died when he was a year older than me .


And Keats said , " " Beauty is truth , and truth beauty .


That is all ye know on Earth , and all ye need to know . " " ( Music ) ( Applause )


Thank you so much everyone from TED , and Chris and Amy in particular .


I cannot believe I 'm here .


I have not slept in weeks .


Neil and I were sitting there comparing how little we 've slept in anticipation for this . I 've never been so nervous — and I do this when I 'm nervous , I just realized . ( Laughter ) So , I 'm going to talk about sort of what we did at this organization called 826 Valencia , and then I 'm going to talk about how we all might join in and do similar things .


Back in about 2000 , I was living in Brooklyn , I was trying to finish my first book , I was wandering around dazed every day because I wrote from 12 a.m. to 5 a.m.


So I would walk around in a daze during the day .


I had no mental acuity to speak of during the day , but I had flexible hours .


In the Brooklyn neighborhood that I lived in , Park Slope , there are a lot of writers — it 's like a very high per capita ratio of writers to normal people .


Meanwhile , I had grown up around a lot of teachers .


My mom was a teacher , my sister became a teacher and after college so many of my friends went into teaching .


And so I was always hearing them talk about their lives and how inspiring they were , and they were really sort of the most hard-working and constantly inspiring people I knew .


But I knew so many of the things they were up against , so many of the struggles they were dealing with .


And one of them was that so many of my friends that were teaching in city schools were having trouble with their students keeping up at grade level , in their reading and writing in particular .


Now , so many of these students had come from households where English isn 't spoken in the home , where a lot of them have different special needs , learning disabilities . And of course they 're working in schools which sometimes and very often are under-funded .


And so they would talk to me about this and say , " " You know , what we really need is just more people , more bodies , more one-on-one attention , more hours , more expertise from people that have skills in English and can work with these students one-on-one . " " Now , I would say , " " Well , why don 't you just work with them one-on-one ? " " And they would say , " " Well , we have five classes of 30 to 40 students each .


This can lead up to 150 , 180 , 200 students a day .


How can we possibly give each student even one hour a week of one-on-one attention ? " " You 'd have to greatly multiply the workweek and clone the teachers .


And so we started talking about this .


And at the same time , I thought about this massive group of people I knew : writers , editors , journalists , graduate students , assistant professors , you name it .


All these people that had sort of flexible daily hours and an interest in the English word — I hope to have an interest in the English language , but I 'm not speaking it well right now . ( Laughter ) I 'm trying . That clock has got me .


But everyone that I knew had an interest in the primacy of the written word in terms of nurturing a democracy , nurturing an enlightened life .


And so they had , you know , their time and their interest , but at the same time there wasn 't a conduit that I knew of in my community to bring these two communities together .


So when I moved back to San Francisco , we rented this building .


And the idea was to put McSweeney 's — McSweeney 's Quarterly , that we published twice or three times a year , and a few other magazines — we were going to move it into an office for the first time .


It used to be in my kitchen in Brooklyn .


We were going to move it into an office , and we were going to actually share space with a tutoring center .


So we thought , " " We 'll have all these writers and editors and everybody — sort of a writing community — coming into the office every day anyway , why don 't we just open up the front of the building for students to come in there after school , get extra help on their written homework , so you have basically no border between these two communities ? " " So the idea was that we would be working on whatever we 're working on , at 2 : 30 p.m. the students flow in and you put down what you 're doing , or you trade , or you work a little bit later or whatever it is .


You give those hours in the afternoon to the students in the neighborhood .


So , we had this place , we rented it , the landlord was all for it . We did this mural , that 's a Chris Ware mural , that basically explains the entire history of the printed word , in mural form — it takes a long time to digest and you have to stand in the middle of the road .


So we rented this space .


And everything was great except the landlord said , " " Well , the space is zoned for retail ; you have to come up with something .


You 've gotta sell something .


You can 't just have a tutoring center . " " So we thought , " " Ha ha ! Really ! " " And we couldn 't think of anything necessarily to sell , but we did all the necessary research .


It used to be a weight room , so there were rubber floors below , acoustic tile ceilings and fluorescent lights .


We took all that down , and we found beautiful wooden floors , whitewashed beams and it had the look — while we were renovating this place , somebody said , " You know , it really kind of looks like the hull of a ship . "


And we looked around and somebody else said , " " Well , you should sell supplies to the working buccaneer . " " ( Laughter ) And so this is what we did . So it made everybody laugh , and we said , " " There 's a point to that .


Let 's sell pirate supplies . " " This is the pirate supply store .


You see , this is sort of a sketch I did on a napkin .


A great carpenter built all this stuff and you see , we made it look sort of pirate supply-like .


Here you see planks sold by the foot and we have supplies to combat scurvy .


We have the peg legs there , that are all handmade and fitted to you .


Up at the top , you see the eyepatch display , which is the black column there for everyday use for your eyepatch , and then you have the pastel and other colors for stepping out at night — special occasions , bar mitzvahs and whatever .


So we opened this place . And this is a vat that we fill with treasures that students dig in .


This is replacement eyes in case you lose one .


These are some signs that we have all over the place : " Practical Joking with Pirates . "


While you 're reading the sign , we pull a rope behind the counter and eight mop heads drop on your head .


That was just my one thing — I said we had to have something that drops on people 's heads .


It became mop heads . And this is the fish theater , which is just a saltwater tank with three seats , and then right behind it we set up this space , which was the tutoring center .


So right there is the tutoring center , and then behind the curtain were the McSweeney 's offices , where all of us would be working on the magazine and book editing and things like that .


The kids would come in — or we thought they would come in . I should back up .


We set the place up , we opened up , we spent months and months renovating this place .


We had tables , chairs , computers , everything .


I went to a dot-com auction at a Holiday Inn in Palo Alto and I bought 11 G4s with a stroke of a paddle .


Anyway , we bought ' em , we set everything up and then we waited .


It was started with about 12 of my friends , people that I had known for years that were writers in the neighborhood .


And we sat . And at 2 : 30 p.m. we put a sandwich board out on the front sidewalk and it just said , " " Free Tutoring for Your English-Related and Writing-Related Needs — Just Come In , It 's All Free . " " And we thought , " " Oh , they 're going to storm the gates , they 're gonna love it . " " And they didn 't .


And so we waited , we sat at the tables , we waited and waited .


And everybody was becoming very discouraged because it was weeks and weeks that we waited , really , where nobody came in .


And then somebody alerted us to the fact that maybe there was a trust gap , because we were operating behind a pirate supply store . ( Laughter ) We never put it together , you know ?


And so then , around that time , I persuaded a woman named Nineveh Caligari , a longtime San Francisco educator — she was teaching in Mexico City , she had all the experience necessary , knew everything about education , was connected with all the teachers and community members in the neighborhood — I convinced her to move up from Mexico City where she was teaching .


She took over as executive director .


Immediately , she made the inroads with the teachers and the parents and the students and everything , and so suddenly it was actually full every day .


And what we were trying to offer every day was one-on-one attention .


The goal was to have a one-to-one ratio with every one of these students .


You know , it 's been proven that 35 to 40 hours a year with one-on-one attention , a student can get one grade level higher .


And so most of these students , English is not spoken in the home .


They come there , many times their parents — you can 't see it , but there 's a church pew that I bought in a Berkeley auction right there — the parents will sometimes watch while their kids are being tutored .


So that was the basis of it , was one-on-one attention .


And we found ourselves full every day with kids .


If you 're on Valencia Street within those few blocks at around 2 p.m. , 2 : 30 p.m. , you will get run over , often , by the kids and their big backpacks , or whatever , actually running to this space , which is very strange , because it 's school , in a way .


But there was something psychological happening there that was just a little bit different .


And the other thing was , there was no stigma .


Kids weren 't going into the " " Center-for-Kids-That-Need-More-Help , " " or something like that . It was 826 Valencia .


First of all , it was a pirate supply store , which is insane .


And then secondly , there 's a publishing company in the back .


And so our interns were actually working at the same tables very often , and shoulder-to-shoulder , computer-next-to-computer with the students .


And so it became a tutoring center — publishing center , is what we called it — and a writing center .


They go in , and they might be working with a high school student actually working on a novel — because we had very gifted kids , too .


So there 's no stigma .


They 're all working next to each other . It 's all a creative endeavor .


They 're seeing adults . They 're modeling their behavior .


These adults , they 're working in their field .


They can lean over , ask a question of one of these adults and it all sort of feeds on each other .


There 's a lot of cross-pollination . The only problem , especially for the adults working at McSweeney 's who hadn 't necessarily bought into all of this when they signed up , was that there was just the one bathroom . ( Laughter ) With like 60 kids a day , this is a problem .


But you know , there 's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day , working one-on-one , getting all this attention — they go home , they 're finished . They don 't stall .


They don 't do their homework in front of the TV .


They 're allowed to go home at 5 : 30 p.m. , enjoy their family , enjoy other hobbies , get outside , play .


And that makes a happy family .


A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community .


A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world .


So the key to it all is homework ! ( Laughter ) ( Applause ) There you have it , you know — one-on-one attention .


So we started off with about 12 volunteers , and then we had about 50 , and then a couple hundred .


And we now have 1,400 volunteers on our roster .


And we make it incredibly easy to volunteer .


The key thing is , even if you only have a couple of hours a month , those two hours shoulder-to-shoulder , next to one student , concentrated attention , shining this beam of light on their work , on their thoughts and their self-expression , is going to be absolutely transformative , because so many of the students have not had that ever before .


So we said , " " Even if you have two hours one Sunday every six months , it doesn 't matter . That 's going to be enough . " " So that 's partly why the tutor corps grew so fast .


Then we said , " " Well , what are we going to do with the space during the day , because it has to be used before 2 : 30 p.m. ? " " So we started bringing in classes during the day .


So every day , there 's a field trip where they together create a book — you can see it being typed up above .


This is one of the classes getting way too excited about writing .


You just point a camera at a class , and it always looks like this .


So this is one of the books that they do .


Notice the title of the book , " The Book That Was Never Checked Out : Titanic . "


And the first line of that book is , " " Once there was a book named Cindy that was about the Titanic . " " So , meanwhile , there 's an adult in the back typing this up , taking it completely seriously , which blows their mind .


So then we still had more tutors to use .


This is a shot of just some of the tutors during one of the events .


The teachers that we work with — and everything is different to teachers — they tell us what to do .


We went in there thinking , " " We 're ultimately , completely malleable . You 're going to tell us .


The neighborhood 's going to tell us , the parents are going to tell us .


The teachers are going to tell us how we 're most useful . " " So then they said , " " Why don 't you come into the schools ?


Because what about the students that wouldn 't come to you , necessarily , who don 't have really active parents that are bringing them in , or aren 't close enough ? " " So then we started saying , " " Well , we 've got 1,400 people on our tutor roster .


Let 's just put out the word . " " A teacher will say , " " I need 12 tutors for the next five Sundays .


We 're working on our college essays . Send them in . " " So we put that out on the wire : 1,400 tutors .


Whoever can make it signs up . They go in about a half an hour before the class .


The teacher tells them what to do , how to do it , what their training is , what their project is so far .


They work under the teacher 's guide , and it 's all in one big room .


And that 's actually the brunt of what we do is , people going straight from their workplace , straight from home , straight into the classroom and working directly with the students .


So then we 're able to work with thousands and thousands of more students .


Then another school said , " " Well , what if we just give you a classroom and you can staff it all day ? " " So this is the Everett Middle School Writers ' Room , where we decorated it in buccaneer style .


It 's right off the library . And there we serve all 529 kids in this middle school .


This is their newspaper , the " " Straight-Up News , " " that has an ongoing column from Mayor Gavin Newsom in both languages — English and Spanish .


So then one day Isabel Allende wrote to us and said , " " Hey , why don 't you assign a book with high school students ?


I want them to write about how to achieve peace in a violent world . " " And so we went into Thurgood Marshall High School , which is a school that we had worked with on some other things , and we gave that assignment to the students .


And we said , " " Isabel Allende is going to read all your essays at the end .


She 's going to publish them in a book .


She 's going to sponsor the printing of this book in paperback form .


It 's going to be available in all the bookstores in the Bay Area and throughout the world , on Amazon and you name it . " " So these kids worked harder than they 've ever worked on anything in their lives , because there was that outside audience , there was Isabel Allende on the other end .


I think we had about 170 tutors that worked on this book with them and so this worked out incredibly well .


We had a big party at the end .


This is a book that you can find anywhere . So that led to a series of these .


You can see Amy Tan sponsored the next one , " I Might Get Somewhere . "


And this became an ongoing thing . More and more books .


Now we 're sort of addicted to the book thing .


The kids will work harder than they 've ever worked in their life if they know it 's going to be permanent , know it 's going to be on a shelf , know that nobody can diminish what they 've thought and said , that we 've honored their words , honored their thoughts with hundreds of hours of five drafts , six drafts — all this attention that we give to their thoughts .


And once they achieve that level , once they 've written at that level , they can never go back .


It 's absolutely transformative .


And so then they 're all sold in the store . This is near the planks .


We sell all the student books .


Where else would you put them , right ?


So we sell ' em , and then something weird had been happening with the stores . The store , actually — even though we started out as just a gag — the store actually made money .


So it was paying the rent .


And maybe this is just a San Francisco thing — I don 't know , I don 't want to judge .


But people would come in — and this was before the pirate movies and everything !


It was making a lot of money . Not a lot of money , but it was paying the rent , paying a full-time staff member there .


There 's the ocean maps you can see on the left .


And it became a gateway to the community .


People would come in and say , " " What the — ?


What is this ? " " I don 't want to swear on the web . ( Laughter ) Is that a rule ? I don 't know .


They would say , " " What is this ? " " And people would come in and learn more about it .


And then right beyond — there 's usually a little chain there — right beyond , they would see the kids being tutored .


This is a field trip going on . And so they would be shopping , and they might be more likely to buy some lard , or millet for their parrot , or , you know , a hook , or hook protector for nighttime , all of these things we sell .


So the store actually did really well .


But it brought in so many people — teachers , donors , volunteers , everybody — because it was street level . It was open to the public .


It wasn 't a non-profit buried , you know , on the 30th floor of some building downtown . It was right in the neighborhood that it was serving , and it was open all the time to the public .


So , it became this sort of weird , happy accident .


So all the people I used to know in Brooklyn , they said , " Well , why don 't we have a place like that here ? "


And a lot of them had been former educators or would-be educators , so they combined with a lot of local designers , local writers , and they just took the idea independently and they did their own thing .


They didn 't want to sell pirate supplies .


They didn 't think that that was going to work there .


So , knowing the crime-fighting community in New York , they opened the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company .


This is Sam Potts ' great design that did this .


And this was to make it look sort of like one of those keysmith 's shops that has to have every service they 've ever offered , you know , all over there .


So they opened this place . Inside , it 's like a Costco for superheroes — all the supplies in kind of basic form .


These are all handmade .


These are all sort of repurposed other products , or whatever .


All the packaging is done by Sam Potts .


So then you have the villain containment unit , where kids put their parents . You have the office .


This is a little vault — you have to put your product in there , it goes up an electric lift and then the guy behind the counter tells you that you have to recite the vow of heroism , which you do , if you want to buy anything . And it limits , really , their sales .


Personally , I think it 's a problem .


Because they have to do it hand on heart and everything .


These are some of the products . These are all handmade .


This is a secret identity kit .


If you want to take on the identity of Sharon Boone , one American female marketing executive from Hoboken , New Jersey . It 's a full dossier on everything you would need to know about Sharon Boone .


So , this is the capery where you get fitted for your cape , and then you walk up these three steel-graded steps and then we turn on three hydraulic fans from every side and then you can see the cape in action .


There 's nothing worse than , you know , getting up there and the cape is bunching up or something like that .


So then , the secret door — this is one of the shelves you don 't see when you walk in , but it slowly opens .


You can see it there in the middle next to all the grappling hooks .


It opens and then this is the tutoring center in the back . ( Applause ) So you can see the full effect !


But this is — I just want to emphasize — locally funded , locally built .


All the designers , all of the builders , everybody was local , all the time was pro-bono .


I just came and visited and said , " " Yes , you guys are doing great , " " or whatever . That was it . You can see the time in all five boroughs of New York in the back . ( Laughter ) ( Applause ) So this is the space during tutoring hours .


It 's very busy . Same principles : one-on-one attention , complete devotion to the students ' work and a boundless optimism and sort of a possibility of creativity and ideas .


And this switch is flicked in their heads when they walk through those 18 feet of this bizarre store , right ?


So it 's school , but it 's not school .


It 's clearly not school , even though they 're working shoulder-to-shoulder on tables , pencils and papers , whatever .


This is one of the students , Khaled Hamdan .


You can read this quote .


Addicted to video games and TV . Couldn 't concentrate at home .


Came in . Got this concentrated attention .


And he couldn 't escape it .


So , soon enough , he was writing . He would finish his homework early — got really addicted to finishing his homework early .


It 's an addictive thing to sort of be done with it , and to have it checked , and to know he 's going to achieve the next thing and be prepared for school the next day .


So he got hooked on that , and then he started doing other things .


He 's now been published in five books .


He co-wrote a mockumentary about failed superheroes called " " Super-Has-Beens . " " He wrote a series on " " Penguin Balboa , " " which is a fighting — a boxing — penguin .


And then he read aloud just a few weeks ago to 500 people at Symphony Space , at a benefit for 826 New York . So he 's there every day .


He 's evangelical about it . He brings his cousins in now .


There 's four family members that come in every day .


So , I 'll go through really quickly .


This is L.A. , The Echo Park Time Travel Mart : " " Whenever You Are , We 're Already Then . " " ( Laughter ) This is sort of a 7-Eleven for time travelers .


So you see everything : it 's exactly as a 7-Eleven would be .


Leeches . Mammoth chunks . They even have their own Slurpee machine : " " Out of Order . Come Back Yesterday . " " ( Laughter ) ( Applause ) Anyway . So I 'm going to jump ahead .


These are spaces that are only affiliated with us , doing this same thing : Word St. in Pittsfield , Massachusetts ; Ink Spot in Cincinnati ; Youth Speaks , San Francisco , California , which inspired us ; Studio St. Louis in St. Louis ; Austin Bat Cave in Austin ; Fighting Words in Dublin , Ireland , started by Roddy Doyle , this will be open in April .


Now I 'm going to the TED Wish — is that okay ?


All right , I 've got a minute . So , the TED Wish : I wish that you — you personally and every creative individual and organization you know — will find a way to directly engage with a public school in your area and that you 'll then tell the story of how you got involved , so that within a year we have a thousand examples — a thousand ! — of transformative partnerships .


Profound leaps forward !


And these can be things that maybe you 're already doing .


I know that so many people in this room are already doing really interesting things .


I know that for a fact . So , tell us these stories and inspire others on the website .


We created a website .


I 'm going to switch to " " we , " " and not " " I , " " hope : We hope that the attendees of this conference will usher in a new era of participation in our public schools .


We hope that you will take the lead in partnering your innovative spirit and expertise with that of innovative educators in your community .


Always let the teachers lead the way .


They will tell you how to be useful . I hope that you 'll step in and help out .


There are a million ways .


You can walk up to your local school and consult with the teachers . They 'll always tell you how to help .


So , this is with Hot Studio in San Francisco , they did this phenomenal job .


This website is already up , it 's already got a bunch of stories , a lot of ideas . It 's called " " Once Upon a School , " " which is a great title , I think .


This site will document every story , every project that comes out of this conference and around the world . So you go to the website , you see a bunch of ideas you can be inspired by and then you add your own projects once you get started .


Hot Studio did a great job in a very tight deadline . So , visit the site .


If you have any questions , you can ask this guy , who 's our director of national programs . He 'll be on the phone .


You email him , he 'll answer any question you possibly want .


And he 'll get you inspired and get you going and guide you through the process so that you can affect change .


And it can be fun ! That 's the point of this talk — it needn 't be sterile . It needn 't be bureaucratically untenable .


You can do and use the skills that you have .


The schools need you . The teachers need you .


Students and parents need you . They need your actual person : your physical personhood and your open minds and open ears and boundless compassion , sitting next to them , listening and nodding and asking questions for hours at a time .


Some of these kids just don 't plain know how good they are : how smart and how much they have to say .


You can tell them . You can shine that light on them , one human interaction at a time . So we hope you 'll join us .


Thank you so much .


( Music ) ( Applause ) Thank you for being here .


And I say " " thank you for being here " " because I was silent for 17 years .


And the first words that I spoke were in Washington , D.C. , on the 20th anniversary of Earth Day .


And my family and friends had gathered there to hear me speak .


And I said , " " Thank you for being here . " " My mother , out in the audience , she jumped up , " Hallelujah , Johnny ’ s talking ! "


( Laughter ) Imagine if you were quiet for 17 years and your mother was out in the audience , say .


My dad said to me , " " That ’ s one " " — I ’ ll explain that .


But I turned around because I didn ’ t recognize where my voice was coming from .


I hadn ’ t heard my voice in 17 years , so I turned around and I looked and I said , " God , who 's saying what I ’ m thinking ? "


And then I realized it was me , you know , and I kind of laughed .


And I could see my father : " " Yeah , he really is crazy . " " Well , I want to take you on this journey .


And the journey , I believe , is a metaphor for all of our journeys .


Even though this one is kind of unusual , I want you to think about your own journey .


My journey began in 1971 when I witnessed two oil tankers collide beneath the Golden Gate , and a half a million gallons of oil spilled into the bay .


It disturbed me so much that I decided that I was going to give up riding and driving in motorized vehicles .


That ’ s a big thing in California .


And it was a big thing in my little community of Point Reyes Station in Inverness , California , because there were only about 350 people there in the winter – this was back in ' 71 now .


And so when I came in and I started walking around , people — they just knew what was going on .


And people would drive up next to me and say , " " John , what are you doing ? " " And I ’ d say , " " Well , I ’ m walking for the environment . " " And they said , " " No , you ’ re walking to make us look bad , right ?


You ’ re walking to make us feel bad . " " And maybe there was some truth to that , because I thought that if I started walking , everyone would follow .


Because of the oil , everybody talked about the polllution .


And so I argued with people about that , I argued and I argued .


I called my parents up .


I said , " " I ’ ve given up riding and driving in cars . " " My dad said , " " Why didn ’ t you do that when you were 16 ? " " ( Laughter ) I didn ’ t know about the environment then .


They ’ re back in Philadelphia .


And so I told my mother , " " I ’ m happy though , I ’ m really happy . " " She said , " " If you were happy , son , you wouldn ’ t have to say it . " " Mothers are like that .


And so , on my 27th birthday I decided , because I argued so much and I talk so much , that I was going to stop speaking for just one day — one day — to give it a rest .


And so I did .


I got up in the morning and I didn ’ t say a word .


And I have to tell you , it was a very moving experience , because for the first time , I began listening — in a long time .


And what I heard , it kind of disturbed me .


Because what I used to do , when I thought I was listening , was I would listen just enough to hear what people had to say and think that I could — I knew what they were going to say , and so I stopped listening .


And in my mind , I just kind of raced ahead and thought of what I was going to say back , while they were still finishing up .


And then I would launch in .


Well , that just ended communication .


So on this first day I actually listened .


And it was very sad for me , because I realized that for those many years I had not been learning .


I was 27 . I thought I knew everything .


I didn ’ t .


And so I decided I ’ d better do this for another day , and another day , and another day until finally , I promised myself for a year I would keep quiet because I started learning more and more and I needed to learn more .


So for a year I said I would keep quiet , and then on my birthday I would reassess what I had learned and maybe I would talk again .


Well , that lasted 17 years .


Now during that time — those 17 years — I walked and I played the banjo and I painted and I wrote in my journal , and I tried to study the environment by reading books .


And I decided that I was going to go to school . So I did .


I walked up to Ashland , Oregon , where they were offering an environmental studies degree .


It ’ s only 500 miles .


And I went into the Registrar ’ s office and — " What , what , what ? "


I had a newspaper clipping .


" " Oh , so you really want to go to school here ?


You don ’ t … ?


We have a special program for you . " " They did .


And in those two years , I graduated with my first degree — a bachelor ’ s degree .


And my father came out , he was so proud .


He said , " " Listen , we ’ re really proud of you son , but what are you going to do with a bachelor ’ s degree ?


You don ’ t ride in cars , you don ’ t talk — you ’ re going to have to do those things . " " ( Laughter ) I hunched my shoulder , I picked my backpack up again and I started walking .


I walked all the way up to Port Townsend , Washington , where I built a wooden boat , rode it across Puget Sound and walked across Washington [ to ] Idaho and down to Missoula , Montana .


I had written the University of Montana two years earlier and said I 'd like to go to school there .


I said I 'd be there in about two years .


( Laughter ) And I was there . I showed up in two years and they — I tell this story because they really helped me .


There are two stories in Montana .


The first story is I didn ’ t have any money — that ’ s a sign I used a lot .


And they said , " " Don 't worry about that . " " The director of the program said , " " Come back tomorrow . " " He gave me 150 dollars , and he said , " " Register for one credit .


You ’ re going to go to South America , aren ’ t you ? " " And I said — Rivers and lakes , the hydrological systems , South America .


So I did that .


He came back ; he said to me , " " OK John , now that you 've registered for that one credit , you can have a key to an office , you can matriculate — you ’ re matriculating , so you can use the library .


And what we ’ re going to do is , we ’ re going to have all of the professors allow you to go to class .


They ’ re going to save your grade , and when we figure out how to get you the rest of the money , then you can register for that class and they ’ ll give you the grade . " " Wow , they don ’ t do that in graduate schools , I don ’ t think .


But I use that story because they really wanted to help me .


They saw that I was really interested in the environment , and they really wanted to help me along the way .


And during that time , I actually taught classes without speaking .


I had 13 students when I first walked into the class .


I explained , with a friend who could interpret my sign language , that I was John Francis , I was walking around the world , I didn ’ t talk and this was the last time this person ’ s going to be here interpreting for me .


All the students sat around and they went ...


( Laughter ) I could see they were looking for the schedule , to see when they could get out .


They had to take that class with me .


Two weeks later , everyone was trying to get into our class .


And I learned in that class — because I would do things like this ...


and they were all gathered around , going , " " What 's he trying to say ? " " " I don 't know , I think he 's talking about clear cutting . " " Yeah , clear cutting . "


" No , no , no , that 's not clear cutting , that ’ s — he 's using a handsaw . "


" Well , you can ’ t clearcut with a ... "


" Yes , you can clear cut ... "


" No , I think he ’ s talking about selective forestry . "


Now this was a discussion class and we were having a discussion .


I just backed out of that , you know , and I just kind of kept the fists from flying .


But what I learned was that sometimes I would make a sign and they said things that I absolutely did not mean , but I should have .


And so what came to me is , if you were a teacher and you were teaching , if you weren ’ t learning you probably weren ’ t teaching very well .


And so I went on .


My dad came out to see me graduate and , you know , I did the deal , and my father said , " " We ’ re really proud of you son , but ... " " You know what went on , he said , " " You ’ ve got to start riding and driving and start talking .


What are you going to do with a master ’ s degree ? " " I hunched my shoulder , I got my backpack and I went on to the University of Wisconsin .


I spent two years there writing on oil spills .


No one was interested in oil spills .


But something happened — Exxon Valdez .


And I was the only one in the United States writing on oil spills .


My dad came out again .


He said , " " I don 't know how you do this , son — I mean , you don 't ride in cars , you don ’ t talk .


My sister said maybe I should leave you alone , because you seem to be doing a lot better when you ’ re not saying anything . " " ( Laughter ) Well , I put on my backpack again .


I put my banjo on and I walked all the way to the East Coast , put my foot in the Atlantic Ocean — it was seven years and one day it took me to walk across the United States .


And on Earth Day , 1990 — the 20th anniversary of Earth Day — that ’ s when I began to speak .


And that ’ s why I said , " " Thank you for being here . " " Because it 's sort of like that tree in the forest falling ; and if there 's no one there to hear , does it really make a sound ?


And I ’ m thanking you , and I 'm thanking my family because they had come to hear me speak .


And that ’ s communication .


And they also taught me about listening — that they listened to me .


And it ’ s one of those things that came out of the silence , the listening to each other .


Really , very important — we need to listen to each other .


Well , my journey kept going on .


My dad said , " " That ’ s one , " " and I still didn ’ t let that go .


I worked for the Coastguard , was made a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador .


I wrote regulations for the United States — I mean , I wrote oil spill regulations .


20 years ago , if someone had said to me , " John , do you really want to make a difference ? "


" Yeah , I want to make a difference . "


He said , " " You just start walking east ; get out of your car and just start walking east . " " And as I walked off a little bit , they 'd say , " " Yeah , and shut up , too . " " ( Laughter ) " You ’ re going to make a difference , buddy . "


How could that be , how could that be ?


How could doing such a simple thing like walking and not talking make a difference ?


Well , my time at the Coast Guard was a really good time .


And after that — I only worked one year — I said , " " That 's enough . One year 's enough for me to do that . " " I got on a sailboat and I sailed down to the Caribbean , and walked through all of the islands , and to Venezuela .


And you know , I forgot the most important thing , which is why I started talking , which I have to tell you .


I started talking because I had studied environment .


I ’ d studied environment at this formal level , but there was this informal level .


And the informal level — I learned about people , and what we do and how we are .


And environment changed from just being about trees and birds and endangered species to being about how we treated each other .


Because if we are the environment , then all we need to do is look around us and see how we treat ourselves and how we treat each other .


And so that ’ s the message that I had .


And I said , " " Well , I 'm going to have to spread that message . " " And I got in my sailboat , sailed all the way through the Caribbean — it wasn 't really my sailboat , I kind of worked on that boat — got to Venezuela and I started walking .


This is the last part of this story , because it ’ s how I got here , because I still didn 't ride in motorized vehicles .


I was walking through El Dorado — it 's a prison town , famous prison , or infamous prison — in Venezuela , and I don ’ t know what possessed me , because this was not like me .


There I am , walking past the guard gate and the guard stops and says , " " Pasaporte , pasaporte , " " and with an M16 pointed at me .


And I looked at him and I said , " " Passport , huh ?


I don 't need to show you my passport . It ’ s in the back of my pack .


I 'm Dr. Francis ; I 'm a U.N. Ambassador and I 'm walking around the world . " " And I started walking off .


What possessed me to say this thing ?


The road turned into the jungle .


I didn ’ t get shot .


And I got to — I start saying , " " Free at last — thank God Almighty , I ’ m free at last . " " " " What was that about , " " I ’ m saying . What was that about ?


It took me 100 miles to figure out that , in my heart , in me , I had become a prisoner .


I was a prisoner and I needed to escape .


The prison that I was in was the fact that I did not drive or use motorized vehicles .


Now how could that be ?


Because when I started , it seemed very appropriate to me not to use motorized vehicles .


But the thing that was different was that every birthday , I asked myself about silence , but I never asked myself about my decision to just use my feet .


I had no idea I was going to become a U.N. Ambassador .


I had no idea I would have a Ph.D.


And so I realized that I had a responsibility to more than just me , and that I was going to have to change .


You know , we can do it .


I was going to have to change .


And I was afraid to change , because I was so used to the guy who only just walked .


I was so used to that person that I didn ’ t want to stop .


I didn ’ t know who I would be if I changed .


But I know I needed to .


I know I needed to change , because it would be the only way that I could be here today .


And I know that a lot of times we find ourselves in this wonderful place where we ’ ve gotten to , but there ’ s another place for us to go .


And we kind of have to leave behind the security of who we ’ ve become , and go to the place of who we are becoming .


And so , I want to encourage you to go to that next place , to let yourself out of any prison that you might find yourself in , as comfortable as it may be , because we have to do something now .


We have to change now .


As our former Vice President said , we have to become activists .


So if my voice can touch you , if my actions can touch you , if my being here can touch you , please let it be .


And I know that all of you have touched me while I ’ ve been here .


So , let ’ s go out into the world and take this caring , this love , this respect that we ’ ve shown each other right here at TED , and take this out into the world .


Because we are the environment , and how we treat each other is really how we ’ re going to treat the environment .


So I want to thank you for being here and I want to end this in five seconds of silence .


Thank you .


( Applause )


So , what I 'm going to do is just give you the latest episode of India 's — maybe the world 's — longest running soap opera , which is cricket .


And may it run forever , because it gives people like me a living .


It 's got everything that you 'd want a normal soap opera to want : It 's got love , joy , happiness , sadness , tears , laughter , lots of deceit , intrigue .


And like all good soaps , it jumps 20 years when the audience interest changes .


And that 's exactly what cricket has done .


It 's jumped 20 years into 20-over game .


And that 's what I 'm going to talk about , how a small change leads to a very big revolution .


But it wasn 't always like that .


Cricket wasn 't always this speed-driven generations game .


There was a time when you played cricket , you played timeless test matches , when you played on till the game got over .


And there was this game in March 1939 that started on the third of March and ended on the 14th of March .


And it only ended because the English cricketers had to go from Durban to Cape Town , which is a two-hour train journey , to catch the ship that left on the 17th , because the next ship wasn 't around for a long time .


So , the match was ended in between .


And one of the English batsmen said , " " You know what ?


Another half an hour and we would have won . " " ( Laughter ) Another half an hour after 12 days .


There were two Sundays in between . But of course , Sundays are church days , so you don 't play on Sundays . And one day it rained , so they all sat around making friends with each other .


But there is a reason why India fell in love with cricket : because we had about the same pace of life .


( Laughter ) The Mahabharata was like that as well , wasn 't it ?


You fought by day , then it was sunset , so everyone went back home .


And then you worked out your strategy , and you came and fought the next day , and you went back home again .


The only difference between the Mahabharata and our cricket was that in cricket , everybody was alive to come back and fight the next day .


Princes patronize the game , not because they love the game , but because it was a means of ingratiating themselves to the British rulers .


But there is one other reason why India fell in love with cricket , which was , all you needed was a plank of wood and a rubber ball , and any number of people could play it anywhere .


Take a look : You could play it in the dump with some rocks over there , you could play it in a little alley — you couldn 't hit square anywhere , because the bat hit the wall ; don 't forget the air conditioning and the cable wires .


( Laughter ) You could play it on the banks of the Ganges — that 's as clean as the Ganges has been for a long time .


Or you could play many games in one small patch of land , even if you didn 't know which game you were actually in .


( Laughter ) As you can see , you can play anywhere .


But slowly the game moved on , you know , finally .


You don 't always have five days . So , we moved on , and we started playing 50-over cricket .


And then an enormous accident took place .


In Indian sport we don 't make things happen , accidents happen and we 're in the right place at the right time , sometimes .


And we won this World Cup in 1983 .


And suddenly we fell in love with the 50-over game , and we played it virtually every day .


There was more 50-over cricket than anywhere .


But there was another big date .


1983 was when we won the World Cup .


1991 , ' 92 , we found a finance minister and a prime minister willing to let the world look at India , rather than be this great country of intrigue and mystery in this closed country .


And so we allowed multinationals into India .


We cut customs duties , we reduced import duties , and we got all the multinationals coming in , with multinational budgets , who looked at per-capita income and got very excited about the possibilities in India , and were looking for a vehicle to reach every Indian .


And there are only two vehicles in India — one real , one scripted .


The scripted one is what you see in the movies , the real one was cricket .


And so one of my friends sitting right here in front of me , Ravi Dhariwal from Pepsi , decided he 's going to take it all over the world .


And Pepsi was this big revolution , because they started taking cricket all over .


And so cricket started becoming big ; cricket started bringing riches in .


Television started covering cricket . For a long time television said , " " We won 't cover cricket unless you pay us to cover it . " " Then they said , " " OK , the next rights are sold for 55 million dollars .


The next rights are sold for 612 million dollars . " " So , it 's a bit of a curve , that .


And then another big accident happened in our cricket .


England invented 20 overs cricket , and said , " " The world must play 20 overs cricket . " " Just as England invented cricket , and made the rest of the world play it .


Thank God for them .


( Laughter ) And so , India had to go and play the T20 World Cup , you see .


India didn 't want to play the T20 World Cup .


But we were forced to play it by an 8-1 margin .


And then something very dramatic happened .


We got to the final , and then this moment , that will remain enshrined forever , for everybody , take a look .


( Crowd cheering ) The Pakistani batsman trying to clear the fielder .


Announcer : And Zishan takes it ! India wins !


What a match for a Twenty20 final .


India , the world champions .


( Cheering ) India , T20 champions .


But what a game we had , M. S. Dhoni got it right in the air , but Misbah-ul-Haq , what a player .


A massive , massive success : India , the world TT champions .


Harsha Bhogle : Suddenly India discovered this power of 20-overs cricket .


The accident , of course , there , was that the batsman thought the bowler was bowling fast .


( Laughter ) If he had bowled fast , the ball would have gone where it was meant to go , but it didn 't go . And we suddenly discovered that we could be good at this game .


And what it also did was it led to a certain pride in the fact that India could be the best in the world .


It was at a time when investment was coming in , India was feeling a little more confident about itself .


And so there was a feeling that there was great pride in what we can do .


And thankfully for all of us , the English are very good at inventing things , and then the gracious people that they are , they let the world become very good at it .


( Laughter ) And so England invented T20 cricket , and allowed India to hijack it .


It was not like reengineering that we do in medicine , we just took it straight away , as is .


( Laughter ) And so , we launched our own T20 league .


Six weeks , city versus city .


It was a new thing for us . We had only ever supported our country — the only two areas in which India was very proud about their country , representing itself on the field .


One was war , the Indian army , which we don 't like to happen very often .


The other was Indian cricket .


Now , suddenly we had to support city leagues .


But the people getting into these city leagues were people who were taking their cues from the West .


America is a home of leagues . And they said , " Right , we 'll build some glitzy leagues here in India . "


But was India ready for it ?


Because cricket , for a long time in India was always organized .


It was never promoted , it was never sold — it was organized .


And look what they did with our beautiful , nice , simple family game .


All of a sudden , you had that happening .


( Music ) An opening ceremony to match every other .


This was an India that was buying Corvettes . This was an India that was buying Jaguar .


This was an India that was adding more mobile phones per month than New Zealand 's population twice over .


So , it was a different India .


But it was also a slightly more orthodox India that was very happy to be modern , but didn 't want to say that to people .


And so , they were aghast when the cheerleaders arrived .


Everyone secretly watched them , but everyone claimed not to .


( Music ) ( Laughter ) The new owners of Indian cricket were not the old princes .


They were not bureaucrats who were forced into sport because they didn 't actually love it ; these were people who ran serious companies .


And so they started promoting cricket big time , started promoting clubs big time .


And they 've started promoting them with huge money behind it .


I mean the IPL had 2.3 billion dollars before a ball was bowled , 1.6 billion dollars for television revenue over 10 years , and another 70 million dollars plus from all these franchises that were putting in money . And then they had to appeal to their cities , but they had to do it like the West , right ? Because we are setting up leagues .


But what they were very good at doing was making it very localized .


So , just to give you an example of how they did it — not Manchester United style promotion , but very Mumbai style promotion . Take a look .


( Music ) Of course , a lot of people said , " " Maybe they dance better than they play . " " ( Laughter ) But that 's all right . What it did also is it changed the way we looked at cricket .


All along , if you wanted a young cricketer , you picked him up from the bylanes of your own little locality , your own city , and you were very proud of the system that produced those cricketers .


Now , all of the sudden , if you were to bowl a shot — if Mumbai were to bowl a shot , for example , they needn 't go to Kalbadevi or Shivaji Park or somewhere to source them , they could go to Trinidad .


This was the new India , wasn 't it ? This was the new world , where you can source from anywhere as long as you get the best product at the best price .


And all of a sudden , Indian sport had awakened to the reality that you can source the best product for the best price anywhere in the world .


So , the Mumbai Indians flew in Dwayne Bravo from Trinidad and Tobago , overnight . And when he had to go back to represent the West Indies , they asked him , " " When do you have to reach ? " " He said , " " I have to be there by a certain time , so I have to leave today . " " We said , " " No , no , no . It 's not about when you have to leave ; it 's about when do you have to reach there ? " " And so he said , " " I 've got to reach on date X. " " And they said , " " Fine , you play to date X , minus one . " " So , he played in Hyderabad , went , straight after the game ,


went from the stadium to Hyderabad airport , sat in a private corporate jet — first refueling in Portugal , second refueling in Brazil ; he was in West Indies in time .


( Laughter ) Never would India have thought on this scale before .


Never would India have said , " " I want a player to play one game for me , and I will use a corporate jet to send him all the way back to Kingston , Jamaica to play a game . " " And I just thought to myself , " " Wow , we 've arrived somewhere in the world , you know ?


We have arrived somewhere . We are thinking big . " " But what this also did was it started marrying the two most important things in Indian cricket , which is cricket and the movies in Indian entertainment .


There is cricket and the movies .


And they came together because people in the movies now started owning clubs .


And so , people started going to the cricket to watch Preity Zinta .


They started going to the cricket to watch Shah Rukh Khan .


And something very interesting happened .


We started getting song and dance in Indian cricket .


And so it started resembling the Indian movies more and more .


And of course , if you were on Preity Zinta 's team — as you will see on the clip that follows — if you did well , you got a hug from Preity Zinta .


So that was the ultimate reason to do well . Take a look — everyone 's watching Preity Zinta .


( Music ) And then of course there was Shah Rukh playing the Kolkata crowd .


We 'd all seen matches in Kolkata , but we 'd never seen anything like this : Shah Rukh , with the Bengali song , getting the audiences all worked up for Kolkata — not for India , but for Kolkata .


But take a look at this .


( Music ) An Indian film star hugging a Pakistani cricketer because they 'd won in Kolkata .


Can you imagine ?


And do you know what the Pakistani cricketer said ?


( Applause ) " I wish I was playing for Preity Zinta 's team . "


( Laughter ) But I thought I 'd take this opportunity — there 's a few people from Pakistan in here .


I 'm so happy that you 're here because I think we can show that we can both be together and be friends , right ?


We can play cricket together , we can be friends .


So thank you very much for coming , all of you from Pakistan .


( Applause ) There was criticism too because they said , " " Players are being bought and sold ?


Are they grain ?


Are they cattle ? " " Because we had this auction , you see .


How do you fix a price for a player ?


And so the auction that followed literally had people saying , " Bang ! so many million dollars for so-and-so player . "


There it is .


( Music ) Auctioneer : Going at 1,500,000 dollars . Chennai .


Shane Warne sold for 450,000 dollars .


HB : Suddenly , a game which earned its players 50 rupees a day — so 250 rupees for a test match , but if you finish in four days you only got 200 .


The best Indian players who played every test match — every one of the internationals , the top of the line players — standard contracts are 220,000 dollars in a whole year .


Now they were getting 500,000 for six days ' work .


Then Andrew Flintoff came by from England , he got one and a half million dollars , and he went back and said , " " For four weeks , I 'm earning more than Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard , and I 'm earning more than the footballers , wow . " " And where was he earning it from ? From a little club in India .


Could you have imagined that day would come ?


One and a half million dollars for six weeks ' work .


That 's not bad , is it ?


So , at 2.3 billion dollars before the first ball was bowled .


What India was doing , though , was benchmarking itself against the best in the world , and it became a huge brand .


Lalit Modi was on the cover of Business Today .


IPL became the biggest brand in India and , because our elections , had to be moved to South Africa , and we had to start the tournament in three weeks .


Move a whole tournament to South Africa in three weeks .


But we did it . You know why ?


Because no country works as slowly as we do till three weeks before an event , and nobody works fast as we do in the last three weeks .


( Applause ) Our population , which for a long time we thought was a problem , suddenly became our biggest asset because there were more people watching — the huge consuming class — everybody came to watch the cricket .


We 'd also made cricket the only sport in India , which is a pity , but in India every other sport pushes cricket to become big , which is a bit of a tragedy of our times .


Now , this last minute before I go — there 's a couple of side effects of all this .


For a long time , India was this country of poverty , dust , beggars , snake charmers , filth , Delhi belly — people heard Delhi belly stories before they came .


And , all of a sudden , India was this land of opportunity .


Cricketers all over the world said , " You know , we love India . We love to play in India . "


And that felt good , you know ?


We said , " " The dollar 's quite powerful actually . " " Can you imagine , you 've got the dollar on view and there 's no Delhi belly in there anymore .


There 's no filth , there 's no beggars , all the snake charmers have vanished , everybody 's gone . This tells you how the capitalist world rules .


Right so , finally , an English game that India usurped a little bit , but T20 is going to be the next missionary in the world .


If you want to take the game around the world , it 's got to be the shortest form of the game .


You can 't take a timeless test to China and sit through 14 days with no result in the end , or you can 't take it all over the world .


So that 's what T20 is doing .


Hopefully , it 'll make everyone richer , hopefully it 'll make the game bigger and hopefully it 'll give cricket commentators more time in the business .


Thank you very much . Thank you .


( Applause )


So , imagine you 're standing on a street anywhere in America and a Japanese man comes up to you and says , " Excuse me , what is the name of this block ? "


And you say , " " I 'm sorry , well , this is Oak Street , that 's Elm Street .


This is 26th , that 's 27th . " " He says , " " OK , but what is the name of that block ? " " You say , " " Well , blocks don 't have names .


Streets have names ; blocks are just the unnamed spaces in between streets . " " He leaves , a little confused and disappointed .


So , now imagine you 're standing on a street , anywhere in Japan , you turn to a person next to you and say , " Excuse me , what is the name of this street ? "


They say , " " Oh , well that 's Block 17 and this is Block 16 . " " And you say , " " OK , but what is the name of this street ? " " And they say , " " Well , streets don 't have names .


Blocks have names .


Just look at Google Maps here . There 's Block 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 .


All of these blocks have names , and the streets are just the unnamed spaces in between the blocks .


And you say then , " " OK , then how do you know your home address ? " " He said , " " Well , easy , this is District Eight .


There 's Block 17 , house number one . " " You say , " " OK , but walking around the neighborhood , I noticed that the house numbers don 't go in order . " " He says , " " Of course they do . They go in the order in which they were built .


The first house ever built on a block is house number one .


The second house ever built is house number two .


Third is house number three . It 's easy . It 's obvious . " " So , I love that sometimes we need to go to the opposite side of the world to realize assumptions we didn 't even know we had , and realize that the opposite of them may also be true .


So , for example , there are doctors in China who believe that it 's their job to keep you healthy .


So , any month you are healthy you pay them , and when you 're sick you don 't have to pay them because they failed at their job . They get rich when you 're healthy , not sick .


( Applause ) In most music , we think of the " " one " " as the downbeat , the beginning of the musical phrase : one , two , three , four .


But in West African music , the " " one " " is thought of as the end of the phrase , like the period at the end of a sentence .


So , you can hear it not just in the phrasing , but the way they count off their music : two , three , four , one .


And this map is also accurate .


( Laughter ) There 's a saying that whatever true thing you can say about India , the opposite is also true .


So , let 's never forget , whether at TED , or anywhere else , that whatever brilliant ideas you have or hear , that the opposite may also be true .


Domo arigato gozaimashita .


So I started working with refugees because I wanted to make a difference , and making a difference starts with telling their stories .


So when I meet refugees , I always ask them questions .


Who bombed your house ?


Who killed your son ?


Did the rest of your family make it out alive ?


How are you coping in your life in exile ?


But there 's one question that always seems to me to be most revealing , and that is : What did you take ?


What was that most important thing that you had to take with you when the bombs were exploding in your town , and the armed gangs were approaching your house ?


A Syrian refugee boy I know told me that he didn 't hesitate when his life was in imminent danger .


He took his high school diploma , and later he told me why .


He said , " " I took my high school diploma because my life depended on it . " " And he would risk his life to get that diploma .


On his way to school , he would dodge snipers .


His classroom sometimes shook with the sound of bombs and shelling , and his mother told me , " " Every day , I would say to him every morning , ' Honey , please don 't go to school . ' " " And when he insisted , she said , " I would hug him as if it were for the last time . "


But he said to his mother , " " We 're all afraid , but our determination to graduate is stronger than our fear . " " But one day , the family got terrible news .


Hany 's aunt , his uncle and his cousin were murdered in their homes for refusing to leave their house .


Their throats were slit .


It was time to flee .


They left that day , right away , in their car , Hany hidden in the back because they were facing checkpoints of menacing soldiers .


And they would cross the border into Lebanon , where they would find peace .


But they would begin a life of grueling hardship and monotony .


They had no choice but to build a shack on the side of a muddy field , and this is Hany 's brother Ashraf , who plays outside .


And that day , they joined the biggest population of refugees in the world , in a country , Lebanon , that is tiny .


It only has four million citizens , and there are one million Syrian refugees living there .


There 's not a town , a city or a village that is not host to Syrian refugees .


This is generosity and humanity that is remarkable .


Think about it this way , proportionately .


It would be as if the entire population of Germany , 80 million people , would flee to the United States in just three years .


Half of the entire population of Syria is now uprooted , most of them inside the country .


Six and a half million people have fled for their lives .


Over and well over three million people have crossed the borders and have found sanctuary in the neighboring countries , and only a small proportion , as you see , have moved on to Europe .


What I find most worrying is that half of all Syrian refugees are children .


I took this picture of this little girl .


It was just two hours after she had arrived after a long trek from Syria into Jordan .


And most troubling of all is that only 20 percent of Syrian refugee children are in school in Lebanon .


And yet , Syrian refugee children , all refugee children tell us education is the most important thing in their lives .


Why ? Because it allows them to think of their future rather than the nightmare of their past .


It allows them to think of hope rather than hatred .


I 'm reminded of a recent visit I took to a Syrian refugee camp in northern Iraq , and I met this girl , and I thought , " " She 's beautiful , " " and I went up to her and asked her , " Can I take your picture ? "


And she said yes , but she refused to smile .


I think she couldn 't , because I think she must realize that she represents a lost generation of Syrian refugee children , a generation isolated and frustrated .


And yet , look at what they fled : utter destruction , buildings , industries , schools , roads , homes .


Hany 's home was also destroyed .


This will need to be rebuilt by architects , by engineers , by electricians .


Communities will need teachers and lawyers and politicians interested in reconciliation and not revenge .


Shouldn 't this be rebuilt by the people with the largest stake , the societies in exile , the refugees ?


Refugees have a lot of time to prepare for their return .


You might imagine that being a refugee is just a temporary state .


Well far from it .


With wars going on and on , the average time a refugee will spend in exile is 17 years .


Hany was into his second year in limbo when I went to visit him recently , and we conducted our entire conversation in English , which he confessed to me he learned from reading all of Dan Brown 's novels and from listening to American rap .


We also spent some nice moments of laughter and fun with his beloved brother Ashraf .


But I 'll never forget what he told me when we ended our conversation that day .


He said to me , " If I am not a student , I am nothing . "


Hany is one of 50 million people uprooted in this world today .


Never since World War II have so many people been forcibly displaced .


So while we 're making sweeping progress in human health , in technology , in education and design , we are doing dangerously little to help the victims and we are doing far too little to stop and prevent the wars that are driving them from their homes .


And there are more and more victims .


Every day , on average , by the end of this day , 32,000 people will be forcibly displaced from their homes — 32,000 people .


They flee across borders like this one .


We captured this on the Syrian border to Jordan , and this is a typical day .


Or they flee on unseaworthy and overcrowded boats , risking their lives in this case just to reach safety in Europe .


This Syrian young man survived one of these boats that capsized — most of the people drowned — and he told us , " " Syrians are just looking for a quiet place where nobody hurts you , where nobody humiliates you , and where nobody kills you . " " Well , I think that should be the minimum .


How about a place of healing , of learning , and even opportunity ?


Americans and Europeans have the impression that proportionally huge numbers of refugees are coming to their country , but the reality is that 86 percent , the vast majority of refugees , are living in the developing world , in countries struggling with their own insecurity , with their own issues of helping their own populations and poverty .


So wealthy countries in the world should recognize the humanity and the generosity of the countries that are hosting so many refugees .


And all countries should make sure that no one fleeing war and persecution arrives at a closed border .


( Applause ) Thank you .


But there is something more that we can do than just simply helping refugees survive .


We can help them thrive .


We should think of refugee camps and communities as more than just temporary population centers where people languish waiting for the war to end .


Rather , as centers of excellence , where refugees can triumph over their trauma and train for the day that they can go home as agents of positive change and social transformation .


It makes so much sense , but I 'm reminded of the terrible war in Somalia that has been raging on for 22 years .


And imagine living in this camp .


I visited this camp .


It 's in Djibouti , neighboring Somalia , and it was so remote that we had to take a helicopter to fly there .


It was dusty and it was terribly hot .


And we went to visit a school and started talking to the children , and then I saw this girl across the room who looked to me to be the same age as my own daughter , and I went up and talked to her .


And I asked her the questions that grown-ups ask kids , like , " " What is your favorite subject ? " " and , " " What do you want to be when you grow up ? " " And this is when her face turned blank , and she said to me , " " I have no future .


My schooling days are over . " " And I thought , there must be some misunderstanding , so I turned to my colleague and she confirmed to me there is no funding for secondary education in this camp .


And how I wished at that moment that I could say to her , " We will build you a school . "


And I also thought , what a waste .


She should be and she is the future of Somalia .


A boy named Jacob Atem had a different chance , but not before he experienced terribly tragedy .


He watched — this is in Sudan — as his village — he was only seven years old — burned to the ground , and he learned that his mother and his father and his entire family were killed that day .


Only his cousin survived , and the two of them walked for seven months — this is boys like him — chased and pursued by wild animals and armed gangs , and they finally made it to refugee camps where they found safety , and he would spend the next seven years in Kenya in a refugee camp .


But his life changed when he got the chance to be resettled to the United States , and he found love in a foster family and he was able to go to school , and he wanted me to share with you this proud moment when he graduated from university .


( Applause ) I spoke to him on Skype the other day , and he was in his new university in Florida pursuing his Ph.D. in public health , and he proudly told me how he was able to raise enough funds from the American public to establish a health clinic back in his village back home .


So I want to take you back to Hany .


When I told him I was going to have the chance to speak to you here on the TED stage , he allowed me to read you a poem that he sent in an email to me .


He wrote : " " I miss myself , my friends , times of reading novels or writing poems , birds and tea in the morning .


My room , my books , myself , and everything that was making me smile .


Oh , oh , I had so many dreams that were about to be realized . " " So here is my point : Not investing in refugees is a huge missed opportunity .


Leave them abandoned , and they risk exploitation and abuse , and leave them unskilled and uneducated , and delay by years the return to peace and prosperity in their countries .


I believe how we treat the uprooted will shape the future of our world .


The victims of war can hold the keys to lasting peace , and it 's the refugees who can stop the cycle of violence .


Hany is at a tipping point .


We would love to help him go to university and to become an engineer , but our funds are prioritized for the basics in life : tents and blankets and mattresses and kitchen sets , food rations and a bit of medicine .


University is a luxury .


But leave him to languish in this muddy field , and he will become a member of a lost generation .


Hany 's story is a tragedy , but it doesn 't have to end that way .


Thank you .


( Applause )


Believe me or not , I come offering a solution to a very important part of this larger problem , with the requisite focus on climate .


And the solution I offer is to the biggest culprit in this massive mistreatment of the earth by humankind , and the resulting decline of the biosphere .


That culprit is business and industry , which happens to be where I have spent the last 52 years since my graduation from Georgia Tech in 1956 .


As an industrial engineer , cum aspiring and then successful entrepreneur .


After founding my company , Interface , from scratch in 1973 , 36 years ago , to produce carpet tiles in America for the business and institution markets , and shepherding it through start-up and survival to prosperity and global dominance in its field , I read Paul Hawken 's book , " The Ecology of Commerce , " the summer of 1994 .


In his book , Paul charges business and industry as , one , the major culprit in causing the decline of the biosphere , and , two , the only institution that is large enough , and pervasive enough , and powerful enough , to really lead humankind out of this mess .


And by the way he convicted me as a plunderer of the earth .


And I then challenged the people of Interface , my company , to lead our company and the entire industrial world to sustainability , which we defined as eventually operating our petroleum-intensive company in such a way as to take from the earth only what can be renewed by the earth , naturally and rapidly — not another fresh drop of oil — and to do no harm to the biosphere .


Take nothing : do no harm .


I simply said , " " If Hawken is right and business and industry must lead , who will lead business and industry ?


Unless somebody leads , nobody will . " " It 's axiomatic . Why not us ?


And thanks to the people of Interface , I have become a recovering plunderer .


( Laughter ) ( Applause ) I once told a Fortune Magazine writer that someday people like me would go to jail .


And that became the headline of a Fortune article .


They went on to describe me as America 's greenest CEO .


From plunderer to recovering plunderer , to America 's greenest CEO in five years — that , frankly , was a pretty sad commentary on American CEOs in 1999 .


Asked later in the Canadian documentary , " " The Corporation , " " what I meant by the " " go to jail " " remark , I offered that theft is a crime .


And theft of our children 's future would someday be a crime .


But I realized , for that to be true — for theft of our children 's future to be a crime — there must be a clear , demonstrable alternative to the take-make-waste industrial system that so dominates our civilization , and is the major culprit , stealing our children 's future , by digging up the earth and converting it to products that quickly become waste in a landfill or an incinerator — in short , digging up the earth and converting it to pollution .


According to Paul and Anne Ehrlich and a well-known environmental impact equation , impact — a bad thing — is the product of population , affluence and technology .


That is , impact is generated by people , what they consume in their affluence , and how it is produced .


And though the equation is largely subjective , you can perhaps quantify people , and perhaps quantify affluence , but technology is abusive in too many ways to quantify .


So the equation is conceptual .


Still it works to help us understand the problem .


So we set out at Interface , in 1994 , to create an example : to transform the way we made carpet , a petroleum-intensive product for materials as well as energy , and to transform our technologies so they diminished environmental impact , rather than multiplied it .


Paul and Anne Ehrlich 's environmental impact equation : I is equal to P times A times T : population , affluence and technology .


I wanted Interface to rewrite that equation so that it read I equals P times A divided by T.


Now , the mathematically-minded will see immediately that T in the numerator increases impact — a bad thing — but T in the denominator decreases impact .


So I ask , " " What would move T , technology , from the numerator — call it T1 — where it increases impact , to the denominator — call it T2 — where it reduces impact ?


I thought about the characteristics of first industrial revolution , T1 , as we practiced it at Interface , and it had the following characteristics .


Extractive : taking raw materials from the earth .


Linear : take , make , waste .


Powered by fossil fuel-derived energy .


Wasteful : abusive and focused on labor productivity .


More carpet per man-hour .


Thinking it through , I realized that all those attributes must be changed to move T to the denominator .


In the new industrial revolution extractive must be replaced by renewable ; linear by cyclical ; fossil fuel energy by renewable energy , sunlight ; wasteful by waste-free ; and abusive by benign ; and labor productivity by resource productivity .


And I reasoned that if we could make those transformative changes , and get rid of T1 altogether , we could reduce our impact to zero , including our impact on the climate .


And that became the Interface plan in 1995 , and has been the plan ever since .


We have measured our progress very rigorously .


So I can tell you how far we have come in the ensuing 12 years .


Net greenhouse gas emissions down 82 percent in absolute tonnage .


( Applause ) Over the same span of time sales have increased by two-thirds and profits have doubled .


So an 82 percent absolute reduction translates into a 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gas intensity relative to sales .


This is the magnitude of the reduction the entire global technosphere must realize by 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate disruption — so the scientists are telling us .


Fossil fuel usage is down 60 percent per unit of production , due to efficiencies in renewables .


The cheapest , most secure barrel of oil there is is the one not used through efficiencies .


Water usage is down 75 percent in our worldwide carpet tile business .


Down 40 percent in our broadloom carpet business , which we acquired in 1993 right here in California , City of Industry , where water is so precious .


Renewable or recyclable materials are 25 percent of the total , and growing rapidly .


Renewable energy is 27 percent of our total , going for 100 percent .


We have diverted 148 million pounds — that 's 74,000 tons — of used carpet from landfills , closing the loop on material flows through reverse logistics and post-consumer recycling technologies that did not exist when we started 14 years ago .


Those new cyclical technologies have contributed mightily to the fact that we have produced and sold 85 million square yards of climate-neutral carpet since 2004 , meaning no net contribution to global climate disruption in producing the carpet throughout the supply chain , from mine and well head clear to end-of-life reclamation — independent third-party certified .


We call it Cool Carpet .


And it has been a powerful marketplace differentiator , increasing sales and profits .


Three years ago we launched carpet tile for the home , under the brand Flor , misspelled F-L-O-R .


You can point and click today at Flor.com and have Cool Carpet delivered to your front door in five days .


It is practical , and pretty too .


( Laughter ) ( Applause ) We reckon that we are a bit over halfway to our goal : zero impact , zero footprint .


We 've set 2020 as our target year for zero , for reaching the top , the summit of Mount Sustainability .


We call this Mission Zero .


And this is perhaps the most important facet : we have found Mission Zero to be incredibly good for business .


A better business model , a better way to bigger profits .


Here is the business case for sustainability .


From real life experience , costs are down , not up , reflecting some 400 million dollars of avoided costs in pursuit of zero waste — the first face of Mount Sustainability .


This has paid all the costs for the transformation of Interface .


And this dispels a myth too , this false choice between the environment and the economy .


Our products are the best they 've ever been , inspired by design for sustainability , an unexpected wellspring of innovation .


Our people are galvanized around this shared higher purpose .


You cannot beat it for attracting the best people and bringing them together .


And the goodwill of the marketplace is astonishing .


No amount of advertising , no clever marketing campaign , at any price , could have produced or created this much goodwill .


Costs , products , people , marketplaces — what else is there ?


It is a better business model .


And here is our 14-year record of sales and profits .


There is a dip there , from 2001 to 2003 : a dip when our sales , over a three-year period , were down 17 percent .


But the marketplace was down 36 percent .


We literally gained market share .


We might not have survived that recession but for the advantages of sustainability .


If every business were pursuing Interface plans , would that solve all our problems ?


I don 't think so .


I remain troubled by the revised Ehrlich equation , I equals P times A divided by T2 .


That A is a capital A , suggesting that affluence is an end in itself .


But what if we reframed Ehrlich further ?


And what if we made A a lowercase ' a , ' suggesting that it is a means to an end , and that end is happiness — more happiness with less stuff .


You know that would reframe civilization itself — ( Applause ) — and our whole system of economics , if not for our species , then perhaps for the one that succeeds us : the sustainable species , living on a finite earth , ethically , happily and ecologically in balance with nature and all her natural systems for a thousand generations , or 10,000 generations — that is to say , into the indefinite future .


But does the earth have to wait for our extinction as a species ?


Well maybe so . But I don 't think so .


At Interface we really intend to bring this prototypical sustainable , zero-footprint industrial company fully into existence by 2020 .


We can see our way now , clear to the top of that mountain .


And now the challenge is in execution .