TED TALK
(transcript)
Koi walks out onto the stage, followed by Big Tuna, a white and black English bulldog, and Fluffy, a big, tail-wagging pit bull mix that seems happy just to be here. Big Tuna’s back legs are paralyzed and a Best Friends mobility harness helps her get around.
(applause).
Thank you. (a beat as she waits for the applause to quiet down). We’re going to talk about adversity, and how hitting rock bottom can provide a starting point, an opportunity to grow and thrive. (Koi paces. A beat and she continues). I think a fair statement, for my life, is that I hit absolute ground zero, rock bottom, at age twelve. Turning twelve years old was quite an eventful year, and two events forged who you see standing in front of you.
At twelve, I lost my mom to cancer, a protracted, ugly experience and as a twelve-year-old, I couldn’t understand why no one was doing anything about it. After all, I had watched as our rescue dog, Beignet, took an interest in mom and she began insistently barking at mom, and then run to the door. As mom grew sicker, Beignet stopped the barking, but now
she wouldn’t leave her side. Beignet was trying to tell us something, but we weren’t listening. Later, when we realized something was really wrong, mom finally went to the doctor. It was too late for her, of course. She had stage four cancer and she would die in six weeks.
It fascinated me that Beignet knew mom was sick, but we did not. How was this possible? I had already graduated college and (the audience gasps) …I know. Few twelve-year-old kids are working on their masters. I took a cue from Beignet and focused on neural chemical pathways and odor profiles of cancer types. I figured if dogs can smell cancer, that meant that cancer, like any other form of genetic material, had an odor profile. Just like all of us have a distinctive odor fingerprint, each form of cancer has a profile. We identified and profiled over 2,000 forms of cancer and built a database. Some of you may recognize this. (holds up small inhaler) In fact, many of you have used one. It’s a device that you exhale Into, and the components of your breath are analyzed and matched with our database. If you have cancer, it will tell you. After our first year, the company was worth over a billion dollars and within three years, cancer detection skyrocketed and deaths dropped. We’re able to detect pre-cancerous states. Thank you Beignet (audience laughs and applauds).
As I suggested, turning twelve was bittersweet for me, and there were two things that formed my worldview. Three weeks before
mom died, I was sexually assaulted. (Beat) What happened then closed my heart to humans but opened it to canines. I know it’s
awfully hard to find the silver lining in violence. But I had the good fortune of meeting and becoming friends with these two ladies (she turns and gestures to the dogs but Fluffy has gone missing) …two strays that came to my rescue and saved my life. Big Tuna and Fluffy. (she turns and does a double take as she realizes Fluffy is not on stage) And yes, true to form, Fluffy is off doing her own thing. (laughter)
Big Tuna paid a heavy price when she saved me. Her spine was damaged when one of our assailants injured her. I am proud to say
that we, our pack, have not spent one day apart since then.It’s been almost ten years (applause). Thank you. (inaudible as Koi
struggles to keep her composure). I mention this event because, as ugly as it was, there was a connection between my future and this sexual assault — and the epiphany hit me like a freight train.
I realized that if I can identify various forms of cancer, why can’t we use this same technology to sniff out and track the DNA recovered from a crime scene? After all, hair, blood, semen, all of these contain DNA which all have a distinct unique odor profile. It’s just another form of an identifier, a fingerprint. And these can be used to track down a criminal. (An undercurrent of verbal activity from the crowd as a butterfly drifts on stage and Koi holds out her hand. The butterfly lands on her finger.) This is our proof of concept for the Human Identification System (HIS).
This is a bio-mimetic autonomous tracking system, or BATS. She followed my DNA scent and found me, despite all of the different odor profiles in this auditorium. Some of you may have noticed her earlier, drifting above you as she sorted and processed the odor molecules and matched those to my uploaded profile. (a rumbling is heard and murmurs
once again ripple through the crowd).
Once she positively identified me, she communicated with her partner. (Koi gestures to a Robo Sapien lumbering onto stage and the crowd absolutely loses it.) This is a bio-mimetic autonomous disposal and asset recovery system. BAD ASS for short. (laughter). This is Tin Pete. (Tin Pete nods, a subtle gesture acknowledging the audience. Again, the audience
loses it.) You may ask yourself, why BAD ASS when we already have a legal system in place? And that’s a fair question. (Koi picks up a bottled water and sips just a Fluffy reappears on stage clutching a purse in her mouth) (Laughter).
I’m sorry. She has a thing about purses. (she takes the purse from Fluffy’s mouth and places it on the stool). We’ll get this to the rightful owner…
BAD ASS eliminates the inconsistencies that exist in our legal system. For example. A young man assaults a girl on campus. The Judge hearing the case knows the family of the accused, one thing leads to another and the case is delayed, or worse, buried. A crime was committed, but the human relationships compromise or delays justice. Let me repeat that because it’s important to understand. Relationship compromise justice.
Take this same situation, but BAD ASS identifies the criminal first. A crime is committed and BAD ASS doesn’t care who you know, or who you are. It only knows it has positively identified the asset, and it has a sentence to deliver. But this is
only the beginning. (Crowd applause drowns out Koi, and she waits, smiling) People ask us all the time what we’re working on next. (Beat) We don’t talk about our projects, but I will leave you with one final thought. (Koi paces the stage --
something is welling up deep inside her.)
I have to be honest with you. After the... (Beat as she struggles to maintain her composure). I’ve struggled. I still struggle. After the assault, I kept returning to that event, like it was on some never-ending playback or loop in my brain that I couldn’t
shake. It was like the memory was stuck on Ground Hog Day mode. And I would think, why am I the one having the nightmares and flashbacks? Isn’t this backward, somehow? Why do I have PTSD when my assailants, in my case, got to
go on their merry way with no punishment? Or as the judge who tossed the case said, “these boys will have to live the rest of their lives with this…”
That statement just lit my hair on fire. Forget about the victims and keep the focus on these little, innocent boys who will take away nothing from this.
And I kept getting madder, until I had an epiphany. The judge was absolutely right. (hush of disbelief, then silence) Even though the Judge didn’t know it, he had nailed it. Those boys should live the rest of their lives with this. And they will.
A beat of silence as she waits for the message to arrive — that SynOrganics is working on or already has a technology that forces an abuser to experience what their victim did. At SynOrganics, we’re revolutionizing justice. Thank you.
A murmur ripples through the audience as they process what she is implying — then they go absolutely bat shit crazy! We can’t hear Koi sign off through a cacophony of shouted questions and applause) and she exits the stage.