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my name is Donna SH and my full-time job
is to count people's arms and us and
like it all started at my first day of
school after my family moved from
Pakistan to Tanzania
I was busy sketching my dream cars in my
notebook and all of a sudden I hear a
voice in my direction the teacher
Daanish can you please rise up and
introduce yourself she had put me on the
spot I was in this foreign land 30 pairs
of eyes staring at me how would you feel
when a teacher puts you on the spot in
this kind of situation my mind went
blank my heart started racing I kept
quiet I started hearing giggles in the
classroom and then tears ran down my
cheek that was the first time I felt the
fear of speaking in front of others the
first time I felt the fear of public
speaking
fast-forward a few years I was at
college here in America that fear still
stuck with me it wasn't slow it was part
of my soul now when I was little I had
many other fears I was afraid of the
dark the monsters under my bed the
cockroaches and I don't mean the tiny
cockroaches here but the big flying
cockroaches I had back home in Pakistan
in Tanzania but I outgrew these fears I
overcame them as I grew older but public
speaking no way I was still afraid of it
but I decided enough was enough I
decided to do something about it to take
that step and find a solution and so I
went to the one place on the internet
where we all look for problems - our
solution to our problems Google I
searched on Google how to overcome the
fear of public speaking the first link
told me about the great things I could
be if I overcame this fear sound like a
leader
get a great job share your ideas give a
TED talk change the world the second
link showed me all the different ways I
could overcome this fear hire a speech
coach talk in front of the mirror do
online courses attend public speaking
clubs like Toastmasters that's when I
realized that I had it wrong all this
time I thought you are either born a
public speaker or you're not I was wrong
I realized that public speaking is
actually a teachable skill that means
that if any one of you here wants to
speak powerfully like any of your famous
public speakers yes you can we all can
now some of these solutions work for me
others not so much
like hiring a speech coach that was
outside of my student budget but online
courses that's where I learned how to
vary my tone up and down how do talk
pretty really fast that I could get
someone's excited or to slow right down
to get someone's attention and I
practiced I practiced in front of the
mirror at least that's where I had one
friend who thought I was good as for the
public speaking club Toastmasters that
was fantastic I got to go in front of
others and I got feedback on what I did
good and what I did bad so I did all
these things and I realized that first I
was trapped in this cold dark hole where
the fear of public speaking haunted at
me it pulled me down and over here was
this promise of sunshine of green
pastures no anxiety but the path from
here to here was all over the place I
had to do all these things and I thought
to myself there had to be one simpler
way there had to be one way that I could
go from here and leap to here so I went
back to Google the source of all wisdom
did some research and I started learning
and reading a lot about artificial
intelligence about these personal
assistants we have in our pocket like
Siri Alexa who understand what we're
saying hey Siri was the next meeting I
have they understand what we say what if
they could also understand how you're
saying something and analyze your voice
what if they could be your speech
coaches what if every single person in
the world anywhere had their own
personal on-demand speech coach can you
imagine a world where anyone has this
help to help them overcome this fear of
public speaking to help them speak
powerfully to help them share their
ideas that's the idea that God has
started that's the idea that helped us
create or I aural AI a mobile app that
counts your arms and us a mobile app
that gives you personalized lessons a
place to practice them quietly in
privacy and an app that gives you
instant feedback using artificial
intelligence now a year and a half ago
when my roommate and I started building
this we were no experts all we knew is
that we want to build something we want
to create a solution we were no speech
coaches we were not public speakers we
were no data scientists but we had the
power of the Internet so we read bunch
of research papers on computational
linguistics
we spoke with hundreds of speech coaches
trying to understand how they give
feedback on their speech we watched
videos on machine learning and
artificial intelligence so that we could
codify all these things and create this
app because we believe that we can use
technology to help people become better
versions of ourselves and the reason I'm
sharing my story with you guys today is
not to tell you guys go out and build
or be entrepreneurs I'm saying go out
and face your fears don't burry them
deep inside if you have a problem look
for a solution if nothing exists create
that solution if you don't have the
skills go to Google find how you can
improve your knowledge and create
something for me it's all started when I
was little that first time I felt the
fear of public speaking
that's what empowered me to act that's
what empowered me to go on this journey
of becoming a better speaker and this
journey is never ending you will never
see the finish line in fact there is no
finish line in public speaking you can
always get better remember that you can
always become a better speaker you only
stop if you tell yourself you're good
enough thank you
by the way I was recording my speech
let's see what feedback or I gives ok so
I had a few filler words like you know
and um my pace
ok 107 worse for a minute not too bad
good energy and then some feedback or I
was giving almost perfect I think I need
to practice a little bit more and it's
saying looks like you'll be hosting a
TED talk at no time and my speech 30 a
plus and my transcript and I can even
play back my audio and listen to itself
check it out
[Applause]
