Virginia rometty based on that hooting and hollering, maybe she should stay up. She said a high bar. Let me not only think make and president schapiro ka. I really am honored to be here. It is a great honor to get this degree, but it is a greater honor to sit and look at you where i once sat and be up. To deliver your commencement speech. I must say to all of you, as i remember sitting there, this is your day. Having been one of you, i know how hard you worked to get there. My own congratulations. One more applause for you from me. [applause] this is what happens with age. I will put my glasses on, and i will follow some advice. It was Franklin Roosevelts son on speeches, he said, you be brief, sincere, and then seated. Let me share what are three stories from my life. It is really the resulting Lessons Learned that i got the i humbly submit to you that as you leave, maybe somewhere down the line, you will find them of use. They come from three people close to me. One you will recognize, my mother. The other, my husband. For now, lets say, a significant other. The first comes from my childhood. Like many, i grew up in a middleclass family not far from here in a suburb of chicago. I am the oldest. Like many of our time, we went to sears for our school close. I remember one Family Vacation a campout. It was a simple and very happy life. Then, one day, all of that changed. I was a teenager, and my father left my mother. In fact, he left us all. My mother, who had never worked a day in her life outside of our home found herself with four children, but soon, no money, no home, no food. While she never complained, she never spoke of what happened, i must say, my brothers and sisters, we watched and learned. She had to find a way to keep a roof over her head. She was so proud, she did what she had to do. She found a way to go back to school in the day to get a degree, and then she worked at night so that we could quickly get by on our own. My mother was so determined to not let anyone define her as a failure, single mother, or anything worse, a victim. Through her actions, she taught us all, never let define you. That is the first lesson i want to leave you with. Only you define who you are. Only you. [applause] i have to tell you, happy ending my mom got the associate degree and retired after 25 years from a hospital near chicago. My brother and two sisters, they share among themselves five degrees from dartmouth, georgia tech, and northwestern, and thank goodness for this doctor ate because i was losing the race on the degrees. [laughter] my second story comes from early in my career. This is about risktaking. I had worked for a senior executive, and he decided to go to a new job. He came in and said to me, you are the candidate to replace me. I was called in the office and told with great excitement i would be offered this job. I can remember my reaction. It was not the same great excitement. I looked at him and said, it is too early, im not ready, give me a few more years and i will be ready, i need to go home and sleep on it. That evening, my husband he is up in the stands. [laughter] my husband of 35 years oh boy. He says i never mention him, and then i do, and i mess it up. He sat and listened patiently to my story. He looked at me and said one thing. He said, and do you think a man would have answered the question that way . I know you, in six months, you will be ready for something else. You know what, he was right. I went in the next day and i took that job. That takes me to my second lesson to leave you with your growth and comfort never coexist. I want to close your eyes, if they are not already i want you to close your eyes, if they are not already, and ask you when have you taken a risk . This has proven to be a really important realization to me throughout my career. I have always looked for challenges, and i have found plenty. This now brings me to my last story. This is about my significant other. It is not about my past. It is about my future. It is early 2011, ibm research has built a computing system something the world has never seen. It is called watson, named after ibms founder. Im sitting not in a lab, but a tv studio. Im watching watson play jeopardy against the most successful human champions. I knew watson, but now im watching on television, he converses with alex trebek. He understands and wins. It is an amazing moment. One more time on the way home, i call my husband and say, and i remember to this day, i think i just saw history. I will come back to that story of watson in a second. Let me first share a brief perspective on the worldly you are walking into. I believe years from now historians will look back and look at this as the dawn of the new era. First, it is the new era of computing, something we call cognitive. Surprising as it may seem to all of you, the world has only known two eras of computing. Im not going to make you all engineers. The first was machines that counted, that did the national census, or Social Security system. The second era is everything that you know to this day. Smarter systems, your smart phone, pc, no matter what it is. They do exactly what we tell them to do. Now, you and we are entering a third era. Watson is an example of this the first cognitive system. They analyse more data than you will ever handle. Understand natural language, like i speak today. More importantly, like humans, i say, these systems reason. Y area. When you go to make a decision you form a hypothesis and test it against everything in your mind. These systems do it with evidence and degrees of confidence. Some people call this artificial intelligence, ai. The reality is this technology will enhance our thinking. Instead of artificial intelligence, i think it will augment our intelligence. It will not be a world of man versus machine, it will be a world of man plus machine. In fact, i predict in the near future, every important decision mankind makes will be informed by a cognitive system like watson. And our lives and the world will be better off because of it. While this is hard to appreciate now, i think this means that you sit at a very unique point in history. Footnote, there is one more thing the age you are facing is made possible by a natural resource. You recognize it. It is the sheer amount of data. One day you will look back and what hydrocarbons was to the 20th century, we will say data was to the 21st century. Volume is staggering. Every day, 500 million dvds worth of data is created. For all of you, 80 of the worlds data was created during your junior and senior years. That is why i think of it as a natural resource. It will be the phenomena of our time. One more thing. The volume. Whether it is images, the photos you have taken, sensors, people blogging, texting what some of you may be doing right now. I must tell you, normal systems will not understand it. This brings me back to my story. It brings me back to watson. If you havent guessed, he is my significant other. My husband is only one who did not want me to use significant other in the speech, by the way. Since jeopardy, watson has come a long way. In fact, we have had the honor of helping institutions like and md anderson, and the list goes on. By 2020, medical information will double every 72 days. With the era we are about to enter, collaborators like watson digest the information, and form hypotheses about your diagnosis and treatment. It brings me forward to september 2012. It is another personal moment i will always remember. I was going to the theater with my husband in new york city, and i hear someone yell out my name. I turned around and it is the ceo of a Health Care Company that i work with. She looks at me and says, we will change the face of health care. I fast forward to today and i tell many of my ibmers ibm has been privileged to play a pay some of the greatest moments of history. Make no mistake. Watson will be our modernday moon shot, and we will do our part to change health care. This brings me to the ending of the story. My final lesson to you. Work on something that matters. Have a purpose. Northwestern has prepared you richly for this, but there is so much potential ahead. Choose your work with a purpose. You are all high achievers. You wanted to get here, and you got here. You will have many more goals in the years ahead. Do not confuse a goal with a purpose. You may find a purpose in business, Public Service academia you choose. My hope for you is that you leave today with a purpose to change the world in some way. Congratulations again to the class of 2015, and to everyone who made this day possible for you. To paraphrase my earlier quote from franklin roosevelt, i hope i was brief, i know i was sincere, and now it will be seated. Congratulations. [applause]