There are two important sentences in this film – one is "we made it", and the other one is "you can be part of it". If you remember this, it's already enough.

　　We made it!

　　"We made it!" What does it mean?

　　It means that it's the first time in history that the airplane has been

　　able to fly day and night with no fuel, only on solar power.

　　It means that the sun gave the energy to run the four electrical motors to charge the batteries, so during the nights the batteries were enough to reach the next sunrise and continue the flight.

　　How is that possible?

　　People sometimes say "yes it's thanks to solar energy."

　　No, not only. Solar energy of course brings the power for the airplane. But if you put solar cells on a regular airplane it will hardly run the

　　entertainment system and the video for passengers.

　　So, what's different with our airplane?

　　Our airplane is an energy efficient airplane. It means that it is built in a

　　way that is so efficient, and it flies in a way that is so efficient that the little quantity of energy we get during the day is enough to stay airborne forever: unlimited endurance. And this is the magic of this plane and it is also the symbol and the message that we want to bring.

　　Of course, to make it possible, it has to be light: it's the weight of a car, 2,300 kilos, or a minivan. But the wingspan is bigger than a jumbo jet, a Boeing 747.

　　Airplane Industry said "impossible"!

　　When we asked the airplane industry to build this airplane 12 years ago, they all said "you are nuts. It will never work. It is impossible to do that: so big and so light."

　　And when you hear people who say "you are crazy", sometimes you stop because you are afraid. If you are a pioneer, if you are an explorer, you don't stop. You take it as a

　　challenge, you take it as additional motivation. If the specialists say "it doesn't work", ask the non-specialist, maybe they will have a much

　　wider angle of view.

　　But shipyard made it!

　　And this is exactly what happened: how can we make this airplane so light? Because we asked a shipyard to help us, a shipyard who has never built an airplane in their entire history, but they knew how to use carbon fiber.

　　And the technical team who was led by my friend Andre Borschberg, has designed a plane, had it built to the carbon fiber in such a way that it was so light, that it needed very little energy to stay airborne.

　　From there on, we had to develop all the power system:

　　Engines - with 97 percent efficiency, electrical engines 97 percent efficiency!

　　Batteries - lithium polymer batteries, 260 watt-hours per kilo,the maximum you can get on a large scale.

　　LED lamps - like the ones you see for the landing at night, they use the same amount of energy than two light bulbs in your bedroom. For 100 watts we get the 16 landing lamps.

　　Insulation foam - extremely light, to keep the batteries warm, to keep the pilot warm.

　　Our partners think and do in a different way.

　　So at the end we had like a flying laboratory that was built thanks to

　　companies and partners that were not from the world of aviation.

　　You have seen the partners:

　　Solvay - chemical company;

　　Omega - watch company;

　　Schindler - elevator company;

　　ABB - you know ABB?

　　[Audience Laugh]

　　Bayer MaterialScience; Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, Swisscom, Altran…

　　These companies brought the technologies, the knowhow, the expertise.

　　And when I think backward and I think about the airplane companies who said it was impossible, I think it’s normal. Because when you are trained to do something always the same way, and to build airplanes always in the same way, you cannot do something different.

　　Innovation is a new idea? Not only.

　　Innovation needs input from outside the system. It is not the people who were selling candles who invented the light bulb. And the best electrical car today is not made by a car manufacturer. The Tesla is made by an American billionaire who made his fortune on the internet and had no idea how to build a car, so he was open to every solution and he built the Tesla, which is a triumph from the industrial point of view.

　　So you see that innovation is not so much a new idea. A lot of people look for new ideas. No! Innovation is an old belief, an old habit that you leave behind. If you are able to analyze on which paradigm your

　　strategies are based, if you are able to understand what you have

　　learned, which beliefs, which certitudes, which habits you have, then

　　you can try to think differently.

　　But first you have to be honest

　　with yourself: what do I deeply believe? And what you deeply believe is what makes you work today, and today can be a success. If you think of tomorrow, you need to be able to change the angle of view, to leave your beliefs and habits behind, and accept what, what do you need to accept? You need to accept doubts and question marks. You need to accept anxiety. You need to accept uncertainty. This brings creativity. You can never be creative if you are comfortable. You can never be creative if you are comfortable because you are happy with what you have. You will be creative—

　　([Addresses chief of staff] It is the first time I say this, so I have to ask my chief of staff to take notes.)

　　If you are happy with what you have, you will never find something else, this is why the pioneer, the explorer, is always somebody who wants to go into the unknown, into the doubts, into the question marks to stipulate creativity; to have other ways of ideas, other ways of thinking, other ways of reacting, and this is what we share in the Solar Impulse team, very much with Andre Borschberg - we are very very close together - and with our partners.