Astronaut Ron Garan to One Young World: The key is we

The One Young World Summit has been all about diversity of perspectives, power of collaboration and youth empowerment to ultimately make this world a better place. As idealistic as it sounds, the summit has succeeded in bringing together a rich diversity of perspectives: 1300 delegates, 182 countries, business leaders, writers, politicians, human rights activists from all over the world.

Today, the One Young World Summit stretched yet another boundary of perspectives by bringing in NASA's astronaut Ron Garan. He wowed the audience with his speech.

"Your generation has our future in your hands," Ron Garan told the delegates. "You were born in the world with all tools necessary to solve problems. Your generation has the unprecedented capability to collaborate on a global scale."

"The key is WE," he told the delegates.  "We have the technology to enable global collaboration. We need to coordinate universal efforts to make the world a better place. We can talk to people we'd never be able to talk to before...we all can work together towards our common goals," he said.

But talk should lead to action, according to Ron Garan. "Don't look back and wonder what the world would have been if you really had tried to make a difference - act now," he said

"Every great achievement starts with a great idea. But ideas are highly overrated. An idea without action is empty. Achievements come with hard work and dedication," he said. "People who persevere through obstacles and step outside their comfort zones are those who achieve real change in the world….Those who persevere  and step outside comfort zone achieve! Don't be the one who wonders 'what if…?'"

Ron Garan is himself an idealist. He believes in a world without poverty,   preventable disease,  water or food scarcity, lack of education.

Yet,  Ron Garan is not just a visionary, he has seen the vision of humanity from outer space, as co-founder of One Young World Kate Robertson put it.

The astronaut stunned the audience by showing the timelapse images of the earth from space.

"We have a beautiful home," he said and challenged the delegates with a question, "What kind of world do you want?"

If humanity was able to work together to build the International Space Station, he said. "Can you imagine what we all could do if we worked together here on earth?"

"We are all in this together. We share same dreams and hopes. We share one home."