 Globally, we're facing an unprecedented population expansion of adolescents. The largest generation of young people in the history of humans is coming of age. More than 2 billion young people exist, and 85% of them are in the developing world. Why are there so many young people? Tremendous progress has occurred from global efforts focused on women, infant, and children that's leading to young, infants, and young children surviving and thriving in adolescence, and puberty has been happening at younger ages, so there's been this surge of young people. So why is this a problem? Why is this a challenge? In part, it's because so many of these young people are coming of age in desperate conditions. Among 9 to 13 year olds, a third of them are living in extreme poverty on less than a dollar a day. Among 18 to 25 year olds globally, 40% are either unemployed or making so little money they can't escape poverty. Even rich nations in Europe at this point, 25% of young adults are unemployed. Adolescents is a period of intense vulnerability for both experiencing and creating behavioral and emotional problems. It's a time of increasing accidents, suicide, homicide, substance use, addiction, depression, mental health problems, the radicalization of youth. It's a time when these impacts can have long-term effects, and yet it's equally important to understand adolescents is a period of enormous opportunity. It's a time of growth and development and learning and adaptation. It's a period of brain plasticity when the ability to learn and have impact can have an incredibly positive impact. Taken together, this incredible set of vulnerabilities and opportunities creates a precarious moment in human history. We have this surge of an incredible unprecedented number of youth coming of age under dire challenges and circumstances, and we have this unbelievably unique opportunity of this transformation of the digital global revolution, of young people's ability to access the information of the world, connect in new ways. So the stakes are really high. One of the things that we are very interested in is how understanding these opportunities for learning can help to inform positive intervention to make the positive direction happen. We're really interested in understanding how neuroplasticity creates windows of opportunity for learning that can help to emphasize these positive paths. At the Center on the Developing Adolescents at UC Berkeley, we're working to bring together the best science and policy in this area to address these issues about what are these unique opportunities? How do we understand the growth and adaptation and learning potential and ways to tap into that to have a positive impact and inform policy in these areas? We're increasingly with a lot of collaborations and people across the world working in these areas, understanding not just the brain development, but the psychological and social development that at the onset of puberty results not only in physical growth and changes, but changes in brain behavior and social interactions that creates unique leverage for certain kinds of learning. These are really complex issues, but the plasticity for adolescents has some interesting implications. What is plasticity? In many ways, this is the capacity of experience and behavior and practice to shape the connections of neural circuits and systems. Infants, for example, are naturally drawn to pay attention to language, to learn these words, to practice them, to learn how to walk by practicing. These are semi-natural processes that will shape the brain. The question is, what's the equivalent for adolescents? What are the natural attractors that adolescents want to pay extra attention to biologically that really begin these cascades of rapid learning? These are complex issues, but we're beginning to understand some themes. The unique learning that seems to be potentiated in adolescents is about social and emotional identity and place. It's this finding a valued place as an individual. It's a period when these igniting passions and a desire to have a larger contribution create a unique capacity to be human and take these feelings and channel them into paths of learning and mastery. I love this quote from Maya Angelou. I've learned that people will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. That principle is amplified tremendously in adolescents. As puberty kicks in and testosterone and other hormones go up, they become sensitized to feelings of being admired and respected, or being diminished or disrespected. These insights create an interesting angle to tap into the learning potential. The stakes are enormous. There's a lot that hangs in the balance with this unprecedented number of youth coming of age in these risky vulnerable circumstances, but also this unique transformational capacity for communication linking social connection. This creates a compelling case for developmental science to contribute to the teams, the people trying to make a difference. People at this World Economic Forum, world leaders, economists, scientists from different backgrounds in education to say how can we use our knowledge to help potentiate these positive directions and trajectories. If we're successful tipping this in a positive direction, this could be the beginning of the most exciting time to be alive. Thank you very much.