To the Stars: Three Lessons I’ve Learned From Hardship | Dan Desjardins | TEDxQueensU

It is incredible how the direction of your life can change in one instant. For Dan, that meant chasing the dream of going to space only to be met with a stark rejection. What do we do next? Take a step back, and embrace the reset. Dan is the CEO of Distributive, the Kingston-based company developing the Distributive Compute Protocol (DCP), a next-generation distributed computing platform built on web technology. Distributive views computing power as an essential pillar of discovery and innovation, so it is free for academic institutions worldwide and transforms computing power into an equalizer so that all may participate in tomorrow’s digital economies. Dan has a PhD in Physics from Queen’s University. Prior to Distributive, Dan served 18 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a military search and rescue pilot and as an Assistant Professor of Physics and Space Science at the Royal Military College of Canada. In pursuit of a childhood dream, Dan ranked among the top hundred candidates during Canada’s 2016 astronaut recruitment campaign. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at