Jake Bailey

Biography

Jake Bailey is the ex-Christchurch Boys’ High School senior monitor, whose end of year speech made worldwide headlines after going viral in November 2015. A week before he was due to deliver this speech, Jake fell ill and was diagnosed with Burkitt’s Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, the fastest growing cancer known to man. Jake was given 2 weeks to live if this was left untreated. He persevered through to make his speech to his school, and the video of this went on to touch the hearts of tens of millions and drew support from across the globe.

Since being announced in remission in January 2016, Jake has gone on to share his experiences, his story, and the things he has learnt that have given him clarity throughout his journey, in the hopes of helping others facing their own difficulties. He has been speaking full-time for over 2 years now, and has presented several hundred speeches across about three dozen cities, to tens of thousands of people, audiences of 3 people and audiences of 3,000 people, aged from 8 to 80 years old. While based on the Gold Coast full time, he travels most weeks for these presentations.

He is the author of the #1 Bestselling book, ‘What Cancer Taught Me’, a weekly columnist for the NZ Herald, and the subject of the documentary ‘The Common Touch’. He is also an official ambassador for two charities- Maia Health Foundation in New Zealand, and Tour de Cure in Australia, and is incredibly passionate about these organisations and the differences they make.

Presentation Topic

Developing resilience, and the other side effects of chemotherapy

One young patient’s journey through our healthcare system, and all that they learned and experienced along the way.