Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 20141002

But i think it is something thats underrealized or viewed as sort of not serious. Theres a difference between being not serious and stupid. Its sort of data visualization. Right now were in the very days of that world of news content and people who have been in traditionally news look at that stuff as interesting, sort of a novelty, lets play around with that. But i think were living in an incredibly, incredibly complicated age and being able to break down issues, being able to break things down in a way thats more easily digestible and bringing those experiences right now, theyre very, very expensive and very hard to replicate on mobile devices. I think as that field grows it is going to become a bigger and bigger part of mainstream News Coverage and how we take issues and how we deliver them to people. Theres one thing that i think is, if i may, serious now that i think will be sill ly later whi is sort of niche media sites, things that are focused exclusively on one audience. There are a lot of sites, for instance, specifically catering to young people, tires, young people want to come here and read young people news. Feel free to use names. I think that is going to change. A lot of sites that are targeted for a specific audience, i think more an more reviewing ourselves as wanting to consume the news that everyone is consuming and wanting to be in the same place, having that same conversation. So i think thats going to start to change over the next tech cade. What do you guys think . Well, infographics are easy. You can see they have a long shelf life. I think there is always a good idea in how people are communicating and there is always a better way to use a medium. Even Something Like gifts which seem like jokes of a like a cat falling or badger waving or something can also be instructions on like how to tie a tie or things like but i mean there are to be able to see complicated ideas very quickly is something that is valuable. I feel like people done always see the kernel or elegance of how something can be used. Initially just were used for animals doing human things. Now you see serious pieces trying to explain serious issues but animating the serious issue. Or sports. I think its Weather Center people embrace a platform more to me than whether or not theres worth in a way of communicating information. Thats great. Thank you, guys, very much. Thank you. Were live morning at George Washington university where Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus will speaking about what the Republican Party calls its principles for american renewal, an outline of not just what the gop opposes but also ideas that the party supports. After making remarks, there will be questions from students. This is expected to get under way in just a moment. Live coverage here on cspan3. Again we are live at George Washington university here in washington, d. C. Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus will be one of the speakers, speaking at the universitys graduate school of political management this morning. We expect it to start in just a moment but while we wait, remarks now from former Alaska Governor sarah palin. She was one of the speakers at last weeks values voters summit here in washington hosted by the Family Research council. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. It truly is an honor to get to be here with all of you and i just want to take some time here to thank you for your bold fess, your courage, your ignoring what the lame stream media does to you and a lot of us so often. Youre strong and America Needs you, needs your voice. So just to get to kind of share some of that, to empower us all and inspire us all to enlarge our ranks. Politics advocacy in the country and the planet. We are here because a lot of people have done a lot of hard work and i want to thank the many people who have done that. Were pleased to have with us our chairman of our board, david norcross. Were pleased to have the rnc here with us. Mike shields. Shawn spicer. Sara flores have done a lot of work. But also on our side i want to thank john brant and angelique and kerry and everybody else that put this event together. We teach how do you advance causes, candidates, commerce, in an ethical and professional way. In doing that, its best to bring people that are actually in the arena that are working at it and figuring out how you move things forward. Every election cycle comes with a new skill, a new strategy, a new tool. And better understanding those tools is a key function for with a were trying to bring to our students and making sure that they have the latest and the greatest and the best. Thats why were pleased to welcome someone who is in the arena. Now all of you know that Reince Priebus prior to being chairman of the Republican National committee was chairman of Wisconsin Republican committee. I can tell you as a minnesotan, there are good things you can say about wisconsin. They share a border with minnesota. Thats mongts beamongst the besi can say and if you get on the right side, can you actually cheer for the right football team. Hes done a good job in his two terms as head of the rn krflt. What does a party do. A party focuses on making sure that the party across its various elected officials can try to bring a common message but it also provides the infrastructure for campaigns. These are very important issues for our students to know. I welcome all of our students here today. Were very pleased and honored to have Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National committee. Please give him a great George Washington welcome. By the way, the packers are playing the vikings tonight on thursday night football. So good luck. Well, good morning, everybody. Director kennedy, professor brown, thank you for inviting us here today to talk about the election and the principles of american renewal. Election day is only 33 days away, and early voting has begun in some states. Many have labeled this Midterm Election a referendum on the policies of president barack obama. In many ways, it is. If you ask the country, most people would say they know our Party Opposes many of those policies. We oppose them because we know theres a better way. Republicans have new ideas to solve the countrys problems, bottomup solutions, founded in the free market, compassion, responsibility, and the idea that america is headed for better days. So before november, i wanted to take a moment, cut through the noise and talk about whats driving the Republican Party. People know what were against. I want to talk about the things that were for. Our overarching vision as a country that offers unlimited equal opportunity for everybody. In pursuit of that vision, our partys three core values have long been a strong economy, a strong society, and a strong defense. The principles of american renewal, which im outlining today, fit into those three categories. They represent ideas from across our party. These 11 principles unite us as a party and inform our policy making, whether youre running for governor in new york, or congress in the south, or the state house in the west. These principles cover 11 vital topics jobs, spending, health care, our veterans, National Security, education, poverty, values, energy, and immigration. But the first principle is about our constitution. Principle number one. Our constitution should be preserved, valued and honored. Our rights do not come from government. As the declaration says, they are rights endowed by our creator. The governments job is to protect these natural rights. Our constitution, our founding principles are unique in human history. It created a government of limited power and empowers all of us to preserve those limits. Our constitution is a source of american exceptionalism. Its the wisdom of our founders and the foundation of all good policy. When followed, it maximizes freedom, opportunity, and individual well being. As ill discuss during many times today, the practical effect of a commitment to the constitution is resorting power to we, the people. From our work to eliminate poverty to our efforts to improve education and health care, states need the ability to respond to their residents needs. This doesnt just make constitutional sense. It makes common sense. The federal government has boundaries, and when it oversteps them, its encroaching on your personal freedom and your god given liberty to decide whats right for your life. That guides our thinking on every single issue. Right now americans say the economy is their top issue. That brings us to principle number two. We need to start growing americaamerica americas economy instead of washingtons economy so americans see more wages and more opportunity. In other words, bureaucrats, lobbyists, out of touch politicians need to get out of the way and give American Workers and businesses the freedom to create jobs. Overtaxing and overregulating, create jobs for the wrong people. Lobbyists and bureaucrats, right here in d. C. As many pours into d. C. They take jobs away from the people that need them. Middle class moms and dads. Young people just out of high school or college. Minority communities where unemployment is way above average. You hear republicans talk about regulations a lot. Theres a reason. Regulations come between you and a job. They make your paycheck smaller. Its one thing to protect consumers. Thats important. But it is another thing to protect special interests, outdated regulations are the Reason Companies like uber have to fight tooth and nail just to do business. So what would it look like if government regulators got out of the way a little . Take a look at what republican governors are doing across america. Every year states governed by republicans top the lists of best places to do business. Now i dont mean that congress should close up shop, though some would say under harry reid and the senate theyve already done that a long time ago. There are some Things Congress can do to get the economy going again. For example, senator tim scott proposed the skills act to help people get job training for new jobs. Many of its ideas were included in the workforce innovation and opportunity act which passed congress this summer. Mark morial, the head of the urban league, said the bill would mean millions of unemployed and unemployed workers in urban youth and youth of color can receive the job and skills training an support services they need to cart a path to a Better Future. Thats the kind of thing that republicans support. Bills like the skills act. The leap act which is to support aparen disship programs or the career act from senator rob portman. Senator rand pauls idea for Economic Freedom zones could create jobs in areas of high unemployment an help alleviate poverty. But part of the equation is also getting washington, d. C. To stop spending our money on things we dont need. So that brings us to principle number three. We need to pass a balanced Budget Amendment to the constitution, make government more efficient and leave the next generation with opportunity, not debt. You know, this year, approximately 4 million children will be born in the United States. The most popular names for girls will likely be emma and sophia. The most popular name for boys is reince. Im just kidding. Youre awake. Actually, i think it is liam and noah. But an interesting fact though. A newborn babys grasp is so strong that he can support his entire weight in midair with just the strength of his curled fingers. And hanging on for dear life is a great skill for babies born today to have. Considering the burden you and i are going to leave them, its unbelievable. Were leaving each child born today a share of almost 18 trillion in national debt, a debt for every child thats over 55,000. How is that fair. Shame on us if we dont do something because taking care of our generation shouldnt require robbing the next. Thats why congressmen like paul ryan and jim jordan have produced budgets that would reduce and free spending, protect our safety net, and start paying off our debt. Today businesses run more efficiently. Our homes run more efficiently. Yet our federal government gets bigger, slower, and more expensive. It doesnt make any sense. Lets apply some 21st century efficiency to the 20th century bureaucracy. Save money and balance the budget. Moving on to health care, which is one of the big drivers of our spending, principle number four. We need to start over with Real Health Care reform that puts patients and their doctors in charge. Not unelected bureaucrats in washington. Let me ask you this. At the most critical moment of your life, when your health an maybe even your life hangs in the balance, how do you want decisions made about what kind or even how much health care youre going to be allowed to get . We need Health Care Solutions that reduce costs, provide greater access to world class care, and give americans more control over their health care decisions. But obamacare gave washington, d. C. More control over our health care and patients and doctors less. Republicans trust americans to make their own health care decisions. Democrats get defensive when you criticize obamacare for failing to meet its own goals. Their comeback is to ask republicans, well, whats your plan to make health care more affordable . And were glad they asked. Now if theyll just listen to the answer, here it is. First off, the problem with the Affordable Care act is it didnt make health care more affordable. But to address the larger inu, republicans have solutions and they want to do what obamacare was supposed to do lower prices and expand coverage. Here are six examples. First, allowing consumers to Purchase Health care across state lines like you purchase almost any other good or service. Second, allowing Small Businesses to pull together to negotiate lower insurance rates for their employees. Third, stopping the frivolous lawsuits that drive up costs. We finally need tort reform in this country. Fourth, expanding the allowable expenses for Health Savings accounts. Fifth, restructuring the tax code so that americans buying individual plans get tax deductions, leveling the Playing Field with those with employer insurance. Sixth, protecting pri ining pri individuals with preexisting conditions who maintain continuous coverage. Now unlike obamacare, none of these reforms require new taxes. No handing over your information to an unsecure website. And if you like your plan, you can actually keep it. Improving Health Care Access and quality gets right to the heart of the next issue veterans affairs. Principle number five. Our veterans have earned our respect and gratitude and no veteran should have to wait in line for months or years just to see a doctor. The va scandal under president obama is unconscionable. Big picture it is anothexamp how mismanaged this administration really is. The most important thing in making sure veterans get the care they need its number one. It shouldnt matter if its in a va facility or not. Thats why republicans were proud to support at the bipartisan veterans access to care through choice, accountability and Transparency Act of 2014. It gives veterans the ability to get care from. Nonva facilities when they live too far away, or have waited too long. Republicans have proposed such measures even before the va scandal made national headlines. Other scandals and issues have nok knocked the va out of the news for now, but that doesnt mean everythings fixed. Republicans will be vigilant in the next congress to ensure that the va gets its act together. No one who risks their life for our country dies waiting to see a doctor. We have to keep our word to our veterans, both because it is a moral obligation and because the service of our armed forces is critical to our National Security. That brings us to principle number six. Keeping america safe and strong requires a strong military, growing our economy, Energy Independence, and securing our borders. The federal government has no greater responsibility than keeping us safe. If youre not safe, if your family and kids arent secure, nothing else matters. With isis, we face an enemy who wants americans dead and our way of life destroyed. We need leaders who will defeat terrorism, not manage it. We need leaders who elect decisively, not down play the threat as jv. We need leaders who will take responsibility, not blame the intelligence community. This is no time to weaken our military. It is a time to strengthen our military. We can eliminate waste and bureaucracy inside the pentagon, but we must have more resources for our troops. We also have to recognize that security threats of the 21st century and improve our Cyber Security has to be important. Thats why chairman mike rogers introduced the Cyber Intelligence and sharing protection act and chairman mike mccall introduced the Cyber Security enhancement act. Like i said, National Security includes more than just our military. It means pursuing Energy Independence and securing our border. Ill come to that soon in the next few topics. But first lets move on to education and principle number seven. Every child should have an equal opportunity to get a great education. No parent should be forced to send their child to a failing school. Just down the street from here, there are two good parents who had the means to send their kids to the best school in town. But not every american has the money to choose a good school for their children like president and michelle obama. But if you cant afford to go to a private school, or you cant afford to move to a Better School district, educational access to the civil rights issue of our day, an School Choice is one of the most effective ways to expand access. House Speaker John Boehner has been a champion of the Opportunity Scholarship Program here in washington, d. C. And there is a reason. It offers children in the city hope. One of the former students there name tiffany talk about waiting to hear if shed received a scholarship. She said, i started praying every day because i didnt want to go to a neighborhood school. School choice can truly be the answer to a childs prayer. We want more ways to help disadvantaged kids get out of a bad school and into a good school. Thats why governor kasich of ohio quadrupled the number of ed choice scholarships in his state. Thats why louisiana expanded its Scholarship Program under governor bobby jindal. What i dont understand is why the Obama Justice department sued louisiana to take away scholarships from kids. And i dont understand why democrats oppose the d. C. Opportunity scholarship or why harry reid wouldnt put a Charter School bill up for a vote. We can also improve education with accountability at the state and local levels. Governor martinez in new mexico implemented an a through f School Rating system with their education reforls which also included raises, training, evaluations for teachers, new mexico is now the number one state in the country for improving graduation rates. Republicans are also working to lower costs and increase flexibility at the postsecondary level. One example. Senator mike lee. He proposed the hero act, the Higher Education reform and opportunity act, to open up new avenues for nontraditional students like single parents. There is a lie on the left that republicans want to cut education. Its not true. What republicans want is a good education for every single child in america, period. We shouldnt measure how much we care about education by how much we spend, but rather by how much our students learn. Right now, we see money wasted on the priorities of teachers unions, not children. Education is too important to let policies be dictated by special interests. Education is key to Opening Doors of opportunity and for fighting poverty, which brings us to principle number eight. The best Antipoverty Program is a Strong Family and a good job. So our focus should be on getting people out of poverty, by lifting up all people and helping them find work. We need an effective safety net. But the federal governments antiproperty programs have become mismanaged and ineffective. We should restructure and consolidate them, give them give more power to the states and actually measure the results. Doing the same thing gets the same old results. 45 million of our fellow americans are living in poverty. As my friend and congressman paul ryan has said, the problem isnt bad motives. Its bad ideas. As he puts it, instead of fighting poverty, the federal government has resign itself to managing poverty. Were spending 800 billion on 92 Antipoverty Programs. You know what . Its not working. Thats why his new plan would consolidate up to 11 programs into one funding stream. States would be rewarded for lifting people out of poverty and they would be free to figure out the best ways to meet peoples needs. Because we know a single mother in new york faces different challenges than a family of six in nebraska. Whatever we do, we have to take a fresh approach to ending poverty, because too many families are hurting, and family brings me to the ninth topic for today. Principle number nine. Our country should value the traditions of family, life, religious liberty, and hard work. We should champion policies that advance these values. Sadly, we have witnessed over the past decades the breakdown of the family unit. Too many kids dont have the stability and support they deserve and need. As senator rubio has said and observed recently, kids in single parent homes are 70 to 80 more likely to spend their childhood in poverty. Arthur brooks at the men Enterprise Institute reminds us that Research Shows that marriage is key. Not only to financial stability, but also basic happiness. Yet, there are actually Government Policies that discourage marriage. So senators rubio and lee, among others, have proposed eliminating the marriage penalty and they propose increasing the child tax credit. There was the familys first act to update the family tax care credit to match inflation. As republicans, were pro family an were also pro life. So when a woman faces an unplanned pregnancy, society should offer our support and compassion. She should know that adoption is possible. Our laws should be improved to make adoption and easier path for families who want to open their homes to children. Just as our government shouldnt stand in the way of family, it shouldnt stand in the way of religion. Family life has long been synonymous with religious life. Republicans will fight for protecting the rights to free exercise an Free Expression and freedom from governments coercion to violate ones religious beliefs. Finally, we want to uphold the value of hard work. Hard work is what built this family and what we pass on to our homes an our families. We need to make it easier to go to work in the first place. Last Month Congress passed the child care and Development Block grant act giving states funds to help lowincome families pay for child care when a parent has to work or go to school. It can be a model for other programs by using block grants, states can do whats right for their residents. In addition, republicans have passed the working familys flexibility act to allow employees to convert overtime hours into paid time off. Thats more time with your kids, and less pressure to choose between work and family. Ultimately, our goal is to make life more fulfilling and more affordable. One of the places where americans seem to spend money every year is energy. So principle number ten. We should make America Energy independent by encouraging domestic energy, lowering prices and creating jobs at home. Americas blessed with abundant resources. What we dont need is washington, d. C. Picking and choosing what energy we can use. We have to build the keystone pipeline. Its good for jobs and it is great for National Security. Democrats say that, well, they dont want oil because they dont want to burn fossil fuels. But opposing the pipeline means the oil gets shipped to china. I can promise you, it is not getting over there in a prius. As senator cruz put it when he outlined his energy plan, a Great American Energy Renaissance is at our fingertips if we use every responsible Energy Source available to us. We can get priced down and people working. Thats a winwin and the kind of American Energy policy we need. Finally today i want to talk about an issue thats often in the headlines, a personal issue for many people, including me, and thats immigration. Principle number 11. We need an immigration system that secures our borders, upholds the law and boosts our economy. Border security must come first. The humanitarian crisis at the border made that abundantly clear. The president s plan to overlook the border crisis and act unilaterally to rewrite our immigration laws is unacceptable an it is unconstitutional. His plan to make further changes to the system after the election will only make the fix harder. As a nation of immigrants we must fix our broken immigration system. We cant reward those who break the laws an punish those who lawfully wait in line. Legal immigration has strengthened this country. We want to continue that legacy and protect the american worker. As i said, this issue is personal. My mom, whos greek, where reince comes from when a greek and a german marry. A little bit of a disaster. I did name my kids jack and grace. But my mom is greek and she grew up in it sudan and emigrated to the United States after meeting and marrying my dad who was in the army in ethiopia. But they moved back to the United States and my went from khartoum to queens, new york. She took an oath though in the early 1970s in newton, new jersey. I was too young to remember but my mom will never let me forget the opportunity that our country has given everyone of us in this room. So ive seen the American Dream come true in my own family. We need to make sure america remains a place where people aspire to work and dream and live. Our country should be a welcoming place for those who want to come here and do it the right way. The 11 principles ive outlined today represent the partys unifying goals. If anyone asks, hows the Republican Party going to work for me . These principles are part of the answer. Theyre not everything. Our leaders have also put forward their positive agendas that uphold these principles. Speaker boehner gave his fivepoint speech and outlined an agenda that, if implemented, would give more jobs to people and places that need them. And let us take advantage of Americas Energy boon. Ow focus also remains on expanding opportunity for everyone in this country. Or as kathy Morris Rogers put it, to ensure in america we are not boun by where we came from but empowered by what we can become. One election wont fix everything, but we can take a step in the right direction this november. If the American People hire us, well be ready on day one. So thank you for the chance to be with you today. Its my honor to be with you today. Thank you for listening. However you vote on election day, thank you for being a part of the great successful experiment that is the american democracy. So thank you very much, god bless you and lets have some questions. Appreciate it. So thank you. You bet. You bet. Thank you for having me. It is a great setting, great opportunity. Much appreciated. Were just thrilled that youve chosen to come here and discuss principles of the rnc and were excited to get into some questions. Some of which have been brought to us by our students and im sure you will find them interesting. So the first one i really want to ask you about, is actually that in the 2012 election, obamas campaign had 2 million volunteers, had 300 people working in the digital world, and in fact dont remind me. Yeah. One of the things you discussed in our audit is sort of the of need for republicans to catch up on digital and the question that i have for you is, after this election, whether you win the majority or not, how are you going to measure whether or not you youve actually achieved something . Because electoral success may or may not be attributable to the digital. Theres so many points youre making here. One, just shear horsepower on the ground. The digital and data capabilities which really get to the heart of who youre going to target and whether you know how to message those people. Number three, if youre making these improvements and you youre claiming that youre so much better, how can you actually prove it as opposed to just saying it was a mid determine election, the wind was at your back, of course youre going to win these states. Exactly. Right. How do you connect that. Those are great questions. It really goes to the heart, by the way, of what the rnc has to do. One of the things you mind if i just take a few minutes . No, thats fine. We had to stop being a National Party that decided that it was okay to show up once every four years, five months before an election. We had become a u haul trailer of cash for a president ial nominee and that is a loser strategy. In the meantime, four years previously, the democrats hired ten people every ten blocks. In cleveland, south florida, wherever they needed to be. And each one of their volunteers had a list of 800 names on the piece of paper. They were going to get to know those people. What the digital and data effort does is it allows us to understand what types of people and who do we think we need to turn out to be polls. Everything about all of you, what you buy and dont buy, what magazines you subscribe to, what car do you drive, how much money do you make, how many kids do you have. The data aen lnalytics can tell in a scale of 1 to 100, whats your propensity to support our candidate. If im in iowa, and i want to make sure that i get, lets just say, 100,000 absentee ballots in the door over the next two weeks. Well, i need to know what 100,000 people do i want to send the absentee ballot request form to. So what the data does, in one sense, is it gives you a clue as to who youre going to send the absentee ballot to. Thats important and i think thats something that i think weve made tremendous improvements on at rnc. If youre just a u hail trailer of cash an just raise a gazillion dollars and hand it off to the president ial fnomine and youre not building, or youre participating in a traveling circus, while obamas building a 100 million data infrastructure, right . You have to be a National Party obsessed over the mechanics, obsessed over a ground game, over the data game. When i walk in the door of the rnc, obviously we had to build from scratch. I think we made some big improvements. So the last point, well how do you tell that all toe the narrative is youre making all these improvements, how can you tell it is from your improvements that made the difference. Well, were working on a project right now to help us measure thatthat made the difference. Well, were working on a project right now to help us measure that, okay, you have you a fullblown operation in these 100 wards, youre doing voter engagement, data work, facebook connect, whatever the tools and platforms are, youre fullbore in these 100 wards. These two wards here right in the middle, theres nothing going on. Youre going to test the voter outcomes in different wards against different demographics based on a control group, and then based on all the things that youre doing in order to see whether what youre doing and saying and selling is actually working. So we have employed methods and ways to do that through the midterm. One last thing. Were also we also have become a Midterm Party that doesnt lose and a president ial party that doesnt win. And thats because voter engagements, my opinion, i believe voter engagement, community engagement, onthegroundwork is anumber one, it is number one if the midterm, but it is even more important in a president ial look at my state of wisconsin. The Republican Party wins about everything you can imagine from town board to governor. We havent elected a republican president there since 1984. So theres something that goes on in president ial elections that we have to get our act together on and thats what were working to do. Okay. Well, thanks for that. Now im going to turn to another piece of what was in the gops sort of internal audit, if you refer to it as the autopsy. The media did. We call it the growth and opportunity report. But were not dead. I would hope not. Dead things have an autopsy. But it was one of the things you addressed in there was your outreach to women and the need to encourage more women to run for office an think about elective politics. Were heading into a president ial cycle where it looks as though the opposite party, the democrats, are potentially likely to nominate the first woman of a major party. So my question to you is, you have some women state elected officials. What have you done to reach out to them . The odd thing about that is that she didnt poll as well as you would think with women. But first of all, i think number one, weve done a very good job of electing women to congress and to the senate. Weve got leaders all over the country. Ive mentioned the first latina governor, suzanna martinez, nikki haley, indianamerican governor in south carolina. Kathy Morris Rogers is the head of the republican conference in the house. I think sometimes we do a really bad job bragging about it. As far as like putting obviously more women in our party up on the news on sunday morning, making sure that were placing People Better which i think weve improved on a lot, making sure that in our case something that you might not think about initially as far as recruiting women in politics is not just so much the candidates but doing the better job of training women to run campaigns, to be the campaign manager, to be the communications director. Because getting women involved at the senior levels at the rnc and on campaigns is another way to bring in more women as candidates and leaders and spokes people that are talking for our party. Weve done a lot of work in that area. Weve had a 14 and 14 program which is a program that our cochair has spearheaded and done an incredible job in kree chu recruiting women to be volunteers and Campaign Workers and activists. But also shes done another great job in doing the black top program which is another training regional Training Opportunity for women within the party. Ultimately though, Barack Obamas sort of making our case as well. Obamacare if you look at polling now, i think i saw a poll a week ago that showed between republicans and democrats it was 43 democrat, 42 republican. The statistical data today, although im not going to argue with your premise that we need to do better, because i think thats true. So im not quarrelling with you. Im just telling you that barack obama has so atrophied across the board that, as to women, as of today, they dont have a sizable advantage in the Democratic Party over the Republican Party as much as that narrative has sunk if. It goes to youth as well. Youd be surprised to know that ken ukkuchinelli beat Terry Mcauliffe on voters between 18 to 24. But obamacare wasnt delivered as promised. Young people dont want to be believed that obamacare was intentionally designed to screw them over, which it was. And they dont really like the idea of nsa reviewing all sorts of emails and communication. These are things that really security and free markets solve. Thats why were seeing a lot of young people coming back to our party. Well, thanks for that. Because it is a great segue into what i was going to ask next because our students here are certainly interested. How do you reach out to young voters . Are issues like the size of student debt on your agenda and on the partys agenda, it is certainly something of concern for many of the students graduated from college. Yeah i think it is res nonatg on campus. When you have an opportunity like this today this is an important thing for us in our party so i appreciate you all being here. It is important to me and where we want to take our party nationally an into the future and i chose to do it here with all of you at a university because i want to make the point as well that i want to speak to young people and whats happening. I feel like im kind of young, but i guess i feel like i fit in with all you guys. But i think it is really important. I was a College Republican when i was in college. Im not saying you have to do all that, but i always remember students when i was in school, felt like the most patriotic people on earth. Loved the opportunity to be here at an Incredible University and love our country and want to be involved in politics and care about the future and thats real. And when i was in school, i took i went to pretty reasonably priced school in undergrad so i didnt really have a lot of debt in undergrad but when i went to law school, it was really expensive. I went to the university of miami and i came out with a lot of debt. Its Something Like 85,000, 100,000. To you kids thats like nothing now. But back then, 80,000, 100,000 is still a lot of money to pay off, but one of the things where im going with this is that when i took the loan and signed all those papers at the i cant remember where it was, but some sort of counseling area i didnt actually understand or feel like it was going to be really real. Like, okay, so ill make a lot of money when im done, and maybe ill be able to pay it off. You have like this vision that its not going to really mean a lot. Then you get done and that check you got to write every month, then you do the automatic withdrawal. And it is a lot of money. You wonder like, okay, im doing really well, ive got this great job. Where is all the money going. My point to all of this is back to debt, is that it is real. At some point it is going to come true and it has to be paid. And whether youre married or youre going to be married and have kids, when you do, like this light switch pops in your brain when you have a child and you start to all those things you hear, you think maybe thats a hokie cliche, do we want to leave our kids with a better but it really clicks in you when you have a child. You start to wonder whether all these opportunities that we have will be there for our kids. I think students in college get that, and they also get that government shoved down your throat isnt helpful. So i feel like were doing much better. But doing things like this, getting involved in campuses across the country. We opened up actually College Republican chapters at moore house morehouse, central state university. Republicans are doing an incredible job on campuses. We did a couple hundred campus captains coming in for training two weeks ago which is to have a permanent infrastructure on campuses across the country that can speak for and talk about the values of the Republican Party. On that note, what do you think about the College Republicans latest ad that is a takeoff of say yes to the dress. I dont know how many people have seen that or not in here, but i think it is a pretty clever ad. I think you have to remember, too, i dont know if alex is here or not, but i think shes like 23, 24 and she shes really plugged in, im sure, to that program. Nowadays advertising and messaging is targeted. A lot of it is not just youre not taking one ad and putting it on nbc during the National League playoff National League playoff series. Youre going to programs. Everything is micro targeted now. If you want to appeal to a certain segment of the population. If i want to speak to college students, i can hire an ad buyer to tell me at 8 00 to 9 30 youre going to get this audience at this time. Everything is targeted. Analysis that goes with ads, consider where could i place there to get me the audience i want . Politics is not a lot different than when Abraham Lincoln said find every wig and get them to the polls. Think about that. Finding every wig, how do you do that . Data, knowing as much as you can about what messaging works for people. Getting them to the polls is another mechanism. Its the same with advertising, data and everything were doing. Absolutely. So taking sort of a different tack, this is a long term question. Basically since the early 90s, the parties have swapped power every few cycles. Its not unusual to see sort of one party win two cycles, the other party come back and win the next one. Really this alternating pendulum my mom jokes were not bipartisan, were bipolar as a country. I think shes right in the sense of whats generally happened is that people have gotten into office, decided the election was a huge validation of their platform and principles and office times it was the voters rejecting the party that was in office at that moment. The larger question to you as a Republican Party is how old you win 2014 . How can you look to maybe not just win 2016 but to win longer term. What are the thoughts about how not to i guess become too filled with huberrous that you leave the country behind . Ill challenge partially the premise of the question. I think things under reagan, bush 41, clinton, bush 43 were far different than other barack obama. I think if you look at reagan and o neil and bush carrying on through 1992, bill clinton when they had a government shutdown, Newt Gingrich was at the white house everyday. There was a camera stand and microphone outside the white house every single day. There was a cooperative nature at its core during those administrations in getting things done. Sometimes the basis of both parties get angry by that or that its not or shouldnt happen. I think this president has taken it to a new level. I think if you talk to a lot of democrats privately, theyre very frustrated. Speaking about b bipolar, it matters in the white house that he says were going to knock heads and figure out what we need to do to deal with this issue or whatever it may be. That isnt what we see. Theres probably people here that say this is part of the rhetoric. I think its very different. Im honestly telling you i think this president has taken this sort of non engagement to a level that we havent seen in American History. So, to your point though, there are over 350 bills right now. Some people may not realize sitting on harry reids desk. Some say republicans arent standing for anything, not doing anything in congress. The truth is the republican controlled house is the only body doing anything. They passed 360 somethi by the way, i think twothirds were bipartisan. Of those, the majority passed by a twothirds vote. I think 50 or 60 of them were authored by democrats. So boehner and the republicans passed all those bills authored by democrat, bipartisan, and theyre sitting on harrys desk doing nothing. One of the things we can do is Republican Controlled Senate is take some of those bills whether it be 100, 200, 300, or 50 and put them on the president s desk and say youreqn going to have sign some of this stuff here. Its important to our country. When that happens and you see the president signing bills and have a Republican Controlled Senate and house, i think then people say okay, this is how a normal functioning body should operate. I think thats going to sort of set the stage for 2016. So next year then, would you expect there to be sort of more confrontation with the president which may be perhaps might lead the to more negotiation . I actually think things can get done. I actually think theres enough sitting in the senate right now that the president is going to have to make a deal. Hes going to have to sign something. You cant pass 300 bills and say nothing here is worth signing. I think it will set the stage for 2016. So you envision there might be more vetos and more certainly. I also think theres enough thats waiting there for the president thats going to be forced to sign some of this stuff which is important. So i think im going to take one more question. We want to make sure to get you out of here on time. And the last question really more has to do with your principles. I think what im most interested in hearing and what we hear often is more the conversation about the economy. It seems as though everyday a new story comes along to sort of knock the economy off the front pages. Its not to say security isnt important or scandals in the va or whatever is happening in secret service. Certainly the American People are most concerned on a daily basis about why hasnt this economy really recovered. You touched on this in some of your principles with regard to regulations. How do you actually look at the idea that government can push forward jobs . I mean, it can be if you dont break it down to specific example. One for sure is keystone pipeline. Its very clear whether you like it or you are on the democratic side and are against it. I think most people support hit in this country. Its a clear example of thousands of new jobs. If you ever go to north dakota or these oil patch areas across the country, little Regional Airport with about 500 pickup trucks parked outside of these airports. Theyre great paying jobs and good for families. It provides the National Security as well in becoming more energy independent. Thats one sitting on harry reids desk. For a while, it looked like a t lot of senators that were democrats were favor of it. A billionaire named tom snieer decided to spend tens of thousands on campaigns. Thats one good example. How can legislation in washington not going anywhere create jobs . Thats one. Another is when paul ryan passipassed five or six budgets. Theyre tough but theyre real. When they didnt do anything or go anywhere five straight years the president was in charge of this country as the ceo and didnt pass a budget in five years. That stifles job creation in this country. Obama care is another example of people losing jobs, Small Businesses closing up because they dont want to pay the premiums. There are three examples of where a Republican Controlled Senate can make the difference. I think its important that we do that. Not because of our party but because of our country. Okay. Well thank you for your time here. You bet. Thank you everybody. I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing perspectives. Certainly there are plenty of students here who will be excited to say hello to you if you have a minute to shake hands. Thank you again for coming. Thank you. This is the fifth year in a row the president has spoken at the event. It gets underway at 7 50 p. M. Eastern. You can see it live here on cspan 3. After the president s remarks, a conversation on islamic terrorism and causes of extremism. Well hear from a College Professor on what he sees as the 15 causes of trerrorism. That starts at 8 35 p. M. Eastern on cspan 3. My book is called beast in the garden. Its about a large animal in ancient times or history would have been called the beast, the mountain lion. In what is really the garden, bolder, colorado. Its a seemly natural place altered by human kind. When you get this wild animal in this artificial landscape, you can cause changes in the behavior of that lion. The deer living on the outskirts of the city where we have irrigated gardens and lawns, the city attracted the deer. We had deer herd living in downtown boulder. Lions first moved back in the open space area. The deer lured the lions into town. Then lions discovered they could eat dogs and cats. Thats food for them. Lions were learning and have learned that this is where they will find food. Theres food up there too, but theres lots to eat in town. Talk about the retreat generally in a beautiful place for enrichment, enlightenment, entertainment and coming together. The people who were intended to be the audience were really what we call the middle class. The programs at most were very similar. Accomodation of speaker of the day also a a variety of what we consider highbrow and low brow entertainment, opera, Classical Music and probably what we consider the vaudville of that day. Over the next few hours here on cspan 3, were going to bring you some of the 2014 new york ideas festival. Up next, a conversation on young people and social heed i cant. Later, an executive with linked in and founders of idea pod, changed. Org and mental flaws. This is just over an hour. Please welcome to the stage megan, christina, nicholas. Hi guys. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. So today its my honor to welcome this great group of people. I want to get right to the conversation. Im going to do a lightning introduction of all of them. Then well get to it. To my right, christina lewis, founder of all star code, non profit dedicated to closing the opportunity gap between young men of color and tech sector. Welcome. Next to her we have talfi, senior technical manager at aol. He manages products and Team Development. He has been coding since he was 14 years old. Last but not least, nicholas who is a sophomore at the pathways to Technology Early college in brooklyn. He has been on the Robotics Team at his high school as a software developer. You went to nationals this year right . Awesome. Thank you. Welcome you guys. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having us. I would love to start with christina. Tell us a little about all star code and what the program does. Also in particular why you wanted to focus on young men. Sure. All star code is a prep program for Tech Industry. Theres college prep, law school prep. Were tech prep. We attract, prepare, place young men of color in the Tech Industry by teaching Computer Science and coding in one day work shops as well as a Summer Program and professional soft skills. We feel these things are the recipe for success many the tech world t engine of job growth, innovation in this country. Its a field extremely undiverse. Only 3 of computer workers are black or latino. Fewer than 1 of back startups have an africanamerican on the team. We recruit students from low and middle income areas with interests in tech and give them extra skills and intensive training so that we can help place them in the tech career pipeline. After our program, well provide College Guidance and other assistance in choosing their path in the advisory role. The reason were focused on boys is that this prep Program Concept is so successful. There are already it would have National Programs focused on girls in the space. I spoke with the founders of those,s. They felt as i did, minority boys needed programs like the this too. Theres no need to duplicate their work. Awesome. Weve been operational six months. A long standing program. Yes. Piloting our first Summer Program this summer here in new york city. We just selected our first class. Nice. How many people . 20 students. We got over 130 applications. Thats amazing. Lets talk about the particulars of the program. Nicholas, can you tell us a little about your experience with the hack a thons . Did you have a favorite . Ive only been to one so far. From it i received a whole bunch of education when i went. They showed me how they took a problem and used coding to solve it in a way that was unknown to me. When i went, they stated the problem to people and then decided how they would use the certain apis that tumbler gave them to solve the problem. It was awesome. What we can offer students is exposure to the Tech Industry. Even students like nicholas that knew he wanted to go into tech and studying it at his school and on the Robotics Team. They have little access to Actual Technology professionals, never visited a company that, Technology Company in new york. The spotify, he thought it was just overseas. He didnt know the u. S. Headquarters is here in the city. Thats where we can really make a difference because if you cant see it, if you cant see how and understand how what you learn in school can be used in the real world in that path, we feel that you cant dream it. Right. You cant follow that path. Thats what we expose students to. Awesome. Lets talk about this idea of exposure. You do hiring and Team Development et cetera at aol. Care and feeding. Yes. Lets just i guess dig into the idea of sort of net working and what networking is itself. Its a dirty word in some ways. It can be beneficial right . Absolutely. So, you know, a large part of what attract aed me to the progm was premise of networking these kids with professionals. I benefitted a lot from mentors. I thought it was intriguing to offer that to up and coming technologists. How do you do that in your role . Its strange because mentoring is really about being available. And providing exposure. That was one of the things that i enjoyed just im at pack a thon. What questions are there . Let me explain things that give you looks. Its interesting because you not quite clear what you know and what you can convey until youre asked about it. Thats awesome. Whats been your favorite moment . Stepping back and watch kids enjoy what they do. I found when teams have the internal sparks, its limitless on what can be created. When you see that spark, you know theyre on a particular path. Theres little they can accomplish at that point. Thats awesome. This might change tomorrow or in a year, but at this point what do you want to do later on . Web design and learn more about photography. About what . Photography. Awesome. Cool. And integrate within technology . Yeah. Thats great. Awesome. One of these ideas that i would love to get your perspective on is idea of culture fit. Its a term we hear in the tech sector. It can be a good thing because people want to hire people who can work well with the team and integrate and communicate well and all of this stuff. At the same time it can be an excuse to hire people that think and look like you and act like you. What sort of is the ideal sort of hiring approach you would like to see and be more particular. What do you think about the particular idea of culture fit . My career was originally as a professional journalist. I was a reporter for the wall street journal, very familiar with different businesses. I was not familiar with the Tech Industry until i went to a conference three years ago. It was a different world with a different set of expectations from the corporate world that i knew. So culture fit is indicative of that. I saw at the same time there were few minorities. I could see things like culture fit and emphasis on informality and things that black and latino students were not familiar with and needed exposure to. I think things like culture fit are a fact of life in the Tech Industry. What were doing is supporting our students and educating them in that so that when they do pioneer into that this and we fully expect our students to be able to do that, they wont feel different when they arrive. Yeah. We have to prepare them for that. Can i talk about the inspiration for all star code . Yes. My father Reginald Lewis was a pioneer on wall street. He was born in 1942 in segregated baltimore and went to an all black school all his life until he went to an early prep program run by harvard law school. That program opened the world to him and gave him the education and credentials to spring board him onto wall street where he went to a law firm and ended up being extremely successful as a financer, a world that is prototypical white boys world. Because of that, i have first hand experience seeing how early Access Programs can have a huge effect on lives on interested and talented students if theyre exposed to the stage where they can really take advantage of it. Thats why i feel confident with this program we can our students can innovate and pioneer into the sector. Thats wonderful. My father unfortunately passed away 21 years ago. This is a wonderful tribute to him i think. Thank you. Wonderful. I mean, this idea of sort of education in general you know has come up a lot. What would you guys like to see about sort of the Education System as it currently stands . What should we change if something could change about the way we approach teaching skills versus teaching approaches . Everything in our teachers and mentors is project based in terms of learning. Students are exposed to video game design, to wearables, to of course web development, mobile apps. In the end theres a focus on final project. All of our workshops at the end, students demo what theyve learned and have put together a product instead of working one on one where the teacher assigns the the students work and they do it. They worked informally in teams always so that they understand they have to collaborate working informally. Put something together and i think many people feel that schools have to do more of that with students many terms of lab work and other things that a help students give them the skills, the hol listic skills important in the job market today. Thats great. Nicholas, what was your final project . Final project in all star code . One of them. We worked before we started working on robots, we worked on they gave us three problems. I believe i chose the problem that theres a run down park in the neighborhood. What are you going to do to get your community to come and fix the park . What my team and i did, we went and photo shopped a bunch of posters and put it all over the neighborhood to get the word spread. Excellent. Did you have one more . I was going to get him to talk about his project from the first workshop. Oh spotify. We had to build a place where people could learn about music and the new music coming out. So i coded a website. It was basically a prototype of what it would look like. It was a whole bunch of articles to talk to the rappers or musician ises or pianoist and learn about what theyre trying to make. Thats amazing. Really creative idea. Is it live now . I have it but it isnt on domain. I hope it gets up. I could totally use that site. Thanks for being here. I wish you had more time. This is wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Please welcome to the stage deep nashar. Thank you. Thats loud. Great to see everyone here. I was a little worried getting on stage when i saw the lineup this morning. Those of you here at 9 00 a. M. You saw the cycling folks. Biking can manage that. Then you had the tough mudder guy. Any of you done it . Your friends done it . There was one in california this past weekend. I saw pictures. Ttgruesome. To think that people pay 100 each to not only slide through mud but at the end you have to go through a wall of live wires. You actually get jolted with electrical shocks. If you slip and start running, they jack up voltage on you. Some people go to any extremes. So i thought that i had to notch it up a bit. I will talk about not Economic Empowerment but bare hands and feet, rock climbing with 50 pound knapsacks on your back. Thats my next multimillion business idea. Im just kidding. I do climb for fun, but thats not what im going to talk about today. Im going to talk about Economic Empowerment. I want to talk about a communication device thats quite expensive. You had to wait in line for a long time to get one. It was only available in one color. Anyone guess what that is . I heard some people say iphone. Close. Its one color, few hundred dollars. Had to wait in line for months. My friends waited in line 48 hours or so. Thats not what im talking about. Im talking about the big black phone. Anyone remember this . Probably at an exhibit at the Natural History museum. This phone was a very important device when i was growing up in india. It was one of those phones that made that sound when it goes by the rotary dial. A very important device. The reason was it cost 10,000 rubies to get in the 80s. Thats six months salary for an average person many india at that type. You had to wait in line sometimes five to ten years to get one. It was only available in the color black. This phone was so important that most of the time it would be under lock and key. It would be in drawers. It was not readily available. Its a very expensive, hard to get, important device. 80s mumbai where i grew up looked like this. I grew up in one of these apartments. 200 square feet, me, four sibling, my parents. We shared an outside toilet with a bunch of other tenants that lived on the same floor. You got Running Water 30 minutes every evening between 9 00 and 9 9 30. We filled up a plastic drum to use the water the next 24 hours. We had a happy middle class existence. Many the 80s that was whats middle class was like. Most of us inspired to go do something different. As i was growing up and i was in the early 80s in high school, i was a science geek. Go figure. One year the project that i really wanted to do for the science fair was create electrocity. The ex ra enertra energy that c of the earth goes to waste. What if you could harness this energy and convert that to electricity . The way i wanted to demonstrate that was to have a little red light bulb glow at the end. My partner and i spent months making all this work. We welded things together, glued hem, did research at the library. There was no internet then. We got this thing to work. Finally the big day arrived. Judge are s came by. We were presenting our project to them. That exact moment happened as i was showcasing the the demo. I knew that i was going to become an engineer. I had that moment that every great engineer has at least once if not multiple times in their life. The the demo fail at the big moment. The light bulb did not light up. I was like crushed. Thankfully the judges saw the power of what we could do. They were excited by enthusiasm. We placed second. Not only did we place second, we showed up in the National Newspaper the next day. I was famous, loved it. I even got the fact the first place winner was some kid that copied a popular me mechanic creating a robot from a chain. Come on, really . Im kidding. I was jealous. The if i had one regret, it was that i didnt parlay this fame into a hot date. I went to an all boys school. Couldnt do anything about that. The person behind a lot of this work was really my middle school and High School Science teacher. Lets call her mrs. J. Mrs. J not just taught us principles of scientific inquiry but she was also part disciplinarian, part the person that bought you back on track. He should make you think about the problems you were facing. She would try to connect theory in the classroom to what we were trying to do in projects. In reality, the friction were not always exactly what textbooks told you. She went a couple of steps further. Our school crowded. We didnt have space to work on projects we were doing. She litter areally opened her home. We would work on projects on evenings and weekends on holidays in her living room. She enabled us to go beyond. Once i had questions she couldnt answer. She said go call someone. Heres the number. Go call her. You can imagine im 12 or 13 years old, barely able to use this home. We dont have one at home. There were only two such phones in our entire school. One was on the principals desk, and the other was in the drawer with the school clerk under lock and key. So i go to the school office, ask the school clerk to make this call. He reluctantly hands me the phone. I finish the call. Short call. I get my answer. And something changed for me. I went in, and as i walked out i felt an inch taller. Suddenly i had found a connection to the world beyond the one kilometer radius between my home and my school. Its almost like mrs. J, mentor in my life, had shown me the art of the possible. Beyond the confines of where i lived and where i started. She did this not just for me but hundreds of other folks like me. Weve all gone on, many of us, to be become doctors, engineers, lawyers. In some small way we tried to make the world a better place. She gave us this key that opened a lock. Ive been thinking about this quite a bit recently because even as the world is becoming increasingly connected, and now days this is a cyber cafe in my old neighborhood. I can walk in there, kids like me from 30 years ago, can walk in from and be connected to all sorts of information and people around the world. They still have a fundamental disconnect. The disconnect is what andy in his book the second machine. Hes going to speak this afternoon. He talks about the second half of the chess board. What we are teaching young people these days is about how to solve technical problems. The challenge is computers are already solving these problems. What we need to teach them and also how to construct these together. That is something that needs to be really embraced through something called steam. Sorry. Steam sounds for science, technology, engineering, arts, math. Weve all heard of stem. Steam is important because of one important reason. We have to not just have the ying of scientific problem solvings, but we need the yang of solving the problems. If you dont have the problems to solve, youre not going to solve correctly. Computers and technology is become better and better. We can solve problems very easily. The phones we have in our pockets has more powers than Super Computers 20 years ago. Most law makes scientific problem solving easier and easier. The computers that beat the best chess masters in the world, what they cannot do is go and process a code. As we Program Computers on each problem, theyll solve all of them. We need to construct problems together, bring together the lessons of science and art. Countries that have embraced this, like china, india, israel, are seeing the value of this. Theyre seeing the Economic Prosperity at rates gra s greatn the rest. See that in growth rates of gdp. This is important to me personally as well. Not just the person that came from mumbai to Silicon Valley but also as a father. I have two teenage kids. As they start on the journeys of academic and professional lives, the one thing that we all worry as parents is what will they do . Will they have a job, a future . All of our skills are becoming quickly obsolete. These problems are not easy problems. They may even feel daunting. Unemployment, poverty, inequality. At the same time, all of us at some level or the other have overcome big problems in our lives. Weve helped to make the world a better place. Through our work, through communities, through professional work. As i think about b ississues, specifically unemployment, i feel there are problems together we can tackle. Something that i learned from days growing up in mumbai. The first issue is that of the skills gap. Weve come out of one of the worst recessions weve known historical historically. There are 3. 9 open jobs in the u. S. Right now. Even as 30 of young people under the age of 21 in the city of detroit are without jobs. We cannot fill the jobs in Silicon Valley. There are 30,000 open jobs as we speak there. A new College Graduate many the Computer Science degree is getting 100,000 in signing bonus alone in Silicon Valley today. Yet, there are tens of thousands in Middle America that dont have a job. Its because we dont understand the skills that are needed in Silicon Valley with what is taught to young people whether this high school or college. This is why the work that christine and what theyre doing is so powerful. Were teaching young people the kinds of things they need to know in order to be successful. We need to do more of that. The second issue is that about creative thinking. What i was talking about earlier. Picasso once said computers are useless. They possible give answers. He was half right. They do give answers. They arent useless completely. The second part of that equation is theyre giving answers to problems that we are setting as human beings in front of those computers. This is the left brain and right brain. This is the discipline, what gives us the iphones, amazon buying experiences. This is about the creativity inherent in all of us that computers and technology cannot mimic. We have to come together and teach this to our young people. Its a teachable skill. The final thing is diversity. Most of the stem jobs, these high paying jobs are still going to remain white males. Nothing against then. Its not their fault. It really isnt. Theyre capable, available. They get the jobs. The challenge is that since 1984, when we had 38 women representation at universities, weve come down to 12 today. The trend is going in the wrong direction. If you dont have enough diversity in universities reflecting the skills we need, clearly were not going to see that in the work place. We needy ver diversety. This is what colleges have put in place. I published a decision this morning on how she has increased over the past few years enrollment at the institute from 10 to 40 . Shes gone in the other direction. Shes done it using very well known technique. More and more universities are following suit. So the challenges clearly are bake. Problems are bake. As i think back on that little black phone and mrs. J, i think we also have possible solutions in our grasp. The first is connectivity. When you think of the skill s gap, the challenges no one is telling the 20yearold in detroit they should not take chop class. Automotive jobs are changing. Theyre going to robots or going oversees. That same person could be taught welding. As we speak, theres a plant in georgia thats delayed because there arent enough welders in the country. That person can be taught ios programming and android programming. There are millions of apps. People want to build more of those. We also have a huge advantage today. Platforms like linked in. We have more than 300 people on it. We have hundreds of thousands of jobs. Over 3 million companies, a lot of professional knowledge. Education institutions, all of these can come together and we can figure out where the skill gaps are and what the skills are needed. We can point people not just individually but also through policy. Public policy and governmental work. We are already working with the u. S. Government on things like this for veterans. We can do a lot more. The second and the human connection. Ive had dozens of mentors during my 30 year career. Im really thankful for that. All of us can be paying it forward. All of us could be mentoring young people. We have to create more institutions like all star code, like mentor net et and other organizationsrecently got involved with. The founder and chief executive of mentor net was a Computer Science student who almost dropped out in college from that and went to do something different. She found a mentor, or a mentor found her and said no, you can do it. Let me help you through it. She went to get her phd worked as a lustrous engineer. Now shes taking that knowledge and creating a network of mentors to help other young minority people and youths in colleges and help them become more and not dropout. One of the other challenges is bring people in and they drop out. You need a support people, people like you. Thats difficult to be a pioneer in those spaces. The final thing we can have is leadership. Leadership not just in terms of thinking, but in terms of actually doing, things like whats happening in all star code. The platforms and tools we are creatin creating. This makes technical subjects very accessible and available everywhere in the world. We also need to use the platforms to connect the people with problems theyre interested in. There are 30,000 non profit boards with 30,000 board memberships available that are going unfilled every year. At the same time, there are so many folks who have accomplished so much who can give back to the community. They dont know about opportunities. We created a platform for them to come together. We can do the same for any we choose to. This world is a very daunting world. It doesnt matter that i was 14 years old in the early 80s and feeling like the doors were locked. If you ask any young person today in the Silicon Valley, new york city, mumbai. They all face the same insecurity, same worry about what future holds for them. But just like my mentors, leaders in my life who connected me to the outside world by vir which y by virtue of the black phone, we can help others see the power of the big beautiful world full of opportunities in i hope that today we can take some of these ideas back and help at least one young person in our lives and make the world a better place. Thank you. [ applause ] please welcome to the stage justin brown and ben ratet. Well thank you very much to new york ideas. Its a real pleasure to be here. My name is justin brown. Im one of the cofounders of idea pod. Its my absolute pleasure to interview founder and ceo of change. Org, the Worlds Largest petition platform. They have 65 million users from 196 countries in the world. To begin this interview, id like to ask ben, can you help us understand what a petition is by giving us an example of a Successful Campaign from your platform . Thanks. Great to be here. So a lot of people historically have been skeptical about the power pow power petitions understandably so. What were seeing is a dramatic transformation. One example from last year that i think was especially inspiring, a 10yearold girl that had Cystic Fibrosis who have needed double you think wills to live. Theres a restriction that prevents kids under the age of 12 from receiving adult lung transplants. She was first on the list but couldnt get it despite recommendations of her doctors and more given her size. Her parents go lobby internally try to change a policy over a number of months. Theyre unsuccessful. They start a Public Campaign on changes. Org. 300,000 join, get the endorsements of senators, ends up being huge on national media. After a week of campaigning, hundreds of thousands of people mobilized. The government changed the regulation, gives her two lung, saves her life and changes it for all others who have hope to experience the same. We see this all the time. Its not even just the case its around government stuff. Ooet its a lot of corporate stuff. Coke and pepsi announced yesterday theyre going to remove pvo from products. The reason is because of a 15yearold girl. This girl sarah last year petitions gatorade. Its a fire retardant. The lobbying of the soft drink company has prevented this study so far. She was on dr. Oz. After a few weeks of campaigning and the context of never having to address the issue, gatorade announces theyre going to remove the chemical. She starts a campaign against power aid and other pepsi products. After a year, they changed the policy entirely and remove the chemical from all soft drinks literally because of a 15yearold girl. This seems remarkable. It literally happens everyday. Dozens of victories just like that everyday. I think thats absolutely amazing to hear specific examples of campaigns. What were seeing today is a real explosion of campaigns particularly on change. Org. Why are we seeing this explosion . What explains the success of these campaigns . Historically one of the biggest impediments of social movements has been the expense of organizing people together rapidly together for common cause. Its expensive in time and money. Thats impeded the number of social movements that could be born. Structurally disadvantages, groups of people with resources. You have a situation which private interests often times overcome the public good. Whats happened is radical production this action. Thats two, five times and hundreds of more times campaigns that ever existed before. When you have the incredible ease to start and spread campaign a, they start to look different as well. Instead of campaigns to change the health care system, its a specific Campaign Around a single young girl 10 years old to get her new lungs and changes regulation that spawns many more campaigns. Its not campaign to change all tox irns in all products. Its a specific campaign to get a particular chemical out of two particular companys products, coke and pepsi. While they look small, because of capacity for massive scale, not one or two campaigns but hundreds of thousands of campaigns, you have Greater National impact through distributed movements than the old number of movements people have tried. What are successful components of a campaign . The campaign is achievable within a short period of time. Traditionally the reason petition as havent worked online because theyre mostly targeted at u. N. , president , congress. The three least responsive institutions in the entire country. Campaigns that are targeting individual mayors or City Councils or School Boards and individual Companies End up being more effective. Not because a thats the ultimate aspiration of the movement you try to run, its rather the necessary small step required to build the movement from person to person, city to city. Whats interesting is its not as if weve inno vated on understanding how to run social movements historically. The fact the most powerful Civil Rights Movement in American History was started in no small part narratively speaking. A woman refused to walk to the back of a bus. That seems crazy. Theres a spark to move city to city, state to state, thousands of campaigns, many year, they ended up winning that National Epic battle. Ben, would you say change. Org and citizen movements leading us towards a direct form of democracy . Yeah. If you look at traditionally speaking out they have responded to citizens. Theres small communication between elected officials and elected representatives. Its literally private communication via email sometimes. Mostly not campaigns or legislation. The result is for every single piece of legislation, theres a lobby Group Pressuring because of interests and disproportionate small groups of people. You have constituencies of every representative mobilized. In the next few years, literally half the voting public will be on change. Org to take action. Youll have officials to respond openly and transparently to their own. We think its greatest democracy. Its an exciting thing. It properly insenty vises officials. A lot dont want to spend time and money having the resources to buy attention during elections. If you can more directly go to constituents and access to a larger percentage of electorate, you can engage more fifthly. Thats going to happen more and more. Can you give us an example of a petition on your platform thats gone directly to official thats led to policy change or change in government . One of my favorite and it starts with a tragic story is there was a loophole in the department of Transportation Authority bill that was passed in early 2000s. That made it such that rent a Car Companies were not legally required to return recalled cars. Literally dangerous cars were not required. Its expensive. Enterprise and hertz lobbied to make the change. In 2004, two young sisters went from enterprise. It was a pt cruiser recalled months before. It was not returned. It ends up catching on fire on the highway, hits a semi, they die. Their mom not just distraught wants to fire it. It takes serve years, and she wins in 2011. The law hasnt changed. Theres a number of senators that tried to change this. This is an incredibly obstetrics cure thing. There are some lobbying to maintain this. This is a generic flaw most arent paying a the tension to. The mom starts a change. Org petition. Gets on the today show. After a decade of lobbying for this policy, it turns around immediately and announces theyre going to change the position and support a law recently naped by the names of those two young women. Powerful example of a opaque situation now pierced by massive everyday people paying more attention in some no small part. Were personalizing issues that wungs seemed abtract impersonal and inaccessible. Now theyre powerful. It bridges the empathy that natural inability to empathy human beings have. That engages them in politics in ways that didnt happen previously. Its fascinating to hear about the power of social media to empower citizens in creating change around us in the local conte context. I guess theres a huge role for the traditional media in helping us advance change. Can you tell us a little about the role of traditional media in the petitions on the website, change. Org and how it creates Successful Campaigns . I think theres a lot of members media who looks to be their inevitable demise. They have more power than ever before. The power in media in large part has been trarnt parent say. Revealing things that lead to accountability. The effectiveness of the kind of media that is fully transparent is predicated on a population of people that consume that content and then mobile lies to enforce the accountability it requires. You used to have a large of articles that ended up being investigative reports and whatnot. It was practices after the issue flaws flat. Theres no action that justifies no subsequent News Coverage and it dies. Now you have this base immediate and direct response to articles, mobile liedss the campaign, drags that out over period of times and prevents the targets, politicians and companies from zpuk covering to avoid it. One example ill give here i love recently. The guardian has been writing in the past about this tragic issue of a female genital mutilation that happens its hard to really get people engaged. The issue, id say a 17yearold somaliborn girl now a uk citizen, fatah, and shed been campaigning around this issue, started a petition on change. Org, gets 200,000 people to participate over the period of that month, gets it endorsed by ban kimoon, malala after literally ignoring the issue entirely, gets an a meeting with the Education Minister and the next day in the context of trying to avoid this issue because of the embarrassment, the Education Minister because of a 17yearold announces theyre going to educate 100 of teachers across the uk to inform and educate both the girls at threat and their friends who have been identified as a solution for it. The 17yearold girl is a necessary condition but it would not have happened without amplification the guardian provided. Amazing. Weve had a picture painted of the future in which citizen engagement, direct democracy, and technology are helping us all create that Better Future together. What word would you say to those of us in the audience that would like to bring that future a little closer towards us so that we can get a little bit more active and create that change at an accelerated pace . I would say a couple things. One, a very pragmatic level. Lot of people in the audience who are a part of members and influences of the institutions that are going to be responsive to citizen movements. While i think its inevitable this will happen and unfold over time, we do see theyre pioneering elected officials and companies that are embracing the reality that we now live in a different time consumers and constituents have more power than ever before and they literally hold the brand of these politicians and these companies in their hands. We started to establish formal channels through which elected officials can engage with constituents. Elizabeth warren and paul ryan both committed to responding to their own constituents through the site and companies are now doing the same thing. So to the extent that you work for a company or a politician or a member of the media that can actually start to embrace this new reality, to respond directly to constituents and consumers or amplify those in public, theres immense opportunity there. Then the second thing i would say is the remaining thing that we see as a primary impediment to social change isnt actually the tools necessary to make it happen, its a belief that its possible. And so one of the things we fight is the cultural skepticism that people have that everyday people cannot make a difference. And so as citizens, which we are all, as citizens i think the passionate belief, the suspension of cynicism and skepticism, the recognition this is actually not some random episodic change, but the technology is transformative change in the structure of relations between everyday people and large institutions and our belief in our ability and our commitment to engage in that as citizens and not workers and politicians is powerful thing. I hope to see more people do it. Thank you, ben. I think weve had a wonderful picture painted how technology is changing the world. We often do hear about social media and how it will lead to massive change. Its really tools like change. Org that put these into action. Thanks ben. Thanks so much. [ applause ]. Please welcome to the stage, derek thomas, William Pearson and david burstein. Hello, guys, hello everyone. I hope you find a seat. Were here to talk about young people and reading habits. How young people read and how we all read on the new screens that are ubiquitous. David has a difficult job of speaking on behalf of 86 million people, the millennial generation. And will and mangesh have the easier job of speaking among two people. Keep that in mind as youre sort of assessing the quality of the answers, although david is quite good. My first question is for the mental floss guys. Facebook has become the home page of news for news publishers, the atlantic has seen this, facebook now drives more of our traffic than our home page. It is literally our most important page for news. But its not necessarily a home page for news for most people. A pew study found that just 10 of facebook users go to the site for the purpose of reading news. And i was looking at a piece i wrote recently a few months ago of the most viral stories of 2013, the stories that were most successful on facebook in the buzz feed network which covers a lot of different publishers. Here they are. How yall use and you guys talk, new york times. Two years after she passed away, a woman gives her family an unforgettable christmas, buzz feed. Its thanksgiving so we ask the brits to label the u. S. , were so sorry, america. Buzz feed. 30 signs youre almost 30. Buzz feed. You go through this entire list. There are practically no news stories. There are, however, lots of interesting stories. What mental floss seems to me discovered very early on, theres something about the curiosity for content, that doesnt necessarily prize timeliness or newsworthiness, the journalistic principles, but rather interestingness. Tell me a little bit about how thats animated your philosophy at mental floss and how maybe youve seen an evolution in reader behaviors since social media has really picked up in the last few year. Sure. Well i know obviously facebook has made a number of changes to the algorithm and really trying to feature these interesting stories. I wouldnt look at facebook necessary as an outlet for news or conversation around that news. So what we found is an interesting challenge is that when ever something huge is going on, thats what everyone is going to be talking about. So as a news source or information source, if you were to just repost or tell the story of what just happened, youre not going to get any pickup from that. So the key is to cut through the clutter in an interesting way. One interesting example i can give, during the president ial debates a few years ago, you have obama and romney up on stage and the left and the right are bashing each other on social media. Romney then brings up sesame street. Rather than having any commentary on that or telling the story of why he would have said what he said about sesame street, our social media editor, jason english, simply tweets the fact that big bird is 82, period, end of story. It becomes one of the most retweeted comments of the evening. And its that its that key that people want to be able to share that most interesting thing that happened that night and its not usually just the story itself. And for mental floss really started as this very selfish endeavor, right . It started in a dorm room. It was this mixture of cocky and naive that you were in college and we thought, you know, theres no magazine like this, well start it, so we started a print publication in 2001, which wasnt the best time to start a print publication. But it was also some necessity, right . This was a gut feeling that we had that you could create a magazine that was optimistic, very inclusive that could educate in a very quick and fun way. But it also had to have a shelf life and had to stay on stands for three to four months. And so we concentrated on interesting. It really was what felt natural to us and what we wanted to read. I love the description of a mix of cockiness and naivety. It animates a lot of web vernacular these days is some combination of that. David, you know, theres a sense, i think, that millennials are like this posthuman tech utopia when it comes to news habits. And its weird because there was a pew study that looked at exactly how young people read and it was surprisingly conservative. They were exactly as likely to use their smart phones and tablets for news as 40 somethings and 50 somethings. And 60 of them, the same share as the rest of the country said they preferred printstyle reading experiences over these graphicsrich, snowfallesque reading experiences. So, should this surprise us . Tell us a little bit about how we like to consume information. Well, you know, its really interesting because when you think about millennials, one of the sort of suppositions as you said is that its this generation that is, you know, that is unlike any just wants to do things online. And when you think about the tactile experience of leaving through a magazine or leafing through a print publication, theres something about that experience that is about a sense of curiosity. And that theres a sense of seriousness that young people want to consume their news with. And i think theres been a lot of assumptions to think this generation doesnt want serious content because were younger, were not seeking that. In fact, this is a generation that cares deeply about the world, that cares about importance issues that wants to be engaged with that. They want their experience to mirror that. While we enjoy going on a site like buzz feed and looking at cat listicals we do. And we certainly do. Theres a sense that we really do care about the world. We want to consume that news in that kind of way. If you look at how everybody wants to consume news, the kindle, for instance, and theres more and more emphasis on trying to emulate the print experience as people read. So when we think about millennials, those trends on how millennials are consuming news are not dissimilar to other generations but millennials do care much more about where that information comes from. And, you know, its more likely their friends will share something in that format. Thats one of the big differences that it matters much more to us where the information comes from, who gives it to us and that is one of the biggest changes that that trust is really, really important. Quickly pushing back. When you say who gives it to us, the publisher, the name between