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And i urge you to by a your own copy here now tonight through our local independent partners at Elliott Bay Books using the, again, very conveniently positioned button at the bottom of your screen. Then, steve davis well, city david is aware of many hats consecutively, simultaneous limp presently senior strategic advicer and interim director China Country Office for the bill and mel linda Gates Foundation, and a tissued fellow with the World Economic forum. Cochair hoff the World Health OrganizationsAdvisory Group and still many of you may know hill as the form are president and ceo of task, Global Health innovation and delivery nonprofit headquartered in seattle. From the realm of other former hats he is director of social innovation and ceo of corps. He write about intersection of technology and social this talk us how citizens traipses mute it outrage into positive change. Heaven knows i could use some of that inspiration right now. Chelsea clinton doesnt me inspire duke. The vice chair of the chron Ton Foundation where she works ongside Foundation Letter children and partners to improve Public Health a inspire Civic Engagement and Service Across the out and around t world. Sheeached at columbia unersitys school of Public Health, the author of several packed for young readers, including she persisted. 14 american women who changed the world, and star now, you can make a difference, dont let them disappear and its your world, get informed, get spired and get going, and the cothor of the book of gutsy women and grandmas garden with her mom, hillary clinton, bothf which are in my daughterswn book collections and of gerning Global Health, wholines world and why. Steve davis book channelin ouanged sparked activism is the subject of the talk, join me in welcoming Chelsea Clinton steve davis. Thank you for that incredibly generousen inthrow ducks, we want to think town hall and Elliott Bay Book company for helping bring us all together in this virtual space. Always such a pleasure to be with steve, even just on a submit split screen, steve is one i have long admired, proud to call a friend and have known for quite a few years. We first met when we were both working for Global Health and both still are. When steve what as pass and ien was engaged with the christian to ton Health Access initiative, we found we have quite a bit in common. Stanford, real appreciation for the arts and the belief that the arts are critical for young people, and a profound interest in innovation and a deepm abiding kind of moral call toward optimism. So i just am so pleased to be in conversation with steve tonight to talk about his wonderful new book, undercurrents and hope youll use the question function. I will quite gleefully exploit my platform as the moderator to ask steve a series of questions of the next 30 to 40 minutes and then very much hope you will direct the time before the hour is up. Sos, please ask questions. Ill check the question feature regularly so that we can be mindful of your questions as theyre coming in. Steve, just thanks for inviting me to be here with you. Great to see you. Thank you, chelsea. Its really great to see you virtually and happy your kidded are in bed and we can have this conversation now, and thanks again to town hall and to elliott bay and so many others who supported us tonight and also on this long journey. Here to about your book which i have had the pleasure of reading and i know hasnt people who are joining us have not yet. Could you just start with telling us why you decided to write this book, why now, and a little bit about what its about. Sure. Yeah. So, increasingly in my work and travels over the last few years, i kept hearing from a wide range of people, students, activists, interested citizens, just kind of how paralyzed and confused they have been about the world around us, often really filled with outrage bulls not knowing what to do with it. This is from the impression that things were constantly just getting worse all the time. And yet the realities are, and the data and evidence often shows that actually quite a few things are getting bester in the world or theres some interesting and positive trends that should be providing some hope and optimism as well, and they hopefully will help us improve the world around us if thought it would be worth to take time to reflect on those trends trends and write about system call the trends undercurrents, and it is really the book is really about how to think about those trends in a way that might help today or tomorrows activists get more engaged in what i call practical activism, not necessarily spending your whole life or time out in at the street protesting or devoting your whole life to a nonprofit but actually doing the kind of little and quiet things that practical activists do in world to make it a better plate for all of us. I want to talk but practical activism in a moment but first i want to just kind of delve into undercurrents little more. Love the name and think it is such a kind of powerful framing. Could you just talk about more but what you mean by undercurrents and maybe give an example . Sure. Undercurrents for me, it came from sort of a water metaphor obviously, tied back to my background, i can share some n the book. On a Ranch Community in montana, but what im talking pout is the not necessarily the big headline issues that are capturing all of our attention, whether its election or Climate Change or educational disparities and that. Its the stuff working below the sure fat that are phenomenally powerful to change the world. The book is structured around five particular ones that i focus on and i dedicate a chapter each, and theyre things like the fact that actually the demographics demographics of the world are changing, that more and more people are living better, longer and have more resources than ever before and that trend is powerfulfully continuing. Its in general happening and how powerful that is in terms of helping support activism or the focus on Digital Transformation, a complicated story which has its challenges but is also an amazingly powerful trend that the world is adopting to that will empower activism and social change a lot. And you also kind of in the book talk about the currents in your own life, and maybe you could just share the big currents in your life have been and how those have kind of ebbed and flowed in importance for you just to kind of continue with the water metaphor, and kind of how you think that could be maybe just a useful experience, especially for young people who might be listening to us, how the currents in your life have shifted and influenced you and what that has meant over time. Thats kind of where i got the think can about this idea of currents, is actually reflecting on my own experiences and that students as was mentioned i am a professor at stanford, and when i teach, im often asked for career advice and i shake my head im not sure you really cant want to get career advice from my. My career is like a pinball machine. What waves of things have happened in my lifetime which have been powerfully effected by and ive jumped in and enjoyed those waves. So the first one, which is i talk in the book about but is as a gay man, and since and came out in the late 70s and to ride the wave of gay activism and the incredible transform mag of what has happened to gay and lesbian rights and families, ate of over the last 40 years and if a been very active in that movement. Thats been a kind of this wave that shows up at different times in different ways, and similarly, the three others i often talk pout, the other being i was an early china guy. I went to china right out of college, and i continued to work in china, in fact my current role has a very heavy china focus and the again who knew that the last four years would see such an amazing journey to see china go from when i was first this very, very poor we closed society to a global super power, the third area is was fortunate to have bee asked to jump in the middle of the what we at the time were calling the information super highway but bill gateses asked me to come onboard and help them build a company that in the internet space before the were even calling this internet, and so ive been very involved in technology if since and thats been transformative. Then ive been always quite lucky in i rolled up my leaves in the early 2000s and started getting quite involved in Global Health and development, and i think thats been an amazing journey as the world has been investing more heavily also you know with all the work you do that theres so many things going on to really push towards a better world that gives Us Sustainable Development goals and others. Feel leak those tower way have been very powerful any life so little a little about of my thinking were there are other ways out there that might offer opportunities for young people, my students, or readers, to think about maybe they could catch one of those waves and those are the five i feature in the book. You mentioned practical activism, and one of the things that we talk about in our family, with my kids already, is that we are of course citizens when we go to vote on election day, put were actually citizens 365 days a year, every year. And i think thats an especially Important Message for all of us but particularly for kids and young people, and i know that you feel the same way, steve could you maybe talk about what practical activism means for you and maybe shire some of the examples you give in the book . Sure. And honestly before i jump into that answer, i was so delighted when you, chelsea, agreed to do this because i look at you as the work you have done and the writing you have done and your own books are actually a lot about the same theme, that kids and young girls in the theres ways to engage in the world, get up and do it. So my thinking was activism sometimes has a scary tone to it. I certainly spend a lot of my life in the corporate sector where corporate activism where people are concerned with that or think about it in very out there ways, and what i was trying to get at is actually theres a quieter, and often less visible form of activism that all of us have the opportunity to engage in, and some of it is i guess at bit that same thinking that activism is more than just voting once every four years or more than frankly liking something on facebook which i fells that is okay, but it doesnt actually do much. But actually you can use your own voice and your open skills and your own community to do other to help with in the neighborhood, help in your community, engage in an issue that you think is important with the skills you have, even if youre an accountant or a volunteer, that you dont have to feed a fulltime over the top less celebrateed philanthropist. I have written on this about the idea of giving back, which has public a popular topic, and we all have to fifth back, and give back and i thought thought giving back is a weird fee, that you have the right to take, and until you become able or wealthy ask then you give back and those tollly the wrong message. Were kind of most most social movements have started with folks sitting around their kitchen table, people that dont have wealth or a lot of means put decided something is important to them. So i feel like that is an Important Message more and more as we look at im delighted we have big philanthropyis. Im working for one right now. Think we ought to rye mine ourselves theres more we can all do. So he talk about these practical activists in the book, from incredible woman i got to know in france who is a corporate one of the Largest Insurance Companies in the world and she kind of got sher concerned but biodiversity, so she decided she would take that on within in the corporate context, and help their company back leader in promoting issued around biodiversity but that was all within the context of her own work. Didnt havent to repivot her life, and all the way to a friend who decided to use childrens theater and bring more theater to juvenile Justice Centers to ensure that we can marry the wart rivet a enormas mass incarceration problem. I think steve was so compelling is helping people overcome what ive often thought of as just a real failure of imagination, not intent but imagination to really be able to kind of imagine in an architect hough they might translate what theyre passionate about, into a way that is kind of sensible for. The and also sustainable for them, and so part of what i so appreciate about your back is the examples exactly as you just highlighted where people are kind of taking what i that are already know how to do, whether thats the environment where theyre working or kind of what kind of their profession is and then kind of transleiting that the a powerful sense into the world they want to live whether world, whether more sustain able or the world of every young person in the juvenile Justice System, although should i say i dont actually believe three should be anyone in the juvenile Justice System because i dont think we should be incarcerating children in our country. Im curious, the book is out and you have been talking with now students at stanford, what their reader reactions, and how have your students reacted to the book if you have had the chance to hear from them, just love anything you want to share on that topic. Well, its only been out for a little bit of time so i havent gotten a huge amount of feedback but some folks who happen seen early copies and some of these topics ive been talking pout for a while. So, as it relates to my students, i think they the themes i did actually teach them in my class this year, were kind of they were surprised. Even very social hi motivated socially moat motivated for social change, students as stanford, see it in a narrow term, that either you have to work for a nonprofit or you and sort of that bias against the Public Service is a way to do that, government is sort of seen in a startup innovation culture and not necessarily the most effective way to get things done. So one of the themes in my book and also one of the themes in my class is these kind of multipublicprivate social sector partnerships are really vital for big social change and therefore we need to bring more of all these sort of to the table again and again. I honestly, chelsea, learn a lot about that when i used to attend the Clinton Global Initiative and so often really emphatic that you need this social trifecta partnership, and i think that is the theme that my students most resonated, this ahha, the role of government is so critical to scale up social change or the private sector is very important part of equation and thats been a positive theme of the become, and then i have my mom loves so it thats good, too. Thats definitely matters. Shes nervous, im sure the is watching very nervous but what is your moms name. Martha. Hi, martha in p. M. Have to give a shoutout to your mother, steve. Sometime you. One of my heroes. Me, too. Im unapologetically biased towards my parents. What is michigan i something i have found surprising to students when i talk but what has been really powerfully effective in saving lives have been publicprivate multisectorral partnerships whether its the global fund or what were seeing now with co facts to ensure equitable Vaccine Distribution which the out us not part of but thankfully most of the world is. Do you think that this is a moment, though, where we will start to be able to kind of think about problems and solutions differently even beyond Global Health because the covid19 pandemic has been so horrific and catastrophic . As a Health Crisis in our country and further exacerbating underlying inequalities and inequities. A great question, chelsea, bus theres a lot of promise honestly that out of this absolute tragedy on global proportions and its more than one tragedy. Its the Health Crisis and the economic cries and he humanitarian cr