In this portion a group of Business Leaders discuss the future innovation and competitiveness environment in the u. S. Good morning. Since the councils beginning in 1986, weve seen over and over and time and again how technology has transformed our lives, and unleashed new challenges and opportunities as we think about a new future for the United States. 2003 was such a period of change. 17 years after our founding, our Council Members recognized that the nation stood at a florida infliction point. We needed significant chance to enhance our innovation capacity which lead to the pioneering work of our National Innovation initiative it, and now another 17 years later here we are again, once again finding ourselves at the precipice of transformational change. Throughout the day as debra mentioned in her opening remarks well hear stories about the changes as they are foundational to our Flagship National commission on innovation and competitiveness frontiers. The commission cochaired by the Council Board on this stage is a multiyear effort to reimagine americas innovation potential and chart a new path for competitiveness in the 21st century, and as this slide shows just a little more than a year ago with our Core Leadership Team we began the effort and we pulled together nearly 60 leaders from across this country, from industry and academia and our labor union commit deand the National Labs, and the commission has already started their washing. Today release of launch is our activities that will choose the innovation american capacity and to make all of this happen this fall weve built a glowing, blossoming community of hundreds of advisors and communication leaders and practitioners who will create over the coming year this new innovation agenda and new movement for america. This morning our Commission Leadership is going to share their Top Priorities for this goforward strategy and mahmoud, i would like you to turn for you first. Looking a future around a more sustained approach and consumption of benefits and greater attention there, have you to be concerned about our nations stagnation in investments in longterm r d. Can you talk to us about what you see is the risk of the stagnation and what might be the opportunities if we were to reignite our investments in longterm r d. Thank you. Look, i think we touched on it with debras comments but let me just frame it up again. Any country and in particular the United States has led the world in terms of Economic Growth and development for its citizens based on innovation. There is no innovation wlout invention, and every innovation starts at some think, a process, a product that it was investment and every inception is based on that ecosystem and its to them to take those sectors hand translate them into application ksz of society so much of the benefit that we as a country has achieved from this has started with that r d investment. If we go back over the last five, six decades, the u. S. Was the primary driver in the world of r d investment. More than half of the worlds r d investment happened in the United States, across our ecosystems, universities, National Laboratories and different government bodies and, yes. Were now at about a quarter. We have 20 morianially than children done and that we have longer have the fuel that and those that go with an innovative chick you talk about the china challenge on longterm insure and would i like for your comments, michael, on this. We would have to we think hour model. Michael, you called for and provocatively called for a modernization model for america that we have to be unbelievably creative in thinking about our future. Can you talk about what you think is required to unbelievable created and how is this xhigs poised to help think through the United States and a new way of speaking about innovation . Thanks for the small question there. So, lets back a little bit, and the census will report 330 million, 335 Million People, most diverse country in the world. Up believable complexity, everything you can possibly imagine. Were still living off of the successes of the past, the fumes of the past to some extent in terms of our designs of the past and so we wake up today with this democracy thats evolving at this rapid rate socially and culturally. We wake up today with true global competitors which i think is good news for the planet and good news for humanity Going Forward and that means then that we have to go ahead and look at how do we modernize everything. How do we modernize our institutions of education . How do you modernize the entire education al system . How do we change that education is a sector . How doey Human Capital, taking that, for instance, that Human Capital is in fact an objective of every organization, Human Capital investment and human enhancement. How do we use technologies lou do we create opportunities for people to learn across the entirety of their life seamlessly . How can they move in and out of formal educational experiences . How can they get recognition and credit for informal educational experiences . How can we empower 60yearolds and 1 ayearolds and 180yearolds in the future who are healthy and are at their peak wisdom moment and want to give back, and how do we engage all that have together, so what we have is we have an archaic, segmented, isolated, sectordriven model. We dont have connections. We dont have linkages, and we have now the means and the capability and the tools to do all these things. We just have to look at the fact that our systems are antiquated. They are underperforming and just accept that. Its a weird thing for me to watch people go in. Its like sending in line after line after line after line of people and say we need to make k12 better. No, you need to make k12 different. You need to rethink it from the very core. You need to rethink some universities and some clemens. You in a ed to rethink how they work. Weve been doing that with my instituti institution. We have to basically face up to the fact that the country has matured socially and culturally. The world has matured economically and competitively, and now is the moment for us for this next burst of modernization across all aspects of what we do. Brian, i would like to turn to you and build an riff a little bit about michael owes point about modernization. The when we think about optimizing our environment for innovation, what is your vision for regulatory or other reforms that are going to be necessary to help support and enable entrepreneurs and individual activity . I think the key point is embedded in what was key point imbedded embedded in what was just talked about. So when we talk about comparing ourselves to, you know, china and r and d dollars and stuff. The issue is the basic principle we have to be the worldwide leader because were the largest economy. We want to grow. Thats not the right comparison. The right comparison is how much more do we have to spend to maintain that position . Thats a construct. The second construct is theres great final demand in a much different set of talent than 17 years ago when you looked at this question. The chinese economy, 17 years ago, was probably a trillion and a half to trillion. And now, its 14. The reality is that means a structure has changed dramatically in terms of final demand and consumption. India, china. So the european u. S. Sort of m dominance there is changing. Whether it was pollution or whether car safety. How do you lead the standard setting when its about data and Information Privacy and how do you think about that . And how do you lead it when theres two systems developing . And how are we going to be able to interface into that system . And what regulations are going to allow all of us in the national and Global Business chains to actually interface with economies or in a different environment that we have and how we work about. Nearterm legislation, id focus on a couple things. One is research funding, which my other colleagues will talk about. An example of driving that is what the executive order earlier this year, Artificial Intelligence in the emergence around that and defense infrastructure and stuff. Funding. Those are important elements. Another thing is i think we have to keep our eye on revitalizing patent reform and deborah mentioned earlier not only in trade negotiations but what it means to the duration and other things to get the payback period so innovation dollars keep coming because the world has benefitted by the u. S. s innovation. So we have to think about patent reform completely differently now. Where theres final demand in different business systems. And then you have tax. And, you know, the nearterm issue deborah mentioned earlier with these deficits, at some point, theres going to become a review of where can they collect money . And theres two ways to collect money. Raise the rates, which could happen and then you have the problem of the competitiveness and the tax rate against the world where the world is. Much more interesting to companies for final demand and things. Thats one issue. But the second issue is also what percentage you take out. So we cant lose the incentives for r and d obviously. Cant lose incentives for alternative new Energy Sources and things like that, which are major drivers of activity. But when people need money, those things can go. And then the other thing is you got to remember the charitable deduction and things like that. So university system, which gets a lot of funding from charities to do this innovation. If you start taking away or tax their endowments, you start taking away the resources. So one thing, its not just tax rate where everybody gets focused. Its the issue of what the incentives are and how do we preserve them . Trade negotiations and how thats protected. The duration of that. The tax policy. And not losing incentives. Those are the key sort of regulatory legislative areas i think about. Brian, can i just follow up on one point . In launch, many of the issues you just raised are teased out. But another one that comes up is really around capital cost structure. Is the United States poised to keep globally whether current capital cost structure . Are we going to be able to build the innovation infrastructure where we are today . I think we have to study that. We shouldnt say we all have the answers up here. But inherently, we have the deepest Capital Markets and the best Capital Formation. So i think the question is not that, making sure we hold on to that but that is also emerging in other countries. So we have to be careful the amount of private equity around the world and the United States. But i think we have to step back. There was just an article that said 1 of the countys u. S. Have 30 of the gdp. So one of the things we have to think about is how the Capital Formation and the benefits are distributed better. We have the issue Human Capital that michael mentioned that how do we make sure it participates across the board . So i think not only do we have to think about the cost of capital, we have to think about how the how the capital and we cant have Capital Formation deserts. We cant have all the private equity and all the innovation funding basically in seven major counties and not anywhere else because its just going to be problematic. We wont get the depth. So i think not only the capital return is there, the money is there. I would never worry about that. We got to watch the incentives i talked about before. But the real question is are we really paying attention to how we drive and distribute that . Also, to michaels point of Human Capital. The Human Capital change that has to occur continuously is much different than the past dimension. So are we reinvesting in that Human Capital availability . So i think we have to think about that capital more broadly. Lets stick on the Human Capital point that you and michael both raised. And let me turn to you. Really interested in how you, the ibew, are thinking about that future Human Capital. What ideas are you all generating to think how do we train and reskill and equip American Workers for this future innovation space . Yeah. Theres no doubt about it. The skill sets thats going to be needed for the worker of the future are much different than today. So we are constantly working on updating like in our construction branch, the way we train. The type of work that theyre doing is much different. Actually, i visibilitied one of our Training Centers just a couple weeks ago and they are actually starting to do some virtualtype training. Where you put on the headset and youre able to simulate going through, you know, some operations. Open up a cabinet. Checking, you know, the connections. And if you do something wrong, you know, its going to be an explosion. Its going to tell you you did something wrong. So were continuing to change the way we do the training so they get a really more like i said, in reality of what theyre going to have when theyre out in the field. Also, in our other branches, even manufacturing and others, you know, its a different skill set in the future manufacturing as well because of, you know, the continuing of expansion of robotics. And other and other changes, you know. These workers need to have a different training, a different skill set, to be able to adjust to those type of jobs. We work very close with our employers in all of our branches and developing. Were constantly changing and innovating what we do. To meet the needs of the future, as technologies change. We Work Together with them and making sure that their employees, our members, are getting the proper training to be prepared for whats to come in the future. Thanks, lonnie. I know youre representing nearly 3 4 of a million workers across the country. Id like to stay on this workforce and skills of the future issue and maybe open it up for the panel to chime in. You know, everyone up here is engaged with workforces that are doing very different things. Probably very different than they were two to three years ago. So any other thoughts on what does future of work look like . And how our commission might really think about leveraging what, in some sense, could be a demographic advantage in the United States. I dont know, michael or we just trademarked. Universal learner and universal learning. And we did that in opposition to the concept of universal income. And just taking not on a political basis but on economic basis. The notion that somehow were going to give up on the ability of people to be able to perform for high compensation levels or increasing compensation levels in the economy of the future. So then were going to tax those that are making more resources and then move those taxes to people who are no longer able to perform in the economy. We might as well give up if we move in that direction. And so the notion that we have is how do we create an opportunity across all organizations . Across a persons entire life to be engaged in the opportunity for universal learning all stages of life. All aspects. Everything. That will require all of our institutions to rethink themselves. That will require corporations to rethink themselves. The government. The schools. The universities. Everybody. And the notion of moving Human Capital to be as important as financial capital, as important as natural capital. And rise and raising its status and rethinking the whole thing is what we need to do. That will require all of us to rethink everything. Brian. Two aspects. One, that dialogue also fits with all the research thats being done on aging and things like that. Weve done a lot of work with people in this and people want to are never going to stop working. So theres also a an intellectual societal demand to keep learning and working. And people are going to live are living mid80s to 90s. They dont want to stop at 60. Lonnie and i were talking earlier about retirement and the second career. To match the education process or whatever the exact term to use against that, and i think thats something we, on the commission, need to be thinking about. Which is, how do you reinvent careers all the way along . Thats one thing. The second way i think we should judge success in terms of innovation and competitiveness, the world is not necessarily only the Median Income and the top incomes and all that stuff like that. Its really we, in the United States, should have the best starting jobs. They should be the best jobs in the world. And they should be a standard of living the world envies. Because then Everything Else is gravy, right . And they should be growing and they should be doing. And that might be completely different than the Jobs Available in our company 20 years ago. The starting wage for our employees next quarter is 40,000 a year for everybody. Even a kid working for the summer. So but the amount of work the productivity they have to have they all work hard to pay for that takes innovation and a process. So i think we have to remember that the goal is not, you know, to boost the people who end up on top. The goal is to bring everybodys standard of living to be the envy of the world and weve lost that as a core goal in some ways. Let me just build on the two points. Were not talking about hypothetical or theoretical. Let me give a quote