Work of our National Innovation initiative. Now, another 17 years later, here we are again, once again finding ourselves at the precipice of transformational change. Today well hear stories about these changes as theyre 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 to chart a new path for competitiveness in the 21st century. And as this slide shows, just a little less than a year ago, with our core leadership team, we began to build this effort. And by august we had pulled together a powerful and diverse set of commissioners, nearly 60 leaders from across this country from industry, from academia, from our Labor Union Community and our National Labs. And the commission has already started their work. As deborah mentioned, todays launch is our 2020 roadmap of activities that we hope will change the future trajectory of American Innovation capacity. And to make all of this happen, this fall we have built a growing, blossoming community of hundreds of advisers, communication leaders, and innovation practitioners who will create over the coming year this new innovation agenda and this new movement for america. This morning our Commission Leadership is going to share their Top Priorities for this go forward strategy. Mehmood, i would like to turn to you first. Looking at a future centered around a more sustainable approach to production and consumption and the benefits that would accrue to greater attention there, you have to be concerned about our nations stagnation in investments and long term r d. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you see as the risk of the stagnation and what might be the opportunity if we were to reignite our investments along r d . Thank you. Look, i think we touched on it with deborahs comments but let me just frame it up again. Any country, 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 without invention. And every innovation starts as something, a process, a product, an ingredient, that was invented. That requires r d invention. Every investment depends on the r d ecosystem and its up to other sectors to take those inventions and translate them to applications in society. So much of the benefit we as a country have achieved from this 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 the worlds r d investment happened across the United States, different government bodies and of course the private sector. Today china accounts for a quarter of r d investment on the planet, just over. Were now at about a quarter. We have about 20 more annually gap continues to narrow. When that happens, well no longer have the fuel that drives future innovations and ultimately the job creation and opportunities that go with an innovation ecosystem. Thanks, mehmood. You talked about the china challenge. We see a squeeze in the u. S. On the fundamental side of launch and research. China is investing much more in the complication aapplication a development. I think that triggers, and michael, i would like your comment on this, we have to rethink the model. Michael, youve provocatively called on a modernization model for america, we have to be unbelievably creative. What might that model look like in the future and how is this commission poised to help us think through and present to the United States a new way of thinking about innovation . Thanks for the small question there. Lets back up a little bit. The census will report 330, 335 Million People, the most diverse country in the world. Unbelievable complexity, everything you can possibly imagine. Were still living off the successes of the past, the fumes of the past to some extent in terms of our designs of the past. 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. That means then we have to go and look at how do we modernize everything, how do we modernize our institutions of higher education, how do we modernize the entire educational system, how do we change the notion that education is a sector as opposed to responsibility for all sectors. How do we embrace the notion that Human Capital is in fact an objective of every organization, Human Capital development, Human Capital enhancement. How do we find ways to modernize, modernize, modernize, use technologies. How 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, 70yearolds, 80yearolds in the future . We have an archaic, segmented, fragmented, isolated, sectordriven model. We dont have connections. We dont have linkages. We have the means and capability and tools to do all these things. We just have to look at the fact that our systems are antiquated. Theyre underperforming. And just accept that. Its a weird thing to me to watch people go in, its like sending in 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 colleges. We need to rethink how they work. Weve been doing this at my institution with some progress, not at warp 8, but maybe a little bit better than impulse power. And so point being, relative to modernization, we have to basically face you want to fact that the country has matured socially and culturally. The world has matured economically and competitively. 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 now and perhaps build and riff a little bit off michaels point about modernization. As we think about modernizing america, optimizing our environment for innovation, what is your vision for regulatory or other reforms that will be necessary to help support and enable entrepreneurs and innovative activity . I think the key point is embedded in what was just talked about, which is the structure of the worlds economies are much different. So when we talk about comparing ourselves to, you know, china in innovation and r d dollars, we have to be the leader because were the Worlds Largest economy and 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. The second construct is there is a finer demand in talent than 17 years ago. Chinas economy 17 years ago was about a trillion and a half, a trillion. Now its 14. That means the structure has changed dramatically in terms of consumption. The indian european dominance there is changing. Against that, you think, we used to lead standards setting, whether its pollution, safety. How do you lead it when its about information privacy, and how do you lead it when theres two systems developing, how will we interface with that system . All of us are in the national and Global Business chains. To interface with economies that are in a different environment than we have. Near term legislation, i would focus on a couple of 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 and the emergence around that, defense infrastructure, funding, those are important elements. Another thing is i think we have to keep our eye on revitalizing patent reform. Deborah mentioned earlier, not only trade, but duration to get the payback period so innovation keeps coming. The world has benefitted by the u. S. s innovation. And then you have tacs. The near term issue, and deborah mentioned earlier, with these deficits, at some point thats 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 with the competitiveness, the tax rate against the world where the world is much more interesting to companies for final demand and things. Thats one issue. The second issue is also what snech incentives we take out. We cant use the incentives for r d and new Energy Sources which are major drivers of activity. When people need money, those things can go. You have to remember the charitable deduction, the University System which gets a lot of funding from charities to do this innovation. You start taking away the resources. One of the things you have to be careful of, its not just tax rate. Its the issue of what the incentives are and how do we preserve them. So i think about it, international property, trade negotiations, how thats protected, the duration that have, the tax policy, not losing incentives, you know, those are the key sort of regulatory legislative areas i think about. Brian, can i follow up on one point . In launch, many of the issues you just raised are teased out. But another one that comes up with around capital structure. Is the United States poised to compete globally with capital cost structure . Will we be able to build the innovative structure of the future today . We shouldnt say we all have the answers here, groups have to go out and look at it. Inherently we have the deepest Capital Markets and best carpet formation. So i think the question is not that, its making sure we hold onto that. That is also emerging in other countries so we have to be careful that the amount of private equity around the world and the amount of private equity in the United States doesnt go around the world, because the rules are clear and stuff. 1 of the counties in the u. S. Have 30 of gdp. One of the things we have to think about is how the Capital Formation and the benefits are distributed better. We have the issue of Human Capital, that michael mentioned. How do we make sure it participants across the board. Not only do we have to think about the cost of capital. We cant have Capital Formation deserts, we cant have innovation funding in seven major counties and not anywhere else because it will be problematic, we wont get the depth of talent. The cap return is there, the money is there, i wouldnt worry about that. We have to watch incentives as we talked about before. Are we reinvesting in that Human Capital ability . Lets stick on the Human Capital point. Lonnie, ill turn to you, im interested in how you, the ibew, are thinking about that future Human Capital. What ideas are you all generating, how do we train, reskill American Workers for this innovation space . Theres no doubt about it, the skill sets needed for the workers of the future are much different than they are today. So were constantly working on update dating our construction branch, the way we change. The type of work were doing is much different. I visited one of our Training Centers just a couple of weeks ago and theyre actually starting to do some virtual Type Training where you put on the head headset, youre able to simulate going through some operations, open up a cabinet, connectiheck connections, and if you do something wrong, there will be an explosion, it will tell you you did something wrong. Were changing the way we do the training so they get it more, like you 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 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 and 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 to make sure their employees and members are getting the proper training to be prepared for whats to come in the future. Thanks, lonnie. I know youre representing nearly 3 nearly. 75 million workers across the country. Everyone up here is engaged with work forces doing very different things, probably very different than they were two to three years ago. Any other thoughts on what this 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. Michael or we just trademark at my university the phrase universal learner, universal learning, in opposition to universal income. 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. 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 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 weve done a lot of work with people on this. And people want to are never going to stop working. Theres also an intellectual societal demand to keep learning and working. People are living to their mid80s, 90s, they dont want to stop at 60. Were talking about retirement, the second career. To match the education process or whatever the exact term you used against that, i think thats something we and the commission need to be think about it, which is how do you reinvent careers all along. The second thing, the way we judge success in terms of innovation and competitiveness. The world is not necessarily only the Median Income and the top incomes and all the 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. Everything else is gravy. They should be growing, they should be doing. 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 the summer. 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 we have to remember that the goal is not to produce the people who end up on top because thats going to kind of take care of itself. The goal is to bring everybodys standard of living to be the envy of the world. Weve lost that as a core goal in some ways. Thats a great point. Let me build on two points. Were not talking about hypothetical or theoretical. Let me quote a statistic, which i think will crystallize this. For the first time in the history of humanity today, there are more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 5. Its never happened before. The global population period is if you are a 5yearold, whether its your child or grandchildren, and you can fast forward 15 years from now, theres going to be a young workforce that is having to take care of more people over the age of 75 and 80 than theyve ever had to do. In fact theres more people to take care of than people who are working, if we dont change anything. For the leadership of this country and across the world, we have to ask ourselves, do we sit and twiddle our thumbs or look at that statistic and say, what are we leaving behind and more importantly, who is going to take care of us . And we have to change this for ourselves, not for that generation, because were putting way too much burden on a young generation of 5yearolds who are going to become 20yearolds taking care of a lot of 75 and 80yearolds. So what are our options . Well, we can watch the Economic Impact that have, or come up with a very different construct for education. Just because you turn 60 doesnt mean its mandatory retirement. There are still professions when youre at 60 or 65, its mandatory retirement. It doesnt make sense anymore. Ill give you an example. Currently every air Traffic Controller in the country is on mandatory overtime. We dont have enough. We know theres a crisis in pilots, aircraft mechanics, i can go on and on. There are a lot of opportunities to retrain, redevelop. Smart people can get redeployed. And whats it going to take . The leadership of sectors at this table, in this room, and say, what is the new construct for employers, educators, and policymakers