Ladies and gentlemen, its a you toleasure to welcome brookings. My name is john allen and im the codirector of the center for 21stcentury security and intelligence and with my codirector we welcome you very warmly. It has been a technologist that the underlying acknowledged that the underlying base for power and prosperity requires an Education System where young individuals can excel in science and technology and engineering and math, called stem. As voted by scholars here at brookings, stan intensive dam intensive industries stem producee industries about 17 of our gdp. Ins a principal driver patenting, productivity, growth, and exports from aerospace to renewables. Stem disciplines will only increase. Given the reality of increasing global connectivity, complexity, and economic competitiveness the promotion of stem related skills and knowledge must be recognized as a national priority. Of stement state education in the u. S. Clearly underscores the urgency of this issue. The United States is falling behind internationally, ranking 29th in mass and 20 seconds in science industrialized nation. 15 of American High School seniors are efficient proficient in math and interest careersing stem related. U. S. Wish to preserve the as a focal point of technological achievement such trends must be reversed quickly. For increased collaboration between leaders in the public and private sectors in developing innovative initiatives for americas future inventors, technologists and explorers has never been more apparent. Event is toodays examine how educators and policymakers can better promote nations future workforce and gain a better understanding of how and where such programs should be implemented. Also what currently is being done to improve k12 Stem Education and are there effective initiatives in place to ensure that those with degrees in stem are equipped with the appropriate employment skills necessary to lead successful careers. Are pleased and honored to have with us this morning two distinguished guests to help us understand these issues and provide us important insights. The honorable Charles Bolden and dean kamen. I will give a brief intro to their biomes and you understand immediately why they are key to this future for the United States. They will provide us introductory remarks and then we will have a guided discussion and go to q a from the audience. I will remind everyone that we are on the record this morning and we welcome cspan to record this event. Bios of ourto the key participants this morning. Nasa administrator Charles Bolden also Major GeneralUnited States marine corps retired was nominated by president obama as the 12 administrator of nasa. He began his duties on july 17 of 2009. He leads a nationwide nasa team to advance missions and goals of the u. S. Space program. Administrator he has overseen safe transition from 30 years of spatial missions to a new era of exploration focused on full utilization of the International Space station and space and Aeronautics Technology development. Inhas led the agency developing a space launch system rocket and the orion spacecraft which will carry astronauts into deep space destinations. Has established a new Space TechnologyMission Directorate to develop cuttingedge technology for missions of tomorrow. His career in the marine corps also included 14 years as a member of nasas astronaut office. He traveled into orbit four times, commanding two space and pilotingons two others. On the first joint u. S. Russian shuttle mission. Firstamen the founder of or for inspiration and recognition of science and technology. He is an inventor and entrepreneur and a tireless advocate for science and technology. His roles as inventor and aggregate advocate are intertwined. He is driven by his personal determination to spread the world about technologys virtues and change the culture of the United States. He holds more than 440 u. S. And themgn patents, many of for innovative medical devices that have expanded the frontier of health care worldwide. While still an undergraduate he invented the first wearable Infusion Pump which rapidly gained acceptance of such diverse medical specialties as andotherapy, neonatology, endocrinology. In 1976 he founded his first medical Device Company to manufacture and market the pumps. Corporationnded a to develop internally generated inventions and provide r d for major court clients. Corporate clients. One of his proudest accomplishments is the founding of first, an organization dedicated to motivating the next generation to understand, use and enjoy science and technology. We have had a group of Young Scholars with us throughout the year who are federal executive fellows. Many are in class this morning. We have one joining us. To anringing his tour end. It is a young marine corps recently promoted colonel. Where in the presence of two great variance and two great marine fighter pilots. It is a great honor for us to be in their presence. This is for my brookings employers. I never miss the opportunity to do preparations for a session like this. I was on an airplane flying to the balkans at the end of last week on a Turkish Airlines flight. On the television was Neil Degrasse tyson interviewing about thetor bolton mars mission and the nature of technology that nasa has brought day and it single ended with him asking when we are going to produce a flying car. I thought it was amazing you have learned to speak turkish but then i realized i was on the wrong channel. This morning we will have opening remarks and i will invite neil kamen to make his first presentation and show us a video. I think it would take me with longer to explain first then and efficiently done video which shows the background. And it is told to you by god. Morgan freeman. Who like a lot of people in hollywood and the world of super athletes that i have gotten behind agree, he would help us. Said, morgan, you could read the phone book and people will pay attention. Put together some short introduction that really captures what first is. He did this for five years ago so the data he has is very weak compared to where we are now. Schoolsr we had 46,000 from 83 countries. What you need to understand is im an inventor. Problems ashe same everybody else. We see them differently. 25 years ago when it was still urgent, when we were 29th in science whichin puts us at the bottom we were in washington. There is a crisis in education. I said, theres not a crisis. Seniors we spend more per capita on education per student than anywhere else in the world. We have Great Schools and universities. The problem is a very small group of kids care about that. Its not an education problem. Its a culture problem. Obsession with two things. The world of sports and the world of entertainment. Thats a system that inspires kids to spend their time and energy becoming experts on something that really matters to them but probably not wisely for their career. Lets look at that model but instead of teaching them how to balance a ball balance of all lets give them the skills to bounceindustries lets give them the skills to create industries. You cant blame the gym teachers cricket. Re not good at theyre going to spend three hours every day after school playing basketball. We have great athletes but not great cricket players. That is not a department of education problem. I need superstars. I need the lebron james of science and tech. I had 23 of these companies. Had 3700 corporate sponsors. This is not an ad. Where do superstars of technique kids even in our culture you find them at nasa. Astronauts. Went to 46 teams, we had a nasa team. Of last year the largest Single Source of first teams around the country was nasa and we are very proud of our association with nasa and what they have done for us. Prove that it is impactful on all kids are going to show you the two minute and 54 second video. Listen to god. This is the super bowl. The super bowl of smart. Its a lifechanging competition. Kids having fun. Computing, working together to dream up, design and build robots. Its an exhilarating feeling. Im using power tools. There are having the hardest fun they will ever have and they are becoming our next generation of engineers and innovators. For inspiration and recognition of science and technology. By challenging and trusting me, these mentors got me to understand that i could do anything i put my mind to. First mentors are changing kids lives every day. Professional engineers, teachers, parents teaming up with young people not just to build robots but to build confidence and self respect. Im around people i can get along with. Founded by one of our greatest inventors, dean kamen. He saw the kids mostly look up to sports heroes and movie stars. Sports and entertainment. Lets inspire these kids to be big thinkers the way Shaquille Oneal and inspire them to spend dozens of hours a week bouncing a ball. Stand sidebyside with athletes as role models. The white house we will lead by example and show how cool science can be. Six to 18 kids age compete at all different levels. The first tech challenged. At the high school level, the first robotics competition. The only difference between this sport is every kid on our team can turn a profit. There is a job for every one of these kids. Part innts who take first are 50 more likely to go to college and twice as likely to major in science or engineering. I know i want to pursue engineering. Once they have tasted the power of knowledge, they wont go back. Theres no doubt first works. 15 to 20 years from today some kid in the stands will have cured alzheimers or aids or cancer or built an engine that doesnt pollute. Look at these kids. Theyre the future. I feel like i can go and do anything i want to do because of this program. Someone took the time to guide and inspire me. It changed my life. Take some time. [applause] well done. Let me invite administrator bolden for his remarks as well. I want to message give you is nasa is on a journey to mars. Dont want you to miss that this morning if youre nothing else. How do we get there . A lot of the stuff dean talked about is critically important. Fromed young men and women all over the place to help us do that. If you go to the Johnson Space center today, you will find that about half the engineers in our robotics lab were participants in the First Program when they were in high school. There is great benefit from it. We use in our missions to try and inspire the youth of today. Nasa has a 19. 3 billion budget today. Stemend 19. 3 billion on education because everything we do is related to trying to get young people interested in we actually call it steam. We have extended it. The a is for the arts. Hopefully we will have an opportunity to talk about the value of arts and design. There is a new community of people called makers. These are men and women who have an incredible bit of ability to visualize and make things. I am privileged to have a young man sitting here. Shadowing me today. Hes an engineer at the Glenn Research center in cleveland, ohio. Hes a graduate of a historically black college where he majored in architecture. He said he always wanted to make things. The army but in never gave up on his desire to build and make things as an architect. Shonda holmes is sitting right next to him. She is a white house fellow. She went to Spelman College in atlanta. Was trying to figure how she was going to make it through college. She met a coast guard recruiter. Today she flies helicopters in the coast guard. Something you do not see very many people who look like her do. Science and technology is critically important for our kids today. We believe that you advance the nation stem program and you put yourself in a situation where you are able to compete with any country anywhere. That is what the president talks about all the time. We have created cooperations collaborations with many other federal agencies. With the department of education on 21st Century Communities and learning. We worked with the department of agriculture in their 4h program trying to promote the kind of things they do. We recently celebrated our my deputy and a former secretary of agriculture actually planted some seeds in the department of agriculture garden they came from the International Space station. They were just like the lettuce that had grown on the International Space station in preparation for going to mars. Atth engagement in stem every level is critically important. Our priority lies with women and minorities because they represent a huge portion of our population. 50 ofre greater than the population. We believe you cannot leave that behind and succeed. You cannot leave that portion of the population behind. Let me say one thing about first. I will share with you a letter from a principal at a school where recently he had some nasa engineers come out. This was a school in West Virginia. The southern part of West Virginia had never had anything like this. We had some engineers from our facility in West Virginia visit his kids. There are a middle school. He said i wanted to let you know how much it meant for you to come to our school. 75 of our students are on free or reduced lunch. Our students have less chance than 80 of other students to make it out of high school. The community is riddled with drugs, homelessness, and generational poverty. The children need to see its possible to make themselves into someone who can change the world. The Young Students wondered if he would be back for them. This was after the engineers left because it was too good to be true. But they ever see them again. I told them that i sure hope so. They went away with big smiles. We would love for you to come back next year. Thats through a stem program out of nasa. Stem is not monolithic. Not only with science and technology backgrounds but people who are willing to engage their hearts and minds. Who do understand the arts and the ability to conceive of things and designers who can. Uild things like 3d printers believe stem is critical. We want to talk about it a lot today. Towe can fire some of you up go tell people with whom you come in contact that it is just as important to have a young student whos going to be an allstar on the first court or somewhere else we will have achieved our goal. Terrific. Thank you for those remarks. Let me ask several questions and we will have a conversation and then we will go to the floor for additional questions. E have used the term stem each one ofabout those components. Are any of them more important than the others are worthy of more investment given the Current Situation . I think we have laid a good groundwork with your opening remarks. Ands get a baseline definitional approach to stem or steam this morning. I think education as we all the first and the m, forthe s and the better or worse they do try to teach in school. We all took a science or math course every year. And then wecount learn algebra and trigonometry. Some of us learned it. But it was always there. Reason there was not a lot of passion around those with kids is because they are out of context. There was nothing that a kid ever did in life for which trigonometry would help them. You dont go to a store and the andscount is the cosine putting pins and frogs was not all that relevant. But the technology is cool. Every kid that has ever hated science loves star wars. Every kid that says they hates engineering is wearing supercomputers. They are immersed in the results of engineering. What industry has got to bring is the relevance by which it will be important to kids to do the hard work of learning the science. Not easy. It takes multiple years to learn all of that. It has to have a purpose. For were not bounce a ball an hour a day if there was no nba. The average teacher may be very good at doing the science part and the math part the same way that the phys ed teacher can teach them the rules and skills of football that they dont inspire them. The word first doesnt have education in it. Took the position that its up to our culture to create the passion and and willingness to work will follow. Because theres an nba kids will learn to bounce a ball. We needed to bring the relevant people that use and apply technology and engineering into so thaton environment when the kids show up at school they will realize, i want to go learn that math. That motor control just let a lot of smoke out of that Circuit Board because i forgot to move the flyby i forgot to schools have focused on science and math as these abstract things. We are bringing to the school relevance. We are showing kids it is accessible and fun and every bit as rewarding as any other thing they do. Except unlike the nba that has a few dozen jobs a year right now there are a few million unfilled Career Opportunities because kids can do it. I would agree. Part for us is i started out saying we are on a journey to mars. We know where we are going to go we are just not capable of getting there right now because we dont have the technology. We need kids to be very competent in science and math. Thats what allows them to be the dreamers that create the technologies we are missing. The crew on the International Space station, they have to have water to survive. They have to have food to survive. The subsidy is the mother of invention. When we use hydrogen an ox and oxygen in a fuel cell. He byproduct was water so we do not worry about getting water to the cruise. Today we use the sun to produce electricity and solar cells so we either have to fly water of which is very costly for one another way to produce it. We take yesterdays coffee and put in a Water Purification s