Apps and in many cases are using only a handful of apps that they find on their home screens . The good news is there are literally billions of apps being downloaded. So there are definitely people downloading apps. So, you know, we have, for example, 250,000 new users every single day on flip board that are coming in and setting up flip board. So people are definitely still downloading. But i also think you have to figure out, you know, smart strategies, so, for example our Publishing Partners help promote flip board. You need to make it in other peoples best interests to promote your app and create an ecosystem ideally and that will help get you to rise above the noise of a million apps or so that you could possibly you load. Two questions i want to make sure which get to. One is about the future of your economy. One is your own future. So the future of the company first. Youve raised around i think its reported around 160 million. You launched about five years ago. How close are you to either an ipo to a sale or some conclusive event around flip board . We are just beginning our journey. The thing that is so exciting about the space that were in and flip board itself, is this is just the beginning. Just the beginning. There is so much more thats going to happen with great content, media this curated web and mobile. Just the beginning. If you look at, you know, a screen shot of the web from 1996, which wasnt that long ago, its amazing the difference between where we were then and where we are now. And, again, were just beginning. So friendship board has a long so flip board has a long journey ahead of it. An ipo is a milestone along the way. But i dont think so much about that as i do the entirety of the journey. You said that as a boy, you dreamed of being an as astro naut, which hasnt happened yet. But youre in a place that is at the center of a lot of the private efforts to for private space exploration. You have elon musk, talking very openly about trying to start a colony on mars, i think. Are you tempted to rekindling your astronaut . Im a little less tempted after the explosion yesterday. But i did promise my wife that i wouldnt go into space, which at the time seemed like an absurd promise, of course im not going to go out into space. Now imle realizing actually im realizing, actually, i could go into space if i wanted to. Were probably not that far away, where i can buy a ticket into space, in my lifetime. Thats unbelievable. And, you know, so but i promised i wouldnt do it, because it is dangerous. And im the father of four kids. And i have an amazing wife. You dont think shed reconsider . No, i dont think so. Ha ha ha okay. Well were going to leave it there. Mike of flip board. Thank you so much. [applause] u. S. Chief Technology Officer megan smith also spoke at the 2014 washington ideas forum. Before joining the obama administration, she served as a Vice President at google. Shes interdo interviewed for about 20 minutes. Wow. This is quite a crowd. I can sense she actually doesnt want to spend this time trashing blackberries a great Silicon Valley tradition. I may skip that question. One thing i guess i did want to start on. The white house it was in the post today that the White House Network had been breached again, which made we wonder, are the technologists here and their contractors, will they ever make products that are as good as gmail or should they just give up and switch to the stuff thats getting built out there . The Technology Teams here are fabulous as cto, i dont oversee those. Im aware of the issues that are going on that, you know, attack not only places like the white house but companies where ive worked before, et cetera. So the main thing there is there is a great team working on this. And theyre working through it. Well see where that goes. But you think that the tradition of having Government Contractors and government officials doing building their own email systems, for instance, is something that makes sense at this point . One of the things that is exciting about what i think the president is doing, and i think it comes in some ways out of the experience with healthcare. Gov, this amazing policy and legislation and plan and that its really work, all of a sudden they kind of hit this wall of a website not working. What was great is the tech folks helped showed up to help transition it, to get it into a place where how do we get more of the tech talent into government. We want services in the cloud. When we write software, we were making exceptions when needed. Having people who have digital services, great talent now with backend design. They are now here. That is exciting. Its part of why i came. I wanted to make sure that together with our extranet economists riders, that where showing up on behalf of our government. If are not here, we are lagging behind. Are there other lessons to learn . The u. S. Digital services is now spun up. They are working on high priorities. The American People should interact with our government to the kinds of technologies we interact with in general, mobile services, websites. We want to be as good as the commercial sector. So we want the talent in the commercial sector to get a hold of some of those technologies. Youve had your head down to the last 1520 years. One of the things that has been interesting is this relationship between Silicon Valley and these powerful companies and washington and how its evolving. Gmail, search, when youre talking about cars, aviation, there is a realization out there that government is something you have to deal with. How do you see that relationship evolving . One of the things thats happening in general is it is becoming less and less expensive to make things. Whether its 3d printing, Websites Services so the regulators are running as fast as they can to keep up with those advancements. One of the opportunities we have , creating sandboxing for uavs. The fda recently listed from a commercial perspective, the ability to have the jets and future. That is something we want to get to. Whether its hollywood, real estate, agricultural, we would like to use aerial view Disaster Response people we want to protect the American People and protect innovators to move forward. The agencies have been working hard to find places where safe harbors are sandboxes are placing the city where you could test this. I think people are in good conversations. I dont think there is some kind of tech versus government. I think people have good dialogue. Traditionally libertarians are staunchly antirelation. Your average drawn hobbyist feels that way. The agencies are working to create sandboxes. As or something reciprocal happening in San Francisco as a thing that can have to deal with , they want to help shape. The best policy happens when all the people are at the table talking to each other. Instead of people working against each other, how do you get on the same side of the problem and work on solutions. We are seen creative conversations. They are coming out we were talking about uavs, whether its transportation policies, driving a car, all the different areas. The key is to get the dialogue and keep the dialogue going and to be open. Its hard. Regulators are open to the conversation to that has been my expanse. Do you fly uavs question mark ive done a little bit. On a what the rules are in washington good there were signs all over town that they lost the drone last year. I dont know what that was about. One of the twitter questions had to do with science and technology. I think the president has been really good on pushing for innovation and funding and has successfully gotten a budget, even though theres been some caps. You made me think about darpa and security, flying vehicles. They could bring that to bear to solving on the problem of regulation and Technology Solutions around control and security. For instance . The darpa folks have demonstrated how to make sure that people cant break into the internet of things technologies and how are going to address that. As we begin to have sensors and these great technologies that can help us, we have to make sure thats a secure network and having someone like darpa funded research looking at those problems is really important. You have this incredibly broad its what your most excited about. Where do you feel like there are places and resources with the federal government, also constraints, that you can change the bureaucracy. Technology should help peoples quality of life, big challenges. How do we reduce our impact on the planet. I ran into a friend of mine, catherine moore, who will be on the stage, and i think that what we want to do, what i want to do is unlock talent. There is so much talent in this country. Theres talent of the highest end, some of our greatest innovators, elon musk, Silicon Valley and henry fords of the past, clara barton. How do we help them do their thing by helping with regulation conversations and tech policy . How do we help with jobs . We need all americans to be included in this innovation opportunity of the 21st century. One of my favorite things is what we are doing with nec. There are a million jobs that are going to go unfilled in the i. T. Tech sector. Whats going on with some line supply and demand . Why cant they train for that . We need to make sure those jobs get filled, not only for our country and our companies, but all the opportunities these are fun jobs. These tech jobs are collaborative, engaging, i paid. There has been fabius innovation on these coding classes how do we get the scaled into our Community Colleges . How do we help with people who are in companies that are not making the jump to the next wave in making sure that the leadership and talent there is retrained. Computer science, new languages and technologies cloudbased things, that they need to move to good leveraging the infrastructure we have in doing the policy side of that, whether its making sure that trend can use some of their g. I. Bill money for the retraining, really thinking through the ecosystem of engaging americans into that especially our youth. President ial candidates have been talking about this for 20 years. Where these it working . Its amazing to watch. People are seeing a percent takeup 8090 pickup. They are nascent. There are not millions of people. Theres beginning to be hundreds and thousands into these programs. You can imagine its like taking a semester long class and bring you into coding. In some cases, its people who are already technical and their upgrading their skills to a more modern set of products. I was with the cofounder square, who placed 1000 people in miami into new jobs just by what he did was he created a place for people to comment do these online courses together, the upgrade themselves. Having community and help them place in the jobs. More of that. Theres minor backlash to that argument were people say that in 1932 the was a conversation that everybody out of the of cartridges, but ultimately these are not going to be wellpaying jobs. They are our basic coding. Its like recurring a car engine. Its not a highlevel tech job. Its not a job with a future that people can imagine. Im sure youve heard that argument. What you make of it . You begin somewhere. With the beginning of computers, we did not have these degrees. A lot of young people, high school kids, if they get hold of the computer will engage in that. It can work very well. One of the things it is really important is helping our schools have more opportunities for young people to have experiences doing this. We are happy to teach people reading and writing, you start with basic abcs until you write your term paper in high school. We onboard you. In other fields we have canceled a lot of the classes in her schools. You are learning all these facts for science, learning math, but not in context. You dont have lab, science, art , home act, shout. We have to get that back. We dont have specialty classes can we adapt to active learning . I was lucky that science there was mandatory in my high school in innercity buffalo. Yesterday we had the incredible middle School Students from the competition. The ability to play at and expenses as a kid of u. S. Any technical person, they can draw back to that moment. Its the moment when they realize that science and tech is not mount everest, but it begins with a few steps. Not only is it fun and interesting and you dont of the answers, but also that you get the confidence that you can do it. That is important, whether its for kids or with any americans. These are lucrative, important, fun, interesting sectors of our economy. They are not all programming. Somes user interface design. Some is marketing. These are growing sectors. A faculty member at berkeley did some research recently that every stem or tech job that is happening in the brain helps highgrowth cities like austin, boston, washington, d. C. Comes in cisco its generally five more jobs on average. Those jobs, whether they are dr. , lawyer, taxi driver carpenter are better paid than other jobs. We really need to attract money to regions and distribute that into the ecosystem. We need people to invent discoveries of the literate is economy and is in a field. You learn to code in school . Definitely. In vietnam, you learn from second grade for that is happening in china. Uks moving them. Dr. Sue black from the u. K. Said second graders, thirdgraders they learn to reed its the perfect time to learn to code. We often will teach them a set of instructions