past handful of years, to make sure they cannot hide behind the communications decency act and its immunity. >> when it comes to sex trafficking, we've been told a lot of this is in coded languag language, it's harder to identify. one of the things we suggested is something of a clearinghouse where if a website or single society identifies certain types of code, certain language or ip address or phone numbers known with sex traffickers, you kind of put that in a central repository so that online services can scan against that and better identify these coded languages. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> next, the experiences of women running companies and working to promote ownership in american businesses. it's hosted by the senate small business and entrepreneurship committee.

[inaudible conversations] >> and know everybody is having a good time in networking and moving the enterprise forward but we really should get started. we have two votes starting at noon so we are going to be on a bit of a short string here. it shouldn't, in any way denigrate the importance of this hearing of the small business committee. what we are going to do today

is look for ways for women-owned businesses to reach their full potential and grow the american economy and i certainly want to thank my colleague for working together on this. this is a matter of great importance to all of us and to all-america even though all of america sometimes doesn't know it. is that a fair statement? as you know, october is national women's small business month which serves as a great reminder that the female entrepreneurs own more than 11 million businesses in our country and employ more than 9 million workers. they contribute $1.6 trillion in sales for national economy and are capable of even more as the fastest growing sector. just a few weeks ago, sba administrator linda mcmahon joined me in my home state of idaho and we visited a number of small businesses in the valley. my wife and i, she traveled to a number of businesses and have the opportunity to meet with some women-owned

businesses there. i often say entrepreneurs and small business owners want more than anything to have time to devote to growing their businesses. women entrepreneurs, as many of you can attest, are often working to juggle even more priorities than their male counterparts, for obvious reasons. they are negatively impacted by the time and resources that it takes to comply with our complicated and burdensome tax code along with a lot of the other arcane regulatory systems. yes, for this reason the tax rate form can and should be part of today's discussion. the national association of women business owners ask this committee to present on tax reform at their annual conference last week because that is the most important issue to the hundreds of businesswomen business owners who belong to that organization. additionally, the president and board of directors of women impacting public policy were at this desk in this very room just a few weeks ago for a bipartisan discussion centered on the need for tax

reform with staff from both my office and senator shaheen's office. our hearing today will touch on many issues. i want to know, this is, tax reform is a top mind issue on all of our parts. thank you for being here today. i look forward to a robust discussion. i would ask you, each of the panel members, first of all, thank you for agreeing to come to the hearing today and presenting for us. i would ask you to try to stay with the five minutes and ask that you submit anything in writing and we will certainly included in the record. with that i'll yield to senator shaheen. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. i am delighted we are holding this hearing this morning because, as you point out, women-owned firms are

significant as we look at the future of employment in this country, they are growing five times faster than the national average, but women-owned businesses still face headwinds. on average, they earn less than male and firms and produce 4% of business revenues, a share that has remained the same for the past 20 years. so the question really is why are the other statistics around women owned businesses not changing and that's one of the things we will explore this morning. i look forward to hearing the testimony of our outstanding witnesses and i will submit my full statement for the record. >> thank you very much. i would like to introduce our three witnesses and i would first like to welcome elizabeth gore who is an entrepreneur in residence. i've never heard that before

so i'm sure you'll enlighten us in that. she drives initiative to support goals around helping small and medium businesses scale and prosper. i'm also pleased to welcome tracy chadwell, founding partner of 1843 capital and early-stage venture capital fund. i would also like to recognize michelle richard who served as the executive director of the great lakes women's business council. the council does great work and she has been there since its inception in 1984. thank you for coming. miss gore, we will start with you. >> thank you chairman it's a real honor to testify about

what i think could be the but greatest bipartisan opportunity that this country has seen and its women entrepreneurs. just this week i've been in san francisco, sioux falls south dakota, new york city and now d.c. i am from northern california and i can tell you women in all those areas have the most potential to succeed, but they are facing numerous barriers. while we are starting businesses twice as fast as our male counterparts, we do have higher fill rates. only 2% are making over million dollars with our businesses in this country. i think that is a 90% opportunity that we all have to improve. i hope none of you have the number seven is your favorite number because for some reason we are stuck on seven. women founders only get 7% of venture capital. only 7% of venture capital as our women and something that's

increasingly important, only 7% of stories in the business media are about women founders. we have to see it to be a way to change that. over the past two and half years i've had the great pleasure to serve in my home state of texas as an entrepreneur at dell and i'm also an entrepreneur myself and a cofounder of alles which is the machine learning and ai tool to help any women minority or veteran founder find these resources they need to scale. i will tell you, through both of those work, i found that the barriers really set in four pillars. access to capital, net worth, technology and talent. those really are our barriers. so, i will start with access to capital. this is the number one issue facing women in my opinion. whether i'm in sioux falls and applying for an sba loan or i'm in silicone valley and

going after my funding this is a major problem. i think we need to incentivize our venture-capital friends to increase that 7% number. it is going down. it has gone down substantially and i think the 2017 numbers will show a significant drop in venture-capital. i think my colleague will talk more about that. bias does exist in venture-capital. to me to movement is not just about hollywood. could also like to encourage our sba to continue to strengthen. it's a critical part of our country. while women are five times likely to get sba loans that shows how important it is, the amount they get our two and half times lower than their male counterpart. that's something i hope we look into. another thing is certifications. i'm really proud to see continuing diversity program, women-owned business

certifications, but there's one thing we need to change. the eight a certification program with the u.s. sba is an exxon program, however, if you get venture funding and those venture capitalist are male, you are not considered women owned anymore. you cannot get the eight a certification and the venture backed. i think this is something we can simply change through legislation that is my top recommendation for this year. the second is let's continue to work with innovators and understand new sources of funding, supplier diversity, dell spends for half billion dollars. year through. [inaudible] crowdfunding is now supporting women more than men. what other innovative sources can we do? most women actually depend on banks for access to capital. we talk about venture but 90 plus% of women are counting on bank loans and just this year

we came out to see that only 30% of companies owned by women were able to get bank loans in the first part of 2016. annexes access to network. we don't golf as much as our german counterparts do so those facilitated networks that we need to find, whether the digital or accelerators are really critical. access to technology, every single company is now a technology company. women are less likely to access technology and we have to continue to move that forward. on behalf of my fellow amazing women entrepreneurs, this is a time of opportunity. it's a time that yes we are challenged but we are the best economic that if we get the access to capital we need we will bring $30 billion in gdp to this country in one year. thank you.

>> thank you elizabeth. that was terrific. good morning ladies and gentleman thank you chairman and ranking member shaheen for the opportunity to testify today before your committee. it's a pleasure and honor to introduce myself and give my perspective on how to strengthen the entrepreneur ecosystem for women. by way of background, i'm an attorney who had my first exposure to private equity when i worked for cm international and help set up a fund to invest in china. i eventually became a partner of the capital fund, but much more relevant, for the past five years i've been investing exclusively in women founders in the technology area. i found it a venture capital fund called 1843 capital. it's the year that ada leveling's wrote the first computer program. my partners in 1843 are incredible women. allison is an operator and engineer who successfully built and sold her own cyber security program called

vigilant. vanessa is the ceo of the burnett up project. entrepreneur project that operates in seven cities and america delivering premium networking for women founders. 1843 our strategic partners. the good news, the really good news is that things are working. the accelerator program, mentorship and seed investors are allowing women owned businesses to thrive. the banana project alone sees over 2000 female founded companies. year. through their events they been able to channel $50 million of capital to early-stage companies. as you said earlier, nationwide, they are growing at five times the national average and women outperform as well. they achieved 12% higher revenue. this is in no doubt do to

public-private partnerships. organizations like the women's business development council around the country have been a true catalyst. by guaranteeing loans, they are giving women the fuel they need to scale their businesses and they are doing this without taxpayer subsidies. as a venture capitalist, i've had the opportunity to invest in world-class companies founded by women that are both successful and great things are done for the world. beauty counter is a woman found a company which produces personal products for care that are free of toxic chemicals. this company has revenues much stronger than most of the unicorns out there and they employ 35000 consultants. children asked of the company in colorado that uses technology to match people over 50 with roommates. this helps them solve the problem of financial insecurity and loneliness. and all the rhythm -based management platform that helps

banks and registered in visors to democratize wealth management so that everyone can save and invest regardless of the size of their accounts. something truly unique is what we call user experience. most people are intimidated by math and finance and the thought of diversified portfolio but margaret knew this and developed an interface that was visual, intuitive and assessable to everyone. a great example of why women founders are successful. to have a big impact they had to have a foundation and design. as we move into our next chapter in technology, dominated by artificial intelligence, the skills of coding or writing algorithms will become commodities. what will win his creativity, design and marketing. by far the most serious barrier to the entrepreneurial system is the lack of funding as elizabeth said. women are able to create businesses now because the cost of starting a business has come down and they don't

need outside investment to get started. however, the capital to scale is inaccessible. beauty counter is one of the largest and fastest growing companies. and had difficulty raising capital until they reach 20 million in revenue. women founders as a group received 2.19% of venture capital dollars. many reasons for success include unconscious bias and lack of women venture partners. one of the most impactful things that u.s. senators can do would be to encourage your state funds to take a harder look at women managers and a harder look at the diversify on their underlying portfolios. it is impossible to legislate against unconscious bias, however it is possible to support and defund positive role models. thank you very much.

[inaudible conversations] >> i'm sorry. i'm really bad at the technology audio part. i'm right on point. my name is michelle richards. i'm a executive director for great lakes women's council. before i discuss the current ecosystem for women entrepreneurs, i want to share our experience as an organization dedicated to supporting women business owners for the past 33 years. i had a chance to start this organization, and as an sba micro lender since 1993, we have made over 6.5 million in loans with the average size of 20000. these loans have created 1700 jobs. in early 1990, we became an sba women's business center. this was important because it created a stable funding for

us to build a platform for our training and counseling program. we been able to serve more than 10000 women business owners and entrepreneurs with it. for the past 20 years we been a certifying partner for the women's business center prized national council also known as we bank. we currently have 1120 business owners that generate 12.3 billion in revenue annually and employee 48500 u.s. workers. that's amazing. i am proud of our efforts to revitalize detroit. to date, our detroit loan program has provided 1.3 million in loans creating 72 jobs in obtaining 100 more. for small businesses to succeed, they need what i call the three c's, capacity, capital and customers or contracts. in my view, women

entrepreneurs lack access to all three. capital access is a chronic barrier for women business owners. our team has heard countless stories of the bias against women when they attempt to obtain business finance. : these antidotes are pass by statistics compiled by this committee. women are able to obtain equal access to capital began to grow their business to full potential. similarly, women are highly underrepresented in federal contracting. although the federal government is a 45% of eligible federal contracts to women owned businesses in 2015 it failed to reach the mark in 2016. the market share needs to grow because federal contracting is a

tremendous impact on many women and businesses. for example, katie bigelow, one of the many examples we have, president of metal off received her contract with air force for $80000 in 2015 after two years of trying. that contract created a past performance needed to win her most recent contract award for $9.1 million. finally, women are unable to access basic tools that we need that we know work they need training and coaching to work their businesses and become job creators. it is important to modernize and grow a nationwide network of counselors and mentors for women entrepreneurs. as an sba business business center micro lender and we make 25 experience to offer the committee recommendations. first and foremost we need to

modernize the women's business center program. the house of representatives included the women's business center legislation as part of the fiscal year 2018 national defense authorization act which would increase the 30 -year-old cap on grant levels. thirty years. we strongly urge the senate to keep this provision in the nda. second, i incurred this committee to push sba on its imitation of women owned small business third-party certification rules. have over 500w osb certified women in our center. finally, there should be a dedicated commitment to programs that are proven to provide capital to women business owners. congress should continue to support programs like small business micro loan program in the community development financial institution fund. chairman, ranking member and

distinguished senators, thank you for this opportunity to president this testimony thank you so much to all three of you. i note that all three of you made reference to the capital situation in the access to it and those figures certainly aren't pretty as far as the capital that is received by women on maneuvers. the one anyone who has a passing economics the no's access to capital and free flow of capital is absolutely critical to the success of family of a business and indeed a nation and that is why america stands out so much from others in our economy is because of the capital. barriers need to be knocked down. i know the score, you are finding a flaw in the federal system where women owned a a certification is lost when they get funds from a male venture

capital fund. it'll be interesting to see what would happen if they found out that the banks of the women owned businesses for getting money from were run by an all-male board of directors which is exactly the same sort of situation. senator shaheen and i have already decided to take a run at this. that is a result of your testimony, by the way. the federal government doesn't always do things exactly the way they should but that's why you're here and will take a run at that for you. with that, center,. >> i hope all the members of the committee will join us in that effort. it seems like that is a no-brainer that would make a big difference and access to capital. i want to go back to an issue that ms. richards referenced and i think you did as well, miss

ted wellin your discussion about venture capital. right now the country is having what i think is a very important conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace. fortunately, a lot of people are coming forward and saying this is not right and unfortunately we have seen that in terms of access to venture capital, as well. earlier this year several female entrepreneurs from "the new york times" about unwanted sexual advances made by influential venture capitalist. last week the founder of runway, jennifer discussed the investment while she was trying to raise $190 million from venture capitalist. clearly this is something that exists in the venture capital industry, as well. i wonder, mr., if you could talk about this a little bit, or experiences like [inaudible] and

are they, placement how do you see addressing this issue. >> i think experiences like this are commonplace in every industry. i think we haven't seen it in the entertainment and the venture capital industry specifically as of late but i think it's systemic and i think that a lot of issues like this will go away as we get closer to parity where we have more women ceos and more women venture managers and not just the sexual harassment but we have other issues we are working on as well like equal pay and maternity in the family and a lot of those may not have to be legislated if you have women ceos. >> thank you. do either of you want to add to that? >> unconscious bias is so strong and there are a lot of formulas that worked overtime and when

you're formulas working in your making money really takes leadership from folks like you all to push those industries to think outside. i hear when i was raising money over and over that anything that is women focused is not a large enough market and it's in each market and even the work to 1% of the population and had 85% of consumer spending. i think that bias is pretty. >> thank you. want to go back to the access to capital as well. we've got a chart here that shows what all of you pointed out in terms of the situation with women owned businesses and their access to capital. you can see the blue columns are majority women owned and all other firms are the orange column so we can see the difference in terms of venture capital funding and the total amount of conventional business loans and in the prime contract awards which is exactly what all

of you had to say that when you see it on the chart it really brings it home just the disadvantages the women face. ms. richards you told me a story about what reminded me of her own experience on the entrepreneur who was turned away because her husband was not there. i remember when i remember applying for credit my husband had to sign the pink form it in order to do that. had yet changed the loss. how do we continue to address these issues and what other steps can we take to prevent instances of bias by pink lenders against women business owners? >> disclosure is critical. 1071 of the dodd frank act requires data to be collected on women and minority owned businesses and the loans made to

them. until we start quantifying the discrepancy instead of just using anecdotal information were not going to be able to get to the root of it. small business lending is in so many ways different than all the other bank lending because it is not solely numbers driven. there are so many elements of it and lenders decide if they want this business and the loan in the portfolio. we need to create parameters and implement dodd frank act. thank you. >> thank you. >> senator ernst. >> thank you ranking member and mr. chairman. the conversation has been striking this morning and even as woman i shake my head when i hear about the lack of access that is available out there. i want to go back to what senator rich had mentioned about the conversation as focus on tax

reform so earlier this week a woman from hamilton county, iowa who owns a small business reached out to me about the importance of tax reform and like many of the small business owners that had the opportunity to interact with and speak with as i'm out doing my county to her she says her two biggest obstacles for her small business are the high taxes and the regulations. really, too burdensome areas for her. today her marginal tax rate and for other business owners get as high as 45% on those small businesses. the average small business owner spent over $12000 annually just in dealing with regulation.

for all of you are current tax policy hindering entrepreneurial ship and what impact would lower tax rates for small businesses have on strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem for women? any of you, if you could address that. >> thank you for the question. i will say there is no ought to work with a note to lower taxes so that is men, women, where we are. one thing i will flag that i don't think that has been brought up and i know there's discussion about child tax credit and so on but something specific when you put a gender lens on entrepreneurship is a childcare. i have a three -year-old and a six-year-old and i have to make a very hard and strong decision about as an entrepreneur that is my number one cost and anything we can do to release that burden for mothers, the majority of women on viewers to have children and they are either caring for their elders or

community and it's a disproportionate thing for women. i wanted to bring it up and responses that we need to be thoughtful and creative about how do we let women be great moms but also the killer of numerous. >> i love that and that is something we are having discussions about, as well. it is truly important especially as we want to get more women involved in small businesses and other activities, as well. thank you. anyone else? >> in terms of regulation the really tough thing i see is in the commerce space so when tech companies are setting up and trying to set up across the country they have to register in each state separately which is a big hindrance to both male and female companies. very good. thank you. >> of course, we want to leave any pressure on our small businesses and since women cash is a consideration and a real consideration with the taxes, to. >> thank you.

my colleague senator heidi high camp and i will be introducing a private act which strengthens the voice of small businesses in the rulemaking process and improve the quality of agency certification and acknowledged analysis of the impact on small business. do you think providing greater accountability for agency certification would improve the rulemaking process and provide some regulatory relief for small businesses? any thoughts on? >> one thing i will say is we are in the digital era and one of the things we can do is digital transformation around and how do we regulate and apply for everything from loans diversification to even our permit so that one thing i would encourage is how do we look at using digital for all these processes to speed things up because entrepreneurial are more time for then money for most of

the time and also to lower those regulation barriers. i love the idea of having one registration instead of all 50 states. >> very important. use technology. with that, i back my time. thank you. >> thank you so much. let me tell you that the issue you raise that we haven't touched on i can assure you that manor is under serious consideration. as you know, over the last few weeks please been focused on tax reform and like my colleague had been to lots and lots of meetings and i can't think of one where that issue wasn't seriously put on the table and discussed as to how that piece of the puzzle would fit in and is accompanied apostle to put together but it is seriously be discussed here. thank you so much. senator coots. >> thank you. thank you to all of our witnesses today were testified

about the range of ways in which can and should be supporting women on viewers. it is striking as graphically represented in the chart the disconnect between the very strong performance of women entrepreneurs and yet the structural challenges and accessing capital and in building out what networks of advocates and in particular accessing federal contracting and local elected for a decade before that in the local business community i've been struck at how capable and strong women entrepreneurs are. from pharmacy, christie, founded this, a woman from delaware and its specialty pharmacy, seven a financing and score mentoring play a key part in her taking the leap and being successful as a pharmacist. mountain consuming is our state

capital of dover and very successful, many are the minority and women owned businesses. the first hub zone, certified small business in delaware benefited from sba loan products and use one of my favorite the premium juice bar in downtown. they tell me that score consulting help develop the business plan to do market research and i'm the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the sba so i am particularly interested in hearing from you about the funding for women business centers and mentoring through score and through sba offices and other programs limited to those i could. i have worked to increase funding and i knew i get a smile for that. i think they are important network across the country that

helps address access to capital and mentoring and business planning. i'd be interested in hearing from all of you about what your views are about wbcs about whether their generally accessible or relevant or important in terms of a network and then second the networking that you spoke to the need for mentorship score does a great job in delaware but not sure if that is the case nationally but in delaware there's an innovative program called me think partnership between score and the office that provides year-long mentoring for women entrepreneurs to tackle challenges that may be specific to trying to balance family commitments and obligations in new markets and being a successful entrepreneur. i'd be interested in comments from all three of you if i could on those two core questions. >> yes, two key pieces. one is that the mentoring is critical in one of the met things women business owners do

is use other women business owners because there's a real, clear connect between them. that's a unique element of why you have women's business center. secondarily, the center -- because he had a 30 year cap it's not that it's a money 30 years ago it was different money. different amount and so we are basically being squeezed to provide as many services in higher levels for the same dollars that were 30 years ago. for the centers who are really excelling this is an opportunity for us to for the same kind of programming to more women. it's an opportunity of gross for this country. i know the women's business public corporation in connecticut has been extremely successful in building community and mentorship providing education for women. again, i see the real lack in capital. i know the fda has been successful in finding debt funding for women and for some

small businesses that is appropriate for some businesses that have capital and balance sheets they can leverage against is appropriate but for the sector scoring companies and the ones created most often this country really the only viable form of financing is equity. i don't know if there's some sort of equity financing that is part or be complicated but i would highly recommend it that's where the growth is. >> from an ardent believer in the sba. where there are local sba offices women have a connection wondering understanding it more. the sba office was in the local accelerator and people understood that more and had better relationships so i really think those local offices are quite powerful. the second is, if i could improve the sba, we've got to

streamline the process of application and make it easier and faster and make it just like any other silicon valley startup and how to use digital to make it more efficient and that would save them sba money in the long term with efficiencies. the last is as i said in my testimony most loans are to percent lower for women than men and i'd love to dig into that and see why because it is a critical source of capital for women. the last is the sba reputation. i really think the country to get a better understanding of the sba and its values. sometimes in new york and san fran sba loan is seen as your company will not thrive sometimes and i don't think that is the case. as we can educate the masses more on the power of the sba and how to use it i think it will become even more powerful. >> thank you. i realize i'm out of time i am particularly passionate about trying to picture we are transparently reporting on what

is happening and that we are hitting the contracting cap and exceeding it and that we continue to engage community in financial institutions. one of the most effective wbc affiliates is a cdf i in delaware and they make great loans and they are engaged in will note. thank you for the testimony i look forward to following up. >> senator kennedy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate your testimony, all three of you. in terms of the gender bias and access to capital you mention conscious and unconscious. i'd like to ask you to view what percentage roughly do you think is conscious and what percentage is unconscious?

>> since the astros one last night i'll be a little more [inaudible]. thank you for the question. i actually think the majority is a personal opinion is unconscious. i'm an optimist in this world and i also have really spent time in the venture community and i think they are mostly good people. however the formulas to make money have worked in an old system and systems have not caught up to the amount of women who are now testing. i would say the majority of women are unconscious and there's ways of training around that and if everyone sat through it we sought change. >> i think that is impossible to quantify. i know it exists but the biggest issue is probably networks and having access because people are

comfortable doing business with people that they know some people say we won't even invest in someone we don't already know. i know there was a study done by harvard and mit together that both a man and woman president identical business plans and the woman was 40% less likely to get funded. that is identical business. it does exist. >> i concur with your comments on again, we can't quantify and there isn't a way for us to quantify which is conscious and unconscious but what i think is critical is that if you have mechanisms to count the behavior in the lending community it gives us an opportunity to create some policies around goals and performance that help to change behaviors and that is the best we can hope to have. >> can you which we were that? >> so, certainly. if we had implemented 1071 .-dot frank act and collected a new

definitively where only 4% of the loans were being given to women here, here and here this is not representative of -- this is the community of population at large and theoretically to be higher as you have with federal government contracts that at least 5% go to women and then programs are in place to ensure policies that come about to ensure that you at least meet these numbers. what it does is it takes away from the individuals personal conscience i get it. thank you are see that. i want to follow up on senator shaheen's excellent questions. the three of you are obviously experienced, successful, accomplished. a lot of success in life.

have you ever witnessed sexual harassment in the workplace? >> i not only have witnessed but been a victim several times and made the decision to go forward in my work and to become a role model rather than a stop and take a sidetracked but in some cases i regret that because maybe if i had still woken up at the time change can happen more. >> either of you care to add to that? >> i would say the same. i've seen it with other women and have experienced it myself. >> i have seen it but not experienced it but being there everyone experiences it. >> this temple mentioned that limited to the entertainment industry that we just saw today that apparently a well-known journalist, mr. mark is apparently a pig as well.

five allegations that he has admitted to. do you think that is related to the access to capital at all? >> i think that whenever you mix power with women and men you have issues. i think the most effective way to do this is to have both women and men sitting at the table when making decisions about access to capital. >> thank you very much for your test way. i learned a lot and proceeded. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. senator kennedy, i can tell you without any reservation that sexual harassment is not limited to just the entertainment industry. most women who have been doing

anything in the workplace or otherwise in school to face these issues. i have been particularly interested in stem for women. this is a question for you i spoke in the innovation alliance on closing the patent gap and it revealed that the alarming women in the us that whole patents and [inaudible] the number of women with patent has certainly grown since 2000 at the current rate of progress biw pr, research entity, projects that the gender equality among patent holders will not occur until 75 years from now in the year 2092 most of us will not be around then so in your testimony you mentioned that entrepreneurs with a background in artificial

intelligence algorithms and analysis will have a competitive advantage in the coming years so how can we extend the opportunities for women and minorities and include minorities with their vastly underrepresented and the science technology in stem fields and assist him in obtaining patents and the more particular you are in specific you are the better. >> for small, there are good news in venice. the bad news is that the neighbors are going down -- >> and they dump out from the stem arena at all levels including early on and beyond. >> i think this is back to messaging. another thing i did mention is that with coding and algorithms becoming more commoditized that we are going to be reaching into things that women are traditionally have been in the past not as a total group but

some members are very effective at innovation and effective at design an effective at sales and marketing. those could be places where women will have advantages. also, in terms of patents i'd like to say that i don't back compatible technology anymore. what i like to practice innovation and the ability to iterate over and over again because when you get a patent with software is already irrelevant and we need to continue to do is teach our children to be creative and innovative. >> what are some very specific ways that we can teach children to be creative and innovative? any models out there of her there has been success in encouraging more women and minorities to go into these fields and to stay in these fields? you're not in your head, would you like to respond. >> i am optimistic about is what are already established girls organizations. before it can, girl scout are

putting stem into their program and i think it's hard these days in this age to create a whole new organization so those that are out there including public education having some programs is very early, third, fourth, 25th and before the seventh grade top happen is what i love. you see there is now a stem badge for the girl scouts which i love and i think those are critically important. let's get them in into institutions that are already thriving in large and ensure that this is part of the vernacular. >> that is great but not everyone gets to be a girl scout. i certainly wasn't so i'm looking at arenas where the kids are there, i.e. in our schools. what are we doing in our schools in terms of curriculum that supports minorities and girls into these areas. first of all, we have to have wi-fi in our schools have to have access.

broadband access particularly in rural communities and in smaller states. there is no good program that is out there who don't have kids with access to what they need to see. second is the technology in those arenas. is there something that children are touching and working early on to learn to code into these things. i think that is the baseline frankly before we even can start looking into the best curriculums. >> would the two of you agree that technology in our schools because there are a lot of elementary schools across the country, public schools that do not have access to this kind of technology and would you agree that is an important and foundational? >> technology is critical and we need to see women and minorities in the field and as role models and we can desire to achieve those goals.

>> i did introduce legislation that would encourage through grants et cetera mentorship and other programmatic ways and institutionalized ways to focus on women and minority in the technology area and i hope that you will look at that. the whole question of particularly with women could be considered a minority but within that category there are minority women face even more challenges in terms of access to capital and all the other challenges that women generally face and multiplied several times over. i would be appreciative of any information that you have that relate to support for minority. >> that is no question. in fact, women's access to capital at the minority level is .02% of total venture capital dollars. it's even more severe. >> think mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

as we talk about how to get young women excited about stem subjects and robotics competitions and that out of school competition that focus on stem is another great way to do that and reaches not only young men and women but often minorities in a way that they may not be reached in school. i want to follow up on both the mantelpiece in the comment you made about the media not covering women success stories. what can we do to elevate those success stories for women and how to get reporters, the media, the news media is another place where women are underrepresented. how do we get attention to those female success stories and women

owned businesses? >> one of the biggest success stories using right now is the story on ipo of the company statistics. this has a female founder and ironically for a technology company the company has profit which is wonderful. the more we can elevate women into these positions where they can be role models and representing really terrific companies the more attention we will get from the media back to either of you or the other panelists have ideas? >> i think the major business occasions that range from four they can make a commitment publicly and i encourage them on the record to do so that at least 40% of their stories have some type of woman founder in the.

>> that is a great idea. >> they are great stories and great content and then we have to do better as women raising her hands and boasting about those successes. there is no longer the lack of great companies which is exciting but i would encourage that level of commitment. >> i would agree with that and i would say that we have to remember that we are the consumers. part of it is that we need to send the message of what we want to consume from our media. stop using it has been the one token female done this because there are many, many great stories. >> thank you. that may be a place for the 20 could weigh in. >> what you think, senator mark we can send the suggested behalf of the hearing today to a number of occasions. >> i think that is something to talk about. thank you all very much. >> thank you. this has -- we sit through lots

and lots of hearings and panels but i can tell you this was an impressive panel and we sincerely appreciate you taking the time you have taken to come and help us. every one of us iran for public office want to make life better for our constituents and americans and these are the things that help us move forward. we come away with some really good pragmatic suggestions that we can move forward notwithstanding what congress doesn't do that we occasionally do something. >> and we do it together. >> particularly on this committee. with that, first of all, the chart that you had here i think we ought to put that in the record. >> i agree. great idea. >> secondly, i will declare the record will be open for two weeks until 5:00 p.m. on thursday, november 9, hundred

for anyone to submit any relevant information for the hearing. again, thank you. with that the committee is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> in house this week work on the fence programs in the national flood insurance program. thursday the gop tax bill is due

on the floor. today the newest member, utah republican john curtis, will be sworn in. lighthouse coverage on c-span. the senate continues work on executive and judicial nominations. life separate coverage starting at 4:00 p.m. on c-span2. >> watched c-span this week as congress debates tax form and the senate finance committee reviews its bill monday at 3:00 p.m. eastern live coverage on c-span3 the house debates its bill on thursday. live coverage on c-span. get details about both bills at c-span .org/congress and listen to live coverage of tax form using the free c-span radio app. >> representative and wagner, republican from missouri has or