lifetime achievement award in boston. new york times columnist david brooks, and historian ronald white discuss character and the presidency. jonathan ike on the former heavyweight champion of the world, muhammad ali. the middle class and politics. and erick erickson on his book, before you wake. life lessons from from a father to his children. at 9:50 a.m. eastern on the presidency. the life and times of teddy roosevelt. at 11:00 a.m. lectures in history. native americans and trade in southern california. and then from the 2345gsal archives, a look at the first motion picture units world war ii films. thanksgiving day on the c-span networks.

>> the senate, small business and entrepreneurship, three women testified about their experiences running companies. and working to promote and increase ownership and investment rolls for women in american business and industry. this is about an hour. i know everybody's having a good time and networking, and moving the enterprise forward. we really should get started. we have two votes starting at noon, we're going to be on a bit of a short string here.

that shouldn't in anyway denny great the importance of this hearing of the small business committee. what we're going to do is explore ways to help women owned businesses reach their full potential and grow the american economy. i want to thank my colleague for working together on this. this is of great importance to all of us and all america. >> as you know, october is national women's small business month. fee malentrepreneurs employ more than 9 million workers, they contribute $1.6 trillion in sales to our national economy. and are capable of even more as its fastest growing sector. just a few weeks ago. sb administrator, linda mcmahon joined me in my home state of idaho.

my wife and i and she travelled to a number of businesses. i often say, entrepreneurs want more time to give to their businesses. they are negatively impacted by the expense of time and resources it takes to comply with our complicated and burdensome tax code. it is it for this reason that tax reform can and should be part of today's discussion. in fact, the national association of women's business owners asked this committee to present on tax reform at their annual conference just last week, because that is the most important issue to the hundreds of business -- women business

owners that belong to that. 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. >> our hearing today will look at many issues, this is -- a tax reform is a top mind issue on all of our parts. thank you for being here today. and i look forward to a robust discussion. i'd ask you, each of the panel member members first of all, thank you for coming to the hearing today. we'll ask that you submit anything you want in writing, and we will certainly include it in the record, so with that, i'd

like to yield to senator shaheen. >> i'm delighted that we're 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're growing five times faster than the national average. but women owned businesses still face head winds. on average they earn less than male owned firms, employ only 8% of the nation's private workforce, and produce 4% of business revenues, a share that has remained the same for the past 20 years, the question really is why? why are the other statistics around women own eed businesses not changing, and that's one thing we're going to explore this morning. i look forward to hearing the testimony of our outstanding witness witnesses. >> thank you very much senator.

i'd like to introduce our three witnesses here today, and i'd first like to welcome ms. elizabeth gore who is an entrepreneur in residence. never heard that title before. i'm sure you'll enlighten us on that. goals around helping small and medium business scale -- businesses. and prosper. i'm also pleased to welcome tracy chad well. founding partner of 1843 capital, an early stage venture capital fund. and i'd like to recognize michelle richards, who served as the executive director of the great lakes women's business council. we all know the counsel does great work. thank all of you for coming. ms. gore, we'll start with you.

>> thank you for being here. senator wish and all of you, it's a real honor to testify about what i think could be the greatest bipartisan opportunity that this country is seeing, and it's women entrepreneurs. just this week i've been in san francisco, sioux falls, south dakota, new york city and now d.c. i'm from northern california, i can tell you that women in all of 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 as you said, very proud of that, we do have conservatively higher fail rate, only 2% of us are making over a million dollars with our businesses in this country. i think that is a 98% opportunity that we all have to improve many i hope none of you

have the number seven as your favorite number. because for some reason we're stuck on seven. women founders only get 7% of venture capital in this country. only 7% of venture capitalists are women, and something that's increasingly important. only 7% of the stories are women founders. we have to see it to be it, and we have to change that. >> over the last 2 1/2 years i had the great pleasure to serve in my home state of texas. and i'm also an entrepreneur myself, and a co-founder of alice, which is the first ever machine learning and achltd tool that helps any women, minority or veteran founder find these resources they need to scale. i found that the barriers really sit in four pillars. networks, technology and talent. those really are our barriers.

so i'll just 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. this is a major problem. i think we need to inning centy advise our venture capital friends to increase that 7% number. it's going down in fact, it's grown down substantially, and the 2017 numbers are going to show a significant drop in venture capital. my colleague will talk a lot more about that, bias does exist in venture capital. the me too moechblt is not just about hollywood. i'd also like to encourage our sba to continue to strengthen. it's a critical part of our country. women are five times more likely to get sba loans, they're -- the amounts they get are 2 1/2 times

lower than their male counterparts. something i hope we look into. another thing is certifications. i'm proud to see continuing supplier diversity programs. women owned business certifications, there's one thing we need to change. the 8-a certification program with the u.s. sba is an excellent program. if you get venture funding, and those venture capitalists are male, you are not considered women owned any more. you cannot get the certification and be venture backed. this is something we can simply change through legislation. that is my top recommendation for this year. let's continue to work with innovators and understand now sources of funding. dell spends 4 billion a year, just through our supply chain. crowd funding is supporting women more than men. so what other innovative sources

can we do? . most women depend on banks for access to capital. we talk about venture, 96% of women are counting on bank loans, 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. the next is access to networks. you know, we don't golf as much of our gentlemen counterparts do. i love the grants that have been going to accelerators in the u.s. government. they're very important. access to technology. every company is now a technology company. women are less likely to access technology, and we have to continue to move that forward. so on behalf of my fellow amazing women entrepreneurs, this is a time of opportunity, it's a time that yes we're

challenged. but we are the best economic bet 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 mr. chairman. >> thank you, elizabeth, that was terrific. good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the senate committee. thank you ranking member shaheen for the opportunity to testify today before your committee. it's a pleasure and horner to introduce myself, and give my perspective. my background, i'm an attorney, who had my first exposure, when i worked for adelaide stevenson's company. i then went to baker capital. i've been investing in women founders in the technology area. and i have founded 1843 capital.

it's the year that ada lovelace wrote the first computer program. my partners are incredible women. an engineer who built and sold her own cyber security security. the ceo of the veneta project. delivering educational programming and premium networking for women founders, funders. they're strategic partners in an effort to scale women businesses and fund them. the really good news is that things are working. the accelerator is allowing 2,000 female funded companies per year. they've been able to channel $50 million to early stage companies. as you said earlier, nationwide,

women owned businesses are growing in number at five times the national average. statistically, women outperform as well. women operated venture backed tech companies achieved 12% higher revenues. this is no doubt due to public private partnerships. the sba has been a strong partner as well. 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 successful and do great things for the world. beauty counter is a woman founded 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 35,000 consultants. silver nest is a company in colorado that uses technology to

match people over 50 with roommates. this helps them solve the problem of financial insecurity and loneliness. an algorithm based management platform, this helps banks dem of course rah ties wealth management, so everyone can save and invest, regardless of the size of their accounts. something truly unique about marstone is user experience. most people are intimidated by math and finance but margaret knew this, and developed an earner face that was accessible to everyone. she knew that to have the biggest impact the company 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 a algorithms are going to become

commodities. by far, the most serious barrier to the entrepreneurial ecosystem is the lack of funding. 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, the capital to scale is inaccessible. beauty counter is one of the largest and fastest growing companies period. women founders as a group received 2.19% of venture capital dollars. a lot of reasons for this exist including lack of women as women venture partners. women founded venture capital firms are 28 out of 800 firms. one of the most impactful things that you as senators could do would be to encourage your state pension funds to take a harder look at women managers and a harder look at their underlying

portfolios, it's impossible to legislate against unconscious buy as, however, it is possible to support and to fund positive role models. thank you very much. >> i'm really bad at the technology, audio part. my name is michelle richards and i'm the executive director for great lakes women's business counsel. i want to share our experience as an organization dedicated to supporting women business owners for the past 33 years. as a micro lender since 1993, we have made over 6.5 million in loans with the average size of

20,000. these loans have created 1700 jobs. in early 1990, we became an sba women's business center. this created a stable funding for us to build a platform for our training and counseling program. and we've been able to serve more than 10,000 women business owners and entrepreneurs with it. we've been a certifying partner for the women's business enterprise council. we currently have 1120 certified women business owners that generate 12.3 billion in revenue annually and employ 48,500 u.s. workers. 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 and retaining 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. i recently was told by an established woman business owner, that a bank owner came to the meeting, and asked if her husband would be joining us. she said no he wouldn't because he's not part of the business. if women aren't able to obtain equal access to capital, they can't grow their business to full potential. women are highly underrepresented in federal contracting, although the federal government met its goal of awarding 5% of eligible

federal contracts to women owned businesses in 2015, it failed to reach the mark in 2016 about the market share needs to grow because federal contracting has a tremendous impact on many women owned businesses. for example, katie bigelow. president of metal ops, received her first contract with the air force for $80,000 after two years of trying. that contract created the past performance needed to win her most recent contract award for 9 bnt $1 million. women are unable to access basic tools we need, that we know work for them, they need training and coaching to grow their businesses and become job creators. it's important to modernize and grow a nationwide network of

counselors for women entreprene entrepreneurs. great lakes wbc has experience to offer the committee these 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 18 national defense authorization act. which would increase the 30-year-old cap on grant levels. 30 years, we strongly urge the senate to keep this provision in the ndaa. we have over 500 wosb 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 the small business micro loan program and the community development financial institution fund. distinguished senators, thank you for this opportunity to present this testimony. >> thank you so much. to all three of you. i noted that all three of you made reference to the capital situation. and the access to it. those figures certainly aren't pretty. as far as the capital that is received by women entrepreneurs. anybody who has even a passing knowledge of economics knows that access to capital is critical to the success of business, the economy. barriers in that regard really need to be knocked down.

i note you're finding a flaw in the federal system, where aa certification is lost when they get funds from a male venture capital fund. it would be interesting to see if they found out the banks of the women owned businesses was run by an all male board of directors, which is exactly the same situation. senator shaheen and i have already agreed we're going to take a run at this. the federal government doesn't always -- and that's a result of your testimony by the way. the federal government doesn't always do things exactly the way they should, that's why we're here. we'll take a run at that for you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i hope all of the members of the committee will join us in that effort. it seems like that's a no-brainer that would make a big difference in access to capital.

i want to go back to an issue that miss richards referenced, and i think you did as well, ms. chad well in your discussion about venture capital. right now, the country's having what i think is a very important conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace, and fortunately, a lot of people are coming forward and saying this is not right, unfortunately, we've seen that in terms of access to venture capital as well earlier this year, several female entrepreneurs told the new york city times of harassment. jennifer hyman discussed the harassment she experienced.

this is something that exists in the venture capital industry as well. i wonder if you could speak about bit. experiences like ms. heineman's commonplace, and how do you see trying to address this issue? >> i think experiences like this are commonplace in every industry. i think we've bean seeing it in the entertainment and venture capital industry specifically as of late. and i think it's systemic. and not just the sexual harassment issue, but we have other issues that we're working on as well like equal pay and also maternity and family issues a lot of those might not have to be legislated if you have women ceos. >> thank you. do either of you want to add anything to that?

>> unconscious bias is so strong. and there are a lot of formulas that have worked over time, and when you're formula's working and you're making money, it really takes leadership from folks like you all to push those limits to think outside. i heard over and over that anything that's women focused is not a large enough market. it's a niche market even though we're 51% of the population and had 85% consumer spending. so i think that bias is pretty rampant. >> thank you. and i want to go back to access to capital as well. we've got a chart here that all of you have pointed out with the situation with women owned businesses and their access to capital. so you can see the blue commons are majority women owned and all

other firms are the orange column. so we can see the difference in terms of venture capital funding, the total amount of conventional business loans and the prime contract awards, which is exactly what all of you had to say, but when you see it on that chart it really brings it home. just the disadvantages that women-owned businesses face. so ms. richards, you told a story that actually reminded me a bit of my own experience about the entrepreneur who was turned away because her husband wasn't there. i remember when i was first applying for credit my husband had to sign the bank forms in order to do that because we hadn't yet changed the laws. so how do we continue to address these issues, and what other steps can we take to prevent instances of bias by bank lenders against women business owners? >> disclosure is critical.

so 1071 of the dodd/frank act requires data to be collected of women minority owned businesses and the loans made to them. until we can start quantifying really the discrepancy instead of just using antidotal information, we're not going to be able to get to some of the roots 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's so many elements of it. and lenders decide if they want this business and this loan in their port foal identify. so it's very different. so we need to start creating some parameters and implementing 2071 of the dodd/frank act. >> i appreciate it. the conversation has been striking this morning, and even as a woman i shake my head when

i hear about the lack of access that's available out there. i do want to go back to something that senator rish had mentioned earlier in our conversation as we focused 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 i've had the opportunity to interact with and speak with during my 99 county tour, she said the biggest two obstacles that she has for her small business are the high taxes and the regulations. so really two burdensome areas for her. and today her marginal tax rate for other small business owners, they can get as high as 45% on those small businesses. and the average small business owner spends over $12,000

annually just in dealing with regulations. so just for all of you, are current tax policies hindering? and whatwise a smaller tax rate have on small businesses for strengthsing the entrepreneurial ecosystem for women? >> i would say there's no entrepreneur who would say no to lower taxes. so i think that's men, women, no matter where we are. i know there's a lot of discussion around child tax credits and so on, that something very specific when you put a gender lens on entrepreneurship is child care. i have a 3-year-old and 6-year-old, and i have to make strong decisions about as an entrepreneur that is my number

one cost. so i think anything we can do to release that burden for mothers, a majority of women entrepreneurs do have children and they're either doing childrens care, elders or caring for their community. it's just a disproportionate thing about women. one area i wanted to bring up in response is we ned to be thoughtful and creative about how do we let women be great moms but also killer entrepreneurs. >> it is truly important especially as we want to get more women involved in small businesses and other activities as well. so thank you. anyone else? >> i think in terms of regulation, the really tough thing that i see is in the ecommerce space. so when tech companies are trying to setup and setup across the country, they have to register in each state separately. which is big hindderance for both male and female companies.

>> of course we want to relieve any pressure on our small businesses. and since women cashes is a real consideration, it's a real consideration with the taxes, too. >> thank you. and today my colleagues, senator heidi height camp, and i will be introducing the proven act, which seeks to strengthen the voice of small businesses and the real making process and improve the quality of agency certifications and analysis of a rules impact on small business. do you think providing greater accountability for agency certifications would improve the rule making process and provide some regulatory relief for small businesses? any thoughts on that? >> what i will say is we are in a digital era, and one of the things that we can do is digital transformation around all of how do we regulate how do we apply

loans, even to our locate permitting. so i would say how do we look at using digital for all our processes to speed things up? and then also to lower those regulation barriers. i love the idea of having one registers instead of all 50 states. >> very important. use technology. >> yes. >> with that i'll yield back my time. >> let me tell you that the issue you raised that we hadn't touched on, i can assure you that matter is under serious consideration. as you know over the last few weeks we've been focused on tax reform. and i like my colleagues, i've 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 what's going to be a complicated puzzle put together. but it's going to be seriously discussed here. senator kunts. >> thank you. it is striking as graphically represented by senator shaheen in the chart, the disconnect between the very strong performance of women entrepreneurs and businesses and yet the different structural challenges in accessing capital, building out mentors and in particular in accessing federal contracting. as a senator for several days as a local elected a decade before that, i've been struck at how capable and strong women entrepreneurs are in my home state. christy founded this in

wilmington, delaware. it played a key part in her taking the leap and being successful as a pharmacist. mountain consulting is in our state capital and dover. very successful minority and women owned business that does landscaping, engineering and technical services. first hub zone small certified business in delaware and also benefitted from sba loan products. a juice bar frequented, and they tell me that score consulting helped develop the business plan and do market research. i'm the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the sba, so i'm particular interested in hearing from you about the sba funds from women business centers in mentoring through score and other sba

other programs. i worked to create the wbc funding by 20% since 2015, and i think they're a very important network across the country that helps address access to capital and mentoring and business planning. so i'd be interesting from hearing from all of you about what your view on wbc's are, whether they're relevant and important in terms of network. and then second, the networking that you spoke to, the need for mentorship, score i think does a great job in delaware, but i'm not suref that's a case nationally. in delaware that's a program called we think that provides yearlong mentoring for women entrepreneurs to tackle some of the challenges that may be specific in trying to balance family commitments and obligations and new markets and being a successful entrepreneur. i'd be interested in comments

from all three of you if i could on those core questions. michelle? >> yes, so two key pieces. one of it things the women business centers do is use real women business owners because there's a really clear connect between them. secondarily, the women business centers because we've had a 30-year cap it's not it's the same money because 30 years ago it was different money, it was a different amount. so we're basically being squeezed to provide as many services in higher levels for the same dollars that were 30 years ago. and for the centers that are really excelling, this is an opportunity for us to push forth the same kind of programming to more women. it's an opportunity of growth for this country. >> i know the womens business development corporation in-conduct has been extremely

successful. again where i see the real lack is in capital. i know the sba has been very successful in providing debt funding for women. and for some core businesses like consumer products that have capital and balance sheets they can leverage against, that's appropriate. but for the fastest growing companies, the ones that are creating the most jobs in this country really the most valuable form is financing of equity. so i don't know if that's part of the sba or contemplated, but i would really recommend it because that's where all the rough is. >> the first is where there are local sba offices, women seem to really have a connection and understand the sba more. so in sioux falls where i was on tuesday, the sba was really in

the local accelerator. and people understood it more, had a better relationship. so i really think those local offices are quite powerful. the second is if i could improve the sba, is we've got to stream line the process of application. make it easier, make it faster and make it just like any other silicon valley start-up. how do you use digital to make it more efficient? and that would probably save sba money in the long-term with efficiencies. most sba loans are 2.5% lower for women than men, and i would like to dig in and see why because it is a critical source for men and women. i really think the country can get a better understanding of the sba and its value. sometimes in new york and san fran the sba loan is seen as your company isn't going to thrive sometimes, and i don't think that's the case. so as we can educate the masses

more on the power of the sba and how to use it, i think it'll become even more powerful. >> thank you, guys. i'm passionate also that we're reporting, and we continue to engage community development or sdfi's, or one of the most effective is a cdfi in delaware. thank you for the testimony. i look forward to following up with you. >> thank you, senator coons. senator kennedy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> good morning. >> i appreciate your testimony, all three of you. in terms of the gender bias and access to capital you mentioned

conscious and unconscious. i'd like to ask each of you, what percentage roughly do you think is conscious and what percentage is unconscious? >> thank you, senator, for the question. i actually think the majority, this is 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're mostly good people. however, the formulas make money have worked in an old system. and the systems just have not caught up to the amount of women who are now pitching. so i would say the majority is unconscious. and there's ways of training around that. i think if everyone sat through it we'd see change. >> ms. chadwell? >> i think that's impossible to

quantify, but i know it's exists. i think probably the biggest issue is networks and having access because people are comfortable doing business with people that they know, and some people would say we don't feel comfortable investing in somebody that we don't know. and there's one that had both a man and women present business plans and the woman was 20% less likely to get funded, so it does exist. >> i think again there isn't a way to quantify which is conscious and unconscious. but what i think is critical if we have mechanisms to count the behaviors in the lending community, it gives us an opportunity to create some policies around goals and performance that helps to change

behaviors. and that's the best we can hope to have happen. >> can you explain what you mean by that? >> certainly. so if we had implemented 1071 dodd/frank act, and we had collect collected and knew difinitively where loans were given to women here, here, and here we would say it's of the community at large, and then have a program in place to ensure policies come about to ensure that you at least meet these numbers. so what it does is it takes it away from the individual's personal conscience. >> i get it. yeah, i appreciate it. i want to follow up on senator shaheen's excellent questions. the three of you are obvious --

i mean i've looked at your résumes. you're obviously experienced, successful, accomplished, a lot of success in life. have you ever witnessed sexual harassment in the workplace? >> i not only have witnessed it, i've been a victim several times and made the decision to go forward in my work and become a role model rather than stop and take a sidetrack. but in some cases i regret that because perhaps if i had spoken up at the time change could have happened more quickly. >> either of you care to add to that? >> i would say the same. i've seen it with other women, and i've had experiences myself. >> okay. >> i have seen it and not experienced it. but being there, everyone experiences it. >> yeah, ms. chadwell, mentioned

that it's not limited to the entertainment industry. we just saw today that apparently a well-known journalist, apparently is a pig as well. you know, five allegations that he's admitted to. do you think that's related to the access to capital at all? >> i think that whenever you mix power with women and men you have issues. and 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. >> all right, thank you very much for your testimony. i learned a lot. i appreciate it. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator huroana.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. senator kennedy, i can tell you without any reservation that sexual harassment and more is not just limited to the entertainment industry. most women who have been doing anything in the workplace or otherwise or in school, et cetera have faced these kinds of issues. i have been particularly interested in stem for women. this is question for you, ms. chadwell, last year i spoke on closing the patent gender gap revealed an alarming low number of women u.s. patentors in the u.s. while the number of patents need has grown since 2000 at the current rate of progress the iwpr projects that the gender equality among patent holders

would not occur until 70 years from now, in the year 2092. most of us would probably not be around then. so in your testimony you mentioned that entrepreneurs with a background in technology will have an advantage in the coming years. so how can we expand opportunities for women and include minorities, because they're also vastly underrepresented in stem fields and a system in obtaining patents. and the more specific you are as to what we can do, the better. >> first of all, i think there's some good news and bad news. the bad news is that the numbers are going down in terms of -- >> and they drop out from all levels including really early on, intermediate and beyond. >> absolutely. i think this is back to messaging, which we talked about earlier. i think it also -- another thing i did mention is that with

coding and algorithms becoming more commodities, that we are going to be reaching into things that women are traditionally just have been in the past not a total group but some members are very effective at innovation and very effective at design and very eptive in sales and marketing. so i think those could be places where women have advantages. in terms of patents, i'd also like to say i don't back patented technology anymore. what i like to back is innovation and the ability to iterate over and over and over again. by the time you get a patent with a lot of this software it's already irrelevant. >> what are some very specific ways, though, we can teach children to be creative and innovative? are there any models out thereof where there's been success in encouraging more women and minorities to go into these fields and to stay in these

fields? you're nodding your head. would you like to respond? >> one of the things i'm very optimistic about are what are very established girls organizations. i'm a 4h kid. girl scouts are actually putting stem into their programs. i think it's hard these days to create a whole new organization. so those that are already out there including education having stem are programs very early, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade, before that seventh grade drop happens, is what i love. you see there's a stem badge for the girl scouts, which is what i love. let's get them into institutions that already thriving and large. >> that's great. not everybody gets to be a girl scout. i certainly wasn't. but i'm liking at arenas where the kids are there, ie, in our

schools. what are we doing with programs that support these? >> first of all, we have to have broadband access particularly in rural communities in smaller states. there is no good program that's out there if we don't have kids have access to what they need to see. second is the technology in those arenas. is there something that children are touching, working on early onto learn to code, to learn to do these things? so i think that is the baseline, frankly, before we can then start looking into the best curric lms. >> would the two of you agree that the technology in our schools -- because there's a lot of elementary schools across our country, public schools that do not have access to this kind of technology. would you agree that is really important foundational? >> technology is critical. mentors are also critical. they need to see women and

minorities in those fields and as role models so that they can desire do achieve those goals. >> i did introduce some legislation that would encourage through grants, et cetera, of mentorships and other ways, institutionalized ways focusing on women and minorities in the technology area. and hope folks will take a look at that. and the whole question of particularly, yeah, women can be considered a minority but within that category there are minority women who face even more challenges in terms of access to capital and all of the other challenges that women generally face and multiplied probably several times over for minority women. so krld be appreciative of any information that you have that relate to support for minority. >> that's no question.

and in fact womens access to capital at the minority level is 0.2% of venture capital dollars. so it's even more severe. >> yes. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i wanted to -- as we're talking about how do we get more women excited about stem subjects, robotics competition and sort of out of school competitions that focus on stem is a really great way to do that. and it reaches not only young women but often ninorts in a way they may not be reached in school. but i want to follow up on both the mentor piece and the comment you made, ms. chadwell, about the media not covering women success stories. and what can we do to elevate these success stories for women? and how do we get reporters,

actually the media and the news media is another place are women are underrepresented. so how do we get attention to those female success stories of women owned businesses, for any of you? >> well, i think one of the biggest success stories we're seeing right now is the story ipo on the company stitch fix, which for a female founder. and this company actually has profits, which is wonderful. so the more we can elevate women into these positions where they can be role models and obviously representing real terrific companies, i think the more attention we'll get from the media. >> do either of you have -- the other panelists have ideas? >> a very specific idea. i think the major 12 business pupications, they could collectively 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 women funder in them. and that's up from 7%. >> that's a great idea. >> yeah, they're great stories, good content. and we as women have to do better in really raising our hands and boasting about those successes. but there's really no 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 we are the consumers. and so part of it is that we need to send the message of what we want to consume from our media and stop using it as being the one token female whose done this because there's many, many great stories. >> well, thank you. that may be a place where the committee could weigh in. what do you think, senator? where we could send the suggestion on behalf of the hearing today to a number of

those publications? >> yeah, i think that's something to talk about. >> good. thank you all very much. >> we sit through lots and lots of hearings and lots and lots of panels, but i can tell you this was an impressive panel. and we sincerely appreciate you taking the time that you've taken to come and talk with us. and everyone one of us runs for public office because we want to make life matter for our constituents and americans. and these are the kinds of things that actually help us move forward in that goal. and actually we've come away with some really good pragmatic suggestions that we can move forward, notwithstanding what you hear about what congress doesn't do. we do occasionally do some things. >> and we do it together. >> and we do it together particularly on this committee. >> with that, first of all, madam -- formally madam

chairman, the chart, would you like that put in the record? >> agree. >> and secondly, i declare the record open for two weeks for anyone to submit any relevant information for the hearing. and again, thank you. and with that the committee is adjourned.

here's what's ahead. coming up next, remarks from fbi director christopher ray on intelligence gathering tools. at 8 e:00, it's american history tv. and tonight we'll focus on the 70th anniversary of the hollywood black list. tonight book tv is in prime time with a look at best sellers. fox news host brian cellmy provides a history of the world's battle of 1812 battle of new orleans and his book. former fox news host gretchen carlson discusses combating sexual harassment in her book "be fierce." coats examines race, the obama presidency and the 2016 election in his book, "we were eight years in power." and then jd vance talks about his book. book tv all this week in prime

time on c-span 2. and tonight at 8:00 eastern, we kick off our road to the white house coverage. he was joined recently by tim ryan, a democrat representing ohio. again watch that starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. thanksgiving day on c-span, 11:30 a.m. eastern, the liberately medal ceremony at the national constitution center in philadelphia. at 1:00 p.m. former secretary of state john carry receiving a lifetime achievement award at the institute in boston. and 2:45 p.m. brooks and white discuss character and the presidency. the southern festival of books in nashville, at 2:30 p.m.

eastern. authors discuss the middle class and politics at 10:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. eric erikson before you wake, life lessons of a father to his children. and the presidency, the life and times of teddy roosevelt. at 11:00 a.m.,inate chb americans and trade in 19th century california. and then at 2:55 p.m. eastern, from the national archives, oo look at the first motion picture world war ii films. thanksgiving day on the c-span networks. and now fbi director christopher ray takes part in a discussion of pending renewal of section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which allows surveillance of foreign citizens under specific circumstances. he talks about the impact it has on his agency's work.