live coverage of a joint news conference with president obama, canadian prime minister, and felipe calderon. and then and discussion on what it is like for news correspondents to cover foreign wars and conflicts. also this afternoon, the congressional internet caucus' adviser committee holds a briefing over the obama administration's new privacy program. you can see today's briefing live starting at noon eastern on c-span2. later today, more from canadian prime minister stephen harper. he will be speaking at the woodrow wilson center on what he, president obama, and what the mexican president hope to accomplish in their talks. 4:00 eastern on c-span2. >> america will suffer a

catastrophic cyber attack. they do not choose those words indiscriminately. it tells me that we have to move rapidly but not in a way that violates privacy or the basic tenets of privacy, and that encourages quick reaction, not regulatory environment. >> the chairman of a house subcommittee on technology and communications. greg walden on cybersecurity and communications. >> this past weekend, the clinton global initiative held its annual meeting in washington. a panel discussion moderated by chelsea clinton on public service and other developed nations.

and our panelists, president inter-american development bank luis moreno environmentalist, research foundation of science technology, and ecology, dr. shiva. >> thank you. mr. peterson just exported all of us, given the timing of the member of most of us, given that i am 32, or the most of you in the audience. for those of you to turn out we certainly saw

we saw tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of young people turned out in the past 15 months from the arab spring to the protest of higher university fees in chile, affordable housing in tel aviv. and new york city. yet as much as young people may be in the vanguard of so many of these social protests and movements, we are notably behind in employment. painfully behind in employment. in the united states, youth unemployment has been above 16%. last month, it was 16.5%. in much of the developed world, it is actually higher. in the eurozone, it is 21%. in greece, over the last few months, it is just below 50%.

in the developing world, it is often somewhere between 26%, 27% in the middle east and northern africa. and in the high teens in much of southeast asia. clearly we are confronting many challenges. those that we just heard about from net impact and mr. peterson. another challenge is how do we build the next generation of entrepreneurs? business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and the government of entrepreneurs. i hope that is what we will talk a little bit about today. cynthia had an idea when she was in school that became not only her job but became a mechanism through which she very much is adding to her and our

bottom line. >> about a year ago i was graduating from the university of michigan's urban institute and looking for a job. i think the real turning point for me was sitting in an interview and being asked the question why are you looking for a job when i had one already. at the time i was looking for a job to support my hobby. from there, it has really snowballed. >> can you talk about what wello is? >> it is a venture that develops equipment for the developed world. we are launching it in india.

we are now employed in other people. last month, our team doubled and we will probably double again in the next two months. >> terrific. at the inter-american development bank, and maybe you can explain what that is, how do you find people like cynthia in latin america and the caribbean given that 60% of the population are under the age of 30? how do you connect with people who have these great ideas for their own advancement and also for society as a whole? >> first of all, thank you very much for having me here. it is great to have the students' thinking about these ideas. day inter-american development ban -- the inter-american development bank has a focus on development. this whole purpose of helping governments find ways to have development finance to do

schools, roads, hydroelectric projects. along with that, to incorporate best practices. we are more than just a financial institution. we are a complex but very focused consultancy institution that looks at best practices. having said that, what cynthia was just describing is the larger story of the emerging world. if you look at the 1980's in latin america, the lost decade when we had the financial crisis at that time, the real issue was unemployment. today, the issue is more security. it is connected to many areas. how to reach what people like

cynthia do, we use a fund where we provide grants to help small entrepreneurs kickstart, to provide some of the technical assistance needed. this is the one area where the jobs are created. most countries around the world have them with small and medium-sized enterprises. real skills that you can help develop that small business over time. we worked with students. we got some of the students to go to peru helping women entrepreneurs and helping them set up their own business. some of the things that cynthia was saying are the kinds of groups that we helped to support. it is ideas like hers and others like her who need the

support from the institution to provide some of the funding to help her efforts. >> you in many ways embody the paradigm of doing well and doing good to get there. what you have been able to do it in india is really remarkable with now 500,000 farmers affected. could you talk a little bit about that work and what lessons you think are applicable to students in the audience who are thinking about what they want to do when they graduate? >> what ever you studied or are studying, it will not necessarily follow you in your life. >> this is why i asked the question. >> in 1984, we had the worst industrial disaster. terrorism took 30,000 lives.

something was strange in agriculture killing so many people and also killing species. we started to promote non- violent farming for ecological reasons. it became increasingly economic because a high price tag was pushing farmers into debt. they are trapped in high-cost materials. eventually, less and less value because of the subsidies, etc. so we built a network of farmers who grow diversity and have doubled their incomes and nutritional outputs. most importantly, they are rebuilding nature's economy. what is wrong with the present

model of the economy is because it came from fossil fuels. we cannot afford to keep thinking that fossil fuels are at the center of work which displaces people which is why unemployment is linked to ecological destruction. [applause] we now need to link stabilizing, maintaining, conserving, and rebuilding the nation's wealth of soil, biodiversity, stabilizing the climate. about $80 billion is the cost of extreme events. we are not doing terribly well. the kind of agriculture we promote is getting rid of 70% species destruction, water waste. a lot of the water crisis is related to waste. 30% of greenhouse gases. 70% of the dispose ability of

human beings because of fossil fuels and toxics. how is that relevant to all of you? the five function of quantum theory. [laughter] at the end of it, we are all eaters. all of law should be caring about what food we eat and how it is grown -- all of us should be caring about what food we eat and how it is grown. about 1 billion people are hungry and about 2 billion people who are not hungry are suffering from disease or malnutrition of all other kind because of that food. i did learn math.

what is wrong with the current economic model is the math is not right. [applause] what i realized it is 50% of us will always be involved in the food system. we can be involved in the destructive component of it, speculating on commodities, shooting up prices, creating toxics, driving wal-mart trucks, or 50% could be in the creative work. every month, we have 25% of people around the world who become chefs or organic farmers. the food system is inviting us to a diversity of creative work that we have not even begun to explore. we need to go there.

[cheers and applause] >> i think you certainly have begun to explore it. one thing you said that elicited a lot of whistles is that our math is not right. certainly the math of student loan debt in this country is staggering. [applause] we now have more student loan debt outstanding than credit- card debt. we breached the threshold of more than $1 trillion of student loan debt outstanding last month. it is staggering particularly when we heard mr. peterson just talk about how he was so grateful that he got "the best education money could buy." a college education today versus when he went, in inflation-adjusted dollars, it is six or 12 times more

expensive today. it is actually a lot more costly to go to school and a lot more costly when you get out of school to have gone to school. that is one of the things i hope we will talk a little bit about, how we think about these impediments of people who are clearly motivated to get the best education available, the assessment of their own potential, then to truly go out and push the work forward that is being talked about. how do we think about that? what should we be asking our policymakers to do? >> great question. the big generational shift that has happened from your parents' generation to yourselves is a great cost shift in terms of who pays for higher education. the shift has been from a

public responsibility to your responsibility and primarily by taking on a lot of debt. the implications of this are profound. i also want to talk a little bit about the overall context in which this shift has happened. we have a double whammy for a new generation entering adulthood which is the steady decline in the jobs that are available particularly for those who will not get a college degree. we hear a lot about the american dream and whether it is broken or not. there has been a significant decline in economic mobility and social mobility. those are abstract ideas. i am going to tell you my story. i grew up in middletown, ohio.

any ohioans? [cheers] yay! i grew up in a blue-collar middle-class family. my dad was a machinist at the local steel factory which at the time employed two-thirds of the people in the town. my mother was an office manager at the local orthodontist office. they were able to send me to a public university, ohio university. [cheers] go bobcats! we did great in the n.c.a.a. by the way. they were able to pay for my college out of pocket. what did that mean for me? i entered school and exited school in four years which is now the exception because it

now takes about five years for the average student to complete college. i had zero debt and i did not even have to work a job while i was in school so i could focus on things like clubs that would help my professional career when i graduated. fast forward to your generation. not only has the price tripled, but the jobs that our parents had have declined. that factory now employs about 20% of the population. the wages for those jobs are not nearly what my dad was paid. my mom got laid off from her job and now makes half what she used to make and is without health care for the first time in her life at the age of 60. when you think about what we have lost, it is not just we have handed over the levers of opportunity over to the shoulders of students to pay

for but we have also lost an economy that provided good, quality jobs for everybody who needs one which is true right now in the post-recession. even before the recession, we had a serious structural problem where wages have declined for all but the best educated workers. if we get a chance, i would love to talk about how we can turn that around. one more point. that is how it plays out in the individual level. in the national level, this is why public policy is my domain. i care about the laws that we passed to create opportunity for people. the united states right now leads the world in the level of education of our older population. we are number one in the world. among 25 to 30-year-old, we are number 12.

americans did not become dumber. our public policies changed. the doors that we opened over the course of a generation to a whole new cohort of college students have slowly been closed over time. we have this system that will leave most of you with $25,000 in debt. >> on that sober note -- [applause] >> sorry. >> i hope we get back to talk about some of the solutions. i do not know if a lot of people are aware that the all world bank system is not only the largest funder of public health programs in the developed world but it is also the largest funder of educational programs in the developed world more so than unicef. could you talk a bit about what

you think works since we are very biased toward action and solutions here in terms of accessing young people's potential in both formal educational systems but also through vocational programs? i know you have done a lot with apprenticeships and i think there is a lot of interest in this room working with those models. >> this is very important certainly in the case of latin america. the protests in chile are very different than the ones in the middle east. this is much more about the growth of the upper class. the average age in latin america is 27. you have all of these young people coming into the labor market with a growing middle- class and there is definitely a

change in aspirations which is driving this anxiety. how fast can they get a job? not only can they have the right skills for the changing jobs and our economy which is a paradox to what we see today in the united states. one of the key areas is how to develop skills to work. some of the things we are doing is working with corporations who are doing business in latin america, both u.s. companies, global companies in general, and companies from latin america, and have them work and identify the kinds of skills that they need for that new labor force that they are engaging. that talks a lot about some of the faults that we know of. it requires much more on the job training.

it is that phase that we are introducing which i think in many ways the united states saw years ago with your community colleges and some of the possibilities of vocation. these are some of the things that we are working on, marrying those two. it begins with early childhood education and working with teachers and the whole society's interest in what matters. which is then leads to those skills to work. >> the larger ecosystem. >> yes. >> when you first started this work, how did you convince farmers to try something new?

often, people will want to be second but there is often a great hesitancy to be first. how did you convince people that it was worth trying? given the many years you have been doing this work, do you see in younger people that children of the original farmers a different mentality toward their own lives and their responsibilities to our planet? >> when i started, i would go village to village and sitting with the farmers. because they were all brainwashed to believe the chemicals were giving them more. that is why i say the math is not right. how much do you spend and how much do you earn? by and large, the net income was negative which is why the suicide epidemic.

once they did a cost-benefit analysis themselves, and farmers are not used to doing it -- two years later, the land is being taken away. we worked with them. we helped them keep diaries so they would work on how much they spend on chemicals and seeds that are not renewable and how much they make. she describes the crisis of education and the loan burden in terms of the destruction of the public education system. the same thing has happened to the agriculture system. now you have an unreliable seeds with royalties. i am starting a massive campaign this year and i hope

all the young people will join. i think something is terribly wrong. seeds are being extracted with the cost of farmers' lives. we have four crops. genetically modified, patented. that is not the best food system that humanity can invent. we can do better. >> you are doing better. [applause] >> so many people from the cities are moving back. as a young boy who used to work with me in the office went back to his village. in india, we make everyone a relative. you are doing good work. he looks at me and says you are doing good work. i left my village to come to the city.

i am going to go back. within the first year, he made 200 villages give up toxic chemicals and pesticides. [applause] >> now you work with 500,000 farmers but they are not all in one location. >> we work in 16 states. now we work with the government of bhutan. they measure gross national happiness. they are organizing at the un, redefining the economic paradigm. the prime minister has asked us to go 100% organic and waiting for the day when this country and makes that commitment. [cheers and applause] >> what do you think some of the solutions are that we

actually collectively here can and should be advocating for? understanding the current financial situation of our country is in. understanding how many states are in a more financially precarious system because they cannot have a budget deficit year over year. what should we ask our national government to do and our state governments to do to try to change this equation such that we are not the 24th in education for the next generation? >> well, i think a couple things. i think we need to think bold here. a lot of that starts with not allowing this idea that we cannot afford to invest in people in this country. we can afford it. it is absolutely true that we

have a long-term debt problem but we also have a short term and a long-term priority problem. we have the money. our gdp nearly tripled in the last generation. per capita income grew by 66% since 1980. that does not tell you how it is distributed in society. we know the majority of those gains went to the very top. states and our own federal government have been constrained from doing the things that benefit our entire nation. i think we have to get back to some real fundamentals. the best investment this nation can make is in the future of its people. [applause] we are a richard nation today than we were when i went to college -- we are a richer nation today then we were when i went to college.

we are not without resources in this country. i also want to say a big area where the united states lags considerably at the complete other end of the educational spectrum which his early childhood education and care. [applause] we are one of the few developed nations that, by and large, leaves that stage of life to chance. it is another responsibility that we put on the parents or people to figure it out by themselves. it is also probably our best shot at creating a level playing field in this country and doing something about the huge disparity of race and ethnicity that we have been this country. [applause] -- have in this country.

>> you spoke about being in a job interview and someone saying to you you already have a job. what inspired you to start wello when you were at the university of michigan before it became codified? what sort of class work had you done that led directly to that idea cohering in your head and motivating you? >> it originally started with my curiosity about the global water crisis. over a billion people are negatively impacted by the lack of access to water. it shocked me how this happens. i would write papers about the global water crisis and started

studying business strategies. then i started competing in business plan competitions. it slowly snowballed into something much bigger. i think one of the benefits you have as students is everyone wants to help you. i had the benefit of looking into any professor's office and saying i have a question so can you help me answer this. do you have a contact that i can talk to to continue to learn? the more i learned, the more questions i had. i would say you are at a unique moment. apply for an internship. it is a great time to explore that opportunity and you might surprise yourself. >> i think there are two big crises. the water crisis and the food

crisis. i am so happy young people like you are turning to this. i was invited by a little village 10 years ago because their water was disappearing because coca-cola had set up a plant extracting 1.5 million liters per day. the water level had fallen and what was there was polluted. women were walking 10 miles. one woman said no more and they sat in front of the gate. they called me for my support. within a year, that plant closed. [applause] water is a public good. it is not a commodity.

whether it is education or the water crisis or the issue of food and seeds that i work on, we are talking about an epic contest. [applause] >> turning to one of our questions from twitter. although those are cardinal challenges because if we do not have access to clean, reliable water and nutritious food, we cannot do anything else. yet there are so many other challenges facing us. in latin america, how can

entrepreneurship thrive despite ongoing drug problems and violence? >> when people stop using cocaine in the united states. [cheers and applause] >> that is an entrepreneurship of a criminal kind. >> look, i come from colombia. i know this problem. [laughter] i will always be extremely grateful to president clinton for what he did for our country because columbia is beginning to turn the corner largely because of what he started. [applause] one of the paradoxes i see is in latin america at a moment when we have the best growth in many, many years, if you look at it and most violent countries in the world, six of them are in

latin america. we have about 8% of the population of the world and about a third of the homicides. that requires a very vigorous government response. it has to bring society to get there. we did a steady in central america alone what this means. about 8% of gdp. imagine the cost of drug trafficking in these countries. this is a part of some of our growing things because of entrepreneurship is thriving and there is huge potential. the huge potential is in the growing middle-class as you have to think about disruptive business models. it is the theory that you are used to selling the regular toothpaste to a certain set of consumers.

but today, you have some consumers who have never bought that toothpaste. because maybe the packaging makes it expensive. how to rethink to begin to produce products for the growing middle-class that has a different set of the aspirations. we see it in all kinds of what we call investments. we have developed a number of very fascinating projects. you have seen for instance networks of the private sector to reach the majority. if i were any of you here, this is what i would be thinking. the biggest growth market in the world it is in the base of the pyramid which is growing very fast around the world. you have about 1.2 billion people in the middle class. in two years, more than 3 billion. that is a big opportunity.

>> how can the base be the middle class? the base is the poor. >> the base is definitely the poor. government policies have to support that movement to get people out of extreme poverty. initially through government subsidies and some form of entitlement. something that we developed at the bank which consists of -- we do not want to let your child not go to school. on the contrary, we want you to send your child to school. the government will provide a subsidy of about $50 a month. then the child will go through medical checkups to begin their learning process. this is something that has begun to become important

throughout our country. we are having a difficulty of teaching a whole generation with limited capacity to learn. the one thing that breaks that cycle of poverty begins with giving access to people. >> now my question to you from brian. can lessons of delivering affordable sustainable agriculture be applied to other global challenges like access to health care? >> i think the two are so intimately linked. the who had a report of the biggest chunk of diseases related to the food system. [applause] >> it is true in this country as well. >> this country sets the basis for bad to around the world.

i think this junk food culture should go. that is why we talk about growing nutrition. cannot grow drum approve and add one vitamin to it. that is not how we will solve it. we have to maximize attrition output but identified ecology and biodiversity, not identify chemical inputs and capital inputs. that is the destruction in the present model. higher cost of everything, education, cost of production in agriculture, cost of health, while lowering the income for everybody. we need the opposite. laura ling the cost of production of food, access to health care, access to education, while increasing the capacity of people to meet the need and earn an income. [applause] >> this is a question for louise

and tamara. i would argue with you just articulated it is a call for government action. i think this is precisely what should be rendered under government. what do you think, given that we have growing inequality, not only in our own country, but around the world? for the first time, in 2011, more people lived in middle- income countries than poor countries. how should the government in this country, and around the world, think about the calibrating the field for the corporate sector and private individuals? >> well, i am like the senate on this panel. i fundamentally think it will be hard in the united states to have the government plan that robust role, if corporation

dictate our policy making. -- cynic on this panel. [applause] >> this goes back a little bit to what mr. peterson was saying. there are lots of special interests in this town but not one sufficiently reflective of our views. that is also a challenge to us, the thinking should be different. >> absolutely. we need everyone in this room to help champion, i would say, public financing of elections, a constitutional amendment that says money is not speech. the battle for the future of this country is very hard to fight when we are outspent by corporate and special interest. [applause] i will leave it at that for now. i do think -- the work i do

everyday, which is about how to revitalize the work of government and provide the basics needed in society, providing the structure of opportunity -- frankly, enabled me to sit in front of all of you today, which has been great. i do not see it fundamentally changing until we change the system. >> i would argue, require corporations to be more transparent about the cost of their supply chain, so that those of us sitting in washington, d.c. would know there is a coca-cola factory in karala that was polluting the water. that should be something we should expect, even if it was a distributor owned by a subsidiary held by a separate holding company. we should have a more holistic view so that we can make what we think are the right choices. given your experience, louise,

having worked in government before at the idb, what do you think a middle income countries possible is? >> the question of closing the gaps of its pickup -- of inequality. when you look at land america, it is the most unequal part of the world in terms of lack of distribution. for the first time in ages, for -- because we have had positive economic growth of a sustained basis, you see a drop in inequality. but there is a huge function in this that comes with the way that succession is done. a huge function in a way that entitlement programs are delivered, measured, and the quality of institutions that are behind them. this is something that is extremely difficult to put together, and unfortunately in many cases, takes many years before governments have the capacity to deliver the kinds of

things that are needed. we devote a lot of our efforts at the bank to support governments in renewing institutions precisely for this purpose. in the larger discussion, the awareness of leadership, that this is what matters, and how to drive, not only the effort of government, but how to build partnerships. today, the way to do this is using talent out there from everybody. in doing this kind of public- private partnerships, in delivering social services, i have seen a lot of interesting cases in many countries in latin america which are great seats, possibilities for the future. >> maybe we should learn something from you. given that the system of education takes decades to show employable results, how can we

convince poor families it is worthwhile, that it is worth the investment? how can you convince the farmers you work with to use the now 100% additional income from the cross that you helped them plant, to invest in their children and communities? >> two points about this. you remember there was a scholastic system of teaching. at a certain point, it fell out of the system and new universities were created. >> maybe you could define what this collapse system is -- the scholastic system is. >> all learning was connected to the church. galactic, as a term of the abstruse knowledge, comes from that. i have a feeling that the university system at this point is being squeezed into very narrow teaching in order to turn

human beings into raw material for the corporate machinery, rather than pull the evolution of the human being for all of the potential. we need to pluralize and make public education again. that is why we started and earth university. thawe have got to have these otr initiatives of learning beyond the walls of universities. our farming is a new university. in any case, we need multiple universities, and that is why we have grandmothers' come to teach. we have been told to disrespect the knowledge of our elders. at this be crisis, the elders of a lot to show. it is the elders of indigenous culture that have wisdom of time which we need desperately. i think we need to learn from every source. at least for me, a plant, seed, nature, the soil, they are all

teachers. we have to make more teachers. >> a broader definition of education. cynthia, i will direct this to you. from ryan, those of us stop of a student loan debt, how do we continue this work while facing the reality of meeting our basic needs? >> be very creative. [laughter] personally, a year ago that was something i were about. how audacious it was to think to move to another country to start another business without being from that country, without speaking that language, how to get it up and running. rally support, get people behind me who believe in what i'm doing. you have to think in sometimes short time increments. what is going to get into next

week, next month, next quarter? not necessarily what does this look like 20 years down the road. you have to juggle both in your mind, but the creative and tighten your belt all about. that is great and wise for any of us and what we may want to do. >> even if small businesses receive funding to get off the ground, how can the startups complete with global mega companies? >> i think when you will see more and more in the world is how the change -- the changing face of global companies and how you have any dilution of global companies coming from the south. you see huge businesses developing as a result of the changes that are taking place in their emerging countries. if you look at the top 100 corporations in the world today and compare them to 20 years

ago, they are very different. and it will be even more different in a short period of time. the real possibility for emerging small businesses is basically to solve needs. all entrepreneurs look at the backing of needs that exist in these spaces that are developed that require a totally new thinking of the way you do your traditional business. with the use of technology, as i said before, disrupted business models, that is where the real possibilities are for the future. >> tamara, i want to give you the last word because you said you thought you were thecynic, and i do not want you to leave feeling like you were the only one with cynicism. even though we have the highest number, highest percentage of students outside of the u.s. and

we have ever had here at cgiu, which is great. more than one-third are outside of the united states. we have close to two-thirds that are from the united states, even more who are here studying in the united states from abroad. i would like you to comment on what cynthia said. how would you recommend, as we leave here, trying to make a living and pay off student loan debt, to navigate that balance? not only for their own lives, but for all of us. >> it is a hard balance and one of the reasons why so many students it pulled into careers they originally did not want to get into because they pay so well. one thing i have love about this conversation is, clearly, from imams that you are applause --

clapping, there is a strong moral compass in this room. i am optimistic about the future of this country. i want to be one of your honor very nieces. i am in love with this woman. [applause] you know, i am not a personal finance expert. i myself loaded up on credit- card debt after tried to make ends meet after college, and i did not have to the loans. what i will say is, we need young people with your moral compass to solve these public problems and we desperately need you to run for office. [applause] if your talents and passions lead this way, we desperately need to revolutionize the economic field. we need you to go into economics.

>> and just remember, while the were talking about the leadership coming from the young. at the world future council -- we realize this neglect of the future as part of the problem. we are moving, the un, to create a people's commission for the future generation and their rights. [applause] this will be part of the process. i hope all of you will join. >> as someone who recently lost their grandmother, i would join you in adopting her as a matriarchal figure. i would like to close, harkening back to what mr. peterson said, exhorting us, hundreds of thousands, to have our voices heard. to hold corporations

accountable, public institutions accountable, certainly, our politicians accountable, and to urge you to not only to go into economics or run for office, but work for walmart, coca-cola , to work in the corporate systems to change the corporate system to build a better world we all want to live in. i think you will have a lot of people knocking on your door in delhi. [applause] please applaud our panelists, and thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> now, more from the clinton global initiative meeting from remarks from bill clinton heat. he is joined by jon stewart. the main goal is to have students initiate global engagements walls of the global problems. this is about 1 hour 35 minutes. >> thank you very much. first, i am -- i thought i was coined to get to interview him but it is the other way around. i want to begin by announcing the winner of our second annual

cgiu commitment challenge, or as we called it, the bracket. as most of you know, tonight, the n.c.a.a. final four will be battling not for who plays the tape -- game monday night. while a lot of attention has been given to march madness, you want to celebrate our own version of the bracket elimination with student commitments. the voting open on march 20 with the last final. the 2012 bracket has received almost 200,000 votes, more than twice as many as last year. [applause] and in our final four, bamboo spikes battled night monsters. million dollars dollars to on

tracking cell phones. and finally, there were two, george washington university's -- [cheers] -- bamboo spikes, and tracking cellphone. the polls closed an hour ago. we have our winner. panda cycles. [cheers and applause] so, i want to invite to the stage of the group, all undergraduate here in george washington. [applause] with their bamboo bike.

they are committed to creating a sustainable motorized alternative. they will build it at a fraction of the market value cost, while comparable in quality. they also plan to implement a one to one model, donating one bicycle to bicycles for humanity for every bicycle sold. bicycles for humanity will coordinate with other organizations in africa to distribute the bicycles for free. the bicycles currently retails for about $4,500. but panda cycles will place their product at less than $300. by the end of 2013, the group plans to have sold two dozen, and to donate the same number to africa. if you will order more at a cheaper price, which could be good on any campus in america, we could have 2400.

first, i've got to get the championship trophy here. [cheers] [laughter] one thing i would like to see is, of it like to see these things made all over the world because you can plant bamboo in a way that is very good for the environment, maintain its topsoil, controls erosion. this might be the beginning of a sustainable level of of four people all over the world, thanks to this good idea. -- a sustainable living for people all over the world, thanks to this idea.

let's give them at hand. [applause] thanks, guys. test rides are available outside. [laughter] [cheers] our fifth cgiu meeting, i believe, has been a real success, and i hope you do, too. we had 915 new commitments made at the meeting, which now brings us to more than 4000 since the first meeting. i would like to ask you to add one more. jon and i were talking backstage about this, and he said, will probably get into this in the questions, perhaps, in a humorous way. he said, ok, all of you are overachievers. what about the other 11 million college students?

what about the people who cannot bear to think of raising money? i promised a friend of mine that i would talk about this. this is something you can do on every campus in america for free. and i want to talk to you about it. last year, 39,000 people in america -- died from drug overdoses. that is 1000 more than were killed in automobile accidents. increasingly, it is not about heroin or cocaine or crystal meth. it is about prescription drugs. mixed with alcohol. and people are dying in large numbers every year because they do not know that if you drink four or five years and then pop and rock to cotton, for example,

-- drinks 4 or 5 beers and then pop oxycontin, for example, it shuts down the part of your brain that tells your body to breathe while you are sleeping in the last couple of months, two men that i knew personally died in their sleep. they were not addicts. they had no intent to die. they had no idea they were putting their lives at risk. no one had told them the simple biochemical impact of mixing a prescription drug with a couple of beers. this is happening all over the country. this is a simple thing that is claiming people's lives. it simply deadens the part of your brain that tells your body to breathe while you are asleep. if it happened at noon and -- somebody passed out, the survival rate would be 100%. if it happens at night, you are

alone and the mortality rate can be 100%. everyone of you can go back to your campuses and make sure every single student at every college and university here represented knows that simple fact. no money and next to no time, and you can save a very large number of lives. [applause] and since we are in the middle of this health care debate, you might be interested to know that medical claims caused by prescription drug abuse are now $20 billion a year added to the nation's health-care bill. and since a lot of the people who make those claims are uninsured, that is part of the reason that those who do have insurance pay $1,000 more a

year for their health insurance than they would if everybody in america have health insurance. i asked you to think about this, and to take it seriously, not to be morbid, the father of my friend who died a said he was a good man and he would want his life to mean something. if we could save a few thousand lives because we understand the basic impact of what was essentially an accidental death, repeated over and over and over in this country all the time, we could do an enormous amount. please, when you go home, make sure every student at your school knows this. but if you do, you'll be doing a great thing. let me just say i want to welcome the people who are joining us live on the website at washingtonpost.com and comedy central. [laughter]

i keep waiting for steven colbert to appear to demand equal time. [applause] before i bring out jon stewart i want to briefly thank the people who make xcgiu possible. thank you, george washington, and dr. stephen now, you have been great. [applause] thanks to the peterson foundation, microsoft, peter roberts, a prospect fun, and booze allen hamilton, for sponsoring this and making this meeting possible. but it could not be held without the sponsors. and finally, i want to thank all of you who came and

participated, who committed. i am grateful that you came from as close as your own campus to as far away as nepal and turkey, and china and elsewhere. you are very welcome here. we are very grateful to you. [applause] before i ever appeared on the jon stewart show, my daughter told me years ago when she was just a little older than you that more people in her generation got their news from jon stewart that from the network news. [applause] at first, i thought it sounded a little weird. but i can tell you now, i have been on jon stewart's show to talk about two of the three books i have written since i left the white house. he clearly had read them. he knew what the facts were. he had been well briefed.

and every other time i've been on there, he really seemed to me to have put in more time and more preparation and ask more serious question, while poking a little fun at me along the way, then anyone else who has interviewed me. in short, he has done what we need to do more of in our schools. he makes learning fun, and it is still learning. please welcome jon stewart. [cheers and applause] >> thank you very much. hello, how are you guys? how are you? [cheers] it is an absolute honor to be here. you know, it is funny --

>> [unintelligible hollering] >> you have assigned? you have signs? i cannot read them in any way. [laughter] i am in the light in your in the dark. as i went over a lot of the projects that these kids are doing, i cannot help but think about how much they remind me of me when i was their age. [laughter] i guess, just a commitment and dedication. no, i cannot tell you how incredibly impressed i am with the work you are doing and with the enthusiasm that you bring to it, and the passion and ingenuity. i made a bong out of an apple once. i just know how difficult it can be. [laughter] and now i know i sure have used

bamboo. included, that is how you get sponsors. [laughter] but i am honored to be here. president clinton is being very honest -- very modest. he could have taken the route that some ex-president's take, you get a couple of speaking engagements and you get yourself a nice little manar and a pool. but his condition -- commitment to change the world and improving conditions around him has been very inspiring. i want to thank you for everything you have done as well. [applause] >> and i got a better deal. because.com i get to hang out with them. >> is kind of exciting. -- >> it keeps me young, as long as i do not look in the mirror. >> it what did you learn this weekend from interacting with the students and some of the products -- projects that they are doing? what did you take away? >> two things. the one is, we have the largest

number of non-american students here. people who are citizens of other countries, many of whom go to school in the united states, and some came from around the world where they are in school. and i learned all over again that all of these young people, partly because of social media and internet communications in general, have a much more global perspective on a person to person basis than any other generation before. the second thing i learned is, every year, the commitments are getting better. they are thinking of things they can do that they really can do. and they understand and they do not overpromise. that is, these guys promised -- they're not or to promise they can build 20,000 bicycles, but they know they can build 24. they understand that the power of the idea rests in part on people replicating the idea, or putting money into what they're doing, so it can be done everywhere else.

but they are thinking about things that they can actually do that not only will help the people they set out to help, but help other people. i think that is really important. i mentioned when we opened that a couple of years ago, a commitment was made -- i confess, i did not notice at the time. and i am surprised, because i care about it. an undergraduate of vendor built who has now graduated -- of vanderbilt who has now graduated. he offers those who are just out of trees -- prison and training in marketing and making sure true they're upscale, good shirts, and people would buy them without knowing it. he knew he could do it with 20 people, so that's what he promised.

if everybody in america had a similar plan to train? go way down. -- train ex-inmates, the repeater rate would go way down. even though we like to say we are a country of second chances and almost everybody who goes to prison is going to get back out, the truth is, they wear a scarlet letter around their necks for the rest of their lives. it is not. -- it is nuts. we should try to put people back into productive life in america. that is the sort of thing that we see them do. [applause] >> is there a plan in any way to get -- you know, you've got cgiu and the plan is to make its own entity. -- it has taken off as its own separate entity. is there a plan to have an initiative where people can come in on a larger scale and

come in and steal and exploit their ideas? [laughter] wait, that was subtexts. hold on, but so they can get a sense of where they're going to go? >> last year, i started having a separate lunch with some of the students. -- non-american students. i did that today. for the very first time, one of the students as the very same question, can we graduate our ideas up to cgi. and we are also having -- and in june in jakarta we're having our second cgi, which i promise -- and in june in chicago we are having our second cgi, which i promised to continue having until we get our economy back to it's full capacity. what i am going to do when all of you go home is take all of the commitments and figure out which ones we could present at

either cgi america as things that can create jobs in our country if somebody would support them and trying to get some people who are there to finance them or take them to cgi for september. [applause] i'm embarrassed that we got all the way to the fifth cgiu and i never thought about it. you are always one step ahead of me. >> these kids are thinking when they get out of college that they would like to be employed, because it does not work that way anymore. it is a different world out there. you have been doing this five years. you have been "the most powerful man in the world what is the difference with the ability to affect -- "the most powerful man in the world." what is the difference with the ability to affect change through an ngo? and through governmental action? i find there is an erosion of confidence in the government's ability to engage its own

corruption, create change in the way you want, and yet, there has been an enormous energy toward these ngo's, toward the smaller groups. at what has been your experience on both sides of it? >> one i took office as -- when i took office as president, confidence in government was very low because the economy was very weak. when i left office, because we had a lot of jobs, because it was the only time out in 40 years when the bottom 20% earnings increase in percentage terms as much as the top 10%, and as many people moved out of poverty -- 100 times as many people moved out of poverty than in the previous 20 years. there was an increased level of confidence in government. the level of confidence in government people's sense of well-being and whether they can do better. but there is a difference. if your president, in theory, you're handling more money, and you can direct it to more

places, and you can help more people. for example, we gave out 2 million micro enterprise loans every year in -- all over the world. but you also had to deal with the things you did not expect to have to deal with, like the incoming fire in bosnia, kosovo, what have you. and you have to go through both congress and bureaucracies and deal with resistances in foreign countries. if you want a foundation -- or your like them with their ideas, -- if you run a foundation, you wake up and you start with one thing and you see how far you can walk in and out, how big you can make it. we started out with a very modest proposal with aids drugs, and out at our foundation, we negotiate contracts to give 4 million people, about half of all the people in poor

countries in the world, the least expensive high-quality aids medicines. [applause] as think that in some ways runningany kind of non- governmental work gives you more flexibility and more creativity and ability to build from the ground up. it is hard to help as many people as you can help as president if things are going well and you're not spending your time bailing out a boat. but it is immensely personally rewarding. for example, a couple of years ago i visited this reforestation project where running in allawi -- malwi through a young malawian graduate. university graduate. the people chose in these three different villages the different kinds of trees they wanted to plant to get their carbon credits. and then decided they would keep only 55% of their income

and give the other 45% to their fellow villagers to get them in the system. they have the sense that they needed to plant more trees. they wanted to reverse global warming and preserve agriculture. it took an hour and a half to drive about 18 kilometers on this road to get there. but it was worth all of the money in the world to me to see one more time in one of boat poorest places on earth, and when that was -- and one of the poorest places on earth, and one that was hard to reach, and one and where they did not know me from adam. i do not look that old. -- i guess they knew i was not adam. i do not look that old. [laughter] the intelligence and effort and social consciousness, in a way, are pretty much evenly distributed in investment and opportunity. -- but investment an opportunity araren't.

it is a real inspiration to keep hitting it. >> you brought up mowlawi. -- malawi. there is the idea that we're going to do things like we are doing in allawi in places that -- malawi in places that are are "third world" and underdeveloped. there is a program where we connect kids to each other through the internet and classrooms and other things. they connected kids in haiti with kids in harlem. the idea was, through art, to learn an uncertain -- an understanding of each other. they were stunned, because the project upseppa kids in harlem. -- the project upset the kids in harlem. because they felt from -- ups that the kids in harlem. because they felt from everything they have learned that there lot -- their lives would be far superior. and this was posed earthquake in

haiti. -- post-earthquake in haiti. but what they found was, the kids in harlem were suffering really badly as well. what do you do about in so- called developed countries, the intractable social problems of poverty? and how do you attack them in the same creative ways that you can in countries like haiti? >> first, in my mind, the two problems -- i do not think we have to -- we should choose one over the other. that is, the united states does not spend a high percentage of its income on foreign assistance and for and development. -- foreign development. if you ask people what we should spend, they say, between 5% to 15% of the budget. if you say, what do we stand? -- spend? they say, 25% of the budget. the truth is, we spend 1% of the budget.

>> you are saying people are what -- sometimes misinformed. [laughter] >> yes, and interestingly enough, these numbers have not changed in 20 years. it does not matter how many times someone like me says it. we can say until we are blue in the face. people are somehow pre programmed to think we are putting all of this money into foreign assistance in america, when we are not. since we live in an interdependent world, since we need more customers, since america has only about 12% of its gdp a tide -- tied to exports, as compared to germinate, which has -- germany, which has 25%, they do even better than japan. we need to widen the circle to places like africa that feels a special tie to us. on the other hand, i think we need to go back and take a wac at american poverty, too, much harder.

i personally believe we should reinvigorate the empowerment zones and grants. i know the president has proposed this. and i proposed at the end of my term, and we passed a bill to try to make it possible for every area of the country to have an unemployment rate -- that has an unemployment rate above the national average or below a certain income rate, i think everyone of them should become a center for solar and wind power. -- the poorest american communities are still the native american communities and i think everyone of them should become a center for solar and wind power. [applause] all we have to do is build the transmission lines sufficient to carry the power back to the urban areas. for the americans here, we rank first or second in the world in every survey of potential to

generate electricity from sun and wind. the problem is, with the exception of california and a few other places, the sun shines brightest and the wind blows hardest where the people are not. we have 140 separate electrical grids that are connected. if we are about to have a brownout in washington d.c., in theory, they could bring power all the way from california to us. but as you go from one system to another, you lose a lot of power, or the distribution systems are inefficient. in wyoming, they're building a wind farm out. -- now. they're having to build their own transmission lines to connect it to california. this is a huge deal. if the government could do-, -- could do that, solar power has gone about as cheap as wind power. it will not be forever, but there is not a lot of

overproduction. we could revolutionize the lives of native americans in a way that allows them to be self supporting, diversify their economies, and lift themselves out of poverty. the same thing is true in the mississippi delta and the -- the same issue in appalachia and in the inner cities. program for the people in inner-city businesses with "inc" magazine. based pick their most successful small business people and -- they pick their most successful small business people and they bring them to work with our folks. you'd be surprised how many businesses we had in harlem that have not computerized their records and did not know how to manage their inventory and had not measured the changes in markets. they are no different than people anywhere. perfectly intelligent enough to make the most of the modern

world if they know what their options are and they know what the benefits are. that is what i think is important. and i'm not surprised -- trust me, most people living in haiti are still much worse off. we still have half a million people living in tents. although, they are moving them out pretty fast. but the haitians are incredibly gifted, creative, hard-working people who have never had a government or society worthy of them. [applause] >> if you are going in when you are for starting to unravel some -- first starting to unravel some of these issues and empower local populations, if you are going to rank where you need to attack first, is it order, corruption, health, all three at once? when you are stepping into an area and you want to unleash the type of creativity that you see here and in those communities, you have a hierarchy of issues that you feel like you have to walk through to get to that point?

>> yes, but it depends. i have looked at them in three baskets when you're going into a developing society. first, the number-one thing everyone in the world wants is ag said -- a decent job that pays a decent income. they want to be able to raise their kids in dignity. it will solve all lot of the other problems if they have that. but you also need to help them build systems that will make good behavior have predictable possible consequences. which is why -- predictable positive consequences. which is why our work on building school systems, and health care systems and water systems and energy systems. and to get all that done and ford to work, you have to -- make it work, you got to have honest, transparent government, that is also capable of providing security to the people. i see it in those three baskets. then i asked myself, what can i

do the most on? in haiti, for example, i worked first on bringing investment in. second on helping get money for health care systems and school systems and energy systems. and third on supporting the united nations peacekeeping force in trying to get order and in working with the donors to haiti to put every single red cent that went through the commission that i cochaired on the internet. here is how much canada gave. here is who got it. here's what they are supposed to do. and when it is over, you'll get a performance and accounting audit. all of that i think is important. meanwhile, we have got governments were willing to give -- have to have governments who are willing to give money to the haitian government to rebuild. but you need to think of it in those three areas. and not every person will have

the ability, even me -- i have a pretty wide portfolio and reach. i cannot do all those things in all the countries. let's say we have an enormously gifted group of people, over 1000 of them, working all over the world and increasing health access. we still will not go into any country unless the government invites us and signs a strict no correction pledge. -- no corruption pledge. i do not ask them to have no correction in an area that i'm -- not to have any corruption in an area i'm not working with because i'm not president. i do not have any control over that. but if somebody pays $500 for my $60 medicine that keeps children alive for years -- for a year, that will be known in 72 hours in some other country where people do not have the $500. if it happens there, you'll have seven or eight kids died for everyone life that we saved. i think the best that ngo's that are actually wanted by

government can do is to say, when you are dealing with us, there has to be in a corruption -- a no corruption pledge. and we have to be able to enforce it and monitor it and report on it. i think that is really important. >> has there been something that you have seen through cgi, in the last five years that has, pound for pound, the most impact in terms of when you look back and think of a program, an initiative, a commitment, that for what was put into it gave you the results in a powerful way? >> i cannot say one over the other, but i can say that a lot of these -- all these programs that the students do, the ones that helped people in america and did what they were supposed to do probably have the most immediate impact.

students that when home and -- went home and organize the greening of their own campuses. maximize the retrofit of all the buildings, have more bicycles on the campuses instead of cars. recycled all the waste. that is something where you can actually say, here we are, here we are a market in america, and -- model in america, and we proved it was economical and we did not raise the tuition. instead, it lowered the utility bill of the college. that is something that has had a comprehensive impact. on the other hand, a lot of these commitments -- again, what we've got to do, and i need to help do a better job of getting other people to recognize the potential. we talked a little bit about the socket ba -- about the soccer ball one of my associates a couple years ago designed a soccer ball that would absorb the energy that was driven into issacharoff -- into a soccer

ball and to use it. -- in a hot soccer match on a hot day in a field. it was a way of turning human heat energy into a way of making it usable. that is the kind of thing i want to see done. if you think of all the places in the world that can grow bamboo and where it grows and what it can do to reduce all kinds of other environmental problems, it has staggering potential. what i think we need to do is to do more to try to take these things to scale. it may be the only way to do is

is to take those extraordinarily successful and take them to cgi. instead of thinking of a new commitment, how about funding some of these? [applause] >> how many people do you think cobbled up this weekend, just ballpark? -- coupled up this weekend, just ballpark? [laughter] i am just asking for a ballpark? oh, sorry. getting back to -- >> one of the promises to myself in my old age is i will try to find an opportunity every day for the rest of my life, even if i'm just saying it to myself on tuesday, i don't know, or i was wrong. -- to say, i don't know, or, i was wrong. i don't know. [laughter] [applause] >> i don't know.

i am always surprised at your ability to be tenacious, your ability to approach these issues that are seemingly intractable. has your commitment ever wavered? has your commitment ever been challenged in a way -- not necessarily dark night -- knight of the soul, but i cannot keep banging my head against the wall? everybody is going to face it with the type of ideological solutions the a looking for. they will come up against seemingly intractable issues. the financial crisis in 2009. -- >> the closest i came was after the financial crisis in 2009. my foundation, you know, i did not have any private wealth when i left the white house. i was in debt. everything i do with my

foundation comes from other people's contributions. thankfully, i make enough money where i can give to the foundation every year, too. but i did not for a while and there was not enough to run it. -- it is nowhere near enough to run it. we had a bad year in 2009 and i could not blame anybody. i had people who were giving me a million dollars or more a year who lost 75% of their net worth overnight. we had saved a small endowment -- and i do mean it small, about $27 million. we basically had a decision to make, are you going to shut down what you are doing in ethiopia where i had hundreds of employees trying to build clinics for people, because people are still dying anonymously in ethiopia. they just live out there somewhere and there are no clinics. or are you going to bet that you can come back and blow what you save? and i chose the latter course. i thought, if this does not

turn around, i am one dead duck, because there is no way i will ever be able to do this. i was really worried. i was afraid i could have another health problem. something could happen. i have all of these people's jobs and lives depending on me. what if i make the wrong call here? maybe i should cut back now? instead, i decided to roll the dice and try for one more year, and it worked out fine. but that was hard. and when you work at something and it does not work, that is tough. i had a much more ambitious plan trying to turn around businesses in inner-city areas and have them -- help them hire more people. we started off with a strategy to try to get consulting services across the board. it was highly expensive for the businesses.

even the one of our sponsors and -- even though booz allen, one of our sponsors, and others were helping us, it just did not work. and one of the businesses i helped to start failed, and i was personally involved with it. i am not big on -- i hate to fail. especially when somebody else gets hurt. those things are hard. but you just have to go on. you've got to figure out how you are going to keep score. if you're going to keep score, keep score -- if you're going to keep score in a way that you should not fail, then you should not play. -- if he ever lose, you fail, you shouldn't play. the only way is if somebody is better off when you quit that when you started. [applause] and so, that is what matters. and it is hard. i do not ever wish i were sitting on an island in the

florida keyes somewhere, you know, going to play golf and drinking pina coladas. [laughter] because this is fun for me. this is the most selfish thing i do. i love bringing all of these young people here. i love listening to their ideas. [applause] and i feel like i should pay for the privilege of doing it. it is fun. it is just that when you have more yesterdays than tomorrows, you just hate to fail. you know? it is part of the human condition. but you've got to keep banging your head against the wall, pushing the rocks up the hill. sometimes they get there. [applause] >> what i took away from that is that president bill clinton is going to start paying all of you for this privilege. i think that is what i took from it. [cheers]

we have all of these students and all of this energy. i want to open it up to them to ask questions of you. give some ideas that they have. >> i give you permission to ask questions of him. >> i will lie to you. [laughter] president bill clinton will not. i will. i am just want to see if i can get under the light. is there someone right there who has got a question here we go, right here. there you go. if you can, say your name and then whatever your question is. >> i am a student here at gw. i am wondering, what continues to inspire you in spite of the fact that there are so many problems out there? what should we continue to focus on, and what continues to inspire you to do the great work you do? this is to both of you. >> i tell you what inspires me the most -- two things.

one is, all cgi network. cgi in september, cgiu, cgi for america -- there seems to be an unlimited number of people who care about other people and find meaning in life by doing something that helps other people do what they ought to do. i mean, you could not come here and listen to your ideas without being inspired. the other thing that inspires me is, when i go out in the world and see the people we're working with. i will give you one simple example. it's when i made an africa trip a couple of years ago. in addition to the climate change trip, i stopped to see one of our farm projects. we have our agricultural products -- projects in malawi and rwanda. i lived on a farm when i was a

little boy. farmers are pretty good environmentalist and in general family farmers take good care of the land and make the most of whatever water they have. family farmers take care of the land and make the most of whatever they have. we are meeting with these 11 farmers and -- we were in tanzanian then, rural tanzania. and a page one -- and these people have little farms, average, one or 2 acres. they pick one person to be the spokesperson, the only woman. she was a widow with a 13-year- old son. her sole asset was a quarter acre of land. in the previous years she had made $80. she and her son, lived on $80 for year. we come in and give them better fertilizer and feed and seed and we take their products to market. the average african farmer

loses one half of his or her income every year paying someone to take the food to market because none of them have the vehicles. it is scandalous. we take the food to market. this woman made $400 the first year we worked with her. her income went up five fold. that is less than $2 a day. but to her, she was relatively rich because it was five times more than the year she -- the year before. i said, what is the best thing about it? and she said, my son finally gets to go to school. for poor countries with no revenue base, they had to pay tuition to go to school. she was finally able to send her son to school. i am about to go to vienna, to the oldest aids fund-raising initiative in europe, the eighth life ball. -- aids life ball.

they support my foundation every year. every year, i see this couple who run along with a group of catholic nuns and one catholic priest from brooklyn an orphanage in cambodia that they support and i support. we provide the pediatric aids medicine and keep 320 or more kids alive. and in my second book, the only picture in it is me holding this nine-month old boy whose parents had both died of aids, his father before he was born, and his mother slightly after he was born, and he's been raised as an orphan. he was about to die. he got this medicine. about a year later, somebody in california who worked at the orphanage came out to me when i was doing a book signing and said, i see you have his picture.

here is him now. he is two. looking good. then i go to the aids life ball, then they give me a picture of him at age 5. looking good. i know when i go back and going to get another picture of this cambodian kids. he does not know me. but he is alive. that is the most meaningful thing in the world to me. -- and god only knows what he will make of his life, but i know he will have a chance. [applause] >> if you were asking me, i would just say, ditto. [laughter] right over here. and then we will go over that way. >> my group and i just went to the navajo nation and found out that most of the energy is generated off of their land.

-- 80% of the dollar is spent off renovation and most of the power and the generation only goes to l.a. and las vegas. what can we do to develop these extremely poor areas in the united states? >> first, i will go back to the energy. every indian nation in the west -- >> [unintelligible] >> your navajo? good for you. >> do you think anyone else is going to shout, "las vegas!" [laughter] >> i went to visit this very -- i went to the reservation -- you know whether it is. i went to visit to highlight this very problem you talking about in my last term as president, where a young 13- year-old student who had won this great contest and her prize was her very own personal computer. except, in her home, she did not

have an electrical outlet to plug in the computer. so, my first subject -- suggestion is right now on solar panels are the cheapest in have ever been because this is actually what caused the failure of the famous solyndra co. -- they needed -- they were designing a solar panel that was actually cylindrical like this and had a higher efficiency conversion rate but cost more than twice as much as the average. like all the electrical products, they go down in price as the volume sold goes up. so they knew they would lose money for four of five years so they needed this loan, and that is why the and the department gave it to them because it was technologically some much more efficient. then after they did that, the chinese came in and offered $32 billion more in solar subsidies which immediately collapsed the market, especially for the less efficient chinese products.

so, that is what happened. so, instead of looking at a four-year time loss they were looking at 10-year time lost and nobody was willing to wait that long. that is really what happened. so, as a result of that, these panels are cheap. i personally believe the federal government ought to have an initiative and local ngo have to help to make every one of the reservations at least self- sufficient with decentralized power. the same thing for electricity and sell phones did for communications. and every one of these buildings on every reservation in the united states that will officially handle it should have solar power. everyone of them that can generate wind power office site should have wind power and then you could have a simple battery for storage if the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine. and i believe that they ought to be able to export power.

if they own coal plants, it is ok if they sell of the problem is they probably don't get much benefit from them. it don't -- it depends on what the agreement was when they gave permission to build the plant on the site. but energy independence would be a good place to start to diversify the income of the native american reservations. [applause] >> let's try over here. sir? yes, sir. >> i am from the university of oxford in the u.k. my question -- president bill clinton has done a lot of visits to africa. the president holds you in high regard. encouraging those presidents when they leave power to actually engage in similar

initiatives to support the people? then somebody hit a nerve. -- >> somebody hit a nerve. >> you know, there is now a program funded by a somali billionaire who made a lot of money in the cell phone business to actually give cash stipends to former presidents who were honest when in office and wished to do public service when they get out of office. that is a great idea. i actually keep in touch with -- for example, every year at the cgi -- almost every year, at least two former african presidents -- from nigeria and from ghana, come. but a number of others -- ghana keeps rollover people with elections. that is pretty good. and senegal, the president

finally admitted he lost the last election, which was a good thing -- they had an honest election in senegal. they are doing very well on most indicators. anyway, i would like to do that. i have done work in zambia with probably the most respected african former leader next to mandela on the continent'. we do work on aids education and prevention together. but i think it is a good idea. maybe i should try to do it more systematically. because of lot of those people are still very vigorous and interested, and of course, before mr. mandela got so frail, i supported all of his charitable work in south africa. i tried to gut every year around his birthday to see him and do some event to support either the work of the foundation or the work of some of the foundation that he supports. and i think it is something that

could make a real difference in africa. thank you. [applause] >> right there. right next to -- the guy with the tie, the blue. he is not a piece of meat. he has ideas. >> i am student coming from afghanistan. studying at the university of california. this is my separate conference at cgi u and ike and impressed by the commitments -- from technology to the agriculture to other commitments. but i get inspired as well and make commitments to what i can -- not to bring peace to afghanistan, because i cannot do that. but my question is, all the commitments the people make, they go back to the country and have the security that allows them to implement them. my commitments are at risk because it is in danger because it is not secure.

if i make a commitment to go to canada are or hellman's -- helmand, i am in danger of being attacked by the taliban. what could be done to bring peace, in your opinion, having served as the united states president, and now mobilizing an army of change advocates, what can be done? because i think the idea -- my dream, and i think everyone can hear that -- is we should see on cnn, bbc, news about commitments about changing the world and not war. [applause] >> afghanistan is a particularly difficult case for three reasons.

one, there is the question of the capacity of the government and its allies -- not just the united states, but the other country that of their -- to actually create a secure environment. secondly, there is the alienation caused by the widespread corruption. and third, the most productive, most likely path to a less violent future on a daily basis would be some sort of an agreement between the afghan government and the taliban. and most people question whether that could be done without the guarantees of the constitution for equal rights for women and girls being severely eroded. so, we are in a terrible moral dilemma. you want fewer people to die and you want to stop the violence,

and you don't think the government as currently constituted will ever be able to totally defeat the taliban and dominate the country, but if you make a deal under conditions of weakness or without guaranteed enforcement, you may be selling out the futures of countless women and girls. so, that is not the answer you want. sometimes i get to say i don't know when i don't want to say it. but that is the truth. and i think -- my experience has been, working in other areas that were dominated by violence -- nothing as bad as that -- as afghanistan but in different places. for example, when president musharraf was still in office in pakistan, and when i had my differences with him, which we aired on television actually when i was president -- to his credit, with his support in a

big press conference, but the musharraf government actually invite our foundation to come and help them set up a national aids program and provide the medicine and the testing equipment and the training. and it was the first non- african muslim nation -- not a city, not an area, but a whole nation -- to ask us to come in, to say we are out of denial, we've got a problem, and would you come to help us. but what we did do -- and none of our people were ever hurt or anything -- we were able to negotiate basically place by place security arrangements with the powers that be who thought it was worth doing. so, my guest says, given the conflicts, as well as the

taliban and the government, in order for you to go safely into canada are, there is probably a deal to be cut their with somebody locally and it would probably have done that way -- for you to go safely into kandahar. if i could help you get it, i would be glad to try. but i think the united states has said we would be happy to support the resumption of the talks between the taliban and the government, but we don't want to sell out the future of every woman and every girl in afghanistan to make peace. it is a horrible dilemma. in the meantime -- and i applaud you for loving your country and making commitments, and maybe we could make a deal that would secure the safety and freedom of movement for the people involved in your commitment in the specific areas for the specific purposes you want. i have had some success in doing that in other countries, and so

far, if somebody has promised to say do it, they have done it. nobody has crossed the as yet on a deal like that. -- crossed us yet. >> somebody give him a hard question. yes, ma'am. >> my name is cherise, from rochester, new york. with the economic situation the way it is, it is hard enough to go to college and try to get a job when you graduate as movements like occupy wall street i like it, but it is even harder to graduate from college and try to start a business with humanitarian endeavors, such as all of us here are probably trying to do, or at least to further our commitments. how do you suggest that we go ahead and try to help the world while at the same time try to keep our heads above water? >> i can take this one. [laughter] i think you might want to host your own tv show because i found

the money terrific. you have a real broad platform. that is what i would recommend. >> first of all, i want to compliment you on inviting the competition. most cannot do that. here is my specific suggestion. and you can find this out on the internet or you can contact my foundation and we will give you information. there are eight or 10 foundations in america whose specialty is funding other people's non-governmental activities. and vital voices can help, the rock offender -- rockefeller foundation -- there other people do it. it depends of how you want to design it. but there are foundations with a lot of money that are interested

in doing this. so, i think as soon as you can find somebody -- assuming you can find somebody who likes your id and this economy, it might be easier to start a business that is an ngo than to find a particular job that you find fruitful. now, i believe once we get the direct student loan program fully implemented in america for people who did not take bank loans over and above that -- in other words, they got whatever cause grants were available and all of their loans came through the student loan program -- one that is fully implemented -- and i think they will move it up and fully implemented next year -- from then forward, i think you will have less pressure because everybody's loan obligation per year will be tied to your income.

so, your loan payments will be a function of your job, so your job is not have become a function of your loan payments. [applause] when -- in 1993, my first year as president, i passed this as an option for all of the colleges, and the banks went crazy because they had guaranteed loans. a lot of the students took advantage of it. the students take $9 billion and lower interest and repayment. the ones to join it can pay back on a fixed percentage of the income and the taxpayer saves $4 billion because when people can pay back their loans, they do, they don't default. so, when president obama was elected there was a democratic congress and they gave him a mandatory program that just forced everybody. but it took a few years to implement it. implement it.