anything, anywhere, at any time. having a deliberative body that is rapid is probably a bad idea. making choices and doing things is preferable to the current situation, but you do need to liberation. this does bring up what i think is one of the scariest things about the internet with policy. there is a notion that you have a lot of companies that deliver information to users based on what they think their users want. as you see it develop euro per year, you see the filter bubble -- year over year, you see a filter bubble where people only share with people who have their same worldview. and this is happening in politics. i think it is affecting political debates. i wonder how we stop that. if the model for an internet company is we deliver what users want and try to make our robots deliver that instantly, that

reinforces their worldview. i don't know how that stops, but it reminds me that what is best for our users is not necessarily >> from monster.com. i want to circle back to the startups. if they are entering a regulated industry __ the risk reward ratio is entirely different for a civil servant than an entrepreneur. the first time there is a fatal accident, everyone will look to the government official that let that service operate. the risk is extreme, but there is no reward. if you're starting at that service, the reward is a

potential million_dollar enterprise. the civil servant will be thinking, do no harm, take no risk. you need to keep that in mind. there's really no good way around that. except educating government officials as to what your service will do no harm. i think sometimes the entrepreneur who is charging into the room does not realize the person they're meeting with, the government official, __ there is risk avoidance for a reason. >> well, this is a really stimulating an interesting discussion, covering a wide range of ground.

and use of the first amendment around data online. ending with some of the challenges facing both government and startups, and navigate unfamiliar terrain. the challenges of these institutions. i think on that note, i will let our cohost give us some closing thoughts. >> i just want to thank maggie williams and the harvard staff for making this happen. i think it was a very productive conversation. i want to thank our moderators, and all the participants. these are important issues as the policy land changes. next year, every of the same conversation, there will be new topics. this conversation helps to move the ball forward.

thank you very much. [applause] >> the 114th congress begins on tuesday. political rights __ energy and health care law will be to items on the agenda for the next two weeks. the house passed a keystone bill in its previous session, but the measure failed in the senate. there's also another bill expected to come up next week that would to find the full work week as 40 hours, as opposed to 30 hours. as always, you can watch the house life here on c_span, and the senate live on c_span 2.

on "newsmakers", we heard from rep. elect ken buck. as the republican freshman class present, he talks on issues that new members of congress will face. >> i do not think the u. s. will not default on debt. one of the issues he will face is raising the debt limit. in what circumstances would you vote to raise the debt limit? >> i think we have to make substantial progress on balancing the budget. if we do that, i will take a serious look at voting to increase the debt limit. i am not at all __ i do not believe that the consequences of failing to raise the debt limit are what the president and others in the united states congress have said.

i think we have a lot of room to cut our spending. if we do that, we will in fact avoid the catastrophic consequences the others talk about. >> do you support the so_called baynard rule __ dollar for dollar cut in pieces. >> i think that is a minimum threshold that we have to meet. in real cuts, not cuts that happened 10 years from now, or 15 years from now, when another congress will inevitably change those cuts. i think we have to have cuts that happened now. they will unfortunately heard. but, the pain is caused by a history of irresponsible spending in the united states, and by the united states government. >> if not, could we face the possibility of a default? >> you know __ i hope that we don't.

i hope that congress and the president act responsibly, and balance our budget, or at least move substantially in that direction. >> you can see the entire interview with representative lx can but tomorrow at 10:00 am. >> the 114th congress gallows in this tuesday at noon eastern. watch live coverage of the house on c_span. check the gop led congress. and have your say as the events unfold. new congress, best access on c_span. next, conversations from the 2014 washington ideas forum. beginning with make ebeling.

>> so, everybody has a chapter 1. my chapter 1 start with tempy __ one of the best graffiti artist. he came down with alf, popularized by the ice bucket campaign. my company came up with the idea that this year, instead of gifting a fruit basket, or something like that, we thought we would make a donation on his behalf. we said, we want to use this money, what should we use it for? hhe said i just want to eat talk to my brother again, to communicate with them.

i said, how do you communicate now? hhhe said, we use this device called a piece of paper. on that piece of paper, what we run a finger along it, he blinks, and we write that number down. that we repeat, and letters form words, and that is how we communicate. i said, that is crazy. we have stephen hawkins, christopher reeves, there are devices that allow them to talk, why do not have them? he said, we do not have money or insurance, we cannot afford it. i have a process. that is that you commit, and then you figure it out. i said, this is what we will do.

one, tempt will communicate again, and we will get a device that will let him draw again. he said, really, you can do that? and i said, yeah, high five. then i left, and i said, crap, what did i commit to. part of my process as well is to invite brilliant people into my life. i like to be the guy is a party that is the dumbest guy in the room. if i'm the dumbest guy in the room, that means i am learning. so i invite people to my house, and we have a hacker weekend. so wwe went about doing this. we came about this device. it is called the eye writer.

a webcam mounted in front of the eye. we went to hospital and set up this projector. he drew again, and we projected it on the side of the building. it was __ [applause] it was this incredible experience. that was it. there was not a chapter two. we did it. then, we went to bed. we woke up the next day and it was "time magazine"'s top invention of 2010. it is now part of the collection at the moma.

and so on, and so forth, and the media. and we said, how did we do this? then, tempt sent us an email. in __ and the email was this __ that was the first time i've drawn in seven years. we got that, and i said, i do not know what we did, but we have to figure out how to do it again. and that was the launch of not impossible labs. not impossible labs is based on technology, but technology for the sake of humanity. have you had, how do you modify, how do you accomplish a fundamental social need. this kind of set the course for

what we were doing with not impossible labs. that was my chapter 1. this is chapter 2. on july 11, last year, i went out to dinner with a friend. at dinner, he told me about a doctor tom __ he is a doctor in the mountains between sudan and south sudan. he is only doctor in that area, he does everything. we're talking about him. and i did what a curious person does, i flipped open my laptop, and open up an article about him. i come to learn about his situation. this situation is this __ the

government of sudan is running a campaign of terror on the nouveau mountains. he does this as a means __ a military tactic __ if you drive the people out, when the military comes in, it is easier fight. the people are used to this. the story went on to talk about a young man named daniel. daniel was out tending to his goats, he heard the military coming, he went out __ a bomb went off not far from him. it blew off his arms.

he finally contacted doctor tom, doctor tom stitched them up. when he finally awoke, he said, if i could die, i would have because now i will be such a burden to my family. so, i am sitting at my kitchen table, i have my laptop, i am looking down the hallway where these two knuckleheads sleep. i couldn't imagine if i were a parent __ if your son or daughter would say i wish i would be dead. that was a moment for me __ all right, i have to do something. so, you commit and you figure it out. repeat. i bring a lot of brilliant people to my house. we try printing with 3_d printers. the week in itself was a great

success. the ticket was brought to sudan. there was no turning back. this guy successfully built a hand for himself. and he told me, i can tell you are not giving up, come to sudan, sstop through johannesburg, and i will do you sorted out. we tested hands, arms, learned about prosthetic limbs. so we basically come to and, and we had made a prototype. i bid his family farewell, and hopped on a plane. it was there that i met daniel for the first time. our plan was to meet daniel. it was a nervous experience.

the whole thing is called project daniel, and i had not met him. our plan was to load up the truck after meeting him, and start our journey __ about nine hours from the refugee camp across the border of sudan, under the protection of the rebels, crossing under the cover of night, to get to doctor tom. the cease_fire ended while we're in the air from johannesburg to sudan. security came in and said, i'm sorry, you cannot go. luckily, an ngo found out about us, and said, hey, we have the shed, if you want, you can set up their. so, we jumped on it. we set up the printers, we cleaned it up. we started making the cast that

daniel would use. we played with the ergonomics of the elbow. we start making. there was a saying that i learned there __ tia __ this is africa. it is part of murphy's law. if it could go wrong, it did. the electricity was wrong, we had to rewire it. it was so hot in the day, that the 3_d printer filament was melting to itself. it was one thing after another. eventually, we got to november 11, and this is what happened. ♪

>> there's this thing in me that loves to see things they are supposed to not be done be done. daniel is just one of 50,000 entities left in the wake of the bloodiest war that africa has ever known. we flew to an active war zone in sudan with laptops, plastic, and the goal to build a known arm. the concept of project daniel was passed on july 11. on november 11, daniel had an arm for the first time in two years. it is never about just one person.

if we could teach the locals to do it themselves, then project daniel could live on long after we left. and it did. ♪ [applause] >> thank you. thank you.

i've seen that video probably thousands of times, and i still get that grin when he gets up and tries to throw. what we are doing around project daniel, and everything we are doing around project daniel, if technology for the sake of humanity. we are creating inventions like the eye writer, devices, e.g. tracking devices to be able to communicate using their brain waves, and their eyes to communicate. the arms __ we were able to make something that could cost up to $15,000 for $100. this philosophy of using technology for the sake of humanity. the question that we ask is

let's not try to hear malaria. let's try, for sure. but, if i ask you, let's try to cure malaria, you'd say yeah, sure. but, if i ask you, let's go ask jim, let's go help susie. let's make it personal. our mantra is, help one, help many. the question i would ask you today is, who is your one? based on what you just saw, who is your daniel? thank you. [applause] >> that was great. if mapping the human genome was one of the biggest scientific victories in the last

generation __ mapping the human brain is the next goal for this one. our next speakers are two scientists on the forefront of trying to figure out how the brain works. please will come jacopo annis and alan jones. >> so, a lot of you probably know, last year the federal government announced the brain initiative it dedicates somewhere between $300 million_$500 million to mapping the human brain. we have two scientists here who are working on similar projects

to try and figure out exactly what is going on in our brains __ no small task. i want to start at the very top, and get to a simple but very complex question __ what are we talking about? >> let me talk about __ what we also talked to at the allen institute __ by the way, and not name for me, but for paul allen. we often think about it __ i have a samsung phone here, but imagine it is an iphone six __ oour big challenge would be, how does this work? what would you do? they do this. it is very common industries,

they take it apart. they look at the chip structure. they look at all the individual parts. that is only the start. if you knew that structure, it would tell you something, but you also need to turn it on, figure out how the software works. there might be a new operating system that you need to start to dig into. then, you need to understand the apps. there are these levels of the components. the computation. ultimately, in the human brain, cognition. always bigger brain mapping, or you think of all those different elements, and how they come together. >> in some way, our brains are almost as complex other phones. >> there is a caveat.

the problem is, once you map one cell phone, in reality we are not the same model. we are not all iphone six. even if we were the same brand, we would all be very different. each brain, i brought mine __ i almost forgot it. this shows the convolution of my brain. when you zoom in and look at connections, cells, syntaxes __ at the microscopic level __ all bets are left. we have a library, and we catalog brains.

we create maps that i've studied. we won't know the basic architecture of a brain of a species, that we can look at individual differences. that is what i am very interested in. why am i who i am. how are we different. >> we have the federal brain initiative. we have the allen institute, the brain observatory. you have been cutting over brains for a long time. you've been studying neuroscience for a long time. what is different now? what is allowing us to do this? >> i would say __ for those who do not know, the holland institute for brain science, we've been around for a little over 10 years. about 2 1/2 years ago, paul announced a major initiative __

it would commit almost $1 billion of his own money to an ambitious project that goes after the components and computation of the brain. one year later, there was a large european effort, 1.3 billion investment. then, the brain initiative came there soon after. probably any day now, there will be one from china. japan announced its brain initiative earlier. there are a lot of people converging on this. one might ask, why? tthere's a certain urgency to understanding human brain disease. also, it is a really interesting time in history. there are a lot of new technologies that have been developed over the last few years.

things like __ optogenetics, advances in being able to see the brain firing in real time. i would liken this to __ 1100 years ago there was this unfolding of the language of chemistry. in a very short period of time, fundamentals were established. fast for 50 years, to thediscovery of dna. now, here we are. i do not think this is a bold prediction __ if you look at where people are putting the money, we should have some understanding of the language of the brain within the next decade. it is a really exciting time. >> is it good that there are

all these different initiatives from different countries? >> internationally, it is a challenge to combine goals. it is even a challenge within that one single institution. at the national level, we compete for funding. it would be great to have an initiative, wwhere all the scientists got together to say, that is what we really need. i think neuroscientists __ it should be less social __ but, they managed to get together to do this. i like the fact that the brain initiative really makes people think about the brain more.

in my experience with the brain mapping, we know the participants, we know the person behind the brain. i understood over the years, without public engagement, you cannot have neuroscience. at the basic level, we cannot study the brain if someone does not commit themselves to go through the scanner. we do not pay them, some pay them. public engagement is where i would like to focus. i started a new nonprofit called the institute for the brain and society, to make people more interested in neuroscience. i think it will help to accelerate research as well. >> if i can follow on __ your question of collaboration versus competition. everyone right now is viewing this in such a broad space. unlike the genome project that

pitted private versus public, i think there's no reason that the space is too large. there is a lot of cooperation and collaboration. we partner with the european effort as much as we do with the american effort. unlike, those previous science projects, it feels more collaborative than competitive. >> it is true, when you nail your goals, you are able to collaborate. when it is an open field __ the synthesis is the challenge. even with willingness to cooperate, synthesizing a final map for the brain, and eventually many brains, that is going to