the back. raise your hand if you didn't receive one. but look for the presentations there. that, let me turn it over to emmitt. the floor is yours. emit: good afternoon. an honor to be among such a distinguished panel and such a audience. i arrived freshly this morning so i am just ready for this session bring crash and burn. my double espresso cappuccino ready to go. before you can ask a question, i'll answer the question. yo.'s my mat asia. in i am what you would call a practitioner, on the field talking to customers, immediatia, every day, every week. asia.d 250 days on the road. i am basically that's what i do. so you will have me bring to you a lot of perspective from what i'm seeing in asia but also a

from theat i'm seeing corporate scenario. so let's get started. first and foremost, i don't think there should be any that -- let me see if i am getting the slides clicked forward. ok. we just -- yeah. there you go. ok. i don't think it is any surprise to anyone here in the room that if we want to take living standards up, technology a huge role.n play and that has been the case for centuries.veral and i will make the argument the middle of the fourth industrial revolution. think about this, the waterrevolution, steam and mechanical production, somewhere in 1784, second 1870 of labor the division advancement of electricity and mass production, third reallyial revolution was

around when our company was born dell, which was the electronics, it, and automated production. and where we are today, and next we are headed for the several decades, is really an advancement in cyber physical systems. and all of these things are unleashing a new quality of advancements. so first thing that happens is every time we talk about this sort of progress innovation by technology, typically -- i thinkes into it's we're headed to a terminator word or maybe something more positive. point would be techno versus [indiscernible] becomes a very quick one. so it's important for us to make havee that we as a company always believed and consistently technology is in the service of human. us achieve the full

potential that humans as a race have. veryman progress is critical part of a purpose and we believe technology has to human progress. and i think that's very very important because if that view established, technology could go, definitely could go, in a different direction. now, i would say that it's also , to all of you, that our world is changing, how we live, work.ct, there are more than three billion smartphones today and several hundred trillion -- several hundred billion sensors that will things, that will personalize things, and that will create new outcomes. you look at a storage cost -- if you think about when i start career, hard drives used to be five megabytes or and today a gigabyte of storage is five cents.

thewhile you may not have perspective, in the last 40 100 billion times faster processors are available. very exponential rise that the semiconductor industry and that is creating a huge power to create new society.for the 100 billion times faster is what we have done in the last 40 years. if you look at one of the pieces having an impact on our society is also creating a lot changes. in 1920, if a company had an years, lifespan of 67 today it is about 15. so you can see there's a lot changes happening. companies are consolidating. companies are aligning. companying are getting out of business. and that's kind of because the moreologies creating a lot changes and a lot more expectations from a customer perspective. look at the next slide,

this talks about if you could where 200 billion device that are connected, where a human brain,te which is likely by 2060, in less than $1,000. you could be living 120 years plus. seamless and pervasive customer experience is bere and new outcomes will possible. clean energy, you know, given the advancement in the semiconductor, and that's -- the energy resources will create a tremendous amount of opportunity. and the connectivity, second to none. of these things are really around us. it is happening as we speak. is what we believe is going to create a new society which will further human progress. but to do this, as we talked about, the cities have an important role to play. but before the cities, let me , digital disruption is

driven.e company it is driven from a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of happening that is from thousands and thousands of companies. the oldu think about disruption, it used to be a few disruptors who have a lot of who could create new outcomes. and now there are a lot more ors, almost 10x more, structure a cost which is .1 of previous disruptors creating a disruptive almost 100x. so it's a pretty disruptive world. and no matter which company and state you are in, you have to continue to innovate and you have to continue to adopt technology. it is not possible for us to the size orimagine the previous history is going to future.you in the so everyone has to innovate and everyone has to differentiate.

and so that's the thesis. and this is what leads us to say is everyone has to become future ready. is notoming future ready just a company responsibility. it is also individual responsibility. it is also city responsibility. it is also a country responsibility. of these changes are happening around the u.s. -- around us and they are not some sort of pie in the sky, they are going to be here in five, 10 now. from so how would we get ourself ready, individuals ready, societies ready, and the country ies ready? and clearly cities ready, to deal with the changes and thrive in the state of hyperchanges that are upon us? so that's the framework of today's talk. that, the first thing i would tell you is that, you cities to become future ready there are three pieces that become very important.

is the human capital. second is the infrastructure. the ecosystem.s course,human means, of attracting and venturing human capital to attract and develop skills needed to drive the and social economic changes. infrastructure of course we understand. but the collaboration part is to become a lot more important from an infrastructure perspective, which is probably well thought out. and that's why i think, as you ae later, the trade plays huge role. if collaboration is important, trade plays a big role. the auto' co---' co-system, technology, telecom and physical infrastructure, all have to create sustainable business opportunities for years to come. somelet me give you example. so we partnered, dell partnered, with [indiscernible] economics, an industry leading macroeconomics firm to build an model for evaluateing evaluateing -- this is across

the world. we put all the cities in a global ranking. model byd to create a which we can compare where does a city stand against each other. and hopefully we will continue to track this so we can see which city is progressing, which city is not. our future ready economy's model measures the performance of metro areas against three pillars: human capital, commerce, infrastructure. the idea is to allow public and private sector community leaders to compare their own strengths to those of other futures of the economies. the framework. and that's what we did. i'll give you a few examples here. the number one city in the future ready came in was the san jose. so it's not a surprise to you but clearly -- if i give you from san jose perspective, it's innovation and investment perspective. it is number one. they have also increased the

senior housing, 96 low-income housing units, and they are labor second in the force. and generally hourly wages are nationalr than the average. to where icloser live, asia, number three singapore. that's the work leader in andic/private collaboration labor force engagement, top three in culture, lifestyle, and data transparency. singapore's infrastructure, including world class airport, also helped boost its rating. more will give you one example of new deli. 44.that was number driveital india is a huge into the successful implementation that we see. india is on the path to embrace the digital technologies and reaping the benefits associated

it. there will be broadband expansion, electronics in theturing governments, and we believe that the public/private partnership we also see very prominently in .he space of digital india so innovation, engine, entrepreneurship is very much thriving. that $266 billion will be invested in indian startups in the course of the last five years. examples from europe. there are examples from many other cities here. rankedton, d.c. was number five in the same future rate. i'mf you wanted to know, sure there's lots of examples here we can talk about as well, including the electronics corridor. but i wanted to switch gears from cities to what's the role of government's play.

my perspective, governments have a huge role to play, time ofly in the change, especially in the time of change. and if the changes are accelerating, governments have a role to play. not only changing themselves but and helping change society helping change the infrastructure. in ourgovernment's role minds become, one, foster the innovation by supporting datapreneurship and the economy, even the data becomes to future of connected health or connected living standards. and that, itself is a huge topic of debate in many governments. that's, i think, innovation fostering -- fostering innovation is a critical part. second is the preserving trust in the technology tools that advancement. and that's going to happen through many compliance, appropriate governance, as well as policy. the third one is the enabling responsibility.

it has to be built into the country framework as well as city framework. and last but not least, this is pretty critical from our perspective, which is maintaining open markets. so a combination of these four things will help government cities,ore future-ready create more future-ready society, and clearly more individuals. now, technology creates a lot of .inners it doesn't have to be winners and non-winners and this is where government's role in the population and the developed to be thrive in the new economies and the future-ready states is going critical innd more the coming days. , the claims that i'm making today is, one, changes are happening faster and faster.

are exponential. changes are here. they are not too far away in the future. they are here in the next five years, seven years, 10 years and beyond. a newese changes require approach both by individuals, andrnments, societies cities and what we call future ready. future also shown you a future-ready economy model by which using which we have multiple cities across the world. and we believe that sort of framework is going to be to continue tos see which cities are making progress and not. ad finally, governments play huge role from innovation, from trust, from social responsibility, and from the market perspective. thank you. [applause] amit.: thank you, christy: great. thank you. wonderful research

and wonderful sort of introduction, i think to a wide future-ready cities and what we mean when we talk about that. a little more specifically on a specific area that you touched on, future-ready city government. can governments help activities leverage that are already going on in the private sector and how can they become more entrepreneurial and themselves as an entity. aboutst just a little bit center, cities and my city solution and applied research. we work with city governments country, work on behalf of those governments to help raise their issues on a national pro i'll. also conduct research and best practices and work with them directly through technical variety aren a wide of issues to help city leaders and their staff do their jobs basis.on a daily so it's wide ranging in terms of the issues that we cover and the citiest we engage with

but it's all directly driven towards how do we help cities do better.bs i want to talk about innovation perspectivet least on what innovation means particularly when we're talking about local governments. from formerote mayor ron littlefield, a mayor in chattanooga, tennessee. says it's not glamorous but it's innovative in a nitty-gritty, we're going to our sleeves, get to work, and solve this problem sort of way i think cities have focus, at least local governments, on solving problems. when we talk about innovation, cities infuse data and technology? some new tools for some cities. help them do that job better, pinpoint and solve problems and the mayor was talking specifically about a new program in detroit that was leveraging data to help better low-incomehow populations can better be connected to social services in the city.

it's all about problem solving but it's about doing that in new ways. and we know, too, that cities across the country are leveraging data and technology different types of ways -- and ways but there are common characteristics and that's what today.lk about so cities that are embracing being future ready. areoticed that they data-driven. and specific to their internal andations they are open engaged. we'll talk a little bit about open data, but that's much more expansive than just open data. and they are customer service driven. so i think that is particularly how they engage with the otherss community and folks outside of local government who may not have the bogged resources to get down in all of the process that can sometimes happen. aboutnking specifically data-driven, one of the way that cities are evolving to become data driven is through performance management. i'll talk more about that. but i think what we're noticing, performance

management is one type of process. we're also seeing things like teams and delivery chief data officers and chief technology officers. i think these can all be under the umbrella of data-driven although i think we would certainly argue that they all have various functions that are differentiated but generally speaking it's a way of infusing data-driven innovation throughout city hall. management specifically is a process of consistently reviewing performance data to inform making. it's the collection of data analyzing data, understanding outcomes, particularly service delivery outcomes of city governments, stack up the stated goals that cities have. it's using metrics to really pin point how that's happening. and then it's using this information. it's not just saying, ok, that's a dashboard but it's using this information to really drive decisions to adapt to redirect policy and budget at the city level.

cities are advancing the use of data and technology, thermation through performance management system, to also begin to use predictive analytics which if you're in the space, you probably heard a lot about. and i think we sort of think of as sort of the gold standard of performance management, other data efforts. data andities use information that they have now to help predict where the next wheree is going to be, are the next crime sprees going to happen. that's amazing. right? noticing,k what we're there are a lot of challenges that sort of get in the way of making that a reality. but it is happening in some places. and i think we still need to learn from those places, like the stiff boston, for example. using crime data, code enforcement data to better next vacanthere the property challenges are going to be. and addressing some of the crime inblems that are happening those parts of neighborhoods. happen.e seeing it data-drivenudied

cities through performance management systems, looked at 10 particular, identified what was happening in these cities. and i i think what you'll notice the slide, is performancection of management sometimes it's an innovation office, sometimes it's its own office, sometimes office.the mayor's we'll talk about structure in a minute. we talk about what that function is, i'll just give you an example. in los angeles, for example, the performancend management unit oversees performance management, othergic planning and data driven processes. so it's different processes in one city department. one of their sort of hallmark successes was really reforming their 311 system. so when someone calls with a complaint, are they getting a response in an adequate amount of time? by analyzing data with call volumes and city staffing was able to toy drop the wait times for 311

minutes down to less that in minute in a year. so those are the types of success that i think we're talking about when we think performance management. and what does this have to do with sort of a broader economy?n in order to attract talent to a city, in order to attract businesses, people want to know that their city government is functioning in a way that is going to be conducive and not way of them succeeding in the place. i had talked a little bit about structure before. but what we noticed for performance management offices, of three types. depending on the city. issome cities the function centralized as an independent department with staff dedicated of those things that are involved with performance management from collecting data, reporting out.nd and we see this in atlanta, boston, dallas, kansas city, las st. paul. then there are also systems that centralized where there's performance management staff that provided advice and guidance but the real function

frontline staff and within each of the city departments. and we see that in den very and fort lauderdale. interestingly in denver, because they know they're putting that responsibility and additional responsibility on to frontline staff, their particular -- it's called peca training program that helps city staff empower them them to identify and understand how to make efficiencies within their operations. and and then we're seeing in some cities a sort of hybrid model where those functions are a little bit more fluid. and we saw that in dc and l.a. again, that's internal to city hall of the right? and i think that's very interesting. and for those of us in the city space, we understand why that matters. but when we want to think about more broadly how city government interacts and helps facilitate a future-ready local economy, we think more about a city that's and engaged. so a city that opens its data, help -- to, to

provide that information and that date i don't to businesses who want to then help the cities solve problems or bringing in that date i don't to entrepreneurs and startups to help the cities solve its problems. or creating more equitable to wi-fi access. there are a whole host of things cities are doing in this space it's more open and engaged. specifically, thinking about how the local government is engaging with the community on open data and the internet of things. right? which i think is sort of pinnacle there. we see chicago is partnering aragon national labs at the university of chicago to deploy sensors throughout the city to on everything from the environment and infrastructure and really then startups and other entities in the city to start developing sort of proof of concept projects to help deal with challenges around quality.ation and air we also see very interesting way

withcities are engaging entrepreneurs to actualitily bring them into city hall to help them solve problems. city of san francisco, for example, has what they are residenceart-up in where they recruit startups from outside of city hall to come in and help them solve sort of a civic problem. in san francisco, the airport with blinda problem customers, understanding how to get around the airport. franciscof san brought in a start-up who spent 16 weeks really understanding the problem and developed a thenology solution to help customers navigate the airports .n a more efficient way it's interesting because due to some of the complicated within cityat exist hall around procurement, the city was not able -- needs to be make this an opportunity where the start-ups come in and they are not charged for their services. o but it's a win-win because the startups are actually being able to develop new products and to

test those new products with the city. so the city is really serving in as a customer and really allose the start-up to test their product in a way that have been able to do otherwise. we know that cities are also employing future-ready operations by infusing innovation not only within their but alsotions facilitating the use of technology throughout the community. i know we'll probably talk a little more about kansas city google finer -- fiber. there is also access widely philadelphia, too. but there is obviously -- a gap there for some communities, particularly small whonesses and entrepreneurs are in lower-income communities. philadelphia has the philly tech ambassadors program where tech savvy and community-minded students partner with businesses tomall help them get online and use similar inograms and

kansas city, missouri, as well. addition to helping to leverage and facilitate throughout and ideas the community cities can also think about their capacity to create physical spaces for innovation to happen and the and information. we're seeing this through maker spaces. afteriously the manufacturing economy -- obviously the manufacturing economy is changing. manufacturing is smaller scale. it's more high-tech. it's more based on and new ideasip and how can cities actually support that, particularly when their economies are changing so much? many cities, including chattanooga, for example, are investing public dollars in the maker movement. simple thingsoing like turning the fourth floor of their library into a maker space printers,ng in 3d sewing machines, and allowing people in the community to

in thatheir capacity way. a very easily accessible way to .nnovate and because that was so serving as that is an anchor to a broader innovation district where the isy of chattanooga leveraging their municipal fiber, their university their nonprofits, their cultural assets, their environmental assets, bringing helpall together to promote innovation in that way. just talk quickly because i'm sure i'm out of time about customer service. so, again, this is a very specific way that cities are with the community, the business community, entrepreneurs, and start-ups and businesses in particular. we know that local governments sometimes has a permitting process, a regulatory process, that can be very burdensome for businesses, particularly

businesses and startups and small businesses who are just who don't haved a whole separate department within their business dedicated to dealing with local government, which i know many businesses do because it can be that hairy. process isg the critically important. and also making the process that businesses need to go through to and to open their doors and to launch new products, all regulatededs to be and needs to go through local government. but local governments can make that easier. through start-up in a day we're partnering with the white house and small business cityistration to help dozen that. it really is about how can cities streamline the business development, streamline the business permitting process, put that online, use a tool that helps them put that online so businesses can see what steps they need to follow business.o open a and in some cases like with the city of los angeles, we're calling them our dream big winner, they are creating a process that actually takes

online through the process to get their business license and permits and that seems obvious but check out your city website. be.ay not so we are hosting a community of share ideas about how they are actually working through their process of bringing their regulatory environment online, up to date into the 21st century and easy navigate.sses to just a bit about challenges. is going data quality to be a concern. often -- cityre staff are not used to operating environment where they're asked to collect data and to use new technology. and that can be a big impediment want to understand outcomes and you want to use metrics, you also need to have a dataset. you need to have an engaged staff. internalhave collaboration between departments. and all of this is new. will some of this may sound obvious but all of this is

relatively new to cities who often are using pen and paperwork orders or things like that. obviously privacy concerns are a big issue. about open talking datia, we're talking about sensitive information that identifies particular individuals. data which would lead to the benefit of entrepreneurs and the benefit of the city. there are concerns there. oftentimes what we are seeing in these are the that are leaving -- leading the charge is they have a strong mayor who is dedicated to using data technology. this is fantastic and needed, particularly as beginning down this path. what we seem to see to be most successful is management and data and other operation is housed within the mayor's office at the beginning.

what will happen next? what we can see is that although at the beginning of the process when cities are taking on data is that it is important to have the mayor's office and have that political power and authority to do the things that need to be done. over the long haul their is specifically stated in los angeles, the goal for each department to manage its own data performance operations. that's just part of how the city operates. i think that's the next evolution in data and technology and innovation into the operation. backthat, i will pass it

to steve. thank you very much. applause you, stephen. i believe that the question every city leaders should be asking is is my city prepared for the future? as others do here, i think, that we are the dawn of an incredible revolution. this is bringing change is far bigger than the ones we face before in the valley, that the pc and the.com boom and networking opportunity we have today are just the beginning. those are the first wave. we have only began to scratch the surface on hardware and software and how it will impact

how we live and how we work and learn, travel and even eat. ?ow we are city not get answer is found in its people. what i mean my that is radically simple and complex. i think that's third of communities will help cities transition to the next digital age. after stripping away all the cool open plan office buildings and the big investment funds, smartou find is that people embedded in dense, social networks, lack the social -- the central economy is prepared for what the future may bring. in 1776, teamed up

to discover how startup communities are helping cities navigate the digital age. reportdings from this and then i want to discuss what they mean and what city leaders can do it them. years, weast two visited 16 cities, compiled a database and spoken with nearly 500 local leaders. when we talked to them we want to talk about the traditional factors of innovation, but also things like density and conductivity and culture. we wanted to get us out of the beltway and learn from practitioners on the ground. we did so based on an underlying theme that we heard time and time again. job is createdd, and patents filed were necessary

but incomplete measures. density ofs and social networks, as well as the global culture mattered much if not more if driving these ecosystems that would make us future ready. ,hen we look at these together challenge, capital, specialization, conductivity and culture, these rikers was that san francisco was not number one. boston was. let's be clear, san francisco is an incredible leader in the number of startups created. they have deep pools of talent and lots of investment capital. austin entrepreneurs reported better connections -- boston entrepreneurs reported better connections. just behind the bay area were more support -- reprisals like raleigh-durham, san diego.

the other top five cities such as baltimore and pittsburgh also at 15th and 14th respectively. everyone from government to corporate to entrepreneurs in bringing them together to open exchange of ideas and to collaborate. aw york city and los angeles lot of startup creation. there were aspects of community that lag behind for them to continue to grow. like baltimore and pittsburgh and new orleans are not major drivers of the digital economy at -- yet. they are building collaborative communities as innovation and the are creating the bright cultural foundations. ranking, what does it mean? to answer that, we started listening to entrepreneurs and city leaders.

we just came back from visiting cities. theeard things like when partners in kansas city described the city's startup community as a network, or each node in the network had a mission. or christine at the local chamber called it a big small town, everyone is six degrees removed from each other. andlso heard the same thing boston and salt lake city. how easy it was to meet up with a local founder or funder. doors.ld find open you could build trust. believe open, dance, social networks flesh are in the capital startup foundation. community, in other words. i will step way back for a

second. bear with me. i believe urban economies are like building blocks of human legos can be like connected in different ways to generate innovation. these essential bits of information flow through open, dense social networks. are inits of information ideas. they are assembled and put together with the blocks within networks. that's the ecosystem. the more the networks grow in , the more aength city is productive and innovative capacity grows. the more that these ideas can translate into something valuable like snapchat. how do these networks grow and how do they maintain themselves? andugh social capital

social values and trust and openness and apathy. those lower the transaction costs. breaking new ideas and the people picking them up not only helps economies stay ahead of the game, but they suggest the presence of trust and empathy. empathy allows for people in firms to produce what customers and partners want. enough with the theory. when you think about it, these social networks are how we find jobs and places to live and how we build complex products. some -- expresses in terms of community. that's how local leaders explained it to us. success,their startup founded in a community building. as one denver area government i startedaid, when

working with start ups, i never thought i would he come a community builder. my boss is still would not be happy to see me use the term. at its core, that is what this work is. citywe found from city to is that we can have all the talent and reach capacity in the world and still not generate sustained innovation or at least not as much as you otherwise could. the city can also have small amounts of these things and stand out to toe with the big boys if they had a healthy community. with advances in software and hardware enable us to work gains ind smarter, the people has never been higher. over the last five years the american population has increased by 3.1%. but the population of our 50 richest states has jumped by

9.2%. 34% more productive than the rest of the country. per all zip codes in this country attracts more than 60% of all venture capital in this country. america, we city in do not have a shortage of ideas. we do have the seeds of community. we need people to bring other people and their ideas together to repair cities for the future. what does all this mean for the future? it is important to understand of thejectory -- out economy. software and digital services will grow in it hortense. even today it's not the smartphone chip that matters how you use it. digital health records on the go or telling an drone where to fly. respond to these changes by

recognizing your existing strengths. in thisy has leverage activity is already going on. strong health care systems and universities. areas of expertise or things that make the city livable. the key is identifying those assets. be purposeful in outlining the potential for the future. the same is true for community. neednity building needs community organizers. rules can exist from startup support systems to government corporate's two other systems. we also need to help fill in the gaps. we can help connect startups and other institutions together. that means being able to plug into existing specializations and knowledge and tapping into

an innovation pipeline. to prioritize this suggests a policy of people in place. growing starts means enhancing connectivity and reducing barriers to people getting ahead , establishing rules of the road and empowering leaders. this will set the stage for revolutionary change. in the past 3-5 years and we have seen, -- explosives startup grows. these have resulted by seeds planted over 20 years ago in the community. not only to make startup communities sustainable, but also to repair cities for the future. thank you. applause]

workm excited about this because all my clients want to be a future ready are they all document byned what 2025 or 2030. we just weren't with the city of shanghai and they came up with the growth strategy. when we started this work we were thinking, how can you think so much into the future? what matters enormously is that the city has to be ready. readiness matters for the future. think this report in the data that is behind it is interesting from an international point of view.

what we are finding more and more is that a lot of cities are taking on economic development as some major responsibilities. they are beginning to ask a lot of questions. they want to know how other cities are doing it. who is getting things done and how things are being done by these people. that is a framework that we launched a couple of months -- months ago at the world bank group. that's how i will frame some of the problems of this discussion. what do cities do? let me revert to one of our case studies in africa. let me take you to valley and rwanda. landlocked city, no natural resources and recovering from civil war. and halfard a decade moving service

economy within the city. gdp growth 11%. .ob growth for client 5% it didn't have any natural resources. first we looked at what they had available. they had guerrillas. they decided to hold a public private corporation and look at tourism. booming tourism sector. they decided they would go into tourism. tourists would value things like liability, safety notice in the city. these were the same values that tourism -- a decided to come up , the conference

and event center. at the same time they also make investments to make sure the workforce can go ahead. i don't know if this is true, but the world bank had a debate about whether cities and policymakers should be choosing between horizontal intervention or looking more at industrial strategies. ist we find in the research those are the successful cities. to doingged to devote them together. that is what matters. who does these things? happened to clients be mayors of cities are governors and state or an andomic development

advisor. they can't control trader custom issues. at the world bank, we encourage them to be more opportunistic, the city watch. watch. about the mayors will, and other actors in the community to build a group coalition about a shared strategy or vision. let me give you an example. i don't have any american examples whatsoever. an example of south america and columbia. it was a city that had an

economy that was dominated by low-tech manufacturing. footwear, clothing and that sort of thing. fast forward a couple of years now they are managing -- manufacturing much more high tech, a growing services economy. what they did do is they had a regional industry, and they made sure the oriole industry was investing in innovative instead of drilling, refining and selling petroleum. is that it doesn't matter who does it. city it was the city done, ithe best things was a private sector got things done. it was a leader in bringing

together much of the private sector but also the city and state government and the national government. investmentsre that were made in developing not just technical but also managerial capital within the city. now the have the highest levels of human capitals in all of columbia. incentives and were targeted for use by the city itself. our group example coalitions are important in getting things done. and how do you get things done? i don't normally speak in front alongrican -- do you come -- what is happening on the ground or what you see in the strategy documents? ok. we had these of making strategy

documents that are designed by consultants. when you look at what is happening on the ground -- this is something that is important to us. how do you get things done? let me take you to another part a city in china. people decided they wanted to make investments into their capital. they had two strategies. they were going to identify, recruit and compensate the right individuals to come to their city area and they were going to invest in the talent pool they had within the city itself. they were going to build a programs. training

none of this is really new or interesting. states areties and all these strategies. why were they so successful? what they did manage should do is they were able to avoid some of the bureaucratic pitfalls that other cities had. coordination issues across agencies. was a way toroups clarify the rules and among thelities administrative government tears as well. all the insensate -- all the incentives were properly aligned in the city and the industrial zones. it made sure that an eight of the meetings were taking place, only the problems are escalated at the higher level.

that was something that worked well. fromave other examples cities across the u.s. and have done this. they did it in brazil and a couple of other examples of how this management matters in terms of getting things done. not just data and documents and analysis that matters. you will find it is a problem for them. , thet to end by saying cities redefined as come -- successful cities that have economic growth transformational andgrowth, productivity direct investment. the cities that we come across were not your capital cities, not household names.

we see these and lagging regions of the country but managed to become competitive. that is a big message we are going to leave with it you don't have to be a large city. there are unknown cities that managed to be competitive over time. thank you very much for inviting me. this is a very interesting panel and discussion. i just want to say that this topic is really important. it is an urgent topic. how do you get ready for the future? how will you be more competitive in the future? become --ties only to reaches same level of competitive -- you could create 19 million jobs.

we are talking about big stakes here. it is about how cities will become competitive will be important for the global economy. thank you very much. [applause] you. there's a lot on the table from the u.s. and global perspective so i know think we should have any problems soliciting questions from the audience. >> [indiscernible]

>> sure. i think the key points i was iting at that time was doesn't have to work on a public private partnership to foster innovation. we have a responsibility to change the public's mindset. changes in technology.

corporations could take it in their own way. , welso talked about trade talked about trust and social response. to have are going changes you want the whole society to support. that is social responsibility. it could be a policy but the , and they could take a policy themselves as a responsibility. it could be done both ways that the whole society has to progress. you cannot take a future ready city without taking care of education and the population coming with you. they play that it is a critical role given the changes in society.

>> [indiscernible] there was a wall street journal thatle who say -- devices they had time to prove them that they don't want to invest in health care. citiese work on charter is there possibility or role to take a greater role in the regulatory process? work onld require some a national level, too.

it would allow amazon to keep their own program here with our policy direction. where do you fall on that? i can take a stab at it. particularre are inects of the environment approaching local government. there are some aspects of that that are not within the control of cities, or when you are talking about interstate, s about the federal issue. advocate forspect is local control. there is an understanding that if we are charging cities with innovationeaders of both local governments testelves and cities are grounds for innovation that we need to empower cities to do that.

localare many concerns on governments to help them facilitate additional innovation and the economy. also one that doesn't get enough attention currently, we put a lot of rusher and expectation at the federal and making the assumption that local governments and cities are handling it here it is your responsibility. of -- part ofe how cities are any government a dance to the environment. the of it may lead to businesses with more regulations than they would like. there is --and --

[indiscernible] you find in a lot of countries especially east africa that you have quick revolution. they don't have the u.s. capital. sorry to interrupt. thank you. there is an opportunity for

cities to experiment and approaches in how they manage -- for them to be able to model for the rest of the they interact with innovators, whether they are innovators and the drums are a sort are they in a verde is -- innovators in another space. how you managed technology well not only for the cities for every citizen. which leads to one other lines. it is important to look at how the city treats its smallest businesses and its poorest communities. look at how they interact with them, see how they can provide an opportunity for all businesses, large or small. cities this is where work on one stop her meeting shops. it is so important to lowering the barriers to people getting ahead. it is not just for regulations

sake. it is reducing barriers for entrepreneurs to innovate. a recent immigrant trying to set up a food truck. our chamber work on the regulatory client has shown that this is a tremendous opportunity for cities to work proactively in reducing the regulatory burden in cities, not only for the smallest company for tech entrepreneurs, too. >> cities don't have to do everything. -- now you can see the amount of data bandwidth available to cities is what is causing the gdp to rise and relativity to rise. there are cities -- things can -- cities can do.

in shanghai, they worked with other cities and necessarily saying somebody from the nation --. there are things like drawn ok.cy, that's can they really do -- make a difference. that's what they should focus on. how have the impact of drones --? in terms of migration, making it easier for entrepreneurs when , like theor example food truck, immigrants creating --? what do you see is the role?

active things that are affecting it. article i think it was in bloomberg or newsweek just flying back-and-forth they create a company here and they can work in the company and they fly back and forth every night and day, something like that. especially the tech space is global. our point of view is the quality of talent given the right conditions and capital can make a huge difference. policies that have been under discussions but one thing i will tell you. the u.s. is the best place to start a company.

to,the people i talked intermittent our -- if they want to be a global player they need to move their company back to the united states. i think the united states is doing a lot of great rings. at least from an asian perspective. if you will not a company to be global, you have to be here. it doesn't mean they are giving up the base, wherever they started. presentd to be here and where they have to interact. a political side as well. from a business side, i see very positive direction to the u.s. to be the engine for innovation and growth. >> a couple of other insights thinkingwork on --

thosethe extent to which into burners -- entrepreneurs within city hall, programs for companies from coming from outside the u.s. helping them to navigate too low -- navigate local regulations. there are things cities can do to be more open and be helpful and have that customer oriented approach. gets supporting other thatsystems, ensuring entrepreneurs are connected with the community as well. >> the chamber has a long track record working on immigration reform. really just focus on one aspect for innovations matters report. one indicator we look at is

town. not only the degrees and the people camet help and went from the city, the population flux. it's an indicator of the degree to which are cities open to know andle -- two new people innovation. the fascinating thing was that the cities with the highest population internationally were big start up leaders silicon valley, new york city. it was off the charts. in the hide to mystic population were denver and austin very innovative cities. the degree to which you are open to people coming and going, people from all corners of the globe and america is a great innovator -- indicator. i saw this firsthand when we were in silicon valley. we heard how if you aren't indian entrepreneur, there is a support structure, a network

that automatically get you plugged in and get you to the right people to founders and funders that can help you start up your business or that is a city that is open to newcomers that has a community and welcomes people in and get some plugged in so they can start his this is like that. mental jacobs who runs austin is center for urban mechanics, we were talking about risk and experimentation. some segments of the public, the do notnd legislators think experimentation is a valid use of taxpayer dollars. they have the same attitude in the corporate world, it's not inappropriate use of shareholder dollars for dell or apple or ge to experiment. shareholders understand that companies have to experiment. how do we overcome this barrier in public life?

what are you seeing out there? perspective, ir understand how that would make sense if you are thinking about a traditional local government that may not necessarily have the resources or have the persona of the adaptive and data-driven in welcoming of new technologies. in that case, if you don't take risk you don't know what that will look like. we are seeing cities that don't have the infusion of performance management of innovation delivery teams, of technology officers. there is a more structured risk-taking, a little bit more calculated. , they cane the tools

take risks in an informed way. i think if people see that local government is transitioning and they understand and see the good work, taxpayers will be more willing to let their services go down that path. the question you ask if i put this in the corporate setting, it is unthinkable for us to go into an uncertain for -- future. what comes along the way. clearly, in a public setting that is difficult to do it that is why we having a public private partnership, we still get the benefits. i think that is one way to do it. but then there will be more dynamic leaders who will take

risk and what comes with it as well. it is up to individual situations but i think producing the -- reducing the downside risk as well is having a public private partnership. of some ofous what the best case examples of things you seem about hospitals have been investing in and a net structure and how they should be working with the private sector. what are some of the best ideas into the development of smart cities and the conductivity will have to be there when the cities want to accomplish this? from our perspective, cities have a huge role to play.

especially around conductivity side. an example of singapore. singapore has very robust infrastructure but they evaluated all of their telcos and said we are not competitive so we will open telcos which is the next gen telco which basically says that the cost of telco should be connectivity should be free. likeould be a birthright you have a social security number. there are ways to push this steprd, and have to take a forward. conductivity just like i talked about; dr. 100 times faster chips in the last 40 years, just apply the same thing to conductivity.

this would be a new way of interacting, of course. take a new global telco and they may not be there yet. vchatect at -- example is . you can get all the local services and government services. the interesting fact that i will tell you is that each mobile phone user has an application downloaded but three or four views 80% of the time that it takes. to becomet is likely is some sort of conductivity tool will become the central point of your screen. a cousin that's how you will do everything that you need to do. is that a global framework or a

city framework? framework,y application and software is likely to be on a global flame -- framework. this is a hugely important thing because you can now change the screen of your mobile phone. you have an indication of what services you consume and i think role inies can play up physical and structure and leave soft infrastructure to other entrepreneurs. >> last week i was at an institute in rwanda.

we'll rwanda intro river -- revenue service taxes anybody who uses a smart phone. we have all seen that our cell phone bills have tax upon tax upon tax. living in developed countries, [indiscernible] perspectiveasian they have a lot of great examples. from my expected the cheapest .elco structure ic is in india

the cost of making a card -- call is easier. less than one cent per minute. more broadly, nine over billion phones most of the people carry bottom -- frome smartphone prices are dropping below on hundred dollars -- $100. in some cases 10-15 dollars. no contract or nothing. that supports the ability to connect. the migrant population and conductivity. that's the foundation upon which the new services can be built.

i think that's just one example. i am not sure if i'm answering your question directly but cannot -- connectivity be a global, or home or offices is a very critical part of society. tremendous i'm not really what we see for example companies.

some of these show items that keeps them from [indiscernible] be outside ofto cities. we can pick up the discussion afterward if you like. >> assessing the taxes in terms of key products and services. brazil, whichike imposes additional taxes and tariffs of 17% on products and services it diminishes annually gdp each year. it's a challenge. ofi think we are at the hour

1:30 so we must say thank you to the audience. i want you to join me in thanking our esteemed panelists this afternoon. this will be online on our website within 40 hours. thank you and good day. newspaper reports that texas is planning to ask the supreme court to keep that states voter id law in place. three weeks after an appeals court violated the voting rights act. at north rights carolina governor pat mccrory is also requesting the supreme court reinstate his states voter id law, which was thrown out by another federal appeals court last month. the laws in texas and north carolina if reinstated would pass after the supreme court voted on a voting rights case in 2013. we will take a look at voting rights that are night.

here's more about that. >> three years after supreme court ruling overturned part of , a number rights act of state laws have been struck down. c-span's issues spotlight looks at voting rights and the impact on the 2016 election. 2013ll feature part of the supreme court oral argument and shall be versus a holder. members of congress look at whether to restore the voting rights act to a discussion on whether the voting rights act is necessary. here's what the presidential candidates had to say. >> all this voter id, a lot of these places are going to have voter id. what does that mean? you just keep walking in and voting? >> what is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchised people of color, poor people and young

people from one end of the country to the other. >> watch our issues spotlight on voting rights saturday night at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span and c-span.org. members of congress continue spending their summer recess back in their districts. his some of what they are doing. represented butler of washington state tweets, today i toured best family farm in shay haley's and met with local farmers to see how federal regulations impact food producers. ohio congressman says joined him at a couple of meetings with bankers and they talked about regulations making it difficult for community banks. another banking meeting this time in defiance excessive regulation is a big issue there. members of the house and senate come back to washington three weeks from today on september 6.

in a few minutes to ready on c-span we will have former u.s. representative frank wolf talking about religious freedom in nigeria. mr. wolf was responsible for introducing the international freedom act in 1998 when he served in congress. that is right here on c-span. a discussion on admitting syrian refugees to the u.s.. >> joining us now is the politics editor and had a recent story taking a look at syrians coming into the united states. good morning. the obama administration policy when it comes to syrian refugees? >> >> at the beginning of this fiscal year they said they would go for bringing and 10,000 syrian refugees, resettling them in the u.s. this year as part of an overall population of i believe 85,000.

at this point we are at the exact number, 8600 and they are well on track to meet that goal at the end of the fiscal year is september 30. they will blow past that 10,000 goal, they are welcoming and 25 hundred per month. iny will probably welcome 12,000. they except they expect the pace to continue into the next fiscal year. at that rate they are walking and the next president for a large number of syrian refugees. >> when they come to the u.s., where do they end up as far as location? >> really very. i look for an article soon on that issue. surprisingly, arizona has the highest number per capita compared to the existing total population of arizona area where

not talking a huge percentage, talk about 10,000 total in this year compared to a population of the country of 320 million. it's not a lot when you look at that. but per capita you gives you a sense of what were talking about. glendale, arizona, seems to be a surprising destination, maybe 400 have been sent to glendale so far. that's higher than phoenix, higher than any other city other than dearborn in michigan. dearborn has a population there already, so that makes sense a lot of them are going there. there are also a number of small communities they are going to into washington suburbs. just outside of d.c., none of them are in d.c. because it is considered too expensive of an

area to resettle in the city. heress i should step back the criteria they use to figure out where to resettle is whether , andare our jobs available economy that will allow them to seamlessly fit in. they really do end up all over. >> the story that you really put -- recently put out, arizona with a high rate, california and texas, states like montana, north and south dakota and others don't have any. -- questions on whether they would fit in, and the infrastructure. syrian refugees oftentimes have certain needs, they are coming from a war-torn country, there are language issues and need to do within schools. the region has to be prepared allable to handle them,

those needs, medical, psychological. some states and areas are not as able to handle them. >> can a state or locality say we would rather not have syrians here? >> a number of the governors did say they would rather not have them here. they cannot refuse them. but the governors in some cases have withdrawn their support from the state agencies that the -- it is complex but there are nonprofits and local nonprofits that ends doing the resettling in conjunction with during the resettling. that doesn't stop a resettlement. it may make the federal government and local agencies inc. twice if they detect an antipathy from the government. so far there hasn't been a major

effect on where they are going based on that. we are talking about the syrians coming to the united states. ,f you want to ask questions call these numbers. toyou are a refugee coming the u.s., and you want to talk about your experience, call us on this line. fetchinghe process of --vetting? the administration describes it as robust. given the highest level of scrutiny of anyone at the u.s. to bring into the u.s.. of those that we proactively admit they get the highest level of screening. -- syrian refugees,

when we bring them in, we take ones that the u.n. high commissioner for refugees has said are appropriate to be transferred to the u.s.. four millionween and 5 million syrians who are registered around the world as being displaced syrians, 500,000 tosort -- or so are deemed be eligible to be resettled elsewhere. some are good candidates to be resettled in that united states. they take the population that the u.n. has narrowed down and then it involves interviews and g their story about why they are refugees but background checking at your criminal history and whatnot. this is true for every refugee bid --. but for syrian refugees are couple of add-ons. thanks to pressure from congress

and bad events with our lack of vetting of social media in the certain categories of syrian refugees go through public social media to try to figure a whether there are any signs in their connecting them to radical islam are other sites. >> the biggest trick here, where the controversy comes, you have a number of top american security officials say the problem is that we know what we know. we can run them to our american databases which are very good, but what we would really like to do is work with the home countries and ground their stories through those home country toss databases and have access to those as well. they do not have access to on the ground information. gooddies and gentlemen, evening. i am the director of the westminster institute, and so delighted to have you here.

we begin everyone of these sessions asking you to please turn off the ringer's under cell phones, otherwise, the ring tone c-span,immortalized on which is broadcasting our presentation tonight live. before i introduce our speaker, i just want to call your attention to several upcoming c-span, which is broadcasting our presentationevents. after tonight, you get the rest of august off. the first two speakers will be muslims, who are going to help us understand how, within the muslim frame of can be defeated. the first speaker is going to be a doctor from phoenix about aa to talk

muslim blueprint. september 14, from sudan, a speaker talking about how you diagnose the islamist ideology. later in september, susan will be talking to us about north korea, human rights, and religious freedom. tonight, i am so thrilled and privileged to be able to introduce to you the honorable frank wolf, who needs no introduction. i want to tell you two been quick things. out on the table is some the initiative. you can sign up for a weekly newsletter written by congressman wolf on the subjects of religious freedom, and also, ,here is a flyer on nigeria

"fractured and forgotten." this gives you the locale of many of the documents and subjects of nigeria. wasressman frank wolf widely acknowledged as the conscience of congress during his long service in the house of representatives. first elected in 1980, he left congress at the end of his 17th term. in 2015, to focus exclusively on human rights and religious freedom. he is recently returned from a trip to nigeria. here, congress and what continues to be an advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves. in january 2015, he was appointed the first ever wilson chair in religious freedom at baylor university. the same month, he joined at the first century initiative, a

newly created group. congressy: notably, and wealth was the author of the international religious freedom act. please join me in welcoming congressman wolf, who is going to talk to us tonight about nigeria and religious freedom. [applause] rep. wolf: thank you very much, and thank you very much for the invitation, and thank you for having here. bible has much to say about oppression and freedom. 4:18-19, the spirit of the lord is on me because he has appointed me to preach good news to the poor. recovery of sight for the blind to release your past.

1, i saw alltes 4: the oppression that was taking place under the sun. i saw the tears of the oppressed , and they had no comforter. power was on the site of their oppressors. it is undeniably that religious liberty them ethically is under assault. when i speak of religious liberty, i do so believing that this foundational right is not to be confused with the 21st merery notion of toleration, limited to freedom of warship, but the ability to peacefully live out our faith in every aspect of our lives. it is on this issue that the sandsare swift in -- the are shifting so swiftly. they are always on the ingensive, constantly ced

ground. the main subject of my talk tonight will be about international religious freedom. we do our nation a disservice when we ignore what is happening in america. during my time in congress, i often reached out to chuck, for counsel.e and chuck wrote over the years, "i am struck by chuck's foresight on the erosion of religious liberties." i urge you to get the book if you can. he said i believe we are heading for a new dark ages with persecution coming to the church soon. to, it would be foolishness suggest that the people of faith in america are even experiencing of the persecution faced abroad. that being said, despite the constitutional protections for

religious freedom, it has -- daily being encroached upon. president of the u.s. conference of bishops predicts that "i expect to die in bed. my successor will die in prison. his successor will buy a martyr in the public square." a sober thought. i would also say, as i get into the international aspect, we are seeing growing anti-semitism around the world, and we are seeing growing anti-semitism even on american college campuses. are underple of faith assault around the world from iran, to egypt, but the outcome is the same. harassment, theater, imprisonment, even death --

imprisonment,ar, even death simply because of what a person believes. i took a church in northern iraq last year, and found -- the team went with the aim of reporting on the light of iraqi christians. we had a number of christians assidis in my office. they were displaced on the murderous march across iraq. swift andked by the unanticipated rise of isis. unspeakable brutality followed. caliphate was declared. christians were told to leave and if they stayed, to convert, pay, or die. men were killed,

bought, and tortured. religious freedom suffered a devastating blow. the people told me of a number of girls who had been assaulted by americans fighting for isis. the person who had bought her was an american citizen. their enemies are forced from their homes. christmas was not celebrated in ancient churches and monasteries and convents as it had been for millennia. camp, a makeshift at one of the world's oldest christian communities, marked this holy day. it is worth noting, as we think the richof iraq,

biblical heritage contained in these lands, with the exertion of israel, the bible contains more references to the city's, regions, and nations of ancient iraq than any other country in the world except for israel. the patriarch, abraham, came from southern iraq. they said, this is the site of abraham's village. they took us to the village. ziggurat.e 12 tribes of israel were born in northwest iraq. now held by isis, and about one year ago, you saw the pictures of the tomb blown up by isis.

daniel in the lines then. both daniel and easy ezekiel are buried in iraq -- both daniel and ezekiel are buried in iraq. afraid not often heard outside the middle east is "first the saudi people, and then the sunni people." in 1948.eople when i asked, there are fewer than 10 elderly jewish individuals living there. one person said, perhaps only four jewish individuals left. christianraq's population numbered 1.5 million. today, at roughly 250,000, and the catholic wreath told me perhaps only 200,000 remain -- and the catholic priests told me perhaps only 200,000 remain. west. immigrated to the

17 christian families leave iraq day. insist years, a report came into england saying if the west does not do anything, there will be no christians left in the cradle of day. insist christendom. many of those who remain have become involuntary nomads in their own lands, displace 1, 2, even three times. ul, iraqifall mos christians have nowhere else to run. with notable exceptions, the church in the west has not been seized with a crisis facing the church in iraq or in the middle east in syria, or in egypt. the cardinal has spoken out very strongly. russell moore has spoken out, .hat one has spoken out

overall, there has been a relative silence on the part of the church in the west. when asked, every person we met with in iraq expressed at the rates abandonment. one dominican sister, sister diana, said, mr. wolf, does the church in the west care about us? they cannot copperhead white burning churches, forced conversion -- they cannot comprehend why burning churches are not being met with urgency and action by fellow believers did secretary kerry has called it a genocide, and get nothing has been done. met we were in iraq, we with a man whose wife had breast cancer in a little camp in a little school. he had a young boy with him, to bring young boys.

one had gone to san diego and the other was living in turkey. he told the story that his wife had cancer. when isis came in and took over his village and took over most went there for treatment for his wife's breast cancer. said we will not give your wife treatment for breast cancer a must she converts and denies >>. -- breast cancer unless she convert and denies christ. you can look down and see peter's house. there.te with jesus peter saw jesus walk on the water. peter saw the miracles of jesus, and yet, peter denied jesus three times. a construction worker and his wife in iraq do not deny. the wife died. they spoke with great conviction about their abiding belief in

god's goodness, and faithfulness, despite the suffering. most at that time wanted to stay in iraq. with evil unleashed in the land, they remained true disciples. much to nazareth had say about the persecuted, oppressed, and imprisoned. care?ur government not because we are driven by guilt, but motivated by our concerns by people, by our faith. because of a vibrant mandate because we have always cared for people who are being persecuted of all different denominations, of all faiths. center dot a person's dignity is their ability to warship according to the dictates of shipr conscience -- to wor according to the dictates of their conscience.

nigeria is the most populated nation in africa. sheebruary of this year, set the trip up for us and was with us. you can find that report, four of us went. the report is on a webpage. we brought to america one of the mothers, one of the girls was oko haram.by buckl we spoke with the american embassy, but we did not use the american embassy to travel through the country. we met with representatives from nine states in the north. we travel to spend several hours sharing stories and

documentation the persecution. much of our time, it was spent in the surrounding areas, often referred to as the middle. we listen to hundreds of individuals and small villages in remote areas, miles and miles off of the main road. we talked to tribal leaders, pastors, mothers and fathers, as well as government officials, and at the end, our own american embassy. we heard about the pain, suffering, the agony that the people of northern and southern nigeria have faced and continue at this very time to face. in central and northern nigeria that the world is not concerned with their problems. it is clear that the crisis plaguing nigeria is multifaceted, but one that must be addressed by the nigerian government, but also by our government and by western governments in the entire

international community. corruption in nigeria, one significant issue that we saw everywhere was corruption. it is in the government at the federal level, at the state level. it is in the businesses, it is in the military. one cannot enter or leave the country without raising its insidious head. transparency international ranks nigeria 136 out of 168 countries . that is in the bottom 20% of all nations. it is a very corrupt place. size, andpopulation economic output, this means a vast number of people have to suffer the justice of corruption. poverty, despite the fact that according to the latest available data from the world bank, nigeria is the richest country in africa, yet there is immense poverty, unemployment is a huge issue.

since been increasing 2005, and now stands well over 20%. the falling oil prices are hitting the economy broadly and the percentage of people living $1.90erty on less than per day. hads clearly in -- it clearly increased since then. the 2015, according to global terrorism index, more than half, 51%, of all global debts were committed either by the islamic state. nigeria has experienced the largest increase in terrorist deaths in 2014 to 2015. nine of the top of the most fatal terrorist attacks in 2014 occurred in nigeria. the deadliest terrorist organizations in the world, according to the number killed, our number one, but boko haram

one, but boko haram. number two is the islamic state. haram and isis has signed an agreement with each other. shabaabhree is in nigeria. the first most dangerous has an agreement of allegiance to the second-most dangerous, isis. haram, terrorism and violence continues for the well-known terrorist group whose name means western education is for bid and. -- is forbidden.

boko haram killed 6664 nigerians and 14. that's more than isis and anywhere else in the world. that makes boko haram a single month most deadly terror organization in the world. in a recent report refugees international, reportedly 2000 have been killed in total as a result of the insurgency. in 2015, boko haram pledged allegiance to isis. this affiliation means boko haram is now part of that 's declarations of war against the nigerian government. boko haram conducts drive-by shootings and use its younger old as suicide bombers. they target politicians and clerics for assassination, focusing on symbols of western advancement such as schools and hospitals and churches, and also mosques. no one has an exact number.

thousands of young girls have been abducted by boko haram. according to the washington post, young girls and women have been raped but released by boko from face extreme scimitars and extremeoko from face stigmatizing by their communities. face.re the victims when captured and when they are released and when they are returned to the community. year, wethis commemorated the two-year anniversary of the kidnapping of the girls. despite the loud protests in the west and the "bring back our girls" campaign championed by prime minister cameron in england, it is doubtful that any of the girls have been released. about a month and a half ago, one walked away. she explained what was taking place. in some respects, i know the

attention was well-meaning, rgirls basically put a price on the heads of these girls. it would've been better to say statement andm a then done everything he possibly can to find them rather than girlsng a #bringbackour and not doing much to bring them back. when chancellor told us at the girls went been captured me never return without a major concerted effort by the nigerian government and the west. when they do, they will have been the victims of sexual violence, and are oftentimes pregnant or will have a child, and all will have been forced to convert to islam. only one has returned. she said six have died and the

rest are life. we brought one of the moms here. we brought her on capitol hill to explain and plead for the western governments to do something with regard to bringing back the girls. herdsman,nt unfortunately, boko haram is not the only violent organization that place nigeria. s by alle also militant must had heard nothing about before visiting nigeria. some of these herdsman have a more radical version of islam. this has impact on the farmingantly christian communities. a global terrorism index has identified them as the fourth

most deadly terrorism organization in the world. nigeria has the first and the fourth most dangerous terrorist groups impacting the people of nigeria, particularly the middle belt in northern nigeria. we were in nigeria. and 200e was attacked to 300 people were killed over a sustained today to three-day attack. twoattackers did not -- day to three-day attack. sophisticated resupply systems were used. they said they used helicopters. two helicopters came and appeared they had motorized boats. attacks like this go well beyond the so-called settler-herder conflict. the fulani militants killed --

violence from groups like boko haram and the fulani militants, there are thousands of misplaced people scattered across the -- displaced people scattered across the country. inwas the worst i have seen any country. according to recent estimates, there are 2.1 million people internally displaced and more fled to neighboring countries. unofficially, there are about 5 million or even more have been displaced. we have been told that 90% of the idp's are dispersed among villages and outside cap's. they are unable to -- outside camps. they are unable to access even limited government services. "nigeria is our biggest failure. on the ground.

i believe that a special envoy region can be the a strategic benefit because many of the problems involving nigeria also involve the surrounding countries. such a position can be modeled after senator danforth with or the special envoy of religious minorities in the middle east and south central asia." i think what they are doing is an indication that a special envoy for nigeria and the lake chad district can do. our organization has taken the lead and asked the president and secretary kerry to appoint a special envoy. we have recommended an individual for our congressmen, tony hall, a democratic member

of the house, served on the house foreign affairs committee, was well thought of by members of both sides of the aisle, was an ambassador, has been in all most all the countries of that ifand i feel something dramatic like this is not done come september, it will not be done. anyhe close of arenistration, people beginning to look for other jobs, the buildings begin to empty out. i think it's important that the president of somebody like this. 42 groups and individuals join us when the letter to the are beginning to lookinternational m roundtable -- we are grateful to the roundtable for their help and for every group that took the time to sign this and many more have done additional letters after they saw the interview with the grandmother that was in the new york times -- girl -mother that was in the new york times.

they transcend the bordering countries. could coordinate the necessary assistance throughout the region in cameroon, chad, and other countries in the region. place.ill be a one-stop where do we go when we talk about the idp's? a one-stop help us coordinate and help the people of nigeria have a contact in our government. military assistance, u.s. military and all the western nations should use all possible assistance to help the nigerian government combat terrorism. help with training the military and police on human rights. when we were in columbia, we would hear stories of the military, abuse by the military. our military did it an excellent

job. we need our military who did a great job to train the nigerian military on human rights and religious freedom. the challenges that face nigeria are great, however i believe, it is my belief that the united states and other western nations, we have a vested interest in confronting one of the worst crisises of our day. why did we care about nigeria? we care about people, mr. wolf, but why nigeria? the people of nigeria are suffering. there are facing some of the most unbelievable terrorist attacks. bono and knowledge that the situation in africa and nigeria, if it continues to devolve, it will have to be an existential list threat to europe -- existentialist threat to europe.